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Speaker 4: Drop Thanks, drop, Mike, drop drop. All right, guys, welcome
Speaker 4: back e y L. This is a special episode for us.
Speaker 4: We are in lovely Los Angeles and yes, so anytime
Speaker 4: we get a chance to connect with entrepreneurs is always
Speaker 4: a and a pleasure. But this has backstory to it
Speaker 4: and we love the backstory. So Mark Cuban shout out
Speaker 4: to Mark.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the first of our billionaire editions.
Speaker 4: The first, the first billionaire to come on off platform.
Speaker 4: And he when he came on ey L, he spoke
Speaker 4: about a company that he invested in called Twisted Up,
Speaker 4: and he gave the whole story, he talked about the founder,
Speaker 4: the well and fast forward a year and some change,
Speaker 4: we are interviewing the partners of that company, Twisted Up,
Speaker 4: Noel and Ace. So not only are they the first
Speaker 4: company that have been on Shark Tank, that have been
Speaker 4: on E y L. Yeah, also I believe the first
Speaker 4: company that we've had they have hair products right.
Speaker 2: In the hair industry.
Speaker 5: First company.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we had Wade who had some products here, but
Speaker 3: he's a bar is different.
Speaker 2: Way the barber. Yeah you know bro, Yeah, man, you
Speaker 2: know I met him when I was first starting the
Speaker 2: Brown Brothers in at twenty seventeen. He was just starting
Speaker 2: the hair units. Man. Yeah, I didn't get one. Just
Speaker 2: for the record, Yeah, he's dope the way. Shout out
Speaker 2: to Wait.
Speaker 4: But the hair industry is a billion dollar industry, especially
Speaker 4: for black people, black women, black men, huge, huge industry. Unfortunately,
Speaker 4: we don't own vast majority of hair products. The hair
Speaker 4: industry even though we spend so much money on it.
Speaker 4: So this is going to be a dope, dope conversation.
Speaker 4: So first and foremost, thank you guys for joining us.
Speaker 4: Appreciate it having us.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, but the introduction, man, So let's go. I'm
Speaker 2: going to say this right now, eyo, Noble Peace Price
Speaker 2: twenty four, Make it happen.
Speaker 5: Put it out there.
Speaker 4: You have it, ladies and gentlemen. So let's get into this.
Speaker 4: I want to talk about Twisted Up. But before that,
Speaker 4: I want to just go on too back. But I
Speaker 4: just want to preface it. So twist it up. You
Speaker 4: guys have like tennis rackets on your shirt. Oh I'm
Speaker 4: glad you do.
Speaker 2: You have the fish in your pocket?
Speaker 4: So that all right. So before we get into the backstory,
Speaker 4: tell me what this is.
Speaker 2: What is this? It was something that birthed out of
Speaker 2: necessity to help me twist my hair right to wear
Speaker 2: your hair natural. As you know, as a culture outside
Speaker 2: of braids, cornos locks, there wasn't really anything that we
Speaker 2: have that come to wearing my hair naturally. And I
Speaker 2: was using the competitive product of Cross Bunch, and you know,
Speaker 2: we get a lot of rap that we don't like.
Speaker 2: Cross punches like I love cross punches, and if you're
Speaker 2: going to use one, like I would give one a
Speaker 2: shout out. Used New Drag because he's the founder, he's
Speaker 2: the one that started it, the original, and he's been
Speaker 2: knocked off and it's just sad. I just wanted something
Speaker 2: that was a little bit better, more hygienics, and that
Speaker 2: can clean, fits in your pocket. Then you go to
Speaker 2: a club and they say, take off your hat.
Speaker 5: Still look good.
Speaker 2: My hair is maden. But I wanted to figure out
Speaker 2: how to do my hair something.
Speaker 5: To go to the club with a sponge.
Speaker 2: Don't it, don't do it. Don't gonna patch you down?
Speaker 2: Like what is that? Bro? So I just wanted something
Speaker 2: that was sleep, something that can be clean, fits in
Speaker 2: your pocket, and I didn't have to replace it as much.
Speaker 4: So all right, how did you come up with the idea?
Speaker 4: Because if you're listening order you can't see it. It
Speaker 4: is a the best way I can describe it. It looks
Speaker 4: like a tennis racket without without a handle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's your shrinking man, it's a it's a small
Speaker 2: tennis racket.
Speaker 3: So how what do you Yeah, it looks like it
Speaker 3: could be like a badminton racket for table tennis.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I was using a tennis racket for about
Speaker 2: three years to do my hair. So you were walking
Speaker 2: around with a tennis racket. I bought three of them.
Speaker 2: I had one in my car, one in the gym,
Speaker 2: and one of my girl's house. So no, this is
Speaker 2: this is actually how we met. So how did you
Speaker 2: get that?
Speaker 4: I love entrepreneurship because it's all about innovation and innovation
Speaker 4: things that people. You got to have an imagination to
Speaker 4: be an entrepreneur, right, yeah, so, oh I.
Speaker 2: Can't take credit for that. Bro, My cousin. My cousin
Speaker 2: came in with the tennis racket. Like, bro, it was
Speaker 2: an after midnight conversation, probably had one too many, you know,
Speaker 2: something gave me came in. It's like, bro, did you
Speaker 2: know that you can get your hair twisted with a racket?
Speaker 2: So can you can you show how do you do this? Yeah?
Speaker 6: Bro?
Speaker 2: You can you just pick out your hair or just
Speaker 2: literally just go in a circle and it just makes
Speaker 2: these twists. Man, Like it just twisted up. How your
Speaker 2: hair twisted? Right now? Yeah? From an afro to a twist.
Speaker 2: We got before and after shots. She can go on YouTube.
Speaker 2: We got a bunch of videos that show about it,
Speaker 2: and it's just it's just crazy, Like, uh, the story
Speaker 2: is just man. I mean so like you're like a
Speaker 2: real right.
Speaker 3: I used to teach for Yeah, I used a real
Speaker 3: tennis racker, so like you're going to stores with the racket,
Speaker 3: like you're going out at night, Like I'm gonna have
Speaker 3: a racket in my car, and.
Speaker 2: So I had one in my car. So like when
Speaker 2: when we first met, he was like, Yo, we were
Speaker 2: playing basketball.
Speaker 7: I was giving them buckets. By the way, reference.
Speaker 2: He was like, Yo, how do you get your hair
Speaker 2: this way? And at the time, I was toying with
Speaker 2: the idea of drinking it. And I was like, bro,
Speaker 2: like I'm going to tell you this because you're cool,
Speaker 2: but you can't tell like nobody right because I'm trying
Speaker 2: to figure this out. He's like, all right, what what
Speaker 2: is it? You know, we went to the locker room.
Speaker 8: You put the like we was doing like some illegal
Speaker 8: stuff locker room, real.
Speaker 2: Quick tennis racker, bro. Because for me, it was a necessity, man,
Speaker 2: Like I I wanted to wear my hair naturally and
Speaker 2: I was tired of putting the texturizers in my hair
Speaker 2: and I just I wanted my hair to be done,
Speaker 2: and it worked, like in a minute, two minutes, my
Speaker 2: hair was like done and for a culture without my
Speaker 2: hair being short. I've never had that, Like even picking
Speaker 2: out my hair hurts, right, I've never had a way
Speaker 2: to just to take off my hair, take off my
Speaker 2: hat and just so previously for you to get your
Speaker 2: haird to that you have to do it yourself and
Speaker 2: twist it. Oh no, I sponge used to sponge the
Speaker 2: thing with the kids using Yeah, my only thing is
Speaker 2: that when it's in the gym bag or it's everywhere,
Speaker 2: like you ever just thought, like since the dawn of time, Like,
Speaker 2: have you ever seen like a black sponge? Like the
Speaker 2: reason why I Crows sponge is black is just because
Speaker 2: of heides the dirt. And again I'm not talking like
Speaker 2: messing the company, Like I love the product. Without it,
Speaker 2: I never would have created it, right, But I just
Speaker 2: needed a better mouse trap for me. I was replacing
Speaker 2: it way too much. I was spending somewhere north of
Speaker 2: like thirty to forty bucks on my haircut every two weeks,
Speaker 2: and then I was spending anywhere between ten and fifteen
Speaker 2: dollars on a sponge every ten days so in a month,
Speaker 2: I'm spent one hundred bucks on my hair and it's
Speaker 2: just crazy.
