Happiness goes hand-in-hand with health, and personal care products are a means to a healthier and happier lifestyle. But what if the product that is supposed to boost your health goes south?

Common consumer products like televisions, computers, smartphones, and even baby bottles contain petrochemical and other potentially harmful elements (like phthalates and parabens, found in cosmetics) that can cause health hazards in the long run.

This is what led Jessica Alba (yes, that Jessica Alba) to launch her own company.

The Honest Company is a multinational consumer goods and self-care firm manufacturing all-natural, eco-friendly care products for babies and adults.

Today, Jessica’s company is among the most successful of its kind in the US. But the path to entrepreneurial success for the famed actress was lined with speed bumps, and some of the challenges for Jessica came from where she least expected them.

An Illness-Ridden Childhood

Jessica was born in the Los Angeles area in 1981 to a Catholic family with mixed European-Mexican roots.

Before her leap to stardom, Jessica was an ordinary person. And take away the fanfare and celebrity status, she still is. In fact, she had felt the bitterness of poor health more intensely than most people.

Her mother had cancer and Jessica herself was plagued by a series of chronic illnesses in her early years. She suffered from pneumonia several times a year, had lung problems, more specifically, atelectasis, asthma, a ruptured appendix, and chronic allergies. She has revealed she had had five surgeries before she turned 11. She was so often hospitalized that it distanced her from her peers at school and made it more difficult for her to make friends.

This made life agonizingly difficult for a young child as she was, but little did she know will play a crucial role in shaping her later life.

Forced to make do with shifting health, Jessica started laying the foundations of her acting career – a years-long experience in one of America’s biggest industries that would inevitably aid her in her business mission later on.

What Doesn’t Kill You…

…makes you stronger, and Jessica is the epitome of the expression!

The frequent maladies during childhood schooled Jessica in on the harsh realities of life from an early age but did not deter her from pursuing one of her two life callings. Both are rooted in her early childhood.

Jessica’s parents noticed her interest in acting when she was just 5, but it would take seven more years before she took her first acting lesson.

She graduated from high school aged 16 and subsequently joined the Atlantic Theater Company – a nonprofit theater company founded by Hollywood great William H. Macy and playwright/screenwriter David Mamet.

In 1994, at age 13, Jessica landed a small role in the family feature Camp Nowhere – marking the beginning of her acting career.

The mid-to-late 1990s were the years when Jessica honed her acting skills with appearances in several shows and features. She landed her first big role in 2000 when James Cameron cast her as the lead in his science fiction show Dark Angel.

In the next eight years, Jessica would establish herself as one of the most in-demand actresses in Hollywood. She has starred in several big blockbusters, segueing into various genres, from action (Fantastic Four) and neo-noir (Sin City) to frivolous rom-com (Good Luck Chuck) and drama (Awake).

In 2008, a significant moment happened that would propel Jessica’s career shift. Her daughter, Honor was born. The birth of Honor brought back troubling memories from her illness-ridden childhood and health, once again, became a concern for her and her newborn child.

Her plans for creating natural, toxin-free baby products only expedited after a baby detergent caused Honor to have an unexpected skin reaction.

Suddenly, acting became secondary to her family’s health.

The Honest Company’s Early Stages

The Birth of Honor changed Jessica’s outlook on life to the core and she embarked on a mission to found a company that not only touts but makes the world a better place for everyone as well.

After more than three years of searching and rejections, Jessica met her future partners Christopher Gavigan, Brian Lee, and Sean Kane, who will aid her in getting her startup firm up to speed.

The Honest Company launched in 2012, a year after Jessica had her second child, Haven. The company aimed to manufacture chemical- and toxin-free consumer goods, with a focus on self-care, beauty, and wellness items such as diapers, baby shampoos, and a line of cleaning and beauty products. Part of its eco-friendly goods, Honest steers clear of using up to 2,000 chemicals.

Despite her partners’ advice to start small, Jessica launched The Honest Company with over a dozen items. The first two years of business went more than well, with the company raking in about $50 million in sales.

But then came the problems, with 2017 proving a particularly tough year for Jessica and her fledgling company. Between 2015 and 2016, Honest was hit with multiple lawsuits over false marketing for allegedly including non-natural compounds in their products while advertising all-natural goods. In the summer of 2017, the company settled a nationwide class-action suit for $1.5 million, acknowledging misleading customers over the contents of some of their cleaning products.

But apart from professional issues, Jessica also felt personal challenges and suffered from the so-called ‘imposter syndrome,’ questioning her own aptitude for business. Jessica managed this feeling of insecurity with the help of her husband, producer Cash Warren, who instilled in her a sense of self-worth and appreciation for all she had done to give life to her company.

From a Struggling Startup to a Billion-Dollar Business

The legal issues caused a temporary setback for the further development of Jessica’s company, and she and her partners had to conduct a company overhaul before they could focus again on expansion.

The company had already shown promising signs of success in the first year of launching when it generated around $50 million in revenue. This attracted investors, and through several rounds of funding from venture capital firms between 2014 and 2015, Honest raised over $200 million and was ready for its initial public offering (IPO).

But unforeseen circumstances would delay Honest’s IPO for another six years. The company finally went public in May 2021 on NASDAQ with over 28 million shares worth $15.5 a share on average, valued at about $1.5 billion.

Rise to Greatness

Jessica launched Honest at the height of her acting career, but despite her public image and celebrity status, success for her company was hard-earned.

Through various hurdles, integrity, marketing, and legal issues, she has managed to stand on her own two feet and build a one-of-a-kind, billion-dollar, multinational corporation that genuinely cares for the environment and its clients.

Her company’s cleaning and hygiene products have become a particularly valuable commodity amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Jessica and her Honest team have been selflessly engaged in community outreach, donating millions of diapers and tens of thousands of self-care goods to those hit most by the pandemic.

Initially, some saw Jessica’s decision to deviate from acting as sudden, unexpected, and risky, but in reality, it had been building up from a very young age. And despite the initial break, she continues to be active in Hollywood while managing a billion-dollar corporation and being a devoted mom.

From a sickly child to a Hollywood superstar, to a hardened businesswoman – the mother of three has and continues to push the possibilities and the limits of achievement for a 21st-century mom. The still-budding Honest Company similarly sets an example of a highly successful corporation, yet one whose profits are second-hand to its customer and environmental responsibilities.