How I Started A $700K Beauty Company At 14 Years Old
In October 2018, Aaliyah Arnold founded her online beauty and skin care brand BossUp Cosmetics when she was only 14 years old. Now at 18 years old, the Houston native expanded her line-up, offering a wide selection of products from eyeshadow pallets and lipsticks to blushes to brushes, along with her signature lip glosses. With over 1.5 million followers on TikTok, she shares a behind the scenes peek into her business where she received shoutouts from pop artist Meghan Trainor and makeup artist James Charles.
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00:00Honestly, it feels like a fever dream.
00:03I feel like I'm going to wake up and all this is going to be like, you know, not real.
00:08Hi everyone.
00:09But it's surreal seeing something that I spent months creating from the ground up, you know,
00:15being a little kid, creating these little lip glosses to where it is today and to see
00:19people actually use it and enjoy it and say that it's good quality.
00:24It helps me know that what I'm doing isn't for nothing.
00:27But it's sold out twice.
00:33My name is Leah Arnold.
00:34I am 18 years old and I am the CEO and founder of Bossip Cosmetics.
00:39I founded it in 2018 here in Cono, Texas, and it is now valued at $700,000.
00:45Hi everyone, welcome.
00:49My family helps me a lot with formulations and everything, especially my cousins.
01:02I remember making my first batch and I was like, hey, try this out.
01:06Let me know how it is.
01:07And she's like, girl, this is not good.
01:09And I was like, okay, so I have to go back to square one.
01:11So after then I did some more research, researching ingredients, formulations, lots of trial and
01:17error.
01:18But in the end, we finally, we finally got it.
01:21I changed my formula, I want to say like 20 times before I got to the final one that I
01:25have right now.
01:33In second grade, I started selling like little rainbow loom bracelets that I used to make
01:38myself.
01:39I used to have a business called Sticky Business where I would sell duct tape wallets and phone
01:43cases.
01:44And I feel like there I kind of was introduced to the world of, oh, you make something here,
01:49you can sell it and make a profit out of it.
01:51I remember she came home once and told me that they used to call her the Dollar Tree
01:56because she would buy snacks and resell them to the kids at school.
02:00Honestly, I would get upset at her like, how can you do this?
02:05Like buy stuff and resell it.
02:07But it was whatever, whatever made her happy and whatever made her feel more comfortable
02:12at school because she would always get bullied.
02:15I went through bullying since I can't even remember.
02:19She got bullied since she first went to school because she has really bad eczema and they
02:24used to make fun of her.
02:28The last thing that happened with her in school was a kid pulled a knife on her when she was
02:34in line to go to the bus.
02:36That was the last thing for me.
02:38I figured the teachers are not doing anything.
02:41I'm not going to take the risk because even though they're kids, there's kids that know
02:45what they're doing.
02:59When I was 11, I had a sign business.
03:01I sold it over on Etsy and that's when I really started to receive, I want to say like real
03:07orders in like the real world.
03:09It really brought like happiness with me and I knew that I wanted to continue doing that.
03:15She would leave a mess and I would get so upset.
03:18But then when I started seeing that, okay, well this is going somewhere because she keeps
03:22getting orders and I keep taking stuff to the post office.
03:25So I kind of started being more understandive of the mess.
03:31The day before my first day of homeschool ever, Hurricane Harvey hit.
03:35So it was a whole thing of trying to figure out how to do homeschool because it was my
03:40very first year doing it.
03:41And then also losing my home of 10 years and everything in it.
03:45I couldn't take none of my slime supplies, none of it.
03:48Everything was lost.
03:49So I did have to rebuy a lot of my supplies and I kind of had to go back to school.
03:55I was like, I'm going to go back to school.
03:56I'm going to go back to school.
03:57I'm going to go back to school.
03:58I'm going to go back to school.
04:00And I kind of paused the shop while we could get into a hotel and my viewers of my shop
04:07on Etsy knew about that.
04:08I closed it because I just wasn't interested anymore.
04:10I'm a firm believer if you don't like what you're doing, then don't do it.
04:20So I went a year without having anything.
04:23And it was honestly probably the boredest year of my life.
04:26And that's how Boss Up came to be, was out of boredom.
04:29I was bored because I had nothing to do.
04:31And as a kid, I wasn't allowed to wear very much makeup, but I was allowed to wear lip
04:35gloss.
04:36So I decided, hey, why not make it and sell it?
04:39And I knew that I needed to create something that I was going to like, that I was going
04:43to use, and that I wasn't going to get bored of.
04:46I didn't get my first official order till two, almost three months later, and that was
05:03just one order.
05:04At the time, I wasn't doing it for that.
05:06I was doing it more just because it made me happy to make something.
05:11And I was just posting on my Instagram.
