Mielle Organics: Monique Rodriguez

For Monique Rodriguez, hair care was a hobby; she never thought she could build a business. In fact, after high school, Monique followed her mother’s advice to find a solid, recession-proof career, and she went into nursing. However, Monique realized it was not for her, and she pursued side gigs selling everything from Mary Kay to cable subscriptions. But when a devastating loss turned Monique’s world upside down, she found joy in her hobby. What started as Monique’s homegrown haircare experiments posted on Instagram eventually became Mielle Organics, a line of products made for textured hair with natural and organic ingredients. Educating herself through internet research, going to trade shows and conferences, and learning from some big mistakes, Monique and her husband Melvin turned her hobby into a massive global haircare and beauty brand. This episode was produced by Casey Herman, with music by Ramtin Arablouei Edited by Andrea Bruce, with research help from Alex Cheng. You can follow HIBT on Twitter https://twitter.com/HowIBuiltThis & Instagram https://www.instagram.com/howibuiltthis, and email us at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Guy Raz?

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• 0:46Guy Raz?

  build the prototype, analyze the market, maybe even come up with the idea, what separates the people who actually build something from everyone else? I don't have a clean answer yet, so I've been sitting with it with Claude. There's hope in hard questions. Ask yours at claude.ai/hibt. We get support from U.S. Bank. A question I love asking founders. What's the one decision you almost didn't make? The one that changed everything? Because it's never the obvious stuff. It's never, I decided to start a company. It's the small, boring, Tuesday afternoon decision you barely remember making until you realize it's the reason everything after it either worked or didn't.

• 1:32Guy Raz?

  Say you're 18 months in. Business is growing. You've got expenses coming from six directions. Gas for the van, office supplies, your phone bill, team lunches that are actually client meetings, and you're putting it all on whatever card you grabbed in year one. You're not thinking about it. Why would you? You've got bigger problems. But here's the thing. Path A, you keep going like that. End of the year, you're sorting through statements, trying to figure out what went where. You've left hundreds, maybe thousands, on the table in rewards you never earned, money that could have gone back into the business. Path B, you pause and get the US Bank Triple Cash Rewards Visa Business Card. Now, you're earning 3% cash back

• 2:16Guy Raz?

  on gas and EV charging, office supply stores, cellphone service, and restaurants. You pick up an extra $750 cash back as a bonus. And you've got a low APR on purchases and balance transfers for 12 months while you're scaling. Same business, same expenses, two completely different outcomes based on one small decision. Visit usbank.com/business to learn more. The creditor and issuer of this card is US Bank National Association, pursuant to a license from Visa USA, Inc. Some restrictions apply. If you travel often, you'll want to hear about this unprecedented offer. For the first time ever,

• 3:00Guy Raz?

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• 3:45Guy Raz?

  or bring a guest to the Delta Sky Club. Make every trip feel more rewarding with the car that upgrades your travel. Apply today at delta.com/cardsocial. Offer ends November 4, 2026. Minimum spending requirements and terms apply. Flights are fulfilled as flight certificates valid for Delta Comfort or Delta Maine to select domestic destinations. Book 21-plus days in advance. Up to $80 per person and taxes and fees apply. Other restrictions apply. When I pull up to a gas pump to fill my car, I'm not thinking about chemistry or engineering. I'm thinking about getting in, filling up, and getting on with my day. And it reminds me a little bit of the founders I talk to on this show, because the best

• 4:27Guy Raz?

  ones obsess over things their customers will never see. Tiny details, invisible improvements, relentless iteration. And not because anyone's watching, but because it makes the product better. That's what the mobile brand does. It engineers fuel the same way great founders engineer their products. Mobile Supreme Plus Premium Gas helps keep engines three times cleaner, which can mean better performance and improved gas mileage. It's for people who care about what's under the hood, even if they never see it. Three times cleaner compared to mobile regular gas in port fuel-injected engines. Actual results may vary. Visit mobilefuels.com for details. Hey, it's Guy here.

• 5:11Guy Raz?

  And before we start the show, I want to share something I heard recently from Stephen Colbert. It's about learning from failure. He told me an incredible story from way back when he was doing improv in Chicago and how he broke onstage one night, which he initially thought was the worst thing ever, but it actually changed his life and his approach to comedy forever. To hear my conversation with Stephen Colbert and other incredible creative people, listen to my other podcast, The Great Creators. Just search for The Great Creators with Guy Raz wherever you listen to podcasts. And now, on to today's show.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  We didn't really have a good understanding of like how to run a business. So we were literally spending and not monitoring like what was going out.

• 6:04Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  We had to learn the hard way and it really humbled us. Top line was great. The company was growing, like so on the outside looking in, like, you know, it looked amazing.

• 6:15Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  But when you lift up the hood and you looked underneath the hood, everything was jacked up.

• 6:25Guy Raz?

  Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

• 6:38Guy Raz?

  I'm Guy Raz and on the show today, how Monique Rodriguez walked away from her nursing job to pursue her hair care hobby and built a multimillion dollar beauty brand in less than a decade.

• 6:56Guy Raz?

  Myel Organics is a hair and skincare brand. It started out, like so many companies we profile, as a solution to a problem the founder had. Monique Rodriguez wanted healthier hair after years of chemical treatments. And she wanted a product that was natural and organic, a product that would work on her textured hair. So after doing some research, she started to coat her hair in things like eggs and bananas and avocados. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it felt like she had a smoothie poured on her head. But eventually, her experiments got more sophisticated. She'd use mint extracts and almond oils and other ingredients to see how it affected her hair.

• 7:40Guy Raz?

  And of course, she would document it on her Instagram account. This was back in 2014. At the time, Monique had a few hundred followers, but many of them had the same hair challenges and they followed Monique's experiments closely. Now, before I continue, I should mention that at the time, Monique was a nurse. As a kid, growing up near the South Side of Chicago, most of the women she knew who had steady, good paying jobs were nurses. But Monique was dreaming of something different and was always searching. She attended multi-level marketing courses. She tried selling Mary Kay and Avon cosmetics. She sold jewelry online. None of it worked.

• 8:22Guy Raz?

  But there was something about her home experiments with hair care products that just clicked with her small band of social media followers, and they wanted to buy them. The options for women with textured hair, mainly women of color, were limited, and Monique seemed to be on to something. Now, I won't give away how it happened. You'll hear the story in a moment. But in less than 10 years, Monique Rodriguez and her husband Melvin would go on to build a huge brand that would eventually be acquired by Procter & Gamble in 2023, the first black female-founded beauty brand in PNG's portfolio. But before all of that, Monique, as I mentioned, grew up in Chicago and then later in a suburb called Riverdale.

• 9:05Guy Raz?

  She first met her husband Melvin in middle school, and they started dating Monique's senior year of high school. Monique's mom worked as a secretary in a hospital, and she remembers watching her mom work very hard and struggle to make ends meet. But something Monique also remembers is how her mom wanted her to understand, even as a little kid, that she could aspire to do more and have a better life.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  So, growing up, my mom was basically like a single mom trying to raise her kids. It was me and my brother. My dad, he suffers from drug addiction, so, you know, he was present in the household, but not necessarily present to where his kids needed him. So, I grew up seeing my mom pretty much struggle to take care of me and my brother. She worked at University of Chicago Hospital, and because she worked in the hospital environment, she had a lot of nurse friends. So, I remember being a little girl, and she had one of these nurse friends, and We went over to her sister's house for like a barbecue or something. And it was just like this big home. I thought it was a mansion. You know, now that I look back, it wasn't. It was just a regular house.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  But it was bigger than our house and, you know, she had a daughter and this, her daughter had a pool. Then her room was just so beautiful, like a princess room. And I remember at that moment telling myself like, wow, when I grow up and I have kids, like, I want to live like this. Like, I want my kids to live better than me and have something like this. And my mom, I don't even think she realizes this, but that instance planted a seed in me to start thinking differently and wanting more for my life than what, you know, I was given or how I was brought up. You know, I always like to say that I didn't have to go to DARE or, you know, learn about not doing drugs in school because I learned it in my own household, like,

• 10:55Speaker 01

  how it rips households apart, like how it affects your lifestyle, your body, your health. And I said, I'm gonna do something different and I'm gonna change my family's trajectory even at a young age. So yeah, that's how I grew up. My mom, she just, you know, worked very hard to provide for us and I'm truly thankful.

• 11:15Guy Raz?

  And I guess your interest in, in beauty started in your childhood too, like when you were a kid. Tell me about that.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, because I've always been like a girly girl. And my mom, she'll laugh to this day, like, you're always in the mirror. You're always in the mirror doing your hair. I remember being obsessed with my grandmother. My grandmother had long hair and she, she used to use mane and tail shampoo. And that's how much I paid attention to it because I knew exactly what shampoo she used.

• 11:43Guy Raz?

  For horses and humans.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  Yes. Yeah, and so I was always curious because of my grandmother, because my grandmother was like, you know, very fancy and, you know, always kept her hair nice. And she always made sure she went outside and had a lipstick. And, and so like that was my passion. I enjoyed sitting down with my grandmother, brushing her hair, playing in her makeup. So beauty was always something that just was very intriguing to me. And I, I also remember being young and like looking at women. And I would just look at a, a lady and I would just rearrange her whole look and give her a makeover in my mind.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  Because I'm like, oh, if she had her hair like this, or if she put this makeup on, if she wore this, like, she would look so cute. Like, I would just give people different looks, just using my imagination. So it was just always like my thing.

• 12:33Guy Raz?

  Yeah, I guess, growing up, I mean, you mentioned your mom worked at the hospital, and your mom, I guess, encouraged you to think about pursuing nursing as a profession, because it is a great, stable job.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  Of course, it's a great job, and it's recession-proof. But yeah, so I think that parents also have a very unique way of manipulating their kids into getting their kids to do what they want. I think that my mom was like putting me in situations like, look, if you go to nursing school, this is what you'll have. Like, look at all my nurse friends.

• 13:04Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  So, you know, I, um, I was a good kid. I thought that was my only route to be successful, because, you know, I didn't grow up seeing women entrepreneurs, let alone like black women that were running and operating business. Like, that was nonexistent when I was growing up. I saw women that struggled and took care of their families. And the black women that I did see that were successful were in entertainment. They were models and actresses.

• 13:33Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  And so, growing up, you know, I thought that I can be a model.

• 13:38Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  And I used to like drag my mom to take me to pageants and go to like different model calls to model for like hair companies. And my mom, she never said it, but it was like her actions show, like, you're not gonna make it in this beauty space. And so, my dreams of what I wanted to do, of being in the beauty industry, I just kind of like put my dreams to the wayside and did what my mom told me to do.

• 14:03Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 14:03Speaker 01

  And so, I went to nursing school and became a nurse at the age of 22.

• 14:07Guy Raz?

  So, let's talk about nursing. I mean, what was that life for you? You were... I imagine a typical day was just 10, 12 hour days, just, just day in, day out.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  It was not enjoyable, to say the least. I started in labor and delivery because as a young 22 year old nurse, I said, I want to work with women because I can relate to women and I think I'll be a better nurse, uh, working with people that look like me. So what I enjoyed the most about nursing was serving and helping people.

• 14:39Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  Like getting to know families and, you know, just meeting people. Like, that's what I enjoyed. I enjoyed the thrill of, you know, when a patient comes in and we have to run into the OR and we have to hurry up and start IVs. Like, I enjoyed like the adrenaline rush of being a nurse and like saving lives. Like, I did enjoy that. But it was just like the day to day taxing, the hours, um, because I worked nights because I had my first daughter and, you know, I didn't trust anyone to watch her. So my husband and I, we would, um, rotate shifts. And so I worked the night shift. And it was, I still look back to this day and I'm like, I'm so thankful that I don't work nights. I appreciate and value my sleep so much.

• 15:22Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  Because it was so taxing on my body. I remember days having to drive home and having to pull over on the side of the road to go to sleep so I don't fall asleep on the expressway.

• 15:33Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  It just really got to me and I felt burnt out very fast after like one year of working as a nurse.

• 15:40Guy Raz?

  Was it clear to you pretty early on, this was not what you were going to do with your life?

• 15:45Speaker 01

  Yep, very clear. Um, I remember like when I first started and I stepped on the floor of labor and delivery, I dealt with more senior nurses and senior personnel that worked in the hospital that were not too friendly. They're not nice. They were mean, quite frankly. And, you know, I would ask myself, why is everybody so mean?

• 16:08Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 16:08Speaker 01

  And it dawned on me very early, like, they're mean because they don't like being here. And I just told myself then, I was like, this is not what I want to do for the rest of my life. I have to find other things to make money so I can get out of this career. Like, that was my mindset.

• 16:23Guy Raz?

  Would you go home and, you know, I mean, you'd come home at six in the morning or something, and Melvin was probably asleep, but when both of you were awake and talking, would you sort of say, what can, I've got ideas, there's things I want to do. Would you, do you remember having those conversations with him?

• 16:38Speaker 01

  So, the funny thing is, even before I became a nurse, I've always had this spirit of independence, autonomy, like, I've always been a visionary, a dreamer. And before I even became a nurse, Melvin and I, we had, you know, we got sucked up into the direct sales.

• 16:55Guy Raz?

  The multi-level marketing stuff?

• 16:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:58Guy Raz?

  Would you go to the seminars and learn about them?

• 17:02Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. Like, we, I was probably like nineteen or twenty in nursing school.

• 17:08Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  And I remember the direct sales company that we were sucked into was called ACN. It was like a cable company.

• 17:17Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 17:17Speaker 01

  And so, we would go to these seminars, and I remember, it was this husband and wife couple, and they painted this visual, like, all direct sale companies do, you're going to be rich overnight, and you're going to live this amazing lavish lifestyle.

• 17:33Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  If you just sell all of whatever we were selling at the time.

• 17:36Guy Raz?

  Yeah. It was cable subscriptions.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  It was cable subscriptions, correct. And I remember, we would host these, like, parties.

• 17:43Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  To get people to buy into these subscriptions. When I tell you, no one bought into those subscriptions, and we were like, what is this? Like, I did not sell any cable subscriptions. So, and I did not become a millionaire overnight, like they promised.

• 17:57Guy Raz?

  I know that you also did, like, Mary Kay, or Avon, or some of that, at some time?

• 18:02Speaker 01

  When I tell you I did, like, so many direct sales, because they would always sell me with the life that I wanted. And I thought I would get it by, you know, buying into this direct sales business. And it was cheap. So I didn't have a lot of money. Melvin didn't have a lot of money. So Mary Kay was like a hundred dollars or two hundred dollars to join. And so that was my second encounter with direct sales. So I would host like Mary Kay parties and I did that for a while. And I just knew I was gonna get the pink Cadillac. I was going to be the, the national sales director of my region. That was my goal. And I think at that time, I was probably like 21.

• 18:44Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  Did that for a while and you know, that never got off the ground. I did probably sell like a few more lipsticks than cable subscriptions. But it wasn't anything that could pay my bills.

• 18:57Guy Raz?

  But what was, what was Melvin doing, by the way?

• 18:59Speaker 01

  He was, he worked at UPS. So he started at UPS when he was 16. So he started as a, um, the guys that packed the boxes and put them on the truck. I don't know what they're called. Uh, he started there, but he, before he came on to Myel, he was a project engineer. So he went to school, became an engineer and he just worked his way up.

• 19:20Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  And so they're saying at UPS is like they bleed brown. And when I tell you like, that was his saying, like he bled brown. Because he really thought that he was gonna climb the corporate ladder and be like the VP of UPS one day. That was his like goal to do.

• 19:36Guy Raz?

  I'm curious about something, which is I read you described yourself as that naturally you're not a salesperson. Like you don't feel comfortable going up to people and selling things. But I, and so what was that like doing Mary Kay or selling cable subscriptions? Like, did you have to like break out of your shell and fear of doing that? How did you do it?

