Story map
Follow the problem, early work, people reached and the moments that changed the outcome.
The problem they noticed
Phan saw that many young people wanted help with beauty, style, and self-expression, but traditional beauty marketing often felt distant and one-way. She believed creators could teach, inspire, and recommend products more personally through video and community.
From first version to product
She started with makeup tutorials that taught practical skills in a very accessible way. That content success later expanded into bigger business ideas, including a beauty subscription model through IPSY and a cosmetics brand through EM Cosmetics.
Reaching people
Phan used content as the first engine of trust and discovery. Instead of spending heavily on old-style advertising, the businesses grew by leaning into creators, tutorials, and shareable beauty culture online.
Key moments
Experiments, pivots, and surprises. Look for what changed their thinking.
- 1Pivot
What happened: Phan turned tutorial content into a broader beauty business instead of remaining only a media personality.
Lesson: Content can become a launchpad when it teaches you what an audience values.
- 2Failure
What happened: Her first major beauty-line experiences showed that brand building is harder than simply having a large audience.
Lesson: Followers help, but product quality and long-term control still matter.
- 3Pivot
What happened: She later relaunched EM Cosmetics with a clearer identity and more founder control.
Lesson: A second try can be stronger when you learn from the first one.
Impact
Work can create value and still involve limits or trade-offs. Look at both sides of the impact.
Positive
- +Helped pioneer the creator-to-company path that many digital founders now follow.
- +Made beauty education feel more accessible and less intimidating online.
- +Showed how community and commerce could work together in modern internet businesses.
Trade-offs
- ±Creator-led businesses can blur the line between genuine recommendation and selling.
- ±A brand built around one founder must still become bigger than one internet personality to last.
What to remember
If you had to explain this story to a friend, what would you want them to remember?
- Teaching can be the start of entrepreneurship, not just a separate activity.
- A first attempt does not have to be your last or best one.
- Internet audiences are powerful, but they are only part of building a durable company.
Explore skills
These lesson previews connect the story to real skills you can practice.
Continue learning
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Sources & further reading
- EM Cosmetics - https://www.emcosmetics.com/pages/about-em
- IPSY - https://www.ipsy.com/blog/ipsy-for-good-covid-19-response
- Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Phan
- Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipsy