YouSaid · the spoken record

Joey Shamah

lines on the record: 114
first: 2026-06-29
most recent: 2026-06-29
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“No. I mean, people needed to make money. They needed to pay their rent and their equity really, really wasn't worth much because we didn't even know if we were going to have a business. It wasn't the currency people were looking for at the time.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So at this point, we now had our own office. We were building somewhat of a staff. I was still very involved in every element, but I was leveraging some people now that my father's apparel business was changing a little bit, we brought on two or three people from that business. And then we brought on someone right out of college, but she was great to help with some of the marketing and product stuff.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As we're meeting retailers and their responses, I don't want to trade my customer down. We're saying, look, HEB's doing it and it's not. It's adding incrementality. They're selling more. It was a combination of impulsive, meaning I didn't want something when I'm going to go. I'm going to get it anyway because it's so cheap. Maybe I was going to buy a candy bar instead, I'm going to buy a lip gloss. So there was no barrier to entry.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it was adding more to their top line, not taking away from their sales volume. And that changed our whole sales pitch and the whole everything going forward. And then we went in all HEBs, and then there were some HEBs that put four racks into each store. And it became, it was our first viral sensation, I guess.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Or I still have $5 to spend, but I'm going to buy five products because there's such an array of product and really maximize my dollar.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think I went into 30, but the best thing that happened with HEB is we get an email from the buyer the next morning saying I was wrong. This brand is incremental and impulsive because they saw that because of the price, I wasn't buying one or the other. I wasn't not buying CoverGirl for $5 or $6 and just buying elf, but I was buying Covergirl and buying elf”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, exactly. So you could spin that rack, and it had 954. Products, depending on the size of the product. So basically, we sold this into her and the thing sold out in minutes.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so the HEB, that was one of our aha moments as a company. Because through all of our no's that we got in the early days, one of the biggest no that we got was we like the product, but we don't want to trade our customer down. Like if I'm a retailer, if I'm a Walgreens and I'm selling a covergirl lip gloss for $6 and I'm going to sell an elf lip gloss for a dollar, now there's $5 that the company, the retailer's not getting. And it was actually HDB. which is a high volume supermarket chain in Texas that said we're going to try it. And at that point, we had developed for the local markets this four-sided spinner rack. It held about 954 pieces, something like that. And HEB was open to putting these racks in each of their stores.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that was like I didn't know what to say. I don't even recall my response, but that was a challenge. And it ended up actually, we stayed in touch with the buying team. I believe she went off the desk. And I don't know somehow we got a call two months or sometime later where they had an opening and they had not in the cosmetics section, but in what they call the trial and travel section. So we were able to put two or three different items there, the same item, different colors, and we had a bin. And that really was ended up being a game changer for us.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So the first time I met the target buyer was one of that ECRM trade shows where you are scheduled to meet all the buyers in a 10-minute. And I tell her this whole pitch about quality, cosmetics, color, everything, and her response was elf. Why would I want to put something called elf on my face?”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's not that easy on a dollar product because you're already at 59 cents selling price. So I'm going to sell it to you for what $30, $20? I mean, it's hard.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He didn't have very, very deep pockets, but he believed in it, and he was happy, I think, from what I saw to not stress about it. He felt good about it and was managing it and wasn't afraid of it.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, it was stressful. I mean, every sales meeting was maybe this was the unlock in the early days. I remember I was newly married. I was living in an apartment over my parents' house. I just had my first son in January 2004. And I had to, you know, we live in a community that has high expectations and we needed to figure it out.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm saying when you put all those together, I think we were able to hit maybe $125,000 a month. But I think it was barely to cover costs. It was no growth. Any new inventory had to be funded by my father's capital.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I said, sure, at this point, why not? Like you're an accountant like any other and I don't have to worry about all the international complexities. Wow.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't remember why it was. I just remember that number. And I remember we had our web business. We had very, very small regional business where you had like a chain with four stores or six doors or eight stores that carried our product. And then we had a few international inquiries. I remember one from Australia and one from the UK actually in Wales. And they started like, can we copy what you're doing and kind of take it to our market and buy the product from you?”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Every day, every night. Nights were worse than days because days you're busy. But yes, I remember maybe in the next year we had like a budget of like $125,000 a month of sales. Like how am I going to hit that?”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And good housekeeping gave a feature of our lip gloss at a dollar versus a lip gloss that was sold in Sephora for twenty four dollars of still a cosmetics. And they said, Whichever one you buy, you will love it. I had that blown up in the office. That was a huge win for us. Oprah magazine did a backstory cover where they laid out all our makeup and then they made like a piece of art of our makeup around the dollar sign. And they did a whole article. And every time one of those bigger ones happened, we felt a spike.