Toni Ko: Founder of NYX Cosmetics
- Ingrid Guo
- Dec 4, 2020
- 3 min read
Author: Yee Xin Cher ’22
Immigrating from South Korea to Los Angeles at 13 and helping out at her parent’s makeup and perfume business for almost ten years, Toni Ko is a self-made businesswoman who founded NYX cosmetics at the age of 26. She was a teenager with limited English speaking skills but a passion for makeup, so she had first-hand experience with the challenges of looking for high-quality makeup on a budget. In an interview, she mentions, “When I would go to department stores and see all these high-end brands like Estée Lauder, M.A.C., et cetera. They were beautifully packaged, very elegant, very chic, very high-end. And then when I [went] to drugstores, back then you had to burn a black eyeliner for it to work. The red lipstick wasn’t really red when you put it on, the eyeshadows were, like, sky blue. I really saw the difference in quality, and I wanted to close the gap between the two.” Luckily, her experience working in her parents’ cosmetic business after dropping out of community college gave her knowledge on the ins-and-outs of the beauty supply chain.
In 1999, she started the business in Los Angeles, targeting the gap she saw between low-end drugstore cosmetics and expensive brands sold in department stores. She wanted to create a line of cosmetics that was department store quality at drugstore prices. All she had was her knowledge of the market and $250,000 of seed money from her parents. She was a one-woman show, being in charge of everything, from R&D to lugging the boxes and paying the bills. NYX initially only came out with eye and lip liners. Her young and female perspective in an industry that was male-dominated gave her branding, packaging, and formulas that gave her an edge above her competitors. Especially during the 2008 economic crash and the rise of social media influencers who heightened the interest in cosmetics among young adults, many consumers turned to cheaper drugstore cosmetics. Ko generated two million dollars in sales by the end of the company’s first year. With this strong foundation, she built NYX into a mass-market brand, getting her products into mainstream stores such as Sephora, Ulta, and Target.
In 2014, she sold the company to L'Oréal for about 500 million dollars when she was just 41 years old. It is known to be one of the largest beauty acquisitions in history. She decided not to remain at NYX, so after two years of enjoying retirement, she decided to get back to work. Because she had signed a noncompete clause, she couldn't work in cosmetics for at least five years, so she chose her next business venture to be sunglasses. She founded Perverse in the spring of 2016 and similar to NYX, she made her line of products affordable, with most of the sunglasses in the line retailing for less than $50. Her most famous line of sunglasses is Thomas James LA. In addition to Perverse, she has also started her own venture capital firm, Butter Ventures, which invests in start-ups, especially those created by women. Some businesses she has invested in include a CBD brand called Sagely, a handbag company called Sanreve, a Botox bar called Alchemy 43, and a hair dye company founded by Hayley Williams of Paramore called Good Dye Young.
She also recently reentered the beauty industry in 2019 with a new company, Bespoke Beauty Brands. This new company is a new age beauty incubator, partnering with influencer entrepreneurs to build their own beauty brands, assisting them from concept creation to distribution. Bespoke’s first line was KimChi Chic Beauty, with famous drag queen Kim Chi, and its second line, Jason Wu beauty, will be launched in 2021 with fashion designer Jason Wu. Ko is truly a serial entrepreneur.
Even though NYX is one of the most famous cosmetic brands in the world, Ko’s amazing journey to success remains relatively unknown. She is proof that an expensive education is not necessary to build a multimillion-dollar company. Her success was through hard work, perseverance, and the determination to revolutionize a previously stagnant market. She recognized that there are only a few female CEOs globally and has worked to encourage more women to take on leadership positions with The Toni Ko Foundation she started in 2014. Ko states, “The only way for many women around the globe to be more liberated is to become financially independent. I think it’s incredibly important to lead women in the right direction to achieve independence.” After watching some of her interviews and listening to some of her podcasts, the poise and style she carries herself with is a confidence I can only wish to have. Today, her net worth is an estimated $255 million. Ko is truly an inspirational figure for all aspiring businesswomen!
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