Forbes includes Britney on the greatest stories of female entrepreneurs in the 21st century article for making 15 millions in 1999 when she was just 17 years old

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2021/03/07/the-greatest-stories-of-female-entrepreneurs-of-the-21st-century/?sh=75e02bad70a8&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialflowForbesMainTwitter&utm_source=ForbesMainTwitter

 

Full March 2000 article talking about it

The queen of teen

In a minute, Britney Spears will be on live national TV. She is waiting backstage on the set of ABC’s The View. Then she walks in front of the camera and knocks out five flawless minutes: She deflects queries about her love life, tells a rehearsed anecdote about cow-tipping (a prank involving sleeping cattle) and demonstrates a yoga exercise. When she steps offstage, Spears signs an autograph for Sigourney Weaver (“My kid is a huge fan,” the actress explains), picks up her entourage and leaves in an unmarked van. Britney is 18 years old.

Show business is easy for Spears. By age 9, she was winning talent shows. At 10 she starred off-Broadway. At 11 it was the Mickey Mouse Club. At 15 she got a record contract. Last year, prepackaged as the girl next door, she sold 11 million copies of her debut album in the U.S., more than any other individual artist. Her 1999 earnings: $15 million.

Credit some of her success to good timing. Spears sings light, bouncy music about teenagers at a time when light, bouncy music is popular again, and when there are more teenagers in the U.S.–31 million–than there have been since the babyboomers were teens. Credit the rest to drive.

But now comes the hard part. Many performers have big first albums. Only a few carve out lucrative careers. Spears has two challenges: to parlay her fame into bigger earnings, quickly, and to lay the groundwork for a lengthy reign.

Her fans make the first task easier. Kids are avid buyers of albums–people under 19 make up the largest percentage of music consumers. Better still, they (or their parents) are avid buyers of everything, even Britney dolls. She should net at least $15 million from them this year. Kids also love concerts. So SFX, the concert promoter, guaranteed her at least $200,000 a show for a hundred-show tour. And advertisers love anyone kids love. Spears has deals worth $6 million with Clairol, Polaroid and the Got Milk? campaign.

“We’re going to push her products, and she’s going to push our products, and everyone’s going to be happy,” says Larry Lucas, a Clairol senior product manager.

Then there’s the money from the music itself. She signed with Jive Records in 1997, and with nothing to go by, got paid accordingly: a $250,000 advance and a royalty rate, after fees, of less than $1 per record sold. (Stars like Madonna or Celine Dion command royalties of $2.20 or more.)

But before Spears’ next album comes out in May, her managers will try to renegotiate with Jive. As with most record contracts, Jive has options to pick up each album she makes but no obligation to increase her pay. Spears’ comanager Larry Rudolph is betting the label will ante up–by giving her a multimillion-dollar advance, increasing her royalty rate, paying a larger part of promotional expenses or all of the above–in order to keep a lucrative artist happy.

Maybe, maybe not. Clive Calder, Jive’s secretive owner, is a famously tough dealmaker. “Clive,” says an attorney who has bargained with him, “doesn’t give away ice in winter.”

Being a teenager gives Spears an advantage when it comes to her image, a mix of raciness and wholesomeness that’s a large part of her appeal. “She knows exactly what her audience wants,” Rudolph says. “She is her audience.”

When Jive executives explained their plans for her first video–Superheroine Britney fights animated monsters–she balked: “It was out of the question.” Instead, Spears suggested a video that featured her and a group of dancers shimmying through high school. The results sold records and raised eyebrows, particularly the scenes where she wore a Catholic schoolgirl uniform with the shirttails knotted above her tummy. That was her idea, too.

Like her first release, her new album was assembled by Jive’s stable of producers and writers, most of whom also work with Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync. But it will include “Dear Diary,” the first song she’s written.

The idea, Britney says, is to have a career like Madonna, who is still selling millions 17 years after her first hit. “She’s always been four steps ahead of everyone.”

Spears needs to hurry. There are at least three Britneyish singers following in her footsteps. And the pop style she specializes in is nearing the end of its shelf life.

But that’s another cool thing about being a teenager, even a show-biz-savvy one: You can stock up on optimism. “Once you have fans, they want you to succeed,” Spears says. “I don’t think I’ll have any problems.”

 

https://www.forbes.com/global/2000/0320/0306057a.html?sh=645b32e572d5

[HairFullOfSecrets]

Kween

[nthenwkiss]

i love how everyone is finally recognizing her worth, impact and value; i never understood why it became cool to hate on her at some point; i guess its because she had it all. she was on top, she was perfect, beautiful, charming, successful, talented, had the "it" boyfriend and the time, was a phenomenon, everything she did was perfect and i guess some people cannot handle that. some people need to bring down others because they dont understand their happiness and their success. i have an uncle like that, i hate that idiot. just because your life is miserable you dont have to make others lives miserable too, fix yours.

[Guest]

On 3/10/2021 at 2:35 PM, nthenwkiss said:

i love how everyone is finally recognizing her worth, impact and value; i never understood why it became cool to hate on her at some point; i guess its because she had it all. she was on top, she was perfect, beautiful, charming, successful, talented, had the "it" boyfriend and the time, was a phenomenon, everything she did was perfect and i guess some people cannot handle that. some people need to bring down others because they dont understand their happiness and their success. i have an uncle like that, i hate that idiot. just because your life is miserable you dont have to make others lives miserable too, fix yours.