Speaker 5: When they do it in the barbershop, I'm not sure
Speaker 5: if it's the you know, the most.
Speaker 3: Hygienic thing to do, right, because it's like, you get
Speaker 3: a cut, they put the sponge in my head.
Speaker 2: My son gets the cut, they put the sponge in
Speaker 2: his clean the United States, every state has a fine
Speaker 2: for reusing it. In the state of California, it's a
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty dollars five.
Speaker 5: So you can't use So if he gets a cut,
Speaker 5: they have to use a new one for me.
Speaker 2: Correct. If they get caught we using it, it's a
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty dollars fine in the state of California.
Speaker 2: Every single state has a fine.
Speaker 4: So all right, yeah, because my son doesn't use this one,
Speaker 4: he just picks his hair out use it before.
Speaker 2: No, So bro, I get you one so the house
Speaker 2: appreciate it. So this is like the new afro pick.
Speaker 2: It's the modern day afro pick. Afro pick, but it
Speaker 2: gets you. The curls at the top gets you. That's
Speaker 2: to look at everybody wants.
Speaker 8: That's kind of yeah, that's kind of I think it
Speaker 8: was like a Nick Young like Swaggy pe when he
Speaker 8: had it like that.
Speaker 7: And then I think Usher his album.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the fade, all the all the ball players
Speaker 2: have their hair like that. It's like, how big can
Speaker 2: you have it? Now?
Speaker 4: Because I see some dudes ins like it.
Speaker 2: Probably want to like they see.
Speaker 7: Some of them when they that long. No, you don't really.
Speaker 7: When it's that long, you don't have to maintain it.
Speaker 8: But when you got hair like our size, Like if
Speaker 8: I have an afro and I go to bed, I'm
Speaker 8: gonna wake up and it's gonna be half my hair
Speaker 8: gonna be.
Speaker 5: Put this long enough, you'll turn in the dreads.
Speaker 2: So starting point, all right, so let's get into this story.
Speaker 2: So all right, you have the idea.
Speaker 4: You you realize that it's not the most efficient thing
Speaker 4: to have a tennis racket. You have the idea to
Speaker 4: shrink it into what.
Speaker 2: It is now.
Speaker 4: So what are the steps because a lot of entrepreneurs
Speaker 4: have ideas, but getting it off the ground is the
Speaker 4: hard part. What are the steps that you took to
Speaker 4: take the idea from your head to a product?
Speaker 2: Ready? Ready? Your secret? Google? Okay? Google? And YouTube? That
Speaker 2: is it? I am not I'm very good with numbers.
Speaker 2: Anything that I would give myself that I'm like great at.
Speaker 2: I'm not an engineer, gole. I googled a YouTube like
Speaker 2: the hell out of it, and what happened was that
Speaker 2: I was trying to figure out a way how to
Speaker 2: shrink it. Nothing came up. And right after Shark Tank
Speaker 2: this before I was on, I was just watching it.
Speaker 2: This show came on, like how to Invent something and
Speaker 2: it was talking about three D printing. I was like,
Speaker 2: what the heck is three D printing? I go to
Speaker 2: Google what is three D printing? It talks about you
Speaker 2: need a cajar. I was like, all right, cool, go
Speaker 2: to craclists cadars for hire. What is that? What's a
Speaker 2: cad draw? A cadrew is? A cajar is like a
Speaker 2: digital image that will give to the printer a three
Speaker 2: D printer that were allowed to print whatever you're trying
Speaker 2: to like do. So it's like the blueprint for the
Speaker 2: three D printer. So I go to Craigslist and I
Speaker 2: try to find a cad draw for hire and I
Speaker 2: interviewed like maybe five or six. I vibe with one.
Speaker 2: I tell him what I need. He tells me like, YO,
Speaker 2: give me the dimensions. I give him the dimensions. I go,
Speaker 2: I wanted to fit in my pocket, in my back pocket.
Speaker 2: Can't be this big, has to be a little bit smaller.
Speaker 2: Send it to him, paying his money. He sends me
Speaker 2: the file. Then I go to google three D print
Speaker 2: shop near me, and I find a print shop near me.
Speaker 2: I go, we print it out, go to a tennis
Speaker 2: racket store, get it handstrung, and then done. This was
Speaker 2: made in a three D printer. Original original, the original, original,
Speaker 2: the original one is this big bulky one. I still
Speaker 2: have it. It was handstrung. They first like what two thousand,
Speaker 2: the first like two three thousand cons were hand shrunk. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so handstrung looks like actual tennis. Actually instead of having
Speaker 2: the stainless still wire mesh, it was actually like handstrung
Speaker 2: in a tennis shop.
Speaker 3: So like if anybody's ever played tennis, if you haven't,
Speaker 3: that's like the wiring deck correct strings.
Speaker 2: And so you switched to standless steel why because I
Speaker 2: couldn't scale and it was costing too much. So initially
Speaker 2: I never wanted to turn twist it up into like
Speaker 2: a business because I didn't know how big it could be.
Speaker 2: And I wasn't going to leave like a six figure
Speaker 2: job to start something that I thought was very niche right.
Speaker 2: It was for African Americans, African Americans that have hair,
Speaker 2: that want to wear their hair a certain way, like
Speaker 2: how big is this market? And it wasn't until my
Speaker 2: barber gave me a call and said, yo, I just
Speaker 2: got fined. If you don't turn it into a business,
Speaker 2: I'm going to So then January of twenty seventeen, I
Speaker 2: did a hair show on Long Beach, sold out. Then
Speaker 2: I went to Browner Brothers, sold out, did Barbican in March,
Speaker 2: sold out, and then the Connecticut Barbara Expo in April
Speaker 2: sold out. And after I sold out out four shows,
Speaker 2: I just turned off the foust and Willis did the
Speaker 2: mortgages and made this something. These are the top hair
Speaker 2: shows in the country by far. For like, if you're
Speaker 2: trying to do like any type of barbering show, I
Speaker 2: would say the last three for sure. Definitely Barbican in
Speaker 2: New York. It's a great platform. I love it, Connecticut
Speaker 2: Barbara Expo, and Browner Brothers. If you're trying to do
Speaker 2: anything for the culture.
Speaker 3: So the initial barber that you showed you had the
Speaker 3: was it this prototype or were.
Speaker 2: You No, it was it was the actual action. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I can send you a photo of it, bro, it's
Speaker 2: or a video of me using it. And they knew, like,
Speaker 2: this is it, this is gonna be Genie. Yeah. He
Speaker 2: was like, yo, you you I just got fine. Bro,
Speaker 2: you gotta you gotta sell this and if you don't
Speaker 2: sell this, then we're going to have a problem.
Speaker 3: So I did it, so you had to you want
Speaker 3: to go No, I was saying you had kind of
Speaker 3: breezed over.
Speaker 5: But you had a six figure job, you work, you.
Speaker 2: Had real estate, real estate, the mortgages. Yet a lot of.
Speaker 3: Times people think that, you know what, I'm gonna be
Speaker 3: an entrepreneur. I'm gon quit my job and.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna start this journey. That wasn't your path whatever,
Speaker 2: it was never my path.
