Being held accountable

ICYMI ⋆˚✿˖°

HAPPY SUNDAY HSR ❤

I am fighting off a cold cuddling up on the couch with Lucky #3 watching Sunday football after a very long week. I’ve been inside all weekend getting organized, and the rain in LA was the perfect excuse to take it easy.

The highlight of my week was spending Friday at the WhatsApp office with their entire leadership team and it still feels surreal to have been invited. There were only seven of us in the room, I had the smallest following by the numbers, and I was definitely the only one taking detailed notes about what we can expect from the app (it reminded me of how much of a teacher’s pet I really am deep inside). But thanks to the power of HSR and our group WhatsApp thread, it was a reminder that impact > follower count. At the end of the day, we were surprised with the news that we’d been selected as WhatsApp Insiders for the next year, which means we’ll be in a private WhatsApp chat with their team to share feedback, test new features, and get early access to what’s coming as part of their beta program. I left feeling genuinely inspired.

So it was super interesting to see this article land in my WSJ feed because it’s clear WhatsApp is on a mission to take over messaging in the U.S., and their strategy is to start with large communities like HSR. The most interesting thing I learned? HSR is growing so quickly that we’re surpassing what WhatsApp currently defines as a “group”. But they’ve already taken our feedback and promised to come back with updates soon!

♡ Rodeo, the new event-saving app from the former COO of Hinge, is already turning heads. The marketing is giving “FaceTime with a tech bro founder” and it’s working.

♡ This ByHeart formula news is heartbreaking. What will it take for food& consumer ingestible companies to learn this is not how you react to an outbreak? ICYMI, ByHeart, the infant formula company tied to botulism outbreak had known problems and continued to sell and double down on messaging that the two weren’t interrelated. It also highlights the risk celebrities risk by attaching their face to a brand, in this case where is Mandy Moore?

♡ I think MrBeast’s “Hi Me in 10 Years” video should be mandatory to make, now that we live in the world of video. ICYMI, MrBeast auto-published a video he filmed 10 years ago, and it’s a masterclass in manifestation and the power of compounding change. I’m definitely making one of these for myself, with the twist that I’ll watch it every year to make sure I’m still on track.

♡ No one ever holds VCs accountable, but we can thank them for overvaluing GoPuff at $15B with subsequent notes sold with a convert price of up to $40B, only for the company to just raise $250M from Eldridge Industries and Valor Equity Partners at a significantly lower $8.5B valuation. Everyone is always learning and growing, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!!

♡ Beauty Brands are heading to the middle east this week with Sephora Dubai and I know I’ll be following along online with quite the line up.

Last week’s episode was a long time coming, and I was so excited for you to finally hear from the real Paris, who has been incredibly welcoming since I first started dating Courtney. In our conversation, she opened up about what’s it like when someone knew joins the family, our family life, how she balances everything, why she created the “Paris Hilton” persona, how being underestimated became her strength, and the moment she realized fame could be a business. She talked about motherhood, building true ownership with Parívie, her creative process, using her platform to protect children, and her vision for creating the next Disney. She importantly reflected on the legacy she wants to leave and above all else, what it’s like having Paris as a sister-in-law (hint: it’s the best!). If you missed it, I hope you get a chance to listen.💋

♡ the brands, people, places, things that have captured my attention ♡

♡ Women’s Health & Beauty ♡

♡ Media, Entertainment & Creator ♡

♡ E-Commerce, Retail & Social ♡

♡ Tech, Business & Investing ♡

Let’s start with a simple question that somehow became complicated.Is Skims actually worth $5 billion, or is Goldman overpaying for the Kardashian effect?

Because here is the truth . One billion dollars of that valuation is attributed directly to Kim Kardashian’s fame. Not the product. Not the margin profile. Not the retail footprint. Fame.

A billion dollars tied to a single person’s cultural gravity and relevance should make anyone in this industry pause. And yet, this is not the first time the market has assigned a premium like this. The problem is that we have very few clean comps for what fame is actually worth. Celebrity brands are either tiny and noisy or large but messy.

That changed when the Rhode acquisition dropped. Suddenly we had a modern, scaled beauty brand with real numbers and a public buyer whose valuation math we can track. It gave us the perfect comparison. Hailey Bieber is one of the most commercially effective celebrities in beauty and even her premium shakes out at about $300 million when you benchmark Rhode against e.l.f.’s trading multiple. Meanwhile Kim Kardashian clocks in at $1 billion.

This case study is about understanding whether that gap is real or inflated. And more importantly, whether Kim’s premium is sustainable as Skims expands beyond shape wear and loungewear into categories that are not native to her, or she has struggled in. Think beauty, which she has tried to build twice before with limited success.