• 19:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a great question because I'm not a talker. I'm an introverted person by nature, but I forced myself to come out of my shell.

• 20:10Speaker 01

  In order to get a job done. And I do credit that to working as a nurse. Because I had to deal with so many different patients from all different walks of life. And I learned very early on how to develop like rapport with people and how to connect and engage with people. And make them feel very comfortable with me. And I took the same skill set of making people feel comfortable from nursing. And I applied that to business. So I learned how to push myself to talk more and to be more interactive and engaged with people at a level where I'm uncomfortable, where it scares me. And I know that if I'm scared, that I'm challenging myself. And you can only grow from those type of challenges.

• 20:54Guy Raz?

  Yeah. Those were not the only businesses you tried out. You tried a few more out, including at a certain point, you thought maybe you would start your own nursing agency, like home care agency. And I think you even did the paperwork to start that business. But that sort of didn't go anywhere. What, tell me what happened?

• 21:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, so as I mentioned, I got burnt out after a year of working as a nurse. So I stopped working at the hospital. And I decided to start working agency. When you work agency, your pay is also more. So I'm like, okay, this nursing agency, they're paying me this. And they have these contracts with these hospitals. I wonder how much they're getting paid.

• 21:34Guy Raz?

  They're getting paid, yeah.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so that was my thinking. And I'm like, I think I can do this. Let me start my own agency.

• 21:41Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 21:42Speaker 01

  So I started Googling like, you know, what are the steps that I need to take to create a nursing agency? So I did the whole business plan myself. And then I realized like, how am I going to establish contracts with the hospitals? That was the part I couldn't figure out.

• 21:59Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  And so I easily, I quickly got discouraged. And I'm like, okay, this is not for me. Like, who am I to think that I can like, start this company? Like, you don't know anything about business. Why don't you go back to like what you know? And that's working as a nurse?

• 22:13Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  You know, I think it's just the fact of like, you know, you can't be what you don't see. And I'll be honest with you. Like, I thought that being a business person or business owner, entrepreneur, or whatever, like, I thought it was something for like white men.

• 22:27Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  Like, I didn't even think that like, Black women could even do this. So it was like the negative voices in my head were always telling me like, this is not your lane. Like, what are you doing? You have no experience, no knowledge in this. Like, I would let the thoughts of doubt and fear be louder than like the faith and believing in myself.

• 22:45Guy Raz?

  Were you, it sounds like you were still practicing as a nurse and trying out these different things that weren't working, but it, I think what's so cool about what you were doing at the time, and maybe it was just, I don't know, a combination of perseverance or just energy or just dreaming, but you kept trying things.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I still kept trying. And then at even one point, I said, okay, well, if entrepreneurship is not something for me, let me go back to school and let me try to further my nursing career. Because then if I advance my degree in nursing, I can open up my own practice as a nurse practitioner. So in 2009, I enrolled back into school to advance and get a master's degree and become a nurse practitioner. And in 2009, that's when I got pregnant with my second daughter. And she ended up coming like two months early. So I don't know if you know this, but both of my daughters were born on my birthday.

• 23:45Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's like our fun fact.

• 23:49Guy Raz?

  That's a one out of 365 chance, twice.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, twice, yes.

• 23:54Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  And they were both early. So Mia, she was only a month early. And then Mackenzie, who's my youngest, she was supposed to come in January. And she was an emergency C-section. And she, when she was born, she was a fighter. She's a tough one, and she's still tough to this day. And, but she stayed in the hospital for two months in order for her to grow and just develop.

• 24:15Guy Raz?

  She was, she was little when she was born?

• 24:17Speaker 01

  She was a preemie. Yeah, she was two pounds, seven ounces. So she stayed in the NICU. So of course, I'm in school and I'm like, okay, I'm not going to focus on school. So I dropped out of the program.

• 24:27Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  And then, you know, when she came home and she was a baby, I still wanted to watch her closely. So that's when I transitioned to being a home health nurse.

• 24:37Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  When she came home.

• 24:39Guy Raz?

  I know that your, your next pregnancy in 2013 was a traumatic experience. It started out as a high-risk. Pregnancy, you were eventually rushed to the hospital. And I'm sure it's hard to talk about, but I know it was an important turning point in your life. Can you, can you tell me what happened?

• 25:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you know, I don't mind talking about it because honestly, like when I talk about it, I feel that like I'm honoring my son and because you know, he's the reason why, obviously God sent him to be my angel, but Myel wouldn't exist if it wasn't for what I went through. And so in 2013, got pregnant and we were not trying, so it was a surprise. And I was already nervous about the pregnancy because of how high risk McKenzie was. And I remember the doctor told me when she saved McKenzie's life, she said, I cut your uterus up and down.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  That's like for emergencies and usually when you have a C-section, the cut on the uterus is like transverse, so it goes across horizontal, I guess. And so she told me, she said, because I cut you up and down, if you have a subsequent pregnancy, make sure you tell your doctor because you will be at risk for a uterine rupture.

• 26:06Guy Raz?

  Oh, wow.

• 26:07Speaker 01

  And so he was scheduled to come in September and unfortunately it happened. The uterine rupture happened on August 9th at in the middle of the night. My husband had to rush me, he had just came home, thank God, he had to rush me to the hospital. You know, I didn't live by any like high risk hospitals. And I think my doctor was at home and so it took him forever to get there to the hospital to do the emergency C-section. So because it took him so long to get there, my son's heart rate continued to drop. And you know, he continued to lose oxygen to the brain. So when he was born, there was no brain activity.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  And you know, it was just, it was just devastating and he, um, you know, we didn't let go right away because we held on to our faith and we said, we're gonna continue to pray that God brings him through, but unfortunately we had to. Deal with God's will. And my son, he stayed on life support for six months because that's how long we it took us to really come to terms with the fact that he was no longer with us. And, you know, it was just, it was a terrible like moment because we will watch his, like, he would grow, like, in the physical, like, his body would just grow, but, you know, there was, he was lifeless.

• 27:31Guy Raz?

  Did you, I mean, here you are, still a young mom with two girls who still need you, you're their mom.

• 27:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:40Guy Raz?

  You know, they weren't, probably your older daughter kind of knew what was going on, but they still need mom.

• 27:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:45Guy Raz?

  How did you just work through the depression and, you know, that, you know, that you experienced?

• 27:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's the thing, like, that's looking at them because they were three and seven.

• 28:01Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 28:02Speaker 01

  I knew they needed me to be their mom. Even though I was hurting, I was sad, like, I still had to show up. Probably the hardest thing was like explaining to them, seeing their mom leave them with a big belly, but then to come home with nothing. When we've talked about, you know, this baby and you're gonna be a big sister, like, that was the hardest thing to, like, tell them. But our faith was what we had to hang on to. We were not churchgoers before. But during the time that he was on life support, we were at church at the altar every Sunday. And we began to be at peace with God's decision.

• 28:45Speaker 01

  And even though we didn't understand it, we didn't understand why, but it wasn't for us to question. And, you know, that pain, that situation ultimately led me to a higher purpose. And I tell people this all the time, like, yes, I have a hair company, I sell shampoos, conditioners, but ultimately, I'm very vocal about how my vision of starting Myel came from God, deciding to put God first, is when I had the vision to just go on social media and just talk about hair. It was just me getting my mind off of, like, you know, the loss of my son and finding a routine that, like, kept me busy.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  Like, doing things that I love is what kept me from being depressed.

• 29:33Guy Raz?

  When we come back in just a moment, how Monique's beauty hobby wound up planting the seeds of what would become her own new business. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This.

• 29:54Guy Raz?

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• 30:38Guy Raz?

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• 31:21Guy Raz?

