Bank analyst leaves her $200k salary job to launch a BEAUTY company (2024)

A second year investment banking analyst left her fulltime job to launch a beauty company that now earns her $200,000 a month, and it's only set to become more successful.

Michelle Hu, 24, was earning $200,000 a year in the finance sector when she left in October 2018 to focus on her side hustle, a makeup storage organiser business called Etoile Collective.

Etoile had grown without any press, employees or marketing to become a small earner of $20,000 a month, so Michelle took a gamble and made it her priority, selling palette, lipstick, brush and compact holders to beauty enthusiasts.

'Being a junior analyst my day to day was very analytical and didn't involve as much operational or creative thinking as I'd like,' Michelle, who is based in Melbourne, told FEMAIL.

'I always wanted to be on the other side thinking about customer acquisition, growth levers, marketing strategies, how to create the most phenomenal customer experience and so on.

'Whilst it was a great platform to develop commercial acumen I just wanted to grow my little baby.'

This wasn't Michelle's first foray into e-commerce as she had fashioned her parents' old Levi's jeans into shorts with frays, studs and rips in them as a teenager, selling them on eBay.

The process of transforming a product and marketing it to a group of people fascinated her.

'I spent hours and hours as a child on YouTube watching makeup tutorials which led to my having an exorbitant makeup collection,' she said.

'I was scrolling on Pinterest in 2016 for makeup organisation ideas and found these beautifully organised vanities that I couldn't find anywhere in Australia. Not long after Etoile was born.'

In the first 12 months after leaving her job Michelle moved from working out of her home to a warehouse with office space, earning $200,000 a month by October 2019.

But she humbly admitted that Etoile didn't 'explode' onto the scene as soon as she came up with the idea.

'Everything was done organically on Instagram at the beginning and whilst I'm extremely fortunate to be in an industry where the audience is super engaged and active on social media, our Instagram following grew much quicker than sales to begin with,' she said.

'It wasn't until a very well known Australian beauty Youtuber featured Etoile in a video that we had more eyeballs on us.'

In the year since she focused on it full time Etoile turned over $1.7million with a goal to achieve a $5million run-rate by the end of 2020.

Michelle's focus is on listening to customer feedback and acknowledging every like, survey, review, email and comment.

Etoile has the longest warranty available on all vanity mirrors - which is three years - and offers four hour delivery on mirrors and furniture within Melbourne's metropolitan areas.

The site now sees approximately 2,000 visitors a day and gets between 40 and 50 sales ever 24 hours.

'I think we have been able to piggyback on an industry that continues to explode - beauty,' Michelle said.

'At Etoile, our mission has been to enhance the culture of beauty for everyone. So if you're getting really into skincare and want beautiful lighting in the morning, we're here for you.

'If you're one of the many women and men aspiring to become a makeup artist and looking for a purposefully built travel kit, we're here for you.

'If you're just beginning to dabble with makeup and looking for storage so that your drawers don't look like a bomb site, we're also here for you.'

She also puts the company's success down toSKU proliferation, which is gradually increasing the amount of products you offer.

'We have grown from selling makeup organisers to makeup travel bags, lighting equipment, vanity mirrors and furniture for your beauty room,' she said.