On her wildly successful YouTube channel, Michelle Phan has harnessed the power of makeup to transform herself into Snow White, Princess Jasmine, Mulan and more. But these conversions pale in comparison to the 27-year-old’s real-life Cinderella story.
在米歇尔o潘大获成功的YouTube频道中，她展现了化妆的力量，让自己化身为白雪公主、茉莉公主、花木兰等形象。不过，比起这位27岁的现实版灰姑娘的故事，这些造型上的改变就相形见绌了。
Once upon a time, during her freshman year of design college, Phan applied for a gig at a local Lancome counter. A gifted illustrator, Phan passed the makeup demo test with flying colors, but was ultimately deemed unfit for the position due to a lack of previous experience.
在设计学院上大一时，潘在当地一个兰蔻化妆品柜台申请了一份临时工作。作为一名很有天赋的说明者，潘以出色成绩通过了化妆演示测试，但最终由于没有相关工作经验而被认为不适合这个岗位。

“I believe that rejection is a blessing because it’s the universe’s way of telling you that there’s something better out there,” she says. “And that something better was my laptop and my camera.”
她说：“我相信那次被拒是个好事，这种经历往往会让你知道，其他地方还有更好的机会。这个更好的机会就是我的笔记本电脑和照相机。”
Two years later, as Phan’s videos began to spread across YouTube like wildfire, a Lancome executive stumbled upon one of her tutorials. In a bid to imbue the venerable brand with a digital edge, she reached out to Phan and ultimately signed her as Lancome’s first official video makeup artist.
两年后，当潘的化妆教学视频在YouTube上迅速疯传时，一名兰蔻的高管偶然发现了她的教程。为了让这个受人尊敬的品牌紧跟数字前沿，这名高管联系了潘，并最终签约让她成为兰蔻第一位官方的视频化妆师。
“Delayed gratification,” Phan says with a laugh. “That was the universe saying, ‘See, I told you so.’”
潘笑着说：“迟来的喜悦。就像上天在对你说：‘看到了吧，我告诉过你。’”
If rising through YouTube’s ranks to create one of the platform’s most successful channels is an unlikely feat, spinning that momentum into a company with a $120 million annual sales run-rate is a rarer accomplishment still. But that is precisely what Phan has done with Ipsy, a beauty sampling service that counts 100 employees and marks her most lucrative venture yet.
如果说YouTube排名迅速蹿升，进而成为该平台最成功的频道之一，已经是不太可能实现的创举，那么利用这股势头创立一家预估年收入1.2亿美元的公司则是更为罕见的成就。但这正是潘利用Ipsy公司实现的壮举。这是一项美妆样品订购服务，拥有100名员工，目前已成为她最赚钱的业务。
Ipsy, which charges users $10 per month for a ‘Glam Bag’ full of five sample-sized beauty products, just crossed the 1 million subscriber milestone, says CEO Marcelo Camberos — a former Funny or Die exec who co-founded the company with Phan in 2011.
该公司首席执行官马塞洛o坎贝罗斯表示，Ipsy向用户收取每月10美元的费用，向他们提供“Glam Bag”美妆包，内含五种美妆样品，该服务的订购者已经突破了100万人大关。马塞洛曾是搞笑网站Funny or Die的高管，在2011年与潘共同创立了这家公司。
And unlike rival Birchbox, which has raised almost $72 million in funding, and which has forayed into traditionalTV advertising as well as brick-and-mortar retail, Ipsy says that its subscribers are predominantly a product of Phan’s massive social reach.
与募资近7200万美元，采用传统电视广告宣传和实体店销售的竞争对手Birchbox不同，Ipsy表示自己的订购者主要来自潘广泛的社交覆盖面。
“We have over 100,000 new Glam Bag subscribers joining every month,” Camberos said, “and this growth has been completely organic with no marketing or PR spend.” This year, Ipsy will become the biggest company in the sampling space, he says.
坎贝罗斯说：“我们每个月都有超过10万名新的订购者，这一增长完全是内生的，没有任何营销和公关费用。”他说，Ipsy会在今年成为样品市场最大的一家公司。
Birchbox declined to comment for this story. But last April, the company pegged its subscriber count at 800,000. Unlike Ipsy, however, Birchbox also vends full-sized products on its online shop, which at the time accounted for 30 percent of annual revenues of $125 million.
Birchbox对此拒绝发表评论。不过在去年4月，他们宣布订购者的数量达到80万。然而，与Ipsy不同，Birchbox还在它的在线商店出售全尺寸的美颜产品，这部分收入当时占该公司1.25亿美元总营收的30%。
While much of Birchbox’s early growth came care of social media buzz, including a proliferation of so-called ‘unboxing videos’ on YouTube amid its founding in 2010, Ipsy has made online influencers the centerpiece of its business model. Today, the company works with over 500 YouTubers and Instagrammers in the beauty realm — including bold-faced names like Bethany Mota — some of whom are paid to discuss participating brands on their social media channels.
尽管Birchbox早期的发展也来自社交媒体的造势，比如2010年成立时在YouTube传播的所谓“开箱视频”，但Ipsy将网络公众人物置于其商业模式的核心部分。如今，Ipsy与超过500名与美妆领域相关的YouTube和Instagram红人展开合作，其中包括贝瑟尼o莫塔这样的大牌。该公司还给其中一些人支付报酬，邀请他们在自己的社交媒体频道讨论相关品牌。
“The videos are done in a very authentic way, where it doesn’t feel like a commercial,” says Phan. “A lot of these people are up ‘n’ coming YouTubers. It’s a great way to incubate your brand.”