  NetSuite Next surfaces insights exactly when you need them, puts agents to work on routine tasks and problems, and lets you ask complex questions in plain language, like talking to a knowledgeable colleague. But technology is only part of the story. AI is also reshaping how people and teams work together, and that shift is already underway. That's why NetSuite wants to put a new expert-created business guide in your hands today. It's called Aligning for the Agentic Era: How AI is Changing Everyday Work. And right now, it's yours, absolutely free. Inside, you'll discover how AI could reshape work across your entire organization, and how to position your business to prosper from it.

• 32:06Guy Raz?

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• 32:25Speaker 02

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• 32:56Guy Raz?

  One more thing before we get back to the show. Please make sure to click the Follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And it's totally free.

• 33:12Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2014, and Monique is coping with the death of her son. And she finds that it helps to stay busy. So she starts to get on social media and share hair care tips. And Monique says she wasn't really thinking about her beauty hobby as a potential business, at least at first.

• 33:33Speaker 01

  It was a way to just creatively express myself.

• 33:36Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 33:36Speaker 01

  And I was expressing myself with like, you know, hey, this is this hairstyle I made today. Like, I'm making this concoction. I'm mixing together like some avocado, banana, some oils, and I'm gonna put this conditioner on my hair. Like, let me know what you guys think.

• 33:53Guy Raz?

  You would take, like, literally avocado and bananas and mash them up?

• 33:56Speaker 01

  Oh, of course. And I would do a lot of researching because I had heat damage hair.

• 34:02Guy Raz?

  Heat damage from straightening it?

• 34:04Speaker 01

  From straightening my hair, yep. So from the age of like 12 until like my late twenties, my hair was always straight. Like I didn't want to embrace my curls. And I would figure out and read online like, okay, what ingredients are great for like restoring the curl pattern or helping seal the hair cuticle or the structure and the strength of the hair. So I would just like literally sit on the computer and just order like different oils and like test it on myself. And I would just like post about it on social media. And I found so much joy in doing that because women were like asking more questions because they were dealing with some of the same hair challenges and hair issues.

• 34:44Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 34:44Speaker 01

  And so that's why I tell people like, I wasn't planning on creating a product line because I would actually share like the different concoction recipes. I would post it on social media to help other women. And when I see people are just like so happy and they're amazed with their results, like that makes me happy. That gives me joy.

• 35:02Guy Raz?

  At that time was Instagram. Could you put videos on Instagram or was it still just static?

• 35:07Speaker 01

  It was just pictures. Yep. It was just pictures. Yep.

• 35:09Guy Raz?

  So you would have a picture of you, I'm assuming.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 35:13Guy Raz?

  And then maybe in the description, you describe what you use and what and how you made it, which is, which really is the best of social media. Like I love that. Like I follow all these cooking people because I look at what they're cooking and then I want to make it. And essentially that's what you were doing. You were offering up recipes.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was offering up recipes to whoever, whoever wanted those recipes. So it wasn't to the point where like I even had like a formula that you can actually market and sell. So for instance, I would make like, because I knew my hair needed protein. And so as I was researching, I'm like, okay, egg has a lot of protein. And so I would make conditioners and I would mix egg into that conditioner.

• 35:54Guy Raz?

  You crack an egg into it.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  Yes. And then I would put it on my hair.

• 35:58Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 35:58Speaker 01

  And so this is like trial and error. And women were actually making the exact recipes and trying it and experimenting on their hair as well. And I was like, that showed me at that moment like, oh, I have influence. They're taking what I'm saying and they're, they see value in it. And they're actually like recreating it. So that was a light bulb moment for me to like show, are you going to take this influence and use it the right way? And grow and scale this? Or are you going to just look at this as a hobby and continue just having fun with it?

• 36:36Guy Raz?

  And you had roughly how many followers at that time?

• 36:39Speaker 01

  Oh, like, like 500.

• 36:41Guy Raz?

  500, okay. Yeah. But I mean, even with such a small following, I mean, that kind of positive feedback, I guess, helped you start to think about opening your own business, a beauty business. And I guess your initial idea was like a salon, maybe featuring your own hair care products?

• 36:59Speaker 01

  Yes, right. I wanted to make my own products in this hair salon. And so I had like, put together like a plan of creating a hair salon. And I remember telling my husband this, and my husband would always encourage me to, because I would have those days where I would just sit and, you know, just probably stare at the wall. And he's like, no, get up, like, get out your plan. What are you gonna do next? Let's do something. So he would always push and encourage me to, because he saw that when I started focusing on stuff that had to do with hair, my face would light up, or I would be happy, or I would be focused.

• 37:31Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 37:31Speaker 01

  And so when I thought of the idea for the hair salon, he was just like, okay, we're gonna do it. So I knew, I'm very self-aware. I understand my weaknesses. I understand the areas that I'm really good at. And the areas that I'm weak, I go find help. And I knew that I did not have any knowledge of business. I knew that I did not have any knowledge of how to build a brand, how to market on social media. So I would go online and listen to podcasts. And How I Built This was one of the podcasts that I would binge-listen to. I would find workshops that were talking about branding and marketing.

• 38:11Speaker 01

  And so I went to one workshop, and she was a famous celebrity hairstylist who's from Chicago. And she was doing a workshop on how to build your brand on social media. And I presented my idea to her and I said, I'm really looking to like, open up a hair salon. And she's like, I think that what you're trying to do is really great, but you know, with you being a nurse and going into the salon space and having all of these cosmetologists work under you, it's really hard to get them to respect you because you don't come from their space.

• 38:46Guy Raz?

  Interesting.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  And so, when she gave me that advice, I didn't take it as like, oh, she's hating on my vision. I actually thought about it. It was like food for thought. And you know, I appreciated her advice because it was the way that she delivered her advice. I mean, I wouldn't have started Myel and blew up how I have if it wasn't for me talking to her because I clearly wanted to start a hair salon.

• 39:08Guy Raz?

  A salon and she giving you this, because you're right. I mean, that can be really dispiriting. You know, you're thinking, what am I gonna do now? But, but really what it did was, instead of taking the left fork in the road, it forced you to take the right fork in the road, which was, which was to make-

• 39:23Speaker 01

  To just focus on the products. Yep. And the thought was, well, if I can create products, I can just do that in my home, just make it and sell it and it'll be a happy day and I don't have to deal with anybody.

• 39:33Guy Raz?

  And the name Myel, I think it's a, it's like a combination of your daughter's names and their middle names, right?

• 39:40Speaker 01

  Yep, yep. So I have, my first daughter is Mia Gabrielle. My second daughter is Mackenzie Ariel. So they both have L at the end of their middle names and I like to say that they're mines. They're my L's, but in actuality, like, it's really a combination of all my kids' names. Uh, my son's name was Milan.

• 39:58Guy Raz?

  Milan, yeah. So, you knew that you were gonna focus on products. But what was the first product you were gonna try to do? How did you start to think about what that could be?

• 40:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, so my first product was an oil because as Black women, we're always oil in our scalp.

• 40:17Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  And so, one of the oils that I started with really focused on scalp. And I knew that like the foundation of healthy hair is having a healthy scalp. So I decided to, um, one of the carrier oils was almond oil.

• 40:34Guy Raz?

  When you say carrier oil, it means the oil that you like you put extracts in it.

• 40:38Speaker 01

  That's like the base.

• 40:39Guy Raz?

  The base, okay, got it, got it, yeah.

• 40:40Speaker 01

  So sometimes if you put essential oils directly on the scalp, it can burn and irritate the scalp.

• 40:45Guy Raz?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  So you kind of have to like dilute it with something. And almond oil has a lot of protein in it. And I decided to, uh, mix it with like peppermint oil because peppermint is an essential oil. And I wanted to use the almond oil as a carrier oil. And so with my first product, the almond oil, like I would show how my hair would be so shiny. Like I would show how I would use it in my hair regimen, how I would use it as like a hot oil treatment. I would literally, everything that I did on my hair using it, I would post like everything.

• 41:18Guy Raz?

  So you have this product, right? It's almond mint oil.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 41:22Guy Raz?

  And how are you going to then sell it? Were you gonna make it yourself and put it in like little glass bottles with a tincture? And kind of make a label for it? Or, or was that how you were gonna start initially?