Speaker 5: Why did you take that route?
Speaker 2: My mother? So god, hey mom, don't hate me. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know I'm a West Indian right, So, like, academics
Speaker 2: are huge, it's very huge, and uh, you either go
Speaker 2: to school or get out. So when I decided to
Speaker 2: drop out of college, I did not know what I
Speaker 2: wanted to do with my life. But I know I
Speaker 2: didn't want to live out home with my mom because
Speaker 2: I didn't want to be told with to do that.
Speaker 2: Dynamic just didn't work out. I feel like every man
Speaker 2: gets to a point where they it was like, stop
Speaker 2: telling me what to do, right, So my fear of
Speaker 2: going back home drove me. So I was a server.
Speaker 2: I saved up enough money for me to move out
Speaker 2: and never go back. And then I had a goal
Speaker 2: and I was like, yo, before I hit twenty five,
Speaker 2: I want to have one hundred thousand dollars in my
Speaker 2: bank account. How can I do that? Work three serving jobs,
Speaker 2: live off one save the other two. So I did
Speaker 2: that more than I wanted a party. I did that
Speaker 2: more than I wanted to buy Jordan's. I did that
Speaker 2: more than I wanted to hang out. Like I had
Speaker 2: no life for two and a half years, and I
Speaker 2: saved one hundred thousand dollars. So by the time I
Speaker 2: hit twenty five, I had it in my bank account.
Speaker 2: And then I ventured off to real estate and that
Speaker 2: was that was my principal, like I will always have
Speaker 2: X amount of dollars in my account, but the rest
Speaker 2: of the money is for me to experiment. And as
Speaker 2: I started gaining this confidence that to try new things.
Speaker 2: I just kept doing it, so I would never fully
Speaker 2: quit anything. I must have cash flow coming in. So
Speaker 2: it's the same thing with Twisted Up. Not until I
Speaker 2: did four shows and sold out, I wasn't gonna just
Speaker 2: go quit, but I had some money that I can
Speaker 2: go figure out and test the waters and see how
Speaker 2: did I can make this? So all right, when you
Speaker 2: start the company, how much money did it take just
Speaker 2: to get the company off the ground, and what was
Speaker 2: your what was your first initial push as far as marketing,
Speaker 2: I can tell you this, Without Ace, this is probably
Speaker 2: gonna have been as big as it is because he
Speaker 2: worked for me for free for a year. Like let's
Speaker 2: talk about that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, we didn't know it was gonna be
Speaker 7: this big.
Speaker 8: It was just one of them things where you know,
Speaker 8: like you got a best friend and you got somebody
Speaker 8: that got an idea, and every time he's just like, hey,
Speaker 8: you know, I.
Speaker 7: Got this coming up, or I got a video, or at.
Speaker 8: One time we had no units. We was in a
Speaker 8: warehouse till I am. We had to sneak in the
Speaker 8: warehouse and work in the warehouse till like two am,
Speaker 8: four am.
Speaker 2: Like eight pm to two am shifts just to make
Speaker 2: enough units just so we have enough for the shows.
Speaker 5: So you guys know each other since like childhood or.
Speaker 2: Twenty seventeen, twenty sixteen, sixteen, twenty fifteen, Yeah, somewhere around there.
Speaker 8: So when I met him at the gym, that was
Speaker 8: when like was was just getting started.
Speaker 5: When he was giving them buckets.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, we want to change this narrative right now.
Speaker 2: All right, So but like north of a hunch k
Speaker 2: one hundred k, north of hundre k.
Speaker 4: North of one hundred k, So all right, so you
Speaker 4: start with six figures from your own personal savings. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and that's to actually manufacture it in bulk.
Speaker 2: By the moves. The patent was expensive, say mark was expensive. Yeah,
Speaker 2: all right, So what's the process of getting something pattern?
Speaker 2: So when you when you apply for a patent, you
Speaker 2: first obviously need a lawyer, and then you need to
Speaker 2: know what lane you want to go down. There's a
Speaker 2: design patent and then there's a utility patent, and both
Speaker 2: of them have two different functionalities. So a design patent
Speaker 2: just protects your design. A utility patent there's an actual use, right,
Speaker 2: so it can be written vague and anything that falls
Speaker 2: into that description regardless of what it looks like, it's
Speaker 2: still is going to infringe on the utility of your
Speaker 2: patent a design. If I had a design patent and
Speaker 2: this will circle and you came out with a square,
Speaker 2: you're not infringing. You change the whole design. I have
Speaker 2: a patent on what the what it looks like. So
Speaker 2: based on the education that was told to me by
Speaker 2: a lawyer, I decided to go down the utility patent
Speaker 2: because I wanted to make sure that no matter what
Speaker 2: it looks like, that I am protected. And then once
Speaker 2: you go down that path, then you have to do filing,
Speaker 2: and it just it takes a while. It takes I
Speaker 2: mean close to two years to get a utility patent published.
Speaker 2: So you got to have patience and you got to
Speaker 2: have a good lawyer because it's it's a lot of
Speaker 2: back and forth with the examiner. So you're going to
Speaker 2: get maybe after I say, like eight months or a year,
Speaker 2: you get an examiner assigned to you, and then this
Speaker 2: is like back and forth between your lawyer and the
Speaker 2: examiner telling you, oh, this is too vague, or this
Speaker 2: can't be done, or so forth. And I got a
Speaker 2: lot of back and forth because my patent actually written
Speaker 2: was a tennis racket fell underneath it? But my lawyer
Speaker 2: was arguing saying that there's never been any proof that
Speaker 2: a tennis racket can be used to twist your hair.
Speaker 2: No one has ever used it, so you could still
Speaker 2: be able to push this. So we had to change
Speaker 2: some lingo just to get it granted. But when it did,
Speaker 2: I was protected.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean even from the parent standpoint, I'm looking
Speaker 3: at it like what qualifies as a tennis recket?
Speaker 5: It needs needs a handle.
Speaker 2: Correct, right, But also a tennis record is for the
Speaker 2: play sports that correct, and it's it's a proof of concept.
Speaker 2: So the examiner was saying, well, a tennis racket exists,
Speaker 2: so therefore you can use it to twist your hair.
Speaker 2: But a tennis record was never intended to twist your hair.
Speaker 2: Utility for it was never to use to twist your hair.
Speaker 2: So you take my comb and now all of a
Speaker 2: sudden you use it for a strainer or a cheese
Speaker 2: grater or whatever you want to use it for. You
Speaker 2: know what I mean, Like, you're not infringing on my
Speaker 2: patent because my patent is for hair. It's a completely
Speaker 2: different utility.
Speaker 5: Very specific, correct.
Speaker 2: So like now you're protective.
Speaker 5: Somebody tries to make this design.
Speaker 2: Any any any shape that encloses a woven material that
Speaker 2: is usage twist hair, you are infringing on my patent.
Speaker 5: We come from New York.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I know.
Speaker 3: You got a great story about the city of New York.
Speaker 3: We got a lot of salons, a lot lot. Can
Speaker 3: you tell us about your trip to New York?
Speaker 2: You know, I love I love New York. But again,
Speaker 2: to any entrepreneur, you can probably relate to this. Uh
Speaker 2: it's your baby. This is my first thing that I've
Speaker 2: ever created from scratch, and to see it get knocked off,
Speaker 2: it started to affect me. And as a man, I
Speaker 2: couldn't just I couldn't look at myself in the mirror,
Speaker 2: and I was having a conversation with face and uh,
Speaker 2: what's the name of that movie taken? Taken? Yeah, I
Speaker 2: will find you. Yeah that speech when it's darted and
Speaker 2: I will kill you. You know, there's a certain skills
Speaker 2: that you know when you wanna find you and like
Speaker 2: you don't want to, so like I went on, I
Speaker 2: went on a mission. Man, I went to New York.
