# Jessica Alba Battled ‘Major Impostor Syndrome’ as She Built The Honest Company Into an Early Star-Led Business Success Story

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/jessica-alba-battled-major-impostor-syndrome-as-she-built-the-honest-company-into-an-early-star-led-business-success-story/
- Published: 2026-11-02T20:10:10+00:00
- Updated: 2026-11-02T21:35:34+00:00
- Original publisher: Variety
- Original article: https://variety.com/2026/biz/news/jessica-alba-us-bank-honest-courtney-kelso-1236937782/
- Topics: Business, Celebrity, Companies, Entertainment

## Key points

- Alba built The Honest Company around safer household and personal-care products.
- The company launched in 2012 and went public nine years later.
- Its early challenges included faulty packaging and payment problems.

## Summary

Jessica Alba said she launched The Honest Company while pregnant and coping with an allergic reaction to laundry detergent, after seeing a need for safer personal-care and cleaning products. Speaking at an event for small-business owners, she described the company’s early difficulties and said she had to learn everything from operations and shipping to customer service. Her story illustrates how she turned her public profile into an early example of a star building a consumer business from scratch.

The Honest Company began selling a small range of products in 2012 and went public nine years later, making Alba one of the youngest and one of the few Latina founders to take a company public. Early setbacks included launching with a beta website, packaging that failed drop tests and a payment system that did not charge some customers. U.S. Bank executive Courtney Kelso said small businesses account for half of US GDP and more than 60 million jobs, and described younger entrepreneurs as increasingly purpose-driven and optimistic.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.