Jane Parks winning strategy at Julep

If Jane Park were to describe her fashion sense in one word, it would be bombshell. At least thats how the customizable style profiles at her beauty companys website have her pegged. It might also apply to her business sense. As founder and CEO of Julep, Parks exuberant personality helped her build an explosive presence in a beauty market estimated to be worth $50 billion a year in sales in the United States alone. Those customizable style profiles are one of many innovations that have helped drive a new approach to the development, marketing and distribution of beauty products, enabling Park to create a company that now has 180 employees, has raised $20.3 million in investor backing and boasts national sales that quadrupled last year over the prior year.

Park has never been a shrinking violet. She has an undergraduate degree in public policy and international affairs from Princeton and a law degree from Yale. She spent five years at strategy consulting leader Boston Consulting Group. When Park took a corporate job at Starbucks, she quickly was named director of new ventures.

Park always thought that when she had her second child it might be time to move into the slow lane. Instead, says Park, her expectations of work life hadnt diminished. They simply changed. I wanted to be a lot more engaged, satisfied and excited with my career, she says.

So she launched Julep, opening a series of high-end beauty salons in 2007. There are Julep nail parlors in downtown Seattle, the University District, Bellevue and Gig Harbor. But when Park noticed that the salons nail care products were growing in popularity, she shifted gears, focusing more on developing new products and selling them online and on television.

Park picked a good time to join the industry. In the midst of the 2008 financial meltdown, consumers started swapping out higher-end luxury goods for less expensive beauty boosts, spending money on things like nail polish and lipstick, where a small touch of color can make a big difference in how one looks and feels. Economists have called this phenomenon the Lipstick Effect, because lipstick sales have always increased in times of economic turmoil. The recent Great Recession marked the first time that nail polish replaced lipstick as the go-to splurge.

Since then, nail polish has become increasingly upscale, and emerged as one of the fastest growing beauty products on the global retail market. According to GCI Magazine, which covers the beauty industry, the United States became the leading nail polish market in the world in 2011, with retail sales climbing by 31 percent. In 2012, U.S. nail polish sales reached $768 million.

Julep products are sold in its four parlors, on the company website (julep.com), through the Sephora beauty chain, at Nordstrom and through QVCs TV platform and its online store. In 2012, Juleps subscription service had more than 150,000 customers.

The Julep stores continue to play a major role. Our parlors are key engines of our innovations, Park says. Were always in conversations [with customers] there, trying to understand what people think about the beauty products.

Park likes to talk about social beauty, the notion that that beauty is about connection, not competition. The parlors provide places where she can connect with customers and learn how products that are still in development perform. Physical experience is a great way for any brand to understand where they fit in the world, Park adds, noting that the face-to-face dialogue with customers at the parlors helps Julep acquire valuable feedback.

Park believes the parlors are the reason Juleps online business has grown so rapidly in the past few years. She credits the quality of this in-person interaction, noting that the company has forged its distinctive brand by moving fast and creating an innovative customer experience through conversations with clients.

One of Juleps strengths is rapid-fire product development. Park estimates that major beauty companies launch between five and eight new products a year. Julep is unabashedly aggressive about releasing new products and dropping them when they dont sell. Last year, the company launched more than 50 beauty products and more than 120 nail colors 10 shades each month. Park estimates that Julep develops products five times faster than traditional beauty companies, giving it a competitive edge in the growing market. To accelerate product development, the company moves the process on parallel tracks, getting packaging designed even before the product itself has been fully developed.

Julep manufactures its products all across the United States, renting space on product lines from major beauty companies. It sources its own materials and will not include ingredients that are toxic or in the gray zone, such as formaldehyde, formaldehyde resin, toluene and dibutyl phthalate (DBP). Its fast-paced, innovative drive is deeply rooted in the ethic of empowering women and connecting with friends. Each quarter, Julep selects an activity that lives up to its mission of empowerment. It once sold a set of blue nail polishes called Blues for a Cause and gave all proceeds to a scholarship fund benefiting a woman who had survived human trafficking. It names its nail colors after inspirational women. Parks staff once surprised her by naming a sparkly, silvery pink shade after her daughter, Yumi.

Park has a knack for attracting celebrity investors. Troy Carter, who was Lady Gagas manager for six years, and Roc Nation, Jay-Zs entertainment company, have taken an interest in Julep. High-profile Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is also among Parks investors. Juleps nail colors have caught the attention of designers like Trina Turk, Katie Gallagher and Richard Chai, and have appeared on runways with their lines during New York Fashion Week.

Park, who appears as Juleps spokesperson on QVC, sees product appearances on television as a way to expand the connections she builds with customers. Mobile and online sales continue to be robust in the QVC community, which helps boost Juleps web-driven sales, Park notes.

Julep uses social media to collect input for upcoming products. Thousands of highly engaged followers enjoy sharing their opinions with the company. We really look at the community as an extension of us, Park says. Were not looking at people who buy our products just as the end consumer. Were looking at them as being an extension of our team.

In some instances, Julep has asked its followers to help name new nail colors or to choose which products they want developed next. In this way, Park believes Julep takes social media further than most traditional companies.

Julep is still young, but its ability to adapt quickly gives it an advantage. It has begun testing the idea of physical stores in new locations and recently opened pop-up stores in New York City and Los Angeles. And, while Julep is not yet an international brand, Park believes a global presence is simply a matter of time.