A Gleamin Success: How serial entrepreneur Jordan Smyth built a US$50M brand 

A digital self-starter since his teens, Jordan Smyth built his first ventures before most had a LinkedIn profile.  Now, with Gleamin’s US$50M success, Smyth has made the leap to the U.S. hoping to elevate his brand to new heights.

At just 26, Jordan Smyth is a veteran entrepreneur with several digital ventures under his belt. The most successful one – Gleamin – has sold over 1.2 million units of its flagship Vitamin C clay mask, generating US$50 million in revenue over five years.  

Smyth’s entrepreneurial instincts emerged early. At 16, he was already experimenting with online businesses from his parents’ Christchurch home, diving headfirst into dropshipping, and scouring YouTube for lessons in e-commerce. It was the post-dot-com era when e-commerce began moving into the mainstream, driven by the boom of 1998–2000. The digital-native generation was ready to catch the wave.  

During these early years of experimentation and learning, Smyth navigated a landscape filled with both genuine insights and the noise of business coaching—a space where many so-called experts were more focused on selling courses before gaining real, battle-tested knowledge. 

“When I was starting out, a lot of dropshippers and people in the e-commerce community were posting cookie-cutter courses just to sell the courses,” he says. “People became business coaches before having a business.” 

The young entrepreneur’s self-learning focus paid off. With a résumé that boasts the founding of several self-funded ventures, including a dropshipping business that catapulted to US$8 million in revenue within a blistering 14 months, Smyth’s entrepreneurial prowess is nothing short of remarkable 

By 19, he had moved to Australia, where he refined his understanding of product sourcing, digital marketing, and operational efficiency after moving in with a group of young entrepreneurs he met at a conference in Singapore. It was there he also learned that trust—whether in business partners, marketing strategies, or supply chains—had to be earned, not assumed. 

For someone so entrepreneurial, Smyth’s focus on logical systems and the way he builds startups might seem rather conservative. But as he kept experimenting, his approach became discerning, methodical, and ruthlessly efficient. Two entrepreneurial figures shaped his philosophy: Ash Maurya, the lean startup evangelist, and Elon Musk, the master of systems, operations, and relentless optimisation. 

Maurya taught him how to qualify an idea and transform it from a problem worth solving into a minimum viable product. Musk provided the efficiency framework. 

The birth of a beauty powerhouse

In 2020, Smyth’s personal battle with rosacea, a problem he was determined to solve, led to the creation of Gleamin. Frustrated by the lack of effective, skin-friendly solutions, he sought to create a product that combined nature and science. The result? A brightening skincare system built around a proprietary blend of bioavailable vitamin C called Gleam C™ from Kakadu Plum and Desert Lime—ingredients he discovered through his own research, forming a modernised version of a DIY remedy he’d stumbled upon online. 

Rather than manufacturing in-house, Smyth embraced a metacapitalist organisation—focusing on brand ownership, marketing, and supply chain mastery while outsourcing production to trusted partners in the U.S., Canada, and South Korea. It’s a model that has allowed him to scale rapidly, maintaining a small core team while leveraging the expertise of specialists worldwide. 

“Consumer products have become extremely accessible,” he explains. “For you to be competitive today, you really have to innovate—from brand positioning all the way to product innovation.” 

One area where Gleamin has seen tremendous success is Amazon. The platform accounts for between 20 to 30 percent of Gleamin’s revenue, providing a reliable profit channel to support growth. 

More than 70 percent of Gleamin customers are in the US, while the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and UAE are racing to join the Gleamin brigade. Meanwhile, Smyth has his sights set on expanding geographically and cross-category—soon. 

 “Wholesale is a huge focus this year,” he says. “We’re gearing up to launch our independent sell-on program across select studios and salons, providing them with a premium take-home solution. With international expansion on the horizon, we’re working to bring our retail presence to the UK and Australia, while also expanding our product line into new categories—one of which is body.” 

But Smyth’s vision isn’t just about selling products; it’s about building a beautiful, systematic, fast-moving and stable business—one that could be studied in schools as a masterclass in business operations. 

Expanding the empire: Broadthoughts Holdings

Smyth is currently laying the foundation for something beyond glowing skin: Broadthoughts Holdings, his investment and advisory firm dedicated to scaling consumer startups. It is here that he applies his keen eye for brand potential and operational excellence to emerging opportunities. 

One of Broadthoughts’ standout investments is WonderCrunch, which Smyth describes as Australia’s ‘leading better-for-you CPG brand.’ It’s a venture that aligns perfectly with his ethos—leveraging innovation, strategic partnerships, and high-quality branding to carve out a distinct market presence. (Smyth credits a mixture of content and paid marketing for Gleamin’s market success, and his investment partner for giving Gleamin the capacity to scale). His investment philosophy? 

“Optimistic and open-minded—I like to see the best in people and opportunities,’ Smyth says. 

As he sets his sights on the big lights of New York, he’s ready to scale Gleamin into a global force, a ‘broad thought’ of consumer investment. If the past decade has proven anything, it’s his ability to keep ahead of the game. 

‘I want to go into an environment with no ceiling. It’s about continually becoming the person who achieves the next goal.” 

To learn more about Gleamin’s skincare solutions, visit  www.gleamin.com. To connect with Jordan for investment advice, explore broadthoughts.xyz.