• 41:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, so at that point, I knew that I needed to find a chemist. Because of course I have a science background, but I'm not a chemist. So I knew that I needed to find a chemist that can help me actually to create formulas that work for the hair. And that's how I started. So I found, um, a local manufacturer to bottle it, package it. And I think I started with like silk print at the time because I think it was cheaper.

• 41:59Guy Raz?

  Let me ask you about the economics of this. Cause you were, obviously you were a nurse and you had a pretty good income. And your husband was rising up the ranks at UPS. But still like, there is an outlay you have to put in, probably a few, maybe 10,000, maybe more, $20,000.

• 42:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you know, and to get the business like to launch the website, up until that point, I had spent about $10,000.

• 42:24Guy Raz?

  And this is just saving money from your job?

• 42:28Speaker 01

  I like to say that it was like on low way. So I, every time I got paid, I would probably take the majority of my paycheck and pay for something. So if this week I needed to get my website done, okay, I would tell the web designer, well, I get paid on Friday. If I owed my website designer 500, I would budget for to pay him or her 500 dollars. And if I needed to like order some more like inventory or products, that would probably cost me like another, like let's just say 500 dollars. So I knew that by Friday, when I get paid, I'm gonna be left with whatever. And I'm gonna divvy that up on something else that I need and then pay my bills and take care of my kids.

• 43:09Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 43:10Speaker 01

  So that's kinda how like up until I was able to gather everything that I needed to have in order to launch uh when I launched in May.

• 43:17Guy Raz?

  May 23rd, 2014, your website goes live. You are still working as a nurse, which I think is really smart. Usually, you're not gonna make any money right away.

• 43:26Speaker 01

  Correct, yep.

• 43:27Guy Raz?

  So you would have people on Instagram, you would say, go to the website to order.

• 43:30Speaker 01

  Yep, go to the website. So I like built up so much anticipation and momentum that I was doing something.

• 43:36Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  And what I learned is to like really spark curiosity in people.

• 43:42Guy Raz?

  In the post, you were saying, I'm working on a product, like you told people months in advance?

• 43:46Speaker 01

  Yep, and I would take everyone, whoever was following me, I would take them on the journey of me creating this product.

• 43:52Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 43:52Speaker 01

  So I made people feel like they were a part. And people tell me to this day, like, I remember when you were testing samples in the lab, because they felt like they were a part of it. So, I mean, I would even ask like, what color do you prefer? Or like, which um product looks the most enticing to you? Like, I would ask questions and that's how I became curious to know like, you know, what does my audience want? Like, what are they looking for? Like, what are some of the problems and the issues that they're facing? Because if I could understand their problems, then I know that when I launch a product, the product is going to be a solution to their problem.

• 44:27Guy Raz?

  And you didn't have thousands of followers. You had hundreds of followers. It wasn't like you were Kylie Jenner, not to pick on her, but she had, you know, millions of followers when she started her brand. So, I mean, you had like a few hundred followers.

• 44:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, not a lot at all. And I just, you know, I didn't let that discourage me because I felt that like if I can just grow and sell a great product, the best way of marketing is word of mouth. If they like the product, they're gonna come back and buy more and they're gonna tell their friends about it. So I really focused on like the benefits of the product and show the results. So the day that we launched, even though I started with one product, which was an oil, it sold out.

• 45:07Guy Raz?

  How many bottles did you sell?

• 45:09Speaker 01

  Um, I think I had like a hundred.

• 45:10Guy Raz?

  Wow. And I have to assume it was you and Melvin. Like in your house, like packaging them up and like putting the labels on them and sending them off?

• 45:19Speaker 01

  Yep. So, yeah, it was just me and him. And I remember he had said in the car, because we were driving home as the orders were coming in, and he's like, what is in this oil? Like, what did you do? I was like, I don't know, but we're on to something. So let's go home and pack these orders. And so that was the first day that we launched. And I was not expecting orders to come the second day because I'm like, OK, maybe all the people that that supported and bought for me, they're probably all my followers. And they don't need to buy any more oil. So now we gotta like wait till they come back to be repeat customers. The next day, more oil sold. The next day, more oil sold.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  And I will tell you, from the day that we launched, May 23, 2014, we have not gone a day without having sales on our website.

• 46:09Guy Raz?

  Wow. One of the things that is a challenge when you're, when you start out, right? And especially when you're successful is that people think that success instantly equals to having lots of money, but actually it can be a big challenge because you don't have enough money to scale, you know, especially if you're spending everything that's coming in to make more product. And just from like a business perspective, I mean, on the one hand, it was exciting, people ordering things. But I imagine that making a profit was challenging initially, especially because your ingredients were expensive.

• 46:42Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Our ingredients and our packaging was like very expensive. But we were able to do OK because there was no middleman. So we were able to generate a decent amount of profit in the beginning. But, you know, everything that we generated, you know, we bootstrapped our company for so long until we got into retail. But as long as we were like online, selling direct to consumer, we were doing OK. But we just invested that right back into more product and marketing.

• 47:11Guy Raz?

  Tell me about how you, I mean, you and Melvin are, you're not celebrities, you were, you had no connections.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:18Guy Raz?

  You're entering a space that's dominated by three, four companies, right?

• 47:22Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 47:22Guy Raz?

  And so you're up against There's a lot that's working against you. So how did you get into that world? How did you find people to work with and to help you kind of get to the next step and to expand? Did you, would you go to like trade shows? Or would you? Yeah, tell me what you did.

• 47:43Speaker 01

  We did a lot of trade shows in the beginning. So as I mentioned, like I would go online and find like different workshops that I could attend. I would also, you know, join these like natural hair communities and all of these natural hair sites. And so I was able to meet and connect with a lot of great people just by going to trade shows. Like one of the manufacturers that I work with today, I met someone that introduced me to them at a trade show. Some of our marketing that we did early on was a connection made at a trade show. So, you know, it's just getting out there and networking and, you know, just showing up. Every show that we did, you know, even though we didn't have a lot of money,

• 48:26Speaker 01

  you can tell that we put a lot of love and effort into like our displays and how everything looked. People would just come over and talk to us and want to learn more and figure out how they can help us scale. And they also found out like that we were actually real cool people and very humble people that, you know, they wanted to work with. And so a lot of the connections came from consumer trade shows and also B to B trade shows.

• 48:49Guy Raz?

  Yeah. And was it just you and Melvin for the first year or so?

• 48:54Speaker 01

  For the first year, it was, yeah, it was me and Melvin. And then we had brought on, we started working with like an outside contractor that was like doing marketing for us. Because all of the marketing, that was like me just doing it, just.

• 49:12Guy Raz?

  Instagram.

• 49:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, off of Instagram. And I found her at about six months. And I knew that like influencers was a huge part of my strategy of like bringing on people and, you know, finding like brand ambassadors and micro influencers that we can work with. And she helped me secure like one of the big influencers that I had worked with at that time.

• 49:32Guy Raz?

  Tell me about the, the capital outlay. Like, I mean, today to get influencers, it's a, I mean, obviously it's a big business and it costs money. But in 2014, 2015, did you have to spend a lot of money to get influencers to work with you?

• 49:47Speaker 01

  I mean, you know, at that time, it was a lot of money to me. When I look back, I'm like, no, that wasn't a lot of money. But I would say I probably, I think, I think my first influencer was like $3,000 per post.

• 50:01Guy Raz?

  Yeah. That's, yeah, I mean, and that's, that's a lot for a small business. Cause you were probably

• 50:06Speaker 01

  That's a lot.

• 50:07Guy Raz?

  Still well under a million dollars in sales, I imagine.

• 50:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:12Guy Raz?

  Did you, I mean, one of the things that, that being at a trade show also is, you've got to talk about your product and you've got to kind of be out there.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:22Guy Raz?

  And so, how did you do that? How did you, like, people you wanted to approach and maybe work with? How did you get through your introversion to do that?

