About This Episode

Meet Lisa Price, entrepreneur and successful businesswoman. Price serves as Founder and President of Carol’s Daughter, a natural beauty and hair care company she started over ten years ago. Her creative vision, direction and untiring commitment to producing quality products has allowed her to turn her once small home-based business into a multi-million dollar a year company.

With innovative ideas in beauty and hair care, her company has seen great success through initiatives such as a partnership deal with Sephora, and high-profile celebrity endorsements and campaigns featuring Mary J. Blige, Jade Pinkett Smith and Cassie to name a few. A trailblazer who’s revolutionized the beauty industry, Price tells us how she continues to expand the brand of Carol’s Daughter. Find out why she’s the boss.

Want More She’s The Boss? Check out these other episodes:

• Episode 1: Ericka Dotson
• Episode 2: Michelle James
• Episode 3: Meme Omogbai
• Episode 4: Monif Clarke
• Episode 5: Karine Mehu
• Episode 6: Nikima Frenche
• Episode 7: Teneshia Jackson Warner
• Episode 8: Robin Wilson

(USA Today) — As a child, Lisa Price loved fragrances. She found a way to create her own, blending different perfume oils. Over the years Price created oils and creams in her home as a hobby. In 1993 her mother, Carol, suggested she sell her body creams at a church flea market. They nearly sold out.  ”I invested about $100 in that flea market, and I made my money back and then some,” she says.  And that’s how Carol’s Daughter was born.  Price spent that summer at craft fairs, street festivals and flea markets selling her handmade concoctions. As more people bought her products, she knew she could turn her passion into profit.  ”I knew pretty early on that people loved my product and wanted it,” Price says. “As long as I could manage where I sold it and how I sold it, I could manage my costs and I could make money doing it.”

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Ordinary people do extraordinary things everyday. But usually, heroes in the black community don’t always receive the widespread recognition they deserve. So we decided to look back over the past decade of the new millennium and acknowledge some African Americans, who may not be as popular by name as others, who have influenced, shaped and re-invented our hopes and standards across the board.

Lisa Price

Lisa Price has discovered just how sweet success can be. Since the late 90s, her homemade products have attracted a substantial clientele that includes big names in media and entertainment such as Jada Pinkett-Smith, Erykah Badu, Mary J. Blige and Oprah. She’s been focused on creating an empire out of her signature line, Carol’s Daughter, a strategy that has inked a deal to sell her products in Sephora and Macy’s stores, and led to the opening of a second store in 2005 in Harlem (her first store opened in Brooklyn in 1999). A few years ago, she accomplished a feat that is rare for a homegrown business by an African-American entrepreneur—her company opened two mall stores, one in Roosevelt Field in Garden City, N.Y. and another at Newport Center in Jersey City.

Lisa Price needs no introduction. Her beauty products company Carol’s Daughter has generated numerous headlines over the years since its inception in the early 90s. Price, who named the company after her mother, started making her products from her home while working as a writer’s assistant in the television industry. She sold her homemade concoctions at flea markets initially, then expanded to the mail order business. By 1999, the company had opened its first retail store in Brooklyn. We asked Price about how she managed to turn her passion for hair and skin products into a full fledged and successful business and what she learned in the process.

by R. Asmerom

It’s no secret: the black hair care industry is big business. Very big business. According to marketing research company Mintel, sales of black hair care products in 2008 exceeded $165 million. Although a third of those sales went to corporate conglomerates like L’Oreal and Alberto Culver, who own many ethnic product lines from Soft-Sheen Carson to Mizani, there are still many independent African-American players in the hair product game. From old businesses like S-Curl manufacturer Luster Inc. to new product lines like Kimble Hair Care Systems, black entrepreneurs are thriving. Here, we included a list of 10 independently, black owned businesses that continue to fuel the ever-evolving market for black hair care products.

Miko and Titi Branch – Miss Jessie’s Original

Behind Miss Jessie’s hair products are founders  Miko and Titi Branch. The sisters launched their company out of a Brooklyn brownstone and it’s been uphill ever since. Their unique blends of puddings and cremes are primarily targeted to those gals looking to  enhance their curls and waves. These type of products were barely present on the market. The sisters realized this market opportunity by drawing from their challenges with their own hair and from their experiences with “hair recipes” learned from their paternal grandmother, Miss Jessie. The duo has wracked up many accolades for their savvy entrepreneurship and hair treatments. The sisters have also opened up a salon in New York city to cater to their curly haired fans.

