Five Business Lessons You Can Learn from Gwyneth Paltrow’s Fast Company Cover Story

It feels strange to call Goop a start-up as its been around since 2008 and has Gwyneth Paltrow as its founder (are celebrities even allowed to call their businesses start-ups??) But start-up it is. And honestly, Paltrow seems in control of, passionate about and fully invested in her lifestyle brand. In the September 2015 issue of Fast Company, we get an in-depth look into Paltrow’s business brain. Read on to learn some of the more relatable rules:

1. The most crucial aspect of any new business is having enough start-up capital.

   When you’re starting a new business, it’s a constant refrain you hear: make sure you have more money than you think you’re going to need. Similarly, don’t immediately cash out on fancy (unnecessary) equipment, a gaggle of employees, or a new company car. Paltrow started Goop with her own money and three other employees. Only now, seven years later, are she and current CEO Lisa Gersh securing investors and building a team – with Goop’s headquarters still in a barn on Paltrow’s LA property!

2. BUT! don’t get into it for the money.

   Ok, so money should always be a main motivator – but there’s a difference between starting a business to get rich and starting a business to build a sustainable living for yourself. Obviously, Paltrow is in a unique situation, given her crazy wealth and celeb status, but she’s still followed an admirable business path. In the article, Paltrow says “I was doing something from a very real, very honest place…So when we decided to foray into commerciality, there was something to trust.” If you let your passion lead your ambition, the resulting success will be genuine and something you’ll be proud of.

3. For all the business degrees in the world, nothing compares to trusting your instinct.

   There is a book out now literally titled “Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything?”. This sort of blatant criticism could understandably shake anyone’s self-esteem – even Austen’s Emma Woodhouse’s! – but Paltrow remains unfazed by her skeptics. She says she prefers the big reactions, good and bad, because it means: “we’ve touched a nerve here.” She also mentions that she was never keyed in to the rise of lifestyle newsletters on the Internet when she started Goop – she started it because she wanted a project she could work on while at home with the kiddos and because she’d amassed so many travel, beauty, food and shopping tips over her years of travel and wanted to share.

4. Surrounding yourself with the right people is critical to your business’ success (and your sanity!).

   As a founder of a start-up, it may feel like you have to fulfill every role imaginable: CEO, housekeeper, bookkeeper, marketing executive and coffee runner. And that may be the case in the beginning but as your company grows, so too should your team. And since you’re also the HR director, you have the ability to hire those who are smart, capable, share your vision, inspire you, challenge you, and even make you laugh! Goop editorial meetings often take place on Paltrow’s living room floor and Gersh extolls the virtues of working with like-minded moms at Goop: “It’s great to start a meeting talking about shoes rather than the hockey score.”

5. You need a clear vision for your brand’s future, even if you take a circuitous route to get there.

   Goop’s evolution has been an organic one (haha, get it??). Paltrow began Goop as a weekly newsletter sent out to the Paltrow-ites who’d signed up to get the dish on stylish yoga pants, Nashville speakeasies and turkey ragu. Seven years later and Paltrow’s brainchild is finally hitting its stride. While the core of the brand remains the same – celebrating an elevated lifestyle – Paltrow (with Gersh’s help) has brought the focus away from a one-woman newsletter show to a diversified, content-rich web platform with integrated shopping components and a private-label skin care line. It was a slow, deliberate burn for Goop and one that is starting to pay off, big time.