• 50:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, so honestly, I, I had to learn how to get out of my own way. That's number one. So I'll just use this as an example. So the first influencer that we worked with was, I guess she was a celebrity influencer at the time. And I saw that she was going to be at this beauty event. And it was in Detroit. You know, I'm in Chicago. So I called my friends and I'm like, we're going to drive to Detroit. I want to go to this event because I want to talk to this influencer and I want to just, just give her my products and just see if she likes it.

• 51:04Guy Raz?

  And was she a beauty influencer or a hair influencer in particular?

• 51:07Speaker 01

  She was neither. She was just, she was on a reality show and she just had really beautiful hair. I knew that like, I'm like, she has beautiful hair. She starts talking about like what she's doing with her hair and she starts talking about it with my product. People are going to buy my product because of her. And so my friends, they were game. They're like, okay, we'll drive to Detroit with you. And so I had set up a table. It was a booth display and she was speaking and then they opened it up for like questions in the audience.

• 51:34Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 51:34Speaker 01

  And I said, okay, Monique, here's your chance. Don't blow it, just say it. And so I raised my hand. When I tell you like, I was probably sweating under my arms. I was so nervous, but I forgot what I, or what question I asked. But I, the last thing I said to her was, and I just started a product line. It's called My L Organics and it's for natural hair and I see that you have natural hair. And she was like, yes, I have natural hair. Just meet me on the side and let me try your product. So then I followed up a week later and, you know, we ended up doing a contract together. And so she became the first influencer.

• 52:09Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 52:10Speaker 01

  But it happened because of like me getting out of my way and not being afraid to like, you know, say something.

• 52:16Guy Raz?

  Yeah. You, through all of this networking work you did, you land your first retail shop, which is Sally Beauty, which is a massive chain of stores. And I think you got into like 90 or 95 stores initially. Tell me how that happened. How did you get in? I mean, I have to assume it's hard to get into one of these stores.

• 52:38Speaker 01

  It's extremely hard to get into retail. Like, and the funny thing is, I didn't even realize how hard it was because it kind of like fell into our laps. So we had built up so much great momentum. We were selling product like hotcakes. And, you know, we had a lot of social media buzz and this was only year one. And we were also selling in like, you know, your mom and pop beauty supply stores. And so it was a black owned beauty supply store that had called me. And she was like, you know, your products are just selling crazy in this store.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  I need to introduce you to this lady and she has like all the retail connections and she can help get you into like the major stores. And so I kind of just like blew her off and I was like, okay, yeah, just give me your number. And I took her number, never called the lady. So the beauty supply owner calls me again. She's like, did you call her? Like, I told her that she was expecting your call. And, you know, I probably got distracted, busy, still didn't call the lady. So the third time she gets on a call with my husband and I, like, we happened to be on a call together. So she puts me on blast in front of my husband. She was like, yeah, I've been telling Monique to call this lady.

• 53:56Speaker 01

  You know, she has great connections with retails and the way your products are moving in my store, like you guys should really just entertain her and give her a call. And so my husband's like, oh, well, give me your number. I'll call her. Because again, like my fear was like the fear of rejection. Like, I didn't know what to say to her. So I kind of just let like my own fear and like doubt keep me from calling her or keep, you know, I was procrastinating. Well, my husband, like, he is extroverted and he's very persistent. So he's, I'm gonna call this lady, I'm gonna see what she's talking about. He calls her, she flies out to Chicago and she comes to see, like, um, we put together, like, this little mini presentation. And it was really just like our analytics of like, how we were selling online.

• 54:41Speaker 01

  And the chart that we showed her, like, literally blew her mind. And she was like, this, this is just unbelievable. Wait, you guys started in, you started this year? Yeah, we're like, yeah, we started in May. And she was like, no, I've never seen this before.

• 54:58Guy Raz?

  When we come back in just a moment, how that conversation changed the trajectory of Monique's homegrown business. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This.

• 55:24Speaker 03

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• 56:02Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. So it's the summer of 2015 and Monique and Melvin happen to be at a gymnastics tournament with their girls in Dallas. And the headquarters of that all-important national chain, Sally's Beauty, is just 45 minutes away, which turns out to be really serendipitous.

• 56:22Speaker 01

  So we get a call from this broker and she goes, hey, Sally's, they're very interested. They heard about what you guys are doing on social media. They are very excited about this brand. They want to meet you guys. And, you know, we were like, oh, okay, well, we're already in Dallas, but, you know, we're here with our kids and, you know, we don't have a babysitter and we don't have anything to wear. And she was like, they're like, bring your kids to this meeting. They really want to meet with you guys. And I'm like, how do we go to this corporate meeting and we're bringing our kids? They're like, you know, five and nine. I'm like, they're not going to sit still. And so we're like, hey, we're just gonna make it happen. And so we ended up bringing our kids to this meeting. And we sat in Sally's corporate boardroom and I remember telling my kids, I'm like, this is a very important meeting.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  Just sit in the corner, keep your hands crossed, don't say a word.

• 57:09Guy Raz?

  Hope you had a lot of crayons.

• 57:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 57:13Speaker 01

  So what's so special about like that moment is because like now they're teenagers. And they were a part of like the beginning to see their mom following their dreams.

• 57:24Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 57:24Speaker 01

  But you know, Sally's were like, you know, we're gonna test you guys in about 95 stores because you guys are new. And I'm like, hey, I'm just happy to be in 95 stores.

• 57:34Guy Raz?

  How did you, because one of the challenges, you've got to scale up, right? You've got to, you need the cash to provide them with all of the product they need for the stores. And you guys were still bootstrapped. It was you and Melvin.

• 57:48Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 57:48Guy Raz?

  It was your company. How did you all of a sudden go from making a few hundred items a week to thousands?

• 57:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I knew that was the next question. Because we knew that we were going into Sally's. So that was in the summer of 2015. Remember the trade show that I mentioned that I was at? That I met someone that connected me to the manufacturer that we currently work with today?

• 58:12Guy Raz?

  Yep.

• 58:13Speaker 01

  So it was like, timing is everything. Because the previous manufacturer that we were working with in Chicago that was very small. They could not keep up with our supply and demand just with our online orders. And then connecting us with a manufacturer that allowed us payment terms. We started off with like 30 day terms. And so that allowed us more flexibility with like, you know, our money. But then we knew that like we needed to support the retail shelf because it's very expensive to go in retail. You have to like, you know, pay them for like, there's a percentage of like, um, their marketing and what they're gonna do to support your brand. So you're paying

• 58:54Speaker 01

  for that. Um, so there are like a lot of different factors and numbers that were coming off top. And looking at our numbers and our balance sheet, we're like, okay, we're not gonna be able to afford all of this. Now we need a loan.

• 59:07Guy Raz?

  And how much money did you need?

• 59:09Speaker 01

  So we, um, I don't know if we actually knew how much we needed. I think that, uh, we just knew we needed a lot of money. Uh, so my husband, when he worked at UPS, he built a relationship with one of the contractors that provided services for UPS. And they became friends. And this was like, you know, well-off guy. And so when we needed the money, my husband's like, I know the perfect person to call. And so he called his friend and basically like showed him the same type of analytics, our website. And his friend was also blown away. He was like, wow, you guys are growing like this and you just started? And we were like, yeah, but here's the dilemma. We're about to go into retail. We have this offer

• 59:50Speaker 01

  on the table. We're launching in the 95 stores, but we need the money to support it. And so, um, his friend gave us a loan for 250 grand. And that 250 was like the push that we needed to like, you know, launch into Sally's.

• 1:00:06Guy Raz?

  And by the way, when you're 95 stores, because a lot of people think, okay, that's it, you've made it. But you're one of like 10,000 products in that store.

• 1:00:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:15Guy Raz?

  It's still really, really hard. It's why you see people like doing samples at the grocery store because it doesn't necessarily guarantee anything.

• 1:00:23Speaker 01

  Absolutely. It does not. People think it's nice and pretty to stand on a shelf, but listen, you are a s- small fish in a big pond.