潘表示：“这些视频的拍摄显得十分真实，感觉不像是商业广告。他们当中有许多都是精力旺盛的YouTube红人。这是一种很棒的品牌发展方式。”
And brands are clamoring for a piece of the action. While 700,000 beauty products are submitted to Ipsy for consideration each month, brands cannot pay to appear in boxes, explains Ipsy president Jennifer Goldfarb. Rather, they furnish inventory in exchange for the marketing exposure — only if the stylists choose to recommend them.
与此同时，美妆品牌也很需要这种方式。Ipsy公司总裁詹妮弗o戈德法布表示，尽管Ipsy每个月都会收到70万种毛遂自荐的美妆产品，但美妆品牌无法通过付费方式获得Glam Bag的推荐。当然，为了营销展示，他们会提供存货——只要造型师决定推荐。
Ipsy’s stylists stand to gain from this arrangement as well, Goldfarb explains. Because the company invests so heavily in its own creator ecosphere, stylists tend to see their followings skyrocket after coming onboard.
戈德法布解释道：Ipsy的造型师也会受益于这一安排中得利。由于公司投入巨资打造自己的创造者生态圈，化妆师在加入后，会发现自己频道的粉丝迅速增长。
For instance, as opposed to foraying into physical retail or spending costly marketing dollars, Ipsy unveiled last year a 2,500-square-foot production facility in Los Angeles, which serves as a filming and editing hub.
比如说，Ipsy没有涉足实体销售，也没有在营销上投入大量财力，而是去年在洛杉矶建立了2500平方英尺的基地，作为视频拍摄和剪辑中心。
Additionally, the company hosts an annual convention called Generation Beauty in Los Angeles, where attendees flock to meet their favorite digital celebrities and rub elbows with major players from the beauty and digital media industries. The event is slated to debut in New York later this year.
此外，该公司每年会在洛杉矶举办“一代佳人”大会（Generation Beauty）。每年都有大批参会者涌向自己最喜欢的网络名人那里，与美妆和数字媒体行业的重量级人物亲密接触。这项盛会计划在今年晚些时候首次移至纽约。
While Ipsy is Phan’s biggest money-maker to date, future endeavors are also sweeping in scope. This summer, Phan will launch a mobile app packed with photo and video editing software — dovetailing with another one of her larger aspirations: to equip young followers with tech proficiencies and other marketable skills.
尽管Ipsy是潘目前最大的摇钱树，但她还打算进军更广阔的天地。今年夏天，潘将发布一款带有照片和视频编辑软件的移动应用——这将帮助她实现自己的另一项大抱负：让年轻的追随者掌握熟练的技术和其他具备市场价值的技能。
“So many of my followers who just graduated can’t get jobs, they’re hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and they don’t know what to do,” she says. “My dream is to see a new generation of entrepreneurs who are creating and having more meaningful jobs than the day-to-day grind.”
她表示：“有许多关注我的人刚刚毕业，找不到工作，他们负债了几十万美元，不知道如何是好。我的梦想是看到新一代企业家不断涌现，创造并拥有更多有意义的工作，而不是从事日复一日的苦差事。”
To this end, Phan joined Michelle Obama on a trip to Japan last month to promote education as part of The White House’s Let Girls Learn initiative.
为了实现这一目标，潘上个月跟随美国第一夫人米歇尔o奥巴马前往日本推动教育。这是白宫“让女孩学习”（Let Girls Learn）倡议的一个环节。
Other successful ventures include a beauty line called em, a book entitled Make Up: Your Life Guide to Beauty, Style, and Success — Online and Off and the social media-centric record label Shift Music Group.
除此之外，潘还包括创立了一个名为EM的个人彩妆品牌，撰写了一部著作：《化妆：通往美丽、时尚与成功的人生指南——线上与线下》（Make Up: Your Life Guide to Beauty, Style, and Success — Online and Off） ，成立了一家基于社交媒体的唱片公司Shift Music Group。
And in video, where Phan first made her name, she continues to break new ground. Today, Phan launched a global online video network called ICON in collaboration with Dutch production giant Endemol. The network will produce original content from a variety of big-name creators in the beauty, fashion, wellness, DIY, food, human interest and travel spaces, which will be distributed across YouTube, Dailymotion, Roku, Pluto TV, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest and Tumblr.
而在其最初成名的视频领域，她也在继续开拓创新。如今，潘与荷兰的电视节目制作巨头恩德摩尔公司推出了一个名为ICON的全球在线视频站。化妆、时尚、健康、DIY、美食、人类利益和旅行空间的大腕人物，都会在这个网站发布原创内容，并传播到YouTube、Dailymotion、Roku、Pluto TV、Facebook、Twitter、Instagram、Snapchat、Pinterest和Tumblr等社交媒体上。
As the future of YouTube has been called into question of late, Phan says that her content can live anywhere. “Platforms will come and go, but content is king,” she says. “At the end of the day, I’m platform-agnostic — I go where my followers are.”
最近，有不少人担心YouTube的未来，但潘声称，她的内容可以在任何地方存活。她说：“平台会变化不定，但内容才是最重要的。总而言之，我不会被平台束缚——关注者在哪，我就在哪。”