Speaker 2: Was the first stop. Shout out to every single person
Speaker 2: from the bottom of my heart that DM the page
Speaker 2: told us like, hey, you know, here's knockoffs here, here's
Speaker 2: knockoffs hair. And when I landed in New York, I
Speaker 2: just didn't know that. You guys just have a just
Speaker 2: so many beauty supply stores in one area. I thought
Speaker 2: I would be driving a lot, right, So when I
Speaker 2: got a location, I would go to that location and
Speaker 2: I'm like, Yo, there's like thirty other beauty supply let
Speaker 2: me just let me just walk into these and see
Speaker 2: if this store has it. Chances are maybe another ten
Speaker 2: percent here has it. And I would just walk in
Speaker 2: and walk out and try to find it, calmly, have
Speaker 2: a conversation with the owners, let them know, hey, I'm
Speaker 2: not after you. I'm just trying to figure out where
Speaker 2: this is coming from. I had to collect the evidence,
Speaker 2: and once I ended up collecting the evidence, I ended up,
Speaker 2: you know, soon four main distributors for a non disclosed
Speaker 2: amount that we won. So you're pulling up on people, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I put I put up on I don't even know
Speaker 2: how many.
Speaker 8: Shout out to the people out here in Cali too,
Speaker 8: because there was some knockoffs down in my area too,
Speaker 8: and people going to the store and Hey, you know
Speaker 8: this store is coming, so you gave you the papers and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, was over one hundred stories in New York City. No,
Speaker 2: just in New York, New Jersey, in North and South Carolina, Virginia, Florida, Texas, Michigan, California.
Speaker 2: I went to over one hundred stores in three weeks.
Speaker 5: And you're handing out ceasing desist letters.
Speaker 2: Ceasing ceasing assist letters, confiscating the knockoffs. Letting them know
Speaker 2: what they're doing is violating a US trademark law as
Speaker 2: well as a US utility patent law. Feel free to
Speaker 2: contact your lawyers. I am going to be starting a
Speaker 2: class action. I don't want you to be involved. Just
Speaker 2: let me know where you got it from. So you
Speaker 2: got a class action lawsuit. I wanted to start one
Speaker 2: that was that was my thing. I wanted to start like, yo,
Speaker 2: you're selling something that is you're infringing on the United
Speaker 2: States trademark and patent. I wanted to start a class action,
Speaker 2: but I don't want to involve you guys. So to
Speaker 2: make this easier so you don't get sued, I would
Speaker 2: just delist you guys. Just let me know where you
Speaker 2: got it from.
Speaker 3: Walking in the stores handling the season and desist letters,
Speaker 3: hoping that everything goes well.
Speaker 2: No, we got cops called on me.
Speaker 3: Cops called that's what I'm thinking. How I mean, you're
Speaker 3: in New York, so like you're taking things off the shells. Like,
Speaker 3: now y'all can't sell this same more. This obviously probably
Speaker 3: wasn't always a smooth process.
Speaker 2: No, man, we got we got cops called on me,
Speaker 2: uh maybe like ten twelve times, and it was and
Speaker 2: the cops said, you know, you can either do it
Speaker 2: or you know you can face the law. And when
Speaker 2: the cops came, they still gave me the product because
Speaker 2: you're breaking the law. Like I'm not trying to be
Speaker 2: a bad person, like you did not know that you
Speaker 2: will breaking the law. You now know. I can't normally
Speaker 2: leave here and let you still sell it because you're
Speaker 2: going to be breaking the law. You now are aware.
Speaker 2: So give me the product, sign this letter you won't
Speaker 2: be sued, and let me know where you got it from.
Speaker 3: And so you find that that part out right, You
Speaker 3: find out who's manufacturing, who's the trip and it now
Speaker 3: there's a lawsuit going towards them.
Speaker 2: Yes, so that's the beauty part. And I want everyone
Speaker 2: to really understand this. A lot of people say that
Speaker 2: I pending does not protect you, and that's only like
Speaker 2: half truth because it does. So if I send you
Speaker 2: a letter and I say, hey, my product is pending,
Speaker 2: and you continue to sell, you're not breaking any laws
Speaker 2: because it's not granted. But you have been informed that
Speaker 2: I have a pride for a patent and it's pending.
Speaker 2: If it does get published, I can come after you
Speaker 2: for damages when that letter was sent to you while
Speaker 2: I was in the pending process, because you were informed
Speaker 2: that there was an application and you may be breaking
Speaker 2: the law that gets granted. You chose to roll the dice.
Speaker 2: So the beauty thing about it is that again you
Speaker 2: have a great lawyer. The distributors that were bringing it
Speaker 2: into the states, they all got ceased to assist letters
Speaker 2: long before I did the tour, long before my patent
Speaker 2: was granted. So because I had evidence and it was dated,
Speaker 2: all of them had to pay. Where do you distribute
Speaker 2: said it into the states? Where are they coming from?
Speaker 2: Just so how well, yeah, so, how how the beauty
Speaker 2: supply chain works. It's like lead distributors, distributors and beauty
Speaker 2: supply stories. Right, So there's a big guy that we
Speaker 2: sells to, like these distributors that sells to, like the
Speaker 2: beauty supply stories. So all the knockofs were coming from
Speaker 2: obviously Asia, you know, China and somewhere in Korea, and
Speaker 2: they would just ship it out here.
Speaker 5: So you received damages.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, And a lot of people just think
Speaker 2: entrepreneurship is like it's my life and it's there's a
Speaker 2: lot of work, but that's part of it too. And
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, you have to be able to
Speaker 2: understand the law. Yeah, you have to have a good lawyer.
Speaker 2: You have to you know, right, lawyer? Can I get
Speaker 2: my lawyer? A shout up? Yeah, what's that? John? John D.
Speaker 2: Tran Patent Law Group, John D. Tran shout out to
Speaker 2: you man. I love you very much, thank you for
Speaker 2: all you do. Was he based out of Irvine, California? Okay?
Speaker 2: Yeah me my law group r H E m A.
Speaker 2: He's going to be a lot of business. So but
Speaker 2: not And that's it.
Speaker 4: That's another like revenue stream too, Like I'm saying you
Speaker 4: can potentially can play running on that. So it's like
Speaker 4: find entrepreneurs it's not just a matter of just loving
Speaker 4: your product and selling your product and market it.
Speaker 2: You got to protect it and be willing to fight
Speaker 2: protect it. You got to be educated. You got it.
Speaker 2: That's all part of business as well. It's a lot
Speaker 2: that goes into business. Yeah, that's It's a lot. So
Speaker 2: we when do we start? What's the big moment?
Speaker 3: Obviously we got the shark tingm but you guys will
Speaker 3: make the money for Yeah, so how do we start
Speaker 3: making money? We go in the barbershops saying you got
Speaker 3: to test the sell. Do we get a store, frond?
Speaker 3: What are we doing?
Speaker 5: How are we getting into people's hands?
Speaker 2: Oh? Man, again, I don't know. I just I just
Speaker 2: got to give shout outs to people because I can't
Speaker 2: I can't take full credit for this. Right. I'm listening
Speaker 2: to uh Gary Gary Vee, and I'm trying to figure
Speaker 2: out my first year we did one hundred and fifteen
Speaker 2: thousand and sells, but we didn't make much in the
Speaker 2: price point on the actual with taxes and shipping is
Speaker 2: twenty four ninety five straight to your house and you
Speaker 2: never have to replace it. Come to a thirty day
Speaker 2: manufacturer warranty. And you know that was all day bro.