• 1:00:31Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:31Speaker 01

  And you're competing against people that have way larger budgets that can pay to be on those shelves and can kick you off of those shelves if they want to. Um, so we launched in 95 stores and we listed every store on our website. We communicated that on social media. And I remember we were preparing to go to a trade show. It was February 19th, 2016. The reason why that date never leaves my head because that was a day that like, It was like crazy in the stores.

• 1:01:04Guy Raz?

  In the Sally's stores.

• 1:01:05Speaker 01

  In the Sally's stores because the day that we launched it, people went crazy.

• 1:01:10Guy Raz?

  Because you you announced it on your social channels.

• 1:01:12Speaker 01

  Just on Instagram.

• 1:01:14Guy Raz?

  And people went to those stores to find the products.

• 1:01:17Speaker 01

  They didn't go to those stores. They went to every Sally's store.

• 1:01:21Guy Raz?

  And there are like 3,000 of them.

• 1:01:23Speaker 01

  Yes, there are 3,000 stores. So they went to every store. And it got to the point where like our customers were harassing the store managers. They were calling corporate. They were angry because they were saying that she announced that she was going to be in Sally's on social media and we can't find our products.

• 1:01:42Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:43Speaker 01

  And so it got all the way up to like Sally's corporate office where they called the same broker that initiated all of this. And they asked her, they said, can you please call the MyL team? Please tell them to stop their efforts on social media because it is really causing chaos in our stores and we can't keep up.

• 1:01:59Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 1:02:00Speaker 01

  So, long story short, we went from 95 stores to 3,000 chain wide in less than six months. And that has never happened to a new brand.

• 1:02:11Guy Raz?

  So you start this brand in May of 2014. You're in Sally's by the end of 2015, I think.

• 1:02:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:17Guy Raz?

  Clearly, there was a demand for this. There was like a deep desire and demand for what you were making. And thousands and hundreds of, eventually millions of people, mainly women, felt like there wasn't a product out there for them.

• 1:02:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:31Guy Raz?

  Do you remember like the first year you guys hit a million dollars in sales?

• 1:02:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. So the first year we did about like 300 and I think it was 360 or 70,000. That was the first year. Year two, we did 2.7 million.

• 1:02:47Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 1:02:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:50Guy Raz?

  That is crazy. I mean, just think about that for a sec. You were posting on Instagram in early 2014.

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's like when I even say it and look back, it's like, wow.

• 1:03:02Guy Raz?

  I hope Melvin quit his job at that point.

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  At that point, so he quit his job in like 2016 because I quit six months after starting.

• 1:03:11Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:11Speaker 01

  And he quit like a year later. So he really tried to hold on because he he just knew that he was gonna keep his corporate job and and help build his brand. And it was to the point where the brand told him like, no, you're not gonna have time to do this. You're gonna focus on this brand and leave that job.

• 1:03:28Guy Raz?

  So, I mean, it seems like once you were in all of those Sally's. I know Target started carrying Myel in 2016. Did they come to you? Was it, did it get to the point where the big retailers started to come to you?

• 1:03:41Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. So, honestly, all the retailers that we're in, like, we never approached them. They all came to seek after us. So, once, like, Target got whim of what was going on in Sally's, we get the call from Target, like, hey, we want to meet with you all.

• 1:03:56Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:57Speaker 01

  We got the call from Walmart. And funny story, like, the call that we got from Walmart, we turned them down the first year. We didn't go into Walmart until, like, the second time that they reached out to us.

• 1:04:07Guy Raz?

  Why? You didn't feel...

• 1:04:08Speaker 01

  We were not ready. We were not ready. Like, you know, it's...

• 1:04:11Guy Raz?

  Because their demands are pretty intense.

• 1:04:13Speaker 01

  Exactly. Like, Walmart is the biggest retailer in the world. And if you mess up, you don't get a second chance. That's why I say being self-aware is so important. And being aware of, like, where you are in your business. And we knew at that moment, we were not able to afford to, like, keep up with their demands. You know, I tell a lot of entrepreneurs, it's OK to say no.

• 1:04:37Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:37Speaker 01

  It's about timing. And sometimes it's not the right time for you to say yes to what may look enticing, but it may very well not be what you need at that moment. And if we are the brand that we say we are, and we know that we're going to grow how we say we're going to grow, then Walmart will come back the next year. And they came back the next year.

• 1:04:57Guy Raz?

  Tell me, as you were growing, right? I mean, it started out with you and Melvin, and then you started with some contractors. How did you find people? How'd you source people? In part because you're not that far. You're about an hour away from Chicago.

• 1:05:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:11Guy Raz?

  You know, an hour out in Indiana. Was it hard to find people to... I mean, how did you find people to come and work with you?

• 1:05:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's hard to find people now, honestly.

• 1:05:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I think that like the challenge in the very beginning was like not knowing what to hire. I mean, we kind of just started with like where we knew that we were drowning. Customer service is like one of the first positions that we hired for because I was doing customer service in addition to marketing. And and then, once we started to grow and get bigger, again, it's like, you know, meeting people, going to like events, finding people on social media. And then, you know, I started growing more. I started meeting like mentors. So like Richard Lou Dennis is like one of my mentors.

• 1:05:57Guy Raz?

  Founder of.

• 1:05:58Speaker 01

  Shea Moisture.

• 1:05:59Guy Raz?

  Shea.

• 1:05:59Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:05:59Guy Raz?

  Yep.

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  And then, of course, one of my mentors is my sales broker. Like, we still have a relationship to this day. So, you know, recommendations from people that have been in this beauty space, I would make a lot of connections there as well.

• 1:06:15Guy Raz?

  You mentioned Rich Dennis, who obviously hugely successful in in the beauty space and now owns Essence Magazine and is a major investor. He made a significant investment in your company, I think, in in 2020 through his his fund. Already by that point, I mean, you were already in 100,000 stores, 30 products.

• 1:06:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:40Guy Raz?

  Obviously, he's a huge player in the industry and hugely influential, but I I'm curious, did you need the funding at that point? I mean, you were already well on your way to, you know, being a big brand.

• 1:06:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, we were well on our way, but we were also well on our way of closing our business.

• 1:07:01Guy Raz?

  Why?

• 1:07:01Speaker 01

  Because we were we were not profitable. So like, you know, now the story comes back full circle. So as I mentioned, we were doing well D to C with our profit margins. Because it was a healthy enough profit margin where like we were able to like do good things. Once we got into retail, our profit margins were like slash and half because remember, we went into retail with the still the high cost of goods. So and all of the other fees that are attached with like retail. We ended up spending a lot in marketing and retail. And this is where like, you know, understanding like your balance sheet, profit and loss statements.

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  Like even though my husband, like he's over finance now, but when we first started, like we didn't really have a good understanding of like how to run a business. So we were literally spending and not monitoring like what was going out and making sure that we were profitable. So top line was great. The company was growing. Like you said, we were in a hundred thousand stores. So on the outside looking in.

• 1:08:06Guy Raz?

  Growing a hundred and sixty, two hundred percent a year.

• 1:08:08Speaker 01

  Yep, on the outside looking in, like, you know, it looked amazing.

• 1:08:12Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:12Speaker 01

  But when you lift up the hood and you looked underneath the hood, everything was jacked up.

• 1:08:17Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:18Speaker 01

  We had to learn the hard way and it really humbled us. And so we appreciate and understand the importance of having a good CFO, a good accountant, because it makes a world of a difference.

• 1:08:29Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:29Speaker 01

  So when we got to the point of having new voices invest in us, that's how horrible our books were looking. So we needed that to stay afloat.

• 1:08:38Guy Raz?

  I really appreciate you telling this story because, you know, here you are four or five years in, just really successful, right? And as you say, on the outside, that's the impression and it was.

• 1:08:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:50Guy Raz?

  It is, it was super successful, but you can still drive a business into the ground if you don't manage it well.

• 1:08:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, it was a huge lesson, but a very valuable lesson. So, yeah.

