10 billion-dollar businesses you didn't know were started by women

In 1989, Dr. Katie Rodan was frustrated that she couldn't prescribe an acne treatment to her patients that would treat their whole face — not just the problem area. The following year, she and her friend Dr. Kathy Fields decided to find and sell an over-the-counter acne treatment. In 1995, Proactiv was launched and revolutionized the skincare industry.

Today, the company has 20 million customers, and Proactiv is valued at $1 billion, according to Forbes.

In 2002, the two doctors created the Rodan + Fields brand, which focuses on skincare products for older women.

Whitney Wolfe Herd started her successful career in dating apps when she was a co-founder and vice president of marketing at Tinder. When she filed a lawsuit against her boss for sexual harassment, she was forced to leave the company. After Tinder, Herd decided to compete against her former employer and create a new dating app. With financial help from Badoo founder Andrey Andreev, Herd created Bumble, which allows women to make the first move after matching.

Today, Herd continues to be the CEO of Bumble, which is valued at $1 billion and has 35 million users.

Ellen Latham was a physiologist when she opened her first yoga studio. Her customers quickly started to complain that they needed to supplement their yoga workouts with cardio, so she opened "Ellen's Ultimate Workout," which used scientific studies to build a full-body workout. In 2010, Latham turned her unique workout approach into a business with the help of Jerome Kern and David Long. Together, they opened the first Orangetheory Fitness studio in Florida and then slowly expanded throughout the country.

In 2019, the company reached $1 billion in sales and now has 1,100 studios around the world.

When Sara Blakely was getting dressed for a night out in the '90s, she quickly decided to cut the feet out of her pantyhose. Her intuitive design inspired her to start a pantyhose business that was comfortable for women. On nights and weekends, she would work on patenting her design after already working a full day as a door-to-door fax machine salesperson. In 2000, Spanx was officially launched.

In 2012, Blakely was named the youngest female self-made billionaire, and today, the shapewear company is worth $1 billion.

While Emily Weiss started as an intern at Teen Vogue (and even made an appearance on "The Hills,") she became known for her blog, Into the Gloss.

The blog focused on beauty products, and it became so popular that she decided to leave her job at Vogue. In 2014, she turned her beauty blog into a company called Glossier, which sells beauty products directly to consumers via Instagram.

Just five years later, Weiss' Glossier has been valued at $1.2 billion, and she has said she plans to open five retail locations in 2019.

In 2006, Anne Wojcicki launched 23andMe with the help of Linda Avey and Paul Cusenza. The company was designed to test the likelihood that you will get various diseases, including cancer and even motion sickness. At the time of its launch, the genetic testing kit cost $999. Two years, later Time magazine named it the Invention of the Year.

Now, the company has been valued at $2.5 billion and has had over 10 million customers.

In 2006, Julia Hartz and her husband, Kevin, realized it was difficult for regular people to host ticketed events. Together, they launched Eventbrite, which allows consumers to buy tickets to events directly on Eventbrite's website. Soon, the modest company was selling 60,000 tickets to a Black Eyes Peas concert in Central Park.

Today, the company has grown to cover 3.9 million events worldwide, and the company is now worth $2.8 billion.

In 2007, Nichole Mustard was asked to join a project with Kenneth Lin and Ryan Graciano. Together, they came up with the idea to create a company where people could access their credit scores for free. In 2008, CreditKarma was officially launched, and two years later, the company had one million members.

Today, Mustard is the chief revenue officer at CreditKarma, which is now worth $4 billion. The company has given free credit scores to over four billion members.

Sandy Lerner and her husband, Leonard Bosack, were working at Stanford University in 1981 when they developed a router that could connect computer networks. In 1984, they turned this new technology into a business called Cisco Systems. Throughout the next few decades, the company sold computer routers to several companies. Eventually, Lerner and Bosack left the company, but the business continued to grow and become profitable.

Today, Cisco is valued at $248.3 billion.

• Read more:
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• Startups with women founders are on track to see record venture investment in 2019
• Women are now seen as just as competent as men, but less ambitious — and it's a good and bad thing
• 21 organizations that are fighting for women's rights in the US and abroad