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it was more than the dollars. It was the validation. It was like, yes, we believed that we had something here. So over the next year and a half, we had a lot of these glamour placements, which were honestly great placements and we wouldn't be here without them. And then we had even better placement. We had like not brand features, but there was one feature that we had in Good Housekeeping magazine. If you remember Good Housekeeping, there was nothing better than a good housekeeping seal of approval.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, after the first six orders, things just start. Okay, what do we do now? So then we took them out of those assortment packs. We built 67 boxes. Each box had the unique item. Everybody, I remember my brother, who's now a doctor, he came in, he picked a few orders. That was not for him. He never came back, went to med school. We never saw him again in the business. But we were finding anyone that could help us pick and pack orders.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, so I remember walking into the office and we had this screen, like a back end to the website where if someone placed an order, you'd see the order, the date, and the value. So all of a sudden we walked in day one and we had 400 orders. And all the products, the $150,000. Came in the assortment packs, and I remember my father's CFO, who was helping out. We were opening boxes. This one had purples in it, this one had pinks. We had pallettes of inventory that only had this color out because that was the hottest seller. So there was stuff all over the place.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Okay, you've got 150 grand worth of inventory plus the shipping cost plus all the ancillary costs. I mean, who knows how much you're in now, how much cash has gone into this business. You know, a lot of people may not even know this, but if you don't, there was a time where Glamour Magazine or Vogue, like that moved product. It was a big deal. Early 2000s, in the late 90s were like the heyday of big magazines. And if you, even if a tiny mention could have a huge impact.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was so cumbersome. We needed to print it out and then go into the portal, put the credit card number. Some of the credit cards would bounce back. Then we'd have to email the customer. Your credit card's not working. Then we would come back and then we'd print the label and then weigh the package and then drop it at the post office.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And now it's just you go, you shopify, whatever, and it's all automated. But then if somebody put their credit card in, you would get some kind of email or some kind of communication, which you then had to take that information and manually put it into a process, right? Like a credit card machine.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So honestly, we didn't even think about logistics. We were just following Glamour Magazine's lead. They wanted us to make a website so we could get in the magazine. We didn't think we were going to get an order, so we didn't think it all the way through. We did have a credit card processor, you know, in the warehouse. There was an office. So we had some workers and people and the warehouse that could help out if we got two orders, three orders. Who knew? We had no idea that e-commerce would ever become something.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Which means it could get lost and all this stuff. So, okay, so $5.99, whatever flat rate, and you're going to sell it through the website, and it's complicated. But the other question I have is, how are you going to handle the logistics? I mean, you have it in a warehouse sitting in a warehouse, but, I mean, who's going to package this stuff up and send it out?”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So basically, we decided early on we're selling dollar cosmetics. How do we charge for shipping? I'm pretty sure the post office had a flat rate, like if it's a certain size. So we did a flat rate of $5.95, and we did not accept returns. So it's hard. You're going to buy cosmetics on this internet thing that you've never purchased on before, and you're really going to hope you like it because you're already in it for at least six, seven dollars, and you can't send it back.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we called my web developer and I said, Can you make us an e commerce part of our website? And we have 30 days to do it. He says, yes, we can do it. I say, and how much is it going to cost? And he said, $5,000. I said $5,000. I don't know. That's a lot. I can't really afford it. We're not selling the product. I go, how about I give you some equity in my company? He said, I don't think so. I think we really need the $5,000. So we gave him $5,000. He built an e commerce site. If you saw the e-commerce site today, you would cringe. It was the clunkiest e-commerce site. Not to his fault. That was just the time. And basically, we launched the e-commerce website on June 14th, 2004.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So they gave us an ultimatum They said either you're an all Walgreens by next month, highly unlikely, or open a website so that the customer can get you.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it was the wow factor that, like, okay, here's another guy showing me another line of cosmetics. It looks good, but why isn't any different than the other $12 lip gloss I saw yesterday or I'll see at four o'clock today? But then when we told them the price, then it was like that was like the winning factor. And then I remember it was late April. I was walking in the city. I got a call from the PR firm. Great news. Glamour magazine wants to put you in the magazine for the next month's issue. Well, it was actually a glamour magazine called me up and said, we want to put you in the magazine.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, we went around to all the beauty editors in the city, New York City, from glamour to Lucky to good housekeeping to Oprah to 17 Vogue, everything. And we pitched them about this line of color cosmetics that we wanted to bring to the market. We walked them through the whole line, how it went from eyes, lips, face, how it was inspired by prestige, how it was the quality was great product. And then at the end, we said, oh, and by the way, everything's a dollar. And then they were blown away.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It wasn't cheap, but it wasn't real. I mean, we were bootstrapping it. We didn't have any revenue coming in. My father was funding everything we needed”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, we had an agency in Costa Mestica, California called Juno Design. They created the logo, some of the lookbooks, some of the brand catalog. And then we also had a digital agency that built the website.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. Okay. Now, so here's the thing you bring it to these editors, right? And you're showing them product. And you have a brand. I'm assuming you hired an agency to come up with a logo for elf and a look.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yep. I reach out to the PR firm. I tell them about the concept. And I don't know if they loved it or wanted another client, but they scheduled what they called desk side editor appointments. So it was me, and it was one of the members of the PR firm, who was the rep on our account. Her name was Amanda.