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- China Okasi, TAP

Whether you’re a budding entrepreneur, or a veteran business mogul, it’s easy to forget the virtues of patience and endurance that are required for business growth. Here are five business models that sprung from modest beginnings to national, and, in some cases, global success.

5) CAKELOVE
Founder: Warren Brown

How He Grew From Little-Known to “World-Famous:”
(Source: CakeLove) In 2000, Warren Brown left his career as a lawyer litigating health care fraud on behalf of the federal government to pursue a dream and start a business. Sensing that people wanted better cake, he founded CakeLove and opened for business in 2002. With a lot of hard work and positive word-of-mouth advertising, Brown has grown his business from a moonlighting project into seven thriving bakeries.

4) CAROL’S DAUGHTER
Founder: Lisa Price

How She Grew From Little-Known to “World-Famous:”
(Source: Carol’s Daughter) In the early 1990’s, Brooklyn native Lisa Price (a.k.a. Carol’s daughter) began experimenting with fragrance, essential oils and natural moisturizers to make gifts for her family and friends. Soon after she packaged her home-spun creations, word spread like wildfire and the demand for her unparalleled hair and body care products led to a highly successful mail-order and web-based business. Within a few years, Carol’s Daughter counted celebrities like Jada Pinkett Smith, Mary J. Blige, Erykah Badu, Brad Pitt and Chaka Khan as loyal fans, or as she refers to them, “friends of the family.”

3) MISS JESSIE’S
Founders: Titi & Miko Branch

How They Grew From Little-Known to “World-Famous: “
(Source: MissJessies.com) In 1997, sisters Titi and Miko Branch, opened Miss Jessie’s Salon to respond to the demand for expertise in natural hair and naturally curly hair. Their experience with curls started over 20 years ago. Born to a Japanese mother and African-American father Titi and Miko had a head full of hair that was multi textured. “Back then our parents were attending school so this left little time to care for our hair” lamented Titi…

With the introduction of Curly Pudding, Curly Buttercreme™, Curly Meringue®, Baby Buttercreme™, Unscented Curly Pudding™and now Rapid Recovery Treatment®, Miss Jessie’s products soon garnered a cult following and continues to be a market innovator in the natural hair and naturally curly hair segment.

2) Sylvia’s Restaurant
Founder: Sylvia Woods

How She Grew From Little-Known to “World-Famous:”
(Source: Sylvia’s) In 1944, Sylvia married Herbert and started her journey towards a brighter future. Harlem called, and Sylvia answered, as she became a waitress at Johnson’s luncheonette. In 1962, after several years of dedicated service to her employer, Mr. Johnson recognized Sylvia’s entrepreneurial spirit and sold her the luncheonette. Julia Pressley, Sylvia’s mother, whom was a farmer and mid-wife, mortgaged her farm to loan her the money for the purchase.

The than small luncheonette consisted of a counter and a few booths, has now flourished into a family owned enterprise which consist of: Sylvia’s Restaurant in Harlem, Sylvia’s Also, a full-service catering hall, Sylvia’s Catering Corp., a nation-wide line of Sylvia’s Food Products, two deliciously amazing cookbooks, and ATOC, Inc., a real estate firm.

1) Ben’s Chili Bowl
Founders: Ben & Virginia Ali

How They Grew From Little-Known to “World-Famous:”
(Source: Restaurant.org) The story of Ben’s Chili Bowl’s began with Ben Ali and Virginia Rollins. Ali came from Trinidad at age 18 and attended five universities in nine years. A fall down an elevator shaft broke his back and ended his dream of being a dentist. He tried several jobs until he found his calling at Ann’s Hot Dogs.

His fiancée, Virginia Rollins, grew up on a 150-acre Virginia farm. She was a bank teller on what was then Washington’s “Black Broadway” when she met Ali. A week before the couple married, they opened Ben’s Chili Bowl in what had been a pool hall. Today, two of their three sons operate the restaurant and a bar, “Ben’s Next Door,” which opened last fall.

What began 50 years ago as an informal eatery in segregated Washington, D.C., today attracts visitors from around the world. It survived economic blight from race riots, drug wars and construction of a nearby subway station. Throughout good times and tough times, Ben’s Chili Bowl attracted customers from all walks of life: rich and poor, judge and junkie – and just days before his inauguration, President Barack Obama.