The quicker you act on realizing you have to attack life, not let it happen to you, the quicker you enjoy this journey versus wasting it on stress, anxiety, and worry
I teach my kids from about age 3 to come put their hand on my arm or leg if they want to speak to me while I’m speaking to another person. I then put my hand over theirs to show them I see them and I’ll get to them soon. Manners are so important to instill young.
You’re standing on a planet with molten lava at its core. Trees are turning sunlight into air you can breathe. Your heart is beating without you asking it to. There’s a moon in the sky and bugs that glow. This whole thing is absurdly beautiful. Don’t forget to notice it.
When you give birth...Do you feel immediate relief like, you're not pregnant anymore ? Obviously you're probably not gonna feel back to normal but is there any type of relief ?
Hailey Bieber sold Rhode to e.l.f. for $1 billion in three years. Charlotte Tilbury took 7 years to clear $1 billion. Byredo took 16. The Rhode deal closed August 5, 2025.
Rhode shipped 10 products at the time of sale.
The 8-K disclosure was unusually granular for beauty M&A. $212 million in net sales for the 12 months ending March 31, 2025. Cost of goods around 19% of revenue. Zero physical retail. Direct-to-consumer only.
That COGS line is the part Wall Street kept rereading. Estée Lauder runs closer to 30%. Charlotte Tilbury's pre-acquisition EBITDA margin sat at 3.8%. Rhode was printing margin because the SKU count was small enough to manufacture at scale on each item.
The marketing line is where the real story sits. Tribe Dynamics tracked Rhode at $248 million in Earned Media Value in 2024 alone. Ranked #1 in skincare globally. 367% year-over-year EMV growth. Rhode ran a quarter-billion-dollar marketing campaign and paid for none of it.
Reported marketing efficiency at the time of the deal was around 9x. Every dollar in brought back nine. Beauty incumbents run that ratio in the 3-4x range.
The product strategy was the discipline most celebrity brands miss. Rhode launched June 2022 with three SKUs: peptide lip treatment, peptide glazing fluid, barrier restore cream. $20 to $40 pricing. Roughly one new product per quarter. The full catalog still fit on a single page at acquisition.
KKW Beauty carried about 50 SKUs at peak. Kylie Cosmetics ran past 100. Both had 10x the operational complexity and a fraction of the multiple.
The $35 phone case with a slot for the peptide lip treatment was the giveaway. Wearable advertising. A daily product reminder visible to every person Hailey's customer met that day.
e.l.f. paid $800M at close plus a $200M earnout tied to growth e.l.f. now controls. Sephora distribution rolled out fall 2025. International through e.l.f.'s existing channels.
TIME just named Rhode one of the 100 most influential companies of 2026. The 8-K already named it $21 million in net sales per SKU.
Hailey was the only marketing department Rhode ever needed. e.l.f. paid $1 billion for the headcount.