The Kardashians’ rise from reality stars to beauty and retail entrepreneurs provides a mold for brainstorming two vital features of a successful MBA goal for entrepreneurs: 1) spot an opportunity before others do; and 2) know your value by identifying how your background and creativity plus an MBA help you execute on that opportunity in a unique way.
Let’s break down the product the Kardashians innovated and use that to create a framework for coming up with visionary post-MBA goals for applicants with entrepreneurial aspirations.
What did the Kardashians see before everyone else?
Keeping Up with the Kardashians premiered in 2007, the same year the first iPhone shipped. Reality TV already existed with shows like the Osbournes. The Kardashians made a more specific bet. Audiences would watch and follow the day-to-day life of a good-looking family: crying over a diamond earring lost in the ocean off Bora Bora, putting on “natural” makeup before the gym, fighting over famous boyfriends. Kim was one of the first public faces to interact with people on Twitter, crowdsourcing feedback for her beauty products. A sneak peek into somebody’s everyday life still felt like invading their privacy, and that feeling of intimacy of watching an aspirational family became the product. The Kardashians themselves became the product.
If you were Kim applying for an MBA in 2010, you could have said you wanted to create unscripted TV by portraying families at their most private moments to show the world how different people live, and to connect with audiences through new direct media and challenge the status quo of relying on traditional media and beauty companies to determine what people buy. Kim could have highlighted her entrepreneurial passion, some experience with media, and her network as the core skills that would make her successful. That would have been a completely unique goal in 2010.
Seeing that opportunity to package “influencing” early really paid off for the Kardashians.
Kris Jenner converted that attention into companies. Kylie Cosmetics sold a majority stake to Coty for roughly $600 million. Kim’s Skims reached a $5 billion valuation in late 2025.
Today, everyone has a camera broadcasting their makeup tips, healthy breakfast hacks, and their travel adventures. Influencing is saturated. The same goal would have to reflect those changes. Perhaps it’s saying you will help elevate a portfolio of influencers like Alix Earle to flip social media’s impact on young girls from being destructive to building self-esteem. Maybe it’s to be the first fund to tap influencer trends to find investment opportunities.
Every founder is an influencer of something
Your MBA goals need to tell a personalized and bold story. The opportunity behind your visionary post-MBA goals have to come from what you have actually lived, at work, growing up, traveling and in daily life.
When you watch a young mechanic consumed by social media between repairs, betting on a team in a country he has never visited, what does that tell you? Combine that observation with what you learned advising clients as a consultant to show the ability to creatively connect seemingly unrelated things into a new product or service, whether it’s in beauty, entertainment, consumer goods, education, or tech.
And most importantly know how you could execute on the idea, what are your superpowers? Superpowers are a short list of skills and passions that come automatically to you. Adjacent skills are the ones you have to work at or could simply hire someone else to do. Pitch your role with passion, whether it’s to be the main face as the CEO, marketer, product builder, CFO, or business developer.
An admissions officer could not have told you where to look. It is your vantage point, not theirs. And like Kardashian audiences in 2007, admissions officers often do not know what they are wowed by until they see it.
Should you brainstorm from MBA essay examples?
The trend the Kardashians set has curdled into a rush to be a look-alike influencer. The same “natural look” makeup, the ponytail, the athleisure with some bling, the same food habits, even the same filler work. An entire economy of people trying to stand out by looking identical.
Applicants do the same thing with sample essays. Clients tell me all the time that they started by reading essays that worked, hunting for ideas in what other people have done. I understand wanting direction. But brainstorming how you will change the world is the one stage where you have to let yourself think first. Instead, the reach goes to what has already worked for someone else. Your admissions officer has read that sample essay too, along with a few hundred applications this cycle quietly modeled on it. This is the look-alike Kardashian, and you don’t stand out.
Skip the sample essays for one sitting and draft from what only you have seen. Don’t focus on it needing to be THE MOST original thing in the world. Your approach and your view are what makes it unique.
This blog is not intended to give you the perfect goal. Like the MBA itself, the intention is to expose you to cases and a framework so you can find your own. Breaking down business models and explaining them simply is one of my superpowers since graduating from Harvard Business School. Innovative ones are everywhere, including in unscripted TV and social media.
MBA.AI is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the Kardashian or Jenner families, Skims, Kylie Cosmetics, Coty, or any brand mentioned. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. This post is commentary and reflects the author’s opinions.