Jessica Alba 'Honest Company': How This Latina Built Million-Dollar Empire In A Few Years

Jessica Alba, The Honest Company founder and actress, talked to Vanity Fair how rejection helped build her empire that was recently valued at an incredible $1.7 billion, certifying her company as a “start-up unicorn,” the term the investment industry applies to companies that reach a $1 billion valuation in less than five years.“People doubted me as an actress, and that’s something that drove me," Alba said. "I was not going to be pegged as an action-comic-book fangirl.”

A mix of beauty, brains and persistence drove this motivated Latina to create one of the most respected brands in the green industry.“I was thinking, what if my baby has a reaction and I don’t know? What if her throat is closing? I had all this fear and anxiety because I was always so sick as a child," the entrepreneur said about her illnesses when she was young,"I wanted safe and effective consumer products that were beautifully designed, accessibly priced, and easy to get."

According to VF, "in 2012, the company’s first year, sales reached $10 million," and this year sales passed $150 million. As Alba recalls her early days as an entrepreneur she told the magazine what she learned about her experience in this business, "If it was easy, everyone would do it. You have to be a little bit crazy; you have to have gumption and tenacity. A lot of people give up at the first roadblock. But, for entrepreneurs, if there isn’t another road, we create it. We break concrete; we throw dynamite; we figure it out.”