409: Dying to Ego and Embracing Failure with Toni Ko of Bespoke Beauty Brands

Toni Ko's first beauty brand, NYX Cosmetics, made $4 million in year 1, and eventually exited to L'Oréal for $500 million. Craving a new purpose, she started a sunglasses business. It failed after 3.5 years—and Ko says it's one of the best things that ever happened to her. Ko's lessons from that "failure" empowered her to launch her third and current venture: Bespoke Beauty Brands, which partners with influencer entrepreneurs on everything from concept creation to product development, marketing, and fulfillment distribution.    Listen to Nathan and Ko discuss:    Being a third-generation entrepreneur of Korean immigrants  The early days of NYX Cosmetics, when she had 6 job titles Raking in $4 million in retail value in NYX's first year Why she's not good at sales  Selling NYX in 2014 for $500 million to L'Oréal Experiencing depression after exiting her business Starting a sunglasses business and failing  Launching Bespoke Beauty Brand  Working with celebrity influencers like Kim Chi and Jason Wu And much more influencer entrepreneur advice…        Who do you want to see next on the podcast? Comment and let us know! And don't forget to leave us a 5-star review if you loved this episode.   Wait, there's more… If you enjoy the Foundr podcast, check out our free trainings. Get exclusive, actionable advice from some of the world's best entrepreneurs.    For more Foundr content, follow us on your favorite platform:  Foundr.com Instagram YouTube Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Magazine

Om Podcasten

We interview hard to reach entrepreneurs. (Mark Cuban, Tim Ferriss, Sophia Amoruso, Tony Robbins, Barbara Corcoran, Gary Vaynerchuk, & many more). Unlike most podcast interview series Nathan Chan literally started from knowing nothing. He was just an average guy working in a 9-5 job he utterly hated. He knew nothing about entrepreneurship, nothing about startups, nothing about marketing, and nothing about online or how to build a business. So from launching Foundr Magazine he's gone out and spoken to some of the most successful entrepreneurs and founders in the world to find out exactly what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur, so YOU can learn from them. Why this podcast? Because we're asking the same questions you want to know as an entrepreneur on their journey to building an extremely successful business. We're on the front-lines facing the daily battles you are. How do I get more customers? How do I scale my business? I want to start a business, but just don't know where to start? How did this person get millions of customers and make millions of dollars and have a such a massive impact on the world? Some of these entrepreneurs are very well known, and some not known at all and that’s the cool part! Here we will share with you our best interviews from Foundr magazine showcasing this persons processes, failures, critical lessons learnt and actionable strategies showing YOU how to build a successful business. This is NOT your AVERAGE everyday entrepreneurship podcast. We've also interviewed many successful game changing podcasters like Jim Kwik, Pat Flynn, Lewis Howes, Jordan Harbinger, Joel Brown & many more!