Why Celebrities Are Getting Into Business (And What Most Get Wrong)

March 31, 2026·34 min·3 clips

Kimberly Kruseberger reveals why a fashion influencer in Summit, New Jersey can outsell celebrities with millions of followers.

Celebrity reach is the hook. Kimberly Kruseberger starts with the sharper point: the best storyteller wins, and follower count tells you very little about whether people will buy. That lands quickly. The cold open traces her path from five years at Goop to strategy work around Halle Berry, Channing Tatum, and Chrissy Teigen. Then the glamour gets a reality check. When the host asks why audience size fails as a shortcut, the answer keeps circling back to storytelling and business discipline. A celebrity is not enough. Kim points to the missing middle: someone in the operating seat, behaving like a CEO who can take a company from zero to 5 million and then toward 10 million. The basics matter. Brand decks, launch strategy, and a high level financial model are less shiny than talent, but they are often the pieces founders skip. Goop becomes the early lesson. She talks about the company as exciting because the work was choosing revenue streams, testing them, and deciding which ones deserved focus. That lesson carries over. Magic Mike, Respin, and Molly Sims come up as different versions of the same challenge: ideas need commercial architecture before they become businesses. The host names the misconception plainly. People see Aviation Gin, Casamigos, Goop, or the Kardashian playbook and assume celebrity touch turns a concept into scale. Kim pushes back. Talent can amplify a brand, but the fundamentals, launch path, and leadership have to make sense first. Near the end, even kids become a useful signal, as the conversation turns to younger people, social media, and the places founders may be overlooking.

As heard by us

A practical operator's view of why celebrity attention only works when the brand machinery is already in place.

Celebrity brands are treated here as operating problems, not fame stories. Adam Levinter and Kimberly Kruseberger focus on what has to sit behind a famous name: strong storytelling, paid distribution, a brand deck, go-to-market strategy, and at least a high-level financial…

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