Jessica Alba’s “Impostor Syndrome” Journey While Building The Honest Company
Alba described the chaotic launch of The Honest Company and her lingering self‑doubt during a Hollywood‑based U.S. Bank event.
Pregnant, Stressed and Ready to Launch
Jessica Alba was nine months pregnant, “stressed out of her mind” and suffering a bad allergic reaction to laundry detergent when she decided to start her first business.
From Screen to Startup
In a conversation with Courtney Kelso, senior executive VP and head of payments: consumer and small business for U.S. Bank and Visa, held on Oct. 29 in Hollywood, Alba—known for “The Fantastic Four,” “Sin City” and “Dark Angel”—spoke about building The Honest Company.
Alba, recently named spokesperson for U.S. Bank on behalf of small businesses and featured in a national ad campaign for the Business Essentials Visa Card, said the company’s retail debut came in 2012 with a handful of products.
Nine years later the firm completed a successful IPO, making Alba “one of the youngest and one of the few Latinas to take a company public.”
Creating Something That Never Existed
Alba explained that she did not simply attach her name to an existing brand. She said, “I didn’t slap my name on a brand that already existed. I didn’t collab with the brand that existed. I did something impossible. I created something that never existed, and to build a consumer brand around a digital marketplace, which also had not been done before.”
She added that she had to learn “operations, supply chain…shipping and packing,” recalling a moment when “different types of bubble wrap” were tossed from car trunks to test whether caps would break in harsh winter deliveries.
Beta Launches and Payment Glitches
Alba admitted the learning curve was steep, noting that “we launched with a beta website because entrepreneurs don’t know that you shouldn’t launch with the beta website.”
She also described a scenario where the payment system failed, forcing the team to call customers: “You sent them the product, and then you have to call them because you are also customer service and you say, ‘Excuse me, can I please charge your credit cards because you have the products and we didn’t really charge it last month.’”
Kelso’s Perspective on Small Business Resilience
Kelso responded that such challenges are “not unusual,” pointing out that 30 million small businesses in this country with more than 60 million jobs are responsible for half the country’s GDP.
She highlighted “ingenuity” and “determination” as the drivers behind small‑business impact on the American economy.
Gen Z, Millennials and the Role‑Model Effect
Kelso said the rising Gen Z generation is “predisposed to think about launching business” partly because of role models like Alba. She noted that “Millennials and Gen Z entrepreneurs are driven by purpose…more optimistic than other generations that are starting businesses.”
Kelso complimented Alba as “the role model for the scaling of that kind of business.”
Impostor Syndrome and a Scrappy Mindset
Alba opened up about her own insecurities, stating, “I had a major impostor syndrome about whether I was even worthy of running a business because I had been an actress since I was 12. I graduated with a GED at 15, and I’m surrounded by venture capitalists and all these people in business that know so much more than me.”
She concluded that entrepreneurs often wonder, “Can I really do this?” but must remain “scrappy” to succeed.