• 1:09:04Guy Raz?

  When you, I think, got that investment from Rich Dennis, it was either before, right around the time of the pandemic.

• 1:09:13Speaker 01

  Yes, it was right before.

• 1:09:15Guy Raz?

  So pandemic happens and, you know, I've had this conversation, versions of it with a lot of D to C and retailers who were all freaking out, they're all panicking, you know, like what's going to happen? But in fact, in your space and beauty, it was the opposite. It actually had a huge impact because people were at home watching, you know, videos, seeing Instagram influencers and.

• 1:09:40Guy Raz?

  People actually start spending money on care, self-care. Did, what happened to the business that year?

• 1:09:47Speaker 01

  We experienced like 4X growth during the pandemic. So when I tell you we closed with Richelieu with New Voices in the February, the pandemic happened like a couple of weeks later. And I was scared. I'm like, okay, we just took all this money. Now we can't, like, what do we do? We had this like 200 and something page marketing plan. We can't do any of the things that we said we were going to do on this marketing plan. Like, how are we going to continue to sell product? The stores are closed. And I remember reaching out to Rich and I said, what do you recommend? And he was like, keep your foot on the gas pedal. And when he told me that, I was like, okay, it's go time.

• 1:10:31Speaker 01

  So I kept my foot on the gas pedal and I understood that I needed to pivot. And so I said, okay, what are people doing? They're going to be at home, they're going to be on their phones, watching TV. But mostly, they're going to be on their phones. So I told my team, I said, we need to be the brand that shows up every time they're on their phones. So we increased our content and let's focus on, you still need to be beautiful. Just because you're at home doesn't mean that you don't take a shower and you don't comb your hair. You still get up, you still beautify yourself because you still want to feel good and confident, even when you're at home, because that's going to make you feel better.

• 1:11:09Guy Raz?

  Um, you, um, obviously, there was a lot of interest from venture capital firms and private equity firms and all kinds of people probably knocking on your door to invest because they could see where this was going. And you guys would eventually raise a Series A reportedly.

• 1:11:32Guy Raz?

  Over a hundred million dollars in financing. I think Berkshire was the lead there.

• 1:11:38Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:11:39Guy Raz?

  Tell me about that process. I mean, usually when we talk to founders, it's like, oh, and then I went to like this firm and then this VC office and they were just really mean and they were asking all these horrible questions and they rejected me. Like, I think for you guys, it was the opposite. It was like, they were all desperately begging you to invest.

• 1:11:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, we were there because we waited and we were there because we also went through the rejection and not having money and, you know, looking for people to invest in us. What I did, I failed to mention is that in 2018, before we received the investment from Richard Liu, when we were upside down, we were in talks with an investment group for almost about a year. And this investment group, like, they were going to invest in us and waited until like the last hour to pull out and not invest. And I remember, previous CFO, when we were going through our challenges in 2018, I remember

• 1:12:40Speaker 01

  like a word of wisdom that he told us and he said, you know, "The best time to raise money, you know, is when you don't need it." And so that always stuck with me.

• 1:12:50Guy Raz?

  Because then you can call the tur- you can determine the terms.

• 1:12:52Speaker 01

  Exactly. And so that always stuck with me. So when we started seeing all of this, this growth in 2020, I told my husband, "I think we should raise another round." And so, once the firms found out that we were looking to go out and raise, like, they were chomping at the bits to like, get to us. I mean, we spoke to over like 60 different private equity firms that were all interested in like, speaking with us. And when I tell you, like, I was so exhausted, I was so drained, because I'm like, I have to tell this story again, and I was so nervous.

• 1:13:27Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:27Speaker 01

  Because, you know, I also, I suffer from like imposter syndrome, like, do I deserve to sit here, like, am I saying the right things and, you know? But again, it was a challenge, I pushed myself. And the other reason why we talked to all of these firms was because it was so exciting to these firms to see a black-owned company that was very profitable, that had such growth, and they had never seen it before. And that's like, the sad part about it.

• 1:13:54Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:54Speaker 01

  And we wanted to like, help shift mindsets and change that narrative. So even if they didn't invest in us, When they sit down with the next, you know, Monique and Melvin Rodriguez, it's not a shock factor. It's more normalized and they'll believe in that company that much more because of like what Monique and Melvin have done with Myel. So all in all, we narrowed it down after speaking to all of those people to partner with Berkshire because they were the firm that, you know, was really aligned with our vision. They had an amazing track record. They really helped us scale and grow and get to like, you know, our ultimate dream and that was to partner with a conglomerate like P and G.

• 1:14:34Guy Raz?

  In 2023, early in 2023, it was announced that P and G, Procter and Gamble would acquire Myel. So I mean, I have to assume that the talks were going on for quite a while and you probably had to stay really quiet.

• 1:14:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:14:47Guy Raz?

  And they acquired Myel for an undisclosed amount, but presumably it was a lot. And first of all, I completely understand why you would want to work with P and G. It's one of the biggest companies in the world. Their ability, just their research department, their marketing. So it makes a lot of sense, but you know, with the investment from Berkshire, presumably you could have, you would have continued to grow and expand. And was there in your view, like a path where you could have become a massive independent company without joining P and G or Unilever or a company like that?

• 1:15:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think, you know, the path is still to become a massive independent company because, you know, with our partnership with P and G, we are operating as an independent subsidiary under P and G. So we are operating as a standalone. So the company is still in Indiana. P and G has not came in and hired a new CEO. Like it seems like nothing has changed. Now we just have access to more. You know, with the advanced technology, the access to the unlimited resources, like you said, the marketing, the media, the innovation, that's something that we wanted to unlock.

• 1:16:07Speaker 01

  You know, the whole goal is to create legacy. And I felt that partnering with P and G, the name Myel, the brand, the heart and soul of the brand, the legacy will continue on for generations after generations. So my great grandkids will go in the store and they will still see Myel there because of the unlock of resources and access that we now have with working with a major global company like P and G.

• 1:16:32Guy Raz?

  I mean, it's an incredible achievement, right? For, given that you started this thing on Instagram in 2014. And 2023, it's acquired by one of the biggest companies in the world. You're, I think, if not the first, one of the first female black founders to have a company acquired by P and G. When you think about your story, I mean, 2014, you were a nurse. I mean, you were, you had a good life and your husband was, was well on his way to a corporate job at UPS. But you were always looking for something else, something to kind of satisfy this creativity that you had and this drive.

• 1:17:13Guy Raz?

  And how much of where you are now do you think has to do with how hard you worked? And how much do you think has to do with fate and luck and just serendipity?

• 1:17:24Speaker 01

  You know, honestly, I think it's 50% faith and 50% hard work.

• 1:17:29Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:30Speaker 01

  I don't think you can have one without the other. Like, you have to be able to step out and believe in yourself, believe in God, and know that, you know, if God gave me this vision, I can believe that he's gonna give me all the necessary tools, the resources, the people, the access. It's not for me to know how all of this is gonna work, but it's for me to just trust the process and allow him to guide me along the way. And then I know that I can't just expect for things to just fall on my lap. You have to go out here and you have to work for it. So a combination of me going out there and, you know, going to these networking events, meeting people, challenging myself, stepping out of my comfort zone. Like, I feel that God sees that.

• 1:18:14Speaker 01

  And he sees me putting the effort forth and he's gonna match the effort. You are creating your life. You are co-creators with God. And if he sees you putting one foot in front, he's gonna help you put the other foot in front of the other. And that's how I like to live.

• 1:18:30Guy Raz?

  That's Monique Rodriguez, founder and CEO of Maial Organics. Maial products are now sold in over 100,000 retail outlets in the US and in over 80 countries around the world.

• 1:18:46Guy Raz?

  Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show, and it's totally free. This episode was produced by Casey Herman with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Andrea Bruce with research help from Alex Cheng. Our production staff also includes Neva Grant, J.C. Howard, Liz Metzger, Elaine Coats, John Isabella, Chris Messini, Carla Estevez, and Sam Paulson. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.