Speaker 2: Never got to replace it one time by all day
Speaker 2: all day.
Speaker 5: Those are the sists.
Speaker 2: But I was trying to figure out, like yo, I
Speaker 2: did a lot of traveling. I went to the East
Speaker 2: Coast a lot, and we did a lot of hair shows.
Speaker 2: And I was like, Yo, this is a lot of
Speaker 2: work for a little bit of money. Like I gotta,
Speaker 2: I gotta make a pivot. And I'm listening to Gary
Speaker 2: Vee and he says a thing that like, yo, if
Speaker 2: you are an entrepreneur and you're not doing Facebook or
Speaker 2: Instagram marketing, you are creating career suicide. And I was like,
Speaker 2: all right, let me, let me google and YouTube how
Speaker 2: to do this? And I googled on YouTube how to
Speaker 2: do this? And my first my trial run was like
Speaker 2: one month, and then my first at back my first
Speaker 2: two months. We did three hundred thousand dollars in two months. Wow,
Speaker 2: just doing Facebook and Facebook, Instagram ass bro just it
Speaker 2: blew it, blew the ceiling out of the water. And
Speaker 2: then China shut down. Everything was made in the United
Speaker 2: States except the wire mesh. It was coming from China.
Speaker 2: And then China had a pollution and I couldn't get
Speaker 2: product for like two months, and I decided, you know,
Speaker 2: I want to go on Shark Tank. I want to
Speaker 2: see if I can actually get a deal and get
Speaker 2: the mentorship, and I got rejected. I once went back,
Speaker 2: the second time, got rejected, went back the third time,
Speaker 2: got rejected, and then the fourth time when I showed up,
Speaker 2: I didn't even have to pitch because the person that
Speaker 2: was interviewing me, her coworker, used my cone and he
Speaker 2: knew exactly what it was, and he was like, you're
Speaker 2: going through so what's the process to get on Shark Tank?
Speaker 2: And there's so much that that we can't say, we're
Speaker 2: not allowed to talk about it. You signed a lot
Speaker 2: of like the nbas of the process, but I would
Speaker 2: tell you this. I think there's like fifty thousand people
Speaker 2: that apply and maybe like eight hundred get callbacks, and
Speaker 2: then out of that maybe like three hundred gets to
Speaker 2: actually pitch, and it's not called the deal show. I
Speaker 2: thought this just like fully bs, Like like I thought
Speaker 2: epould have got a deal, got the air, but like, no,
Speaker 2: that's not the case, bro, Earners, what's up?
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Speaker 2: They have to air some people that don't get deals, right,
Speaker 2: So you're not guaranteed to air just because you have
Speaker 2: a deal. So even if you get a deal, you
Speaker 2: still might not get on television, correct, Which again I
Speaker 2: thought it was just total bs coming kyo. How how
Speaker 2: are you going to have these these people that are
Speaker 2: worth millions of dollars, invests hundreds and thousands of dollars
Speaker 2: in the company, and they don't get the publicity. But
Speaker 2: you have Shark Tank, which is a TV show, and
Speaker 2: then you have the business side, which is two completely
Speaker 2: different things.
Speaker 4: So boy, so going on Shark Tank, you can't talk
Speaker 4: about the offer because that's public right, correct?
Speaker 2: So what was that? Anybody that didn't watch your episode?
Speaker 2: It was two hundred and twenty five thousand for fifteen
Speaker 2: percent two.
Speaker 4: Hundred a quarter million for fifteen percent of your company.
Speaker 4: And that was damon John and Mark Cuban.
Speaker 2: That was the offer. That's not what I got. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you give So what ended up being negotiated was two
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty five thousand for twenty five percent, twelve
Speaker 2: and a half to Damon, twelve and a half to Mark.
Speaker 2: Oh you you wanted fifteen they wanted. Yeah, I value
Speaker 2: my company just over a million. They gave me in
Speaker 2: just I think nine hundred and something thousand valuation. But
Speaker 2: I wanted the mentorship. And again I'm very big on culture.
Speaker 2: To get Damon, to get Mark, I couldn't.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you like went into it with that those two
Speaker 5: in mind.
Speaker 2: That's all I wanted because I knew Robert was going
Speaker 2: to go with it because he wouldn't understand the product.
Speaker 2: I knew Laurie may like it, but she wants things
Speaker 2: for the masses. And regardless, no bad beef. But like
Speaker 2: I believe you got to be able to have a conversation.
Speaker 2: I don't feel like me and mister wonderfer where ever
Speaker 2: get along. So yeah, I'm just being honest.
Speaker 3: I want to come to you for a second because
Speaker 3: we spoke to in a while. He was doing real estate.
Speaker 3: He's making six figures, but you worked for free. So
Speaker 3: I'm interested in seeing what you were doing during this
Speaker 3: time while you're not making any money from twitterelve to say,
Speaker 3: you know what, I believe in my friend, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: do this.
Speaker 5: I don't care what it takes.
Speaker 2: Like.
Speaker 8: Like like job wise, what I was doing, Yeah, oh man,
Speaker 8: I was doing. I was doing and everything kind of
Speaker 8: just depends on the month or the year. But I
Speaker 8: was coaching basketball. I model on the side too. I
Speaker 8: was refing basketball and football, and then I was working
Speaker 8: at the Boys and Girls Club, So I was kind
Speaker 8: of just you know, bouncing all over the place really
Speaker 8: and then the free part. You know, I never even
Speaker 8: really asked for no money. He just kept he said, hey, man,
Speaker 8: you know we after Shark Tank. You're gonna get a
Speaker 8: pay raise, but you know I want I mean, when
Speaker 8: you when you have a like an entrepreneurship, if you
Speaker 8: can have like somebody by your side that can, you know,
Speaker 8: do the dirty work and get you know, anything that
Speaker 8: you need, you need that it's kind of like a
Speaker 8: basketball team that start player that's gonna just get down
Speaker 8: and dirty and not care about the lights and not
Speaker 8: care about the fame. And that's kind of how it happened.
Speaker 8: And then we just ended up here like I look
Speaker 8: up like four years later, I'm like wow, Like we.
Speaker 7: Went on Shark Tank.
Speaker 8: Like it don't even feel it, don't even feel like
Speaker 8: it because I'm just here just for the for the
Speaker 8: you know, partnership, and just because that's my bro.
Speaker 2: So everybody has a part to play.
Speaker 4: It's like Ben Wallace like, you know, yeah, made it
Speaker 4: to the Hall of Fame, rebounds like you know what
Speaker 4: I mean, defense Dennis rob Dennis Robin. You know, everybody's
Speaker 4: not a scorer, everybody's not gonna be a superstar player.
Speaker 4: But you need people to do different things to win
Speaker 4: a championship.
Speaker 7: Plus, when your mind is right, when you're doing it
Speaker 7: for the sake of.
Speaker 8: You know, you you you really love your product, or
Speaker 8: you believe in someone else's product that they're rocking with,
Speaker 8: like the sky.
Speaker 2: Is the limit.
Speaker 8: But if you're doing it in the sense of we're
Speaker 8: gonna make X amount of money, or we're gonna go
Speaker 8: on this TV show or we're going to do this podcast,
Speaker 8: then you're probably in entrepreneurship for the wrong reasons.
Speaker 2: Facts.
Speaker 4: So going back to this Shark ten conversation, all right,
Speaker 4: you get the deal, a quarter million, twenty five percent
Speaker 4: of your company, All right, Now what happens the next day,
Speaker 4: like when you actually start working with the guys.