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. Oh, yes. Very much, very worried. Yes, when you're, this is my first foray into business, I'm newly married. I have, you know, I'm trying to build my career. You know, you have to live. Like, how are we going to make this a business? I mean, we knew, we thought we had something, but it didn't feel like it at the time. And I remember, I think it was in about February or January Early 2004, I was driving to the city, and it was just as Alex Rodriguez was signed by the Yankees. And there was an underwear brand called To Exist, and Toe Exist had sent a package of underwear to his hotel or apartment. And they were talking about it on the radio. And I was like, wait, how did this happen? And actually knew one of the people involved with the company. And I said, how did that happen? He's like, oh, we have a PR firm.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Up until this point, I mean, you're trying to get this into dollar and dollar general, which was the whole point of this product. You're thinking that's where we go, that's where our market is, that's where it's going to crush it, and you have zero validation. Every meeting you have with the 99 cent store, dollar store people is like, no, no, no, no, no. Did you think maybe I was wrong?”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we went, there's a trade show called ECRM You meet a lot of retailers. You're kind of guaranteed a meeting a 20 minute or 10 minute meeting with each retailer. And it's kind of like a round robin. And that's where we met 99 cent only and Dollar Tree. But as we were trying to get out there, we just kept hearing we're committed to the quantity. This doesn't make sense. I don't want to trade my customer down. I don't have room for it. No, no, no, no.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. We had a sales rep agency for Dollar General. I remember being at that meeting. We pitched the whole line. We went to Dollar General and Family Dollar. And we said, we've got the answer for you. Quality over quantity. And they politely said, we like what you're doing, but we are committed to quantity over quality.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Thousand percent. I mean, so much so that one of our biggest obstacles in the early years was retailers afraid to put our product on shelves. They didn't want to trade the customer down if they're selling a six dollar lip gloss and I'm selling a dollar lip gloss and they customer buys mine over theirs then they just lost five dollars of sales”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, I used to have a slide in one of my earlier sales decks that had, you know, if you look at the cost of the lipstick, how much is actually in the lipstick versus going everywhere else? And that's, you know, we took that apparel mentality from my father's business of you buy something, you mark it up, you sell something, as opposed to you buy something, you pay to market it, you pay to get shelf space, you pay to promote it, and then you sell it. And we took out all that middle, and we were just delivering value to the customer.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So you had L'Oreal, which was L'Oreal and Maybelline. You had P&G, which owned CoverGirl at the time. So there was no room for you to like box your way in two feet of space because it was all controlled by four or five companies, even if it was 12 brands on shelf.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In terms of the space we were trying to get to, yes, very much. Maybelline, covergirl, there was some smaller brands NYC and Wet and Wild. Those are more of our core core competitors because they were the value brands, even Rima London, but both Rima London and NYC were owned by Cody. Wan Wild was a standalone, but that was the problem in the early days that you had a few incumbents that owned a bunch of brands and controlled all the spacer retail.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And who were you thinking were your competitors? Did you think that Maybelline and Revlon and L'Oreal were your competitors or not really because they were charging four or five times the amount that you guys would be charging?”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, 13 categories we started with and 67 skews. So we had eyeliner with a sharpener. We had a pressed powder that had salicylic acid in it. We had a few lip glosses. One of them was a plumper, one of them was inspired by Stilla, which was a high-end brand at the time. An eyeshadow that had four colors in it, so a quad of eyeshadows. It was across eyes, lip and face.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Scott was in full disclosure, still working for other cosmetic companies, but working for us on the nights and weekends. He was doing the product development. So yes, we did use my father's apparel office. My father's apparel company had a warehouse in Edison, New Jersey. So we were definitely leveraging anything we could across my father's supply chain. And we were, you know, working nights and weekends when we needed to.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, that's what I'm trying to say. That's what it costs. Like, that's how much it costs everybody. Now, yes, you can put active ingredients, and yes, this was 25 years ago, and yes, there are more expensive componentry and finishes and all that. But you're also paying for the corporate overhead. You're paying for the infrastructure. You're paying for the spokespeople. You're paying for the marketing campaigns. You're paying for the shelf space. You're paying for the returns. You're paying for the warehousing. And all of that, if not done efficiently, it won't work. But when you look at a pure cost of good sold across the market for what we wanted to bring to market, it was not that challenging.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So it was about half of that because our targets cost was about 35 cents. I think back to the simplicity angle, everything we sold, we sold it for 59 cents so they could retail it for a dollar.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So there were products out there, we weren't the first person to sell lipstick for a dollar. We weren't the cheapest guy selling lipstick for a dollar. We were just creating a brand around it. We were creating an emotional affinity. We were making sure it looked good and it felt good.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I headed over to Asia. It was the summer of 2003. We had one of my father's longtime office managers was a very entrepreneurial guy. And he introduced us to the first factory that we worked with. And I remember trying on the mascara in the factory, seeing if it was waterproof, had no idea what I was doing. So this was in August 2003, and it took the better part of 10 months. It was June 2004 when we first had product to sell.”
2026-06-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT