Brian Lee (entrepreneur)


Brian Sung Lee is an American entrepreneur who co-founded Legalzoom.com, ShoeDazzle.com, and The Honest Company.

Professional life

Before his startup career, Lee was an attorney with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and a former manager at Deloitte. Lee attended Servite High School in Anaheim, graduated with at B.A. in Economics/Business from UCLA and received his J.D. from UCLA School of Law.

Fame with startups

Brian Lee is known for co-founding startups with celebrities.

Legalzoom

His first startup, Legalzoom.com, was with Robert Shapiro. Legalzoom is an online legal documentation service or e-lawyering firm. His other co-founders include Brian P. Y. Liu and Edward R. Hartman. Legalzoom provides online document assembly of legal documents, a legal education center and articles on the legal aspect of current events. It started offering legal services products to the public on March 12, 2001. LegalZoom was ranked #27 as World's Most Valuable Startups by Business Insider in 2011.

ShoeDazzle

His second startup was ShoeDazzle.com with Kim Kardashian. ShoeDazzle is a Los Angeles-based online personalized styling and retail service. Members pay $39.95 per month for which they get one pair of shoes sent per month to own outright. The company's other co-founders include Robert Shapiro and MJ Eng. It was launched in March 2009. The service has more than three million members and nearly a million fans on Facebook. ShoeDazzle was ranked #21 on Most Promising Companies by Forbes Magazine. ShoeDazzle ranked #59 as World's Most Valuable Startups by Business Insider in 2011.
In November 2009, Polaris Venture Partners invested $7 million in ShoeDazzle. In April 2010, Lightspeed Venture Partners led a $13 million round. In May 2011, ShoeDazzle secured $40 million in a Series C investment financing round led by Andreessen Horowitz.

The Honest Company

The Honest Company is Lee's third startup company and was co-founded with Jessica Alba, Christopher Gavigan, and Sean Kane. The Honest Company manufactures and sells dozens of products, from diapers and wipes to shampoos and detergents. Like ShoeDazzle, The Honest Company controls the entire product life-cycle from design to manufacturing and distribution, but unlike ShoeDazzle, most of the goods are made in the US, rather than in China.

Notable

Lee was named one of the "25 most notable Korean-American entrepreneurs" by Forbes magazine in 2009. In 2014, he was commended as the Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year by EY Entrepreneur of the Year.