Goop is a wellness and lifestyle brand and company founded by American actress Gwyneth Paltrow. It was launched in September 2008 as a weekly e-mail newsletter providing New Age advice, such as "police your thoughts" and "eliminate white foods", and the slogan "Nourish the Inner Aspect". Goop later expanded into e-commerce, collaborating with fashion brands, hosting pop-up shops, holding a "wellness summit", and launching a print magazine, podcast, and docuseries on Netflix. Goop has faced criticism for marketing products and treatments that are harmful, described as "snake oil", based on pseudoscience, and lack efficacy. California officials from the Consumer Protection Office have sued Goop for false advertising, asserting that Goop has made unfounded health claims about a variety of products. Goop settled the lawsuit out of court. Class-action lawsuits have been brought against Goop for unsafe products.
History
Goop was founded in Paltrow's home in London, beginning as a newsletter in 2008, with an editor's note in each email from Paltrow offering insight into her daily life. Goop was incorporated in 2011. According to Paltrow, the company's name came from Peter Arnell telling her that successful internet companies have double Os in their name, and she "wanted it to be a word that means nothing and could mean anything". Adding the double "O" between her initials thus resulted in the company name. Goop, of course, does have a meaning in English. Seb Bishop was CEO of Goop from 2011 to 2014. Several other celebrities were inspired by Goop to launch their own similar lifestyle websites. In 2014, Goop hired Oxygen Media founder and former CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Lisa Gersh, as CEO. From 2014 onwards, Goop's wellness content became increasingly radical, to the point where doctors would begin to call it pseudoscience and media outlets would describe Goop's content as "no longer ludicrous— no, now it was dangerous". In 2015, Paltrow stated that she wanted Goop to "be its own stand-alone brand". At that time around two dozen people worked for Goop. In 2016 the company's roster had increased to 60 employees. That year, Goop's most searched topic was the term "detox". Later in 2016, Paltrow moved the company's operations to the US from the UK following her separation from Chris Martin and Gersh left the position of CEO. The position remained vacant until early 2017, when the board named Paltrow, who had previously announced in 2016 that she would be stepping away from Goop, to fill the post. In 2016, Goop moved its headquarters to Santa Monica, California, from New York. The Santa Monica location was previously a chicken coop. The interior warehouse space was designed by Restoration Hardware. By 2017, Goop had 90 employees, and was attracting criticism, including a lawsuit filed by Truth In Advertising. In an April 2017 Jezebel article, Stassa Edwards criticized Goop's marketing and retail strategy, claiming that the company profits "from endless illness". Jill Avery, a brand analyst, has noted how Goop's response to this criticism seems designed to "strengthen their brand and draw their customers closer", noting Goop's use of feminism, traditional Asian medicines and Eastern philosophies, and anti-establishment politics to do so. Paltrow characterizes criticisms as "cultural firestorms" which cause an influx of website traffic, stating that she can "monetize those eyeballs". In 2018, Goop began assembling an internal science and regulatory team. Goop, in partnership with Google, also began selling Google Home smart speakers and accessories in the Goop Lab stores and holiday pop-up shops, and opened its first permanent East Coast Goop store called Goop Lab at 25 Bond Street (Manhattan). This followed the establishment of a permanent location at the Brentwood Country Mart in Brentwood, California in September 2017. As of March 2018, Goop had 150 employees. In January 2020, Goop began selling a $75 candle called "This Smells Like My Vagina", based upon a joke with perfumer Douglas Little. Paltrow and Little were testing out various new fragrances, when she found one she loved and said, “Uhh, this smells like a vagina”. The candle quickly sold out and can be found selling on eBay for as much as $250. In late July 2020 Goop moved to their new corporate headquarters in a larger location, also in Santa Monica, whose interior was designed by the multidisciplinary firm Rapt Studio. The company signed a 10-year lease for 57,000 square feet in the newly built Santa Monica Gateway commercial development. By early 2020 it was reported that the company was valued at about $250 million. In early October 2020 Elise Loehnen announced she was stepping down as chief content officer to take a sabbatical to write a book. She will continue as Goop’s editor at large. In October 2021, it was reported that over 140 Goop employees had left the company since 2019.
Funding and revenue In 2011, Goop generated £81,000 in sales, and the year after it generated £1.1 million in sales, with a loss of £23,000. As of 2013, Goop had net liabilities of £540,086. Goop doubled its revenues from 2014 to 2015, and again from 2015 to 2016. In 2018 the company tripled its year-over-year revenue from 2017. In 2016, Goop received $15 million USD in Series B funding from venture capital firms NEA, Felix Capital and 14W Venture Partners. This corresponded with Goop centralizing their operations in the Los Angeles area, where Paltrow is based, and away from New York, where Gersh lives. In 2018, Goop raised $50 million in Series C funding from firms including NEA, Lightspeed and Felix Capital, bringing total investment in the company to $82 million. The company's valuation rose to $250 million. Among Goop's financial backers is Greycroft Partners, a venture capital firm which has also backed other businesses including Klout, Huffington Post, Venmo and Ireland-based cosmetic treatment/beauty clinic chain Sisu.
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