Q&a / Skims founder Kim Kardashian on her business empire: the reality TV star talks entrepreneurship, from whether she competes with half-sis Kylie Jenner to ‘momager’ Kris Jenner and her naysayers
Kim Kardashian knows that there are plenty of people who say she has no business running a business, whether that’s a beauty brand, underwear line or private equity firm. Yet here she is.
In an interview taped for an upcoming episode of The David Rubenstein Show: Peer to Peer Conversations, the 42-year-old said she can feel insecure amid the endless chatter about her boardroom prowess, but she uses it as fuel.
“I’ve always felt the doubt, and I’ve always just taken that as motivation to have me focus more and work harder,” said Kardashian. “It felt like I had more to prove.”
In the wide-ranging interview, Kardashian talked about competition with her half-sister Kylie Jenner, her mother Kris Jenner’s managerial abilities and her progress toward becoming a lawyer like her dad.
You’ve built several businesses, but there have been plenty of doubts along the way. How did that affect you?
I definitely always took the doubt as motivation. I always felt and still do always feel a bit insecure about it. Confident in the brand. I love creating a brand, and launching a brand, and the whole process of it. I always have those healthy nerves when you’re launching something, especially on a launch day or a product launch day.
Is there competition between you and your sisters?
If anything, we would motivate each other. We work on everything really privately and don’t really communicate with each other about what we’re launching and what our campaigns look like. If we’re really excited about something, we’ll share the process. But it’s really rare that we do that now. And we don’t really compete like that. We all just really focus and do our own thing.
And you test all the products yourself?
Oh, everything. Yes, yes. I’m so hands-on. I’m so involved. To this day for Skims, I’m still our fit model. I’m very specific on how things fit. I pick the fabrics. I come up with all of the marketing. So with Skims and my beauty brand SKKN, I do every last thing, from packaging design to helping with the fonts and every campaign, every photographer we pick, every formula of every product. I have to be involved 100 per cent.
You were very close to your father Rob, who passed away from cancer when you were in your 20s. He was a well-known lawyer. Did that motivate you to become one?
You’ve been an advocate for criminal justice reform, and you’ve actually had some people pardoned or sentences commuted. Is that still a passion of yours?
Your mother has been involved with your and your sisters’ careers. How does she manage to keep everyone happy?
She’s definitely the smartest woman I know. She was a housewife when she was married to my dad and she raised the four of us. And then when she married my stepdad, she became his agent and manager, and got her agent license and figured it out.
Then it bled into wanting to help her children when the time was right, and when our careers started. I ask her all the time how she manages six kids. We all have very similar lives, but I find it really interesting that a lot of people call her to want to get her to be their manager.
Nobody can build a business by themselves – you have to hire people. How do you choose talent, and do you ever have to fire anybody?
Yes. I have a great team, and a small team. Firing’s really difficult for me, so I always have someone else do it. It’s really, really hard for me, unless it’s someone that works in my household and I have a personal relationship with them. Obviously, I would give them the respect to do that.
But I have a small team. When I started my beauty business Skims, everything that I do starts with a really selective in-house team, even from my business manager. Everyone is someone that I’ve taken a lot of time to get to know and I trust.
- Reality star-turned-entrepreneur Kim Kardashian has been building her empire steadily, from shapewear brand Skims to skincare label SKKN, where Coty. Inc acquired a stake for US$200 million
- The 42-year-old says she’s very involved in her businesses, from formulas to fonts – and she doesn’t compete with half-sis Kylie Jenner, but is very selective about the people on her team