Jessica Alba is redefining her image from a hot babe in a bathing suit to one of American's richest Self-Made Women in America! As the mastermind behind the HONEST company, she has earned the cover of the June magazine and her place in entrepreneur history. Now she's offering 5 Business Tips for you to follow in her successful footsteps.

Forbes Magazine Cover
Forbes Magazine Cover
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At just 34 years old, Jessica Alba has built The Honest Company into a $1 billion household products empire, raking in $150 million in revenues in 2014 and with a public offering on the horizon.

Alba’s stake in the company she conceived in her kitchen in 2008 gives her a net worth of some $200 million, making her one of Hollywood’s richest actresses. She’s just $50 million shy of Beyoncé and Judge Judy, who are tied at number 49 on Forbes' list of richest self-made women in America!

Check out these 5 important business tips Alba has learned along the way:

1. Refine your idea.

“I pitched Brian a 50-page deck that had really too much going on,” she says. Fast forward to 18 months later, and she met Lee with a concise, 10-page PowerPoint, honed to reflect a much more succinct brand identity and offering. Says Alba: “Brian got it.” 

2. Hire your weaknesses.

“You never want to be the smartest person in the room,” says Alba.

3. Don’t rush to market.

Take time to make a quality product people can feel safe using.

4. You don’t have to spend big on advertising or marketing.

Take advantage of relatively inexpensive marketing tools, like Facebook, versus big national campaigns.

5. You can help solve ‘nonprofit’ problems with a for-profit model.

If government isn’t going to change what they regulate and operate, giving people a real viable option and letting them vote with their dollars is pretty strong.

She was — and is — particularly focused on reforming the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, which has allowed more than 80,000 chemicals to remain in household products untested.

Only five are regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency; just 11 are banned from consumer goods. (In Europe that figure is more than 1,300.)

“Enough people have to get sick or die from a certain ingredient or chemical before it’s pulled from the marketplace,” says Alba.

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