Speaker 2: So this is why I feel like I think Mark
Speaker 2: really vised with me because when I got it right,
Speaker 2: well we got the deal. It's stuff to do the
Speaker 2: diligence right. So they go through your I don't know
Speaker 2: if anyone's ever been audited, but like I don't advise
Speaker 2: it like it's a it's a headache. They comb through
Speaker 2: like your financials to make sure what you said, what
Speaker 2: you represented was true. Oh, they can do the deal
Speaker 2: and still not do the deal correct. They have to
Speaker 2: do their due diligence. So it's just a handshake. So
Speaker 2: then they go and they take your your twelve month
Speaker 2: trailing you know ebit, of your p and os, your
Speaker 2: cash flow statements, and they come through it and they
Speaker 2: make sure that what you said was accurate before they
Speaker 2: give you that money. So after we shook hands and
Speaker 2: got the deal, the money didn't hit my account for
Speaker 2: like maybe six or seven months later. But when it
Speaker 2: hit my account, I like tear it up because it's
Speaker 2: it's real, right. I tear it up for like about
Speaker 2: a day, and then the next day I sent him
Speaker 2: an email and I was like, yo, like I have
Speaker 2: an obligation to pay this back to you, Like it's
Speaker 2: not I haven't made it yet. There's no like whatever
Speaker 2: y'all need to do, Like the mentorship starts now and
Speaker 2: we have the conversation. Daymy and I have the conversation.
Speaker 2: We talked about the strategy. We figured out what we
Speaker 2: were going to do, how are we going to execute,
Speaker 2: and where we're going to spend the money. How much
Speaker 2: money is being allocated to marketing, which is very huge,
Speaker 2: like cost of acquisition is. I don't care what product
Speaker 2: you're selling. It could be a very good product or
Speaker 2: it can be a horrible product. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: people that have great products that make no money. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of people that have horrible products that make
Speaker 2: a gripload of money. And it's marketing. It's how are
Speaker 2: you going to get customers onto your your product, how
Speaker 2: people are going to see you? And if you have
Speaker 2: the best product in the world and no eyes, you're
Speaker 2: not selling nothing. So what was your marketing strategy? Uh,
Speaker 2: you got to figure out how to have that conversation
Speaker 2: with our with our customers. Right. So my demographic depending
Speaker 2: where I'm selling, right, if it's barbers, if it's beauty
Speaker 2: supply stores, or if it's to the culture, I have
Speaker 2: to figure out what makes them click and buy, and
Speaker 2: for the culture, it was providing something that was funny
Speaker 2: but also educational. And when I did that, my best
Speaker 2: performing ad your eight is me dressing up in a
Speaker 2: lab coat Yeah yeah, and explaining the difference between a
Speaker 2: sponge and a haircomb, right, and it does way better
Speaker 2: than any influencer. It does way better than any celebrity
Speaker 2: shout out, and it just works better. So that's me
Speaker 2: listening to my audience. They want to understand the difference.
Speaker 2: They wanted to be educated on the on the process,
Speaker 2: and then they wanted to be funny. And once I
Speaker 2: figured out that little snippet, I just kept pumping the ass.
Speaker 2: That was like that and it just sky's wass a
Speaker 2: limit find information.
Speaker 3: So after the first year that you've now got the investment,
Speaker 3: how did did sales take off?
Speaker 2: Like he had no life? Yeah? Man, that was.
Speaker 7: Working.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were working.
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 2: We couldn't keep up with demand. So Ace and myself
Speaker 2: and one of my other boys would be in the
Speaker 2: manufacturer after the manufacturer ran our units and after hours
Speaker 2: to run more units because we just needed to keep
Speaker 2: up with Man, it was it was insane. We went
Speaker 2: from three hundred and thirty thousand to like one point
Speaker 2: two in a year, like a three hundred x growth,
Speaker 2: and the next year double that, and it just keeps
Speaker 2: on growing and growing and growing, and I'm just very
Speaker 2: grateful to have this experience in the mentorship.
Speaker 3: What was the process of finding a manufacturer, I know
Speaker 3: that was early on, but what was the process?
Speaker 2: Well? On YouTube, man, there's a university again. Yeah, man,
Speaker 2: there's a there's a there's a website that I found
Speaker 2: on Google called thomasinet dot com and it's a manufacturer craigslist.
Speaker 2: It's pretty much just operates like Craigslist, but it's for manufacturers,
Speaker 2: and you plug in the material, you plug in your
Speaker 2: zip code, and it spits out in a thirty forty
Speaker 2: mile radius, how many manufacturers are around you. And it
Speaker 2: turns out where I lived, I live in a manufactured hub.
Speaker 2: Never knew this, Santayana, Tustin. There's like forty different manufacturers
Speaker 2: out there. So I was literally like a drive and
Speaker 2: a skit to talk through these manufacturers. And I just
Speaker 2: interviewed about ten to fifteen of them, vibe with one
Speaker 2: and be figured out. They took the wheels, they figured
Speaker 2: out what they were going to do and for me,
Speaker 2: My biggest thing is communication that I don't I mean,
Speaker 2: price points important, but it's not the all ends. Like
Speaker 2: I have to be able to talk. I have to
Speaker 2: be able to like when when things go sideways, that
Speaker 2: guy got to be able to get you on the
Speaker 2: phone and we need to have a conversation. I need
Speaker 2: to know why you didn't meet that deadline and I
Speaker 2: need you to have an open and honest conversation with that.
Speaker 2: So as far as the mentorship, you know, what is
Speaker 2: it riceless? What is it like?
Speaker 4: Because you know, obviously it's very rare to have a
Speaker 4: billionaire as a mentor a business partner. So what is
Speaker 4: some of the key Jim's jewels that you've taken away
Speaker 4: from working with Mark?
Speaker 2: And what does that mentorship look like? I mean, there's
Speaker 2: no secret sauce. He will always say, just work ethic right,
Speaker 2: which I've always had. But watching how he moves and
Speaker 2: no matter how much money he has, Mark stays humble,
Speaker 2: like the fact that he still gets on the phone
Speaker 2: or on an email and has conversations with me outside
Speaker 2: out of twisted up about other venues. Now that I
Speaker 2: have money to where to park it, what to do?
Speaker 2: Like what are you looking into like it's it's crazy.
Speaker 2: And the thing that I take away most from him
Speaker 2: time is money like time, Like he has all these companies,
Speaker 2: but yet he has like these people that you talk
Speaker 2: to that represent him to help solve these problems. And
Speaker 2: if you need him, he's always a phone call or
Speaker 2: email away. But like, when you start to grow, you
Speaker 2: want to start to have your money start working for you, right,
Speaker 2: and when you are a billionaire, like you have so
Speaker 2: many businesses, right, you have so many revenues of income,
Speaker 2: like you want to make sure that you power other people, correct,
Speaker 2: do different things to keep your time free, correct, like thanks,
Speaker 2: Like there's there's no way that I could still do
Speaker 2: real estate and mortgages, but I didn't have my boy
Speaker 2: as because Twisted Up would take up way too much
Speaker 2: of my time sending two or three hundred orders a day,
Speaker 2: Like how am I supposed to do that? And then
Speaker 2: still argue with an underwriter? So is it just you too?
Speaker 5: Is there a bigger team?
Speaker 2: So as far as that on every day operations, it's
Speaker 2: me him and then my CPA, and that is it, bro,
Speaker 2: that's it the Big three, the Big three, And it's
Speaker 2: an online business. Bro, you run like a two million
Speaker 2: dollar operation, and it's crazy because everything is automated. Fulfilment
Speaker 2: center is automated right the whole soe he takes care
Speaker 2: of that, right the orders that go out, he takes
Speaker 2: care of Instagram, He runs the Instagram page. You keep
Speaker 2: producting in the warehouse or it just goes from both.