05:13On Instagram, especially for small businesses, there's these things called promo pages.
05:18And basically, you pay them, and they promote your product.
05:21At the time, the promo page that I used was not charging.
05:24It was completely free.
05:25So I was like, you know, why not?
05:27I think I received like 10 orders that same day.
05:30And I remember thinking that it was just so many orders.
05:33I was just so happy.
05:34And I remember calling my mom, like, Mom, we did it.
05:37We sold lip gloss.
05:39It was so crazy.
05:40And so I remember taking a picture of the orders and saying, OK, everybody, your order's
05:44going out really, really soon.
05:46And I feel like people seeing that people were buying, that kind of built trust in me
05:51as well.
05:52People were like, oh, OK, people are actually buying this stuff.
05:54Let me try it out.
05:55The first gloss that I sold was for $3, and I was barely making any cents for my profit.
06:01A lot of my customers were like, hey, I have every single one of your glosses.
06:05I need something else.
06:06Come out with more things so I can buy more.
06:09And I was like, oh, dang, that's crazy, you know?
06:18I was evolving to skincare, and I just feel like Boss Gloss Cosmetics didn't really resonate
06:23with me anymore.
06:24And my cousin showed me a song, and it said, Bless Up.
06:28She's like, oh, you should do Boss Up.
06:30And I was like, that sounds good.
06:32So I changed it to Boss Up Cosmetics.
06:35And that's when I decided to change all my product names to all names that have to do
06:40with women empowerment, uplifting, and positivity, and just, you know, bossing up.
06:46I hope you guys are having a good day.
06:47We are packaging orders.
06:48Your name's Aliyah, too?
06:49Me, too.
06:50No problem, girly pop.
06:51Tips on how to start a business?
06:54Stay patient and be consistent.
06:56I feel like without social media, my brand wouldn't be where it is today.
07:00It was actually my first video that I posted on TikTok of me making my gloss.
07:05I had never posted a video like that using my own voice, and it went absolutely viral.
07:11I looked at it last time, and it had 22 million views.
07:14And I just remembered orders were coming in, and that's when my mom started to come help
07:19me even more.
07:20When she started getting lots and lots of orders, she was at the office by herself.
07:26I seen that she was getting stressed out.
07:29And even my mom was like, there's no going down no more.
07:33Everything from here on now, it's going to go up.
07:36And so when my mom said that, I'm like, you're right.
07:39I got to take the risk and just be with her.
07:42This is the most we've spent together since she moved with my mom.
07:48So every day, I look forward to spending time with her, being at the office.
07:52Sometimes we bump heads, like, you know, every mom and daughter.
07:56But we always work through it, and I just love it.
07:59And she loves it, too.
08:00So she tells me.
08:03Meghan Trainor just bought from my small business.
08:05What the heck?
08:07I am in so much shock, but let's package her order.
08:10She is the first celebrity to actually notice me and buy my product.
08:14I went live on TikTok, and she joined.
08:16Meghan Trainor's on the live.
08:18I love the letter you wrote me, Meghan!
08:22Hi!
08:23Hi!
08:24Hi!
08:25Hi!
08:26And she had received her products, and she was saying how she loved it.
08:29It was honestly a highlight moment of my life.
08:32Up until the day we were mutuals, you know, she likes my posts and everything, likes my
08:36stories.
08:37It's crazy.
08:38So in 2019, we made a little bit less than $10,000, but in 2020, we went with $16,000.
08:51In 2021, we went a little bit up, got around $89,000.
08:56And in 2022, which is our biggest year yet, we hit $500,000.
09:01Today I shipped two to Japan, and then I shipped one to Qatar.
09:06We have a lot of overseas.
09:07Like this one's to Canada.
09:11I hope they feel happiness, you know?
09:14That's why I do what I do, and they feel beautiful in the products that I create, you know?
09:20I feel like the importance right now is to get those orders out.
09:23You know, people pay for their product.
09:25They want their product as soon as possible.
09:28So if it takes for us to work 10 hours, 12 hours, 14 hours, that's what we're going to
09:34have to do.
09:35We have to bring someone else in.
09:37So hopefully, that'll help.
09:40I'm a big dreamer.
09:42I like to manifest things, like to speak things into existence.
09:45I have huge dreams.
09:47But ultimately, the goal right now is to get into retail stores, Sephora, Ulta, Target,
09:55source my products out to them.
09:56That's the ultimate goal.
09:58I never take what I do for granted.
10:00I'm very grateful and very blessed to be where I am today and to have the supporters that
10:05I do, and to have the family that supports me in doing it as well.
10:10My mom has finished a lot of Blink cups, and it's time to start shipping them.
10:15Cute, and inside the cup, it has instructions, a little care kit, and everything.