There Will Be Blush

A coming-of-age drama about a Sephora employee in the dog-eat-dog world of cosmetics, starring method actor Daniel Day Lewis. [The Hustle]( Wed, Apr 5 Makeup is one of retail’s lone survivors *Cue movie trailer voice* In a world where big box department stores must fight to survive, and brick-and-mortar retailers continue to cannibalize themselves… One industry is sittin’ pretty… The $57B global [cosmetics market]( is one of the few retail verticals experiencing healthy growth, and, as department stores close up shop left and right, brands like Sephora and Ulta are actually expanding their footprint. More specifically, Sephora already has nearly 1.8k stores worldwide, Ulta’s adding 100 to their 1k locations this year. Because, for every dollar consumers spent at department stores… They [spent $2.3]( at health and beauty retailers. Ulta’s Q4 same-store sales grew 16.6% from last year’s numbers, making it their 8th straight quarter of double-digit brick-and-mortar sales growth. To put that in context, the other 100 retailers in the S&P Retail Select Industry Index [fell 1% in Q4 on average](. Which makes sense -- makeup is just more conducive to in-person purchases than, say, appliances or electronics (gotta see if you can pull off that matte [coral lip stain]( IRL, amirite?). As a result, Ulta’s shares are up 70% over the past year, outpacing even Amazon. Fun fact: Amazon also owns makeup brands like Maybelline, L'Oréal, Revlon, and Covergirl. But Bezos isn’t batting an eyelash Although Sephora & Ulta are hanging on to their foothold with celebrity partnerships and brand exclusivity, Amazon still brought in $2.5B in beauty sales last year, up 47% from 2015 -- that’s about half of Ulta’s entire annual revenue. We’re betting they won’t be sharing their beauty secrets any time soon. [Maybe they’re born with it…]( Big money matters Who’s raising hell and who’s lookin’ to sell -- here’s your digest of yesterday’s biggest deals courtesy of The Hustle: Cohesity builds a $500m box The data storage startup [raised a $90m investment]( round led by GV and Sequoia Capital, bringing their valuation to half a billion smackers. And, they’re no stranger to storage wars -- their founder, Mohit Aron, also started Nutanix, which IPO’d last year and is currently worth about $2.6B. All for some [rectangular hardware]( that looks eerily similar to Pied Piper’s [loathed “Box”]( in Silicon Valley. Square wants to hang out with the cool kids The mobile payments company is now in talks to acquire Yik Yak, the $400m anonymous [messaging app]( that peaked in college. Though nothing’s set in stone, the deal would [likely be]( an “acquihire” for Yik Yak’s employees and shutting down development on the app. Why the buy? Too soon to tell, but could be a play to integrate messaging into their payments service, kind of like [WeChat Pay]( in China (mega-successful) and Facebook Messenger payments (mehhh)… Turnstyle: Like taking emails from a baby Yelp has [acquired Turnstyle Analytics]( a marketing company that tricks lures people into giving companies their email addresses when they login to their free wifi network, for $20m. With this acquisition, Yelp can offer businesses the ability to track when users visit their stores and send them loyalty rewards for repeat trips. And as much as we all hate promotional emails, that sweet, sweet internet hookup is hard to resist… especially if you’re at the end of your data cycle. [Gimme them gigabytes]( Spotify goes back on their word After months of whining that exclusive music deals hurt fans, Spotify is partnering with the Universal Music Group to do, well, [exactly that](. The new deal between the music giants allows some UMG artists to place their albums exclusively on Spotify’s premium tier for 2 weeks before everyone else hears it. And if you’re one of Spotify’s 50m freeloaders who thinks “it’s just 2 weeks, big whoop”, then consider this: today would be the first time you’d be hearing Drake’s More Life. (Plus you’d have gone 14 painful days of not knowing what “[blem]( meant.) With big expectations come big responsibilities Spotify’s been [looking to IPO]( for some time but, despite doing $2.2B in revenue last year, the company still [isn't profitable](. Not the most attractive investment... The big driver of this by far is royalties (which artists like T-Swift say still aren’t enough). By granting exclusive access for their premium users, Spotify hopes to negotiate better licensing rates with record companies. Valued, loyal customer better have my money Spotify was already the last defender of freemium streaming – compared with subscription only rivals like Apple Music and Tidal. The exclusivity model is the first major move towards converting users to paid, which, to no one’s surprise, drives the [vast majority]( of their revenue $10/month at a time. And if you’re altogether tired of tracking who you can stream where, there’s always vinyl. Apparently gramophone records are having their [best year]( since 1985. [Seriously, it’s coming back]( The English language is literally changing The closest people we have to actual grammar police, the American Copy Editors Society, recently held their [annual word nerd conference]( to discuss and update our language for modern times. The big news? ‘They’ officially replaced ‘he’ as the default pronoun for a person of an unknown gender. Wait, so who makes the rules on English? Good question, diligent student. There are a few ways English conventions can be changed. The annual meeting of ACES (sweet acronym, guys) is one of them. It’s where rule updates to the [AP Stylebook]( are often announced, like dropping the hyphen in “email,” and lowercasing “internet.” Merriam-Webster is another authority adding words to keep up with the youths. They [recently added]( words such as “photobomb,” “humblebrag,” and “ghosting.” Ghost (verb): to disappear off all social communications, only to emerge via text weeks later with a “sorry work’s been crazy…” disclaimer. But it’s not them doing the changing, it’s us Merriam Webster says that, of the criteria needed to add a new word, [frequency of use]( is most important. In other words, if you keep up those urban dictionary annotations, they might one day become official (totally rad). But reader beware, you could be playing with fire (not rad). After we literally wouldn’t stop misusing the word, Merriam Webster added a [second definition]( to match the exaggerated meaning. The internet was understandably outraged. Users commented “the dictionary is literally wrong”, and “this is literally the stupidest thing I’ve ever read.” [As opposed to figuratively?]( wednesday what-have-you What’s the hometown comfort you miss most? That diner with the world's best mac n' cheese? Waving to people on the street? Stealing candy from kids at the Memorial Day parade? [Nostalgia awaits →]( This edition of The Hustle was brought to you by What should we have for dinner? I think there’s still some leftover lasagna left from last week. Or was that the week before... Give it the smell test and see if it’s still good. Or how about takeout from that place around the corner? Ahh, screw it. Let’s just make some mac and cheese and call it a night. Stop settling for the same old boring options [Blue Apron]( sends you all the farm-fresh ingredients and recipes you need to make delicious, healthy meals at home in under 40 minutes. We’re talking stuff like maple gravy-smothered pork chops, parmesan-crusted chicken with creamy fettuccine, and spicy shrimp coconut curry. All of the recipes are 500-800 calories and easy to follow so, instead of rehashing the same, boring options, you can channel your inner [Gordon Ramsay](. Choose between a [2-person meal plan]( or the [family plan]( depending on who you’re feeding, and stop lying to yourself about finally going to the grocery store after work. Impress your friends, impress yourself. Change up your weekly dinner routine with [Blue Apron](. Hustle readers get a little something sweet: [your first 3 meals free](. Bon appétit! 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