Speaker 2: So how we have it steppt out. I mean not
Speaker 2: to just break down the business, but there's a wholesale side,
Speaker 2: there's a retail distribution side, and then there's directed consumer side.
Speaker 2: Directed consumer side is all automated, so all handled by
Speaker 2: some type of f ffilment center depending on what location
Speaker 2: you're ordering from. Whole seal is a little bit more personal,
Speaker 2: is automated in the house, so he handles the bruntwork
Speaker 2: of that. I handle the orders, I handle the cells,
Speaker 2: and then he packs it and ships it.
Speaker 4: So scaling what is some for you moving forward and
Speaker 4: scaling and kind of you know, taking into the next level.
Speaker 2: Again. I was just say, getting the word out right
Speaker 2: and understanding the customer and figuring out where the brand
Speaker 2: needs to go. It's really sad, right, not to get
Speaker 2: too deep in the subject, but like it's twenty twenty
Speaker 2: one right, I believe too. What was it two years ago?
Speaker 2: Three years ago? The guy that got.
Speaker 7: Uh yeah, that was that was two years ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like two years ago. A guy that was wrestling
Speaker 2: for a championship couldn't wrestle because he had to cut
Speaker 2: off his dreads. And then yeah, and then there's a
Speaker 2: there's a girl, a couple of African American womens that
Speaker 2: lost their jobs because they refused to cut off the braids.
Speaker 2: And South Africa too, they had a girl there.
Speaker 8: For a while, I was like actually like doing research
Speaker 8: and like you know, posting on a page to like
Speaker 8: spread awareness because I feel like that's our kind of
Speaker 8: like niche like we you know, we're for the culture.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and it's sad that like it wasn't until
Speaker 2: like twenty eighteen, like maybe a handful of states passed
Speaker 2: a hair discrimination lifeeah yeah.
Speaker 4: But yeah, but like I said, even in black countries Jamaica,
Speaker 4: there was okay with a kid got kicked out in
Speaker 4: school because he had dreadlocks. South Africa, a girl had
Speaker 4: an afro and she got kicked out of school having
Speaker 4: an afro. So it's not even just in white countries,
Speaker 4: it's in black countries as.
Speaker 2: Well, and what I found out as I started traveling
Speaker 2: to the East Coast, especially with the women that choose
Speaker 2: to cut their hair and wear it short and wear
Speaker 2: the short and natural, there's a journey behind that, Like
Speaker 2: they they start to have like this self love discovery,
Speaker 2: like and it's it kind of brings you like emotional right,
Speaker 2: Like it's it's they find who they are, they accept
Speaker 2: who they are, they love who they are, and they're
Speaker 2: not going to change it for nobody, And all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, they have this new found confidence and the
Speaker 2: same thing with guys. And that's why I'm saying, like,
Speaker 2: what you guys are doing, like this is why I
Speaker 2: just look like what Eyola is doing. There's you're hosting
Speaker 2: a show where you have people that look like us.
Speaker 2: I have twisted hair, my hair is natural, and I'm
Speaker 2: out here making money. I'm a CEO, and you having
Speaker 2: people that like it's changed in the narrative of what
Speaker 2: braves conroles African Americans, what that looks like, what that
Speaker 2: means for us to make money?
Speaker 4: Like it it's empowerment as well, because it's like like
Speaker 4: you said, people, it's a way to keep people marginalized
Speaker 4: and to it's kind of like another form of oppression
Speaker 4: to supremacy, where it's like, in order to be beautiful,
Speaker 4: you have to have straight, straight hair. In order to
Speaker 4: be professional, you have to have a low hit. Troy,
Speaker 4: I'm holding on for their life, Troy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, dictate the man, stop it fall.
Speaker 2: Long time it was that the Michael Jordan man.
Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying, growing hands, grow up there,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 2: Get the hoop airing.
Speaker 4: But yeah, for a long time, it's like for men,
Speaker 4: you have to have a fade, you have to have
Speaker 4: a low haircut, you know, in order to be quote
Speaker 4: unquote a professional. And when you say about it, it's like,
Speaker 4: why can't you be a professional with his natural hair
Speaker 4: with an afro, with twists, with dreadlocks, with braids, Like
Speaker 4: what makes that unprofessional?
Speaker 2: Correct? And you're you're dealing with a society where outside
Speaker 2: of this culture, right, they can wear their hair however
Speaker 2: they choose to. I have one style, low right until
Speaker 2: this hairstyle came out low right, and again I just
Speaker 2: started traveling to the East Coast. As a culture, our
Speaker 2: style gets appropriated, right, the way we talk our music
Speaker 2: all that. But the one thing that you can't appropriate
Speaker 2: the one thing that you can't mimic is our hair.
Speaker 2: It's our hair is unique to us. They've tried it.
Speaker 2: See have you seen Have you seen the video? I've
Speaker 2: seen a few videos, the one in the waves. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: the Asian dude. Yeah, well he got he got the waves.
Speaker 2: He got the waves.
Speaker 5: Even see your cone rolls, keep your scarecrows.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 7: I wake up in the morning, I'm gonna go put
Speaker 7: my hair on.
Speaker 4: Like Derek had the braids. It just became always so exotic,
Speaker 4: you know, But that was just braids. Like you know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying. It was like whenever somebody of a
Speaker 4: different ethnicissity does that, now it just becomes such an
Speaker 4: amazing look.
Speaker 2: But for us, it's a necessity. It's how we wake
Speaker 2: up and go kiud without that. The coaching knows we
Speaker 2: have like an hour before maintenance. Sleek cute right now.
Speaker 4: You mentioned the East coast. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 4: You said you're traveling on the East coast, vib on
Speaker 4: the West coast.
Speaker 2: I mean back when the when I was using the
Speaker 2: tennis track and then using like the comb to twist
Speaker 2: my hair like this hairstyle wasn't really like up and
Speaker 2: coming on the West Coast. Okay, so when I started
Speaker 2: the company for Fledge in twenty seventeen, like on the
Speaker 2: East Coast, this was huge. The style was big.
Speaker 8: But you'll see it like when they are in the
Speaker 8: comments when people would talk like, oh on the East Coast,
Speaker 8: like we've been doing that way before.
Speaker 2: Way before. The West coast coast. Get catch things late sometimes,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 5: I have my hair like that once upon it I
Speaker 5: think it was high school Mike maybe.
Speaker 8: But it was weird because when you had an afro,
Speaker 8: like you just had it again before the twisted upcomb.
Speaker 8: If you had an hour thro you would just pick
Speaker 8: it out. It wouldn't be messy because your mom won't
Speaker 8: let you have it messy. Your mam would say, hey,
Speaker 8: I need you to pick your hair out.
Speaker 2: But now is that also switched right between the older
Speaker 2: generation and the younger generation when the older generation still
Speaker 2: thinks that this is like a nappy messy look is unprofessional,
Speaker 2: and the newer generation is saying no, like it's it's professional.
Speaker 2: This is this is who we are. It's just how
Speaker 2: my hair looks.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's a broader conversation that we definitely have
Speaker 4: to have because it's like even when Chris Rock did
Speaker 4: that documentary Good Hair, Oh yeah, and you know it's
Speaker 4: like I said, it's billions of dollars that's spent.
Speaker 2: But then the psychological is what to look like psychological.
Speaker 4: Aspect of it is and people destroying themselves, putting chemicals
Speaker 4: in their hair and all kinds of stuff where you
Speaker 4: don't even know that the long term effects of what
Speaker 4: you're doing to yourself just to look a certain.
Speaker 2: Way facts and black women have it the hardest. Man. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they have it the hardest. And it's it's sad. And
Speaker 2: I have a niece and it's just to like see here,
Speaker 2: reach for like the other doll with straight hair versus
Speaker 2: the doll that has the afro. Like it's it's like okay,
Speaker 2: like why and it's just you just look at the
Speaker 2: television really just try to sit down and like program
Speaker 2: this and you turn on television. All the girls that
Speaker 2: are on television got straight hair. Yeah? Are you do
Speaker 2: market just to women? Also? I do. It's another market
Speaker 2: that I'm getting into. It's I want to do it right.
Speaker 2: That's my thing. Like I don't want to disrespect them.
Speaker 2: I want to do it right. I don't want to
Speaker 2: be the guy, the black guy that's speaking for women, right.
Speaker 2: I want to make sure that whoever I get to
Speaker 2: sponsor that side of the company, they do understand the journey.
Speaker 2: They do understand the self empowerment, the movement that they're doing,
Speaker 2: and like God bless them man.
Speaker 3: Like it's I'm thinking now, because like we've been to
Speaker 3: curl Fest. Out to the team over that curl Fest.
Speaker 3: I think this would be great. A lot of women
Speaker 3: have natural hair, short hair, they want to have the
Speaker 3: curls at the top.
Speaker 5: My sister in law has that haircut. So I'm just like,
Speaker 5: this would be great.
Speaker 2: Yes, And now I even did a movie. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: yeah she did. Yeah, she did Napoli. Ever after she
Speaker 2: did in the movie, she cut her hair off and
Speaker 2: grew it back.
Speaker 7: They call it like the big chop.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the big chop.
Speaker 4: Do you have plans in taking this international or do
Speaker 4: you already have an international?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So we got we got some oh oh yeah,
Speaker 2: all right. Shout out to the jumpers man. Man.
Speaker 8: So the similar way kind of how I jump with
Speaker 8: no weel how he was doing this thing and I'm
Speaker 8: helping him out, like we would get tons of supporters
Speaker 8: on like I geology jumpers.
Speaker 2: That's your community, that's what you call. I just anyone
Speaker 2: that has a vision and you jump, no question, know whatever.
Speaker 2: Like you, I'm gonna ride.
Speaker 7: With you, like I know, like ride or die.
Speaker 2: Like That's why I call my entrepreneur spirit. Like I
Speaker 2: have an idea, there's no like questioning if it's going
Speaker 2: to work out, if it's not. What if this happens?
Speaker 2: What if that? I just just jumped do it?
Speaker 8: So a guy he actually is in New York, Leon,
Speaker 8: shout out Leon. He was just supporting us. He was
Speaker 8: like taking pictures of the comb. He would, you know,
Speaker 8: just just vouch for us, Say hey, I need some combs.
Speaker 8: You know, he's taking into his barbershop. And you know,
Speaker 8: like a year he went by and me and Leon
Speaker 8: have a relationship, and I'm telling Noel, hey, you need
Speaker 8: to look at this guy Leon. Like this dude, he's
Speaker 8: taking pictures for us and stuff. So not only was
Speaker 8: I employed, Noel ended up employing Leon as like our
Speaker 8: professional photographer to do you know, product shots and stuff
Speaker 8: like that. And then he took he took the comb
Speaker 8: to Guyana and what and he's from there and he
Speaker 8: got his own comb. So it's just like this, but
Speaker 8: it's green and on the cover it has his own
Speaker 8: face on it. But he took the comb there and
Speaker 8: started talking about entrepreneurship there, started putting into the barbershops there,
Speaker 8: and I thought that was like a real thing, because
Speaker 8: you know they say, like Gez, I put on for
Speaker 8: my city, like he really peeping on for his country.
Speaker 8: So the fact that he jumped and was able to
Speaker 8: get a sally from this and able to you know,
Speaker 8: go back home and teach people about entrepreneurship, I think
Speaker 8: they have it. And there's just one store. They just
Speaker 8: built the store and like he was a partnership of
Speaker 8: that store.
Speaker 7: I forgot the name of the store.
Speaker 8: Yeah, but he was a partnership of that store getting
Speaker 8: built and the combs are being sold out of that store.
Speaker 2: Bro. Yes, we're in Canada, we're in Guyana, and we're
Speaker 2: a little bit in Europe, not as big. I did
Speaker 2: a hair shout there by myself, and the market's massive.
Speaker 2: Where was the hair shot at In the United Kingdom,
Speaker 2: it's called like Afo Beauty or something like that. In
Speaker 2: the UK. That was another story for another time. And
Speaker 2: but I flew out there by myself and.
Speaker 5: Going places by yourself.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: I mean, like I said, I'm a jumper bro. Like,
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, what's worse than not
Speaker 2: trying is regret.
Speaker 5: That's the drawing quote. I except not trying, I can
Speaker 5: accept failure. I can't except not trying.
Speaker 2: I cannot look back at fifteen and be like, Yo,
Speaker 2: I wish I would have done ABC. Like I can
Speaker 2: accept losing everything. I can accept failing. Like what you
Speaker 2: just said. What hurts me the worst. It's like, did
Speaker 2: you try your hardest? It's like a game. I can
Speaker 2: I'm okay losing the NBA Championship if I played it
Speaker 2: because I tried. I tried my best. There's nothing I
Speaker 2: can do. But like if you like yo, man, I
Speaker 2: wish I would have practiced harder, maybe I would have won.
Speaker 2: How many times you get these opportunities?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 4: So going forward, do you have plans on expanding the
Speaker 4: team and hiring more people.
Speaker 2: Yeah? Like I said, for the brand, I wanted to
Speaker 2: embody the journey, what the women are going through. I
Speaker 2: want the twisted up to similar to how Damon built
Speaker 2: his brand for us by us right, this is a
Speaker 2: product that allows our culture to twist their hair naturally
Speaker 2: that was made by one of their own. And the
Speaker 2: more of us that where our hair this way, and
Speaker 2: the more of us that embrace just the natural look,
Speaker 2: you are changing the narrative of how you see the culture.
Speaker 2: You can have braves or chronos and be a doctor,
Speaker 2: be a lawyer, be an entrepreneur, be a successful CEO.
Speaker 2: And doesn't mean that you're a gangster, doesn't mean that
Speaker 2: you're a hulem, doesn't mean that you come from the streets.
Speaker 2: Like this is how I hear, is where naturally and
Speaker 2: this is who we are, which is why I love
Speaker 2: your podcasts man, your story or which you guys are
Speaker 2: doing like your narrative. You're hosting a place where our
Speaker 2: culture comes on and they see people that look like us,
Speaker 2: all ages making money. Like there's no excuse, Man, there
Speaker 2: is done. You can't use the excuse that I'm black
Speaker 2: and I can't be successful anymore. I know some have
Speaker 2: it harder than most. I understand that. But the Internet's
Speaker 2: the great equalizer and I'm a firm believer in that. Like,
Speaker 2: if you have access to the Internet, you can change
Speaker 2: your life. Well, you need his wife, find a dream
Speaker 2: is a fact, and you got a living proof of it. Brot,
Speaker 2: you guys are hosting a new story and with a
Speaker 2: new young person or an older person changing the life
Speaker 2: on the internet. Avery, single day, Avery, single day, Wall
Speaker 2: Street Trap came out of jail, look at him. Came
Speaker 2: out of prison. Yeah, came out of prison.
Speaker 3: Yo, that's a common I mean, it goes to show
Speaker 3: you that it doesn't matter where you start, it's about
Speaker 3: what you do with your time and how you finished.
Speaker 2: You can't you can't change the cars that were doe
Speaker 2: to you, but you can definitely figure out how you
Speaker 2: go to play.
Speaker 7: Them, how you can have the best hand what you're
Speaker 7: deal with.
Speaker 2: Facts, and it's about a community and that's what you
Speaker 2: guys are building. And it's really dope, man. Like, I'm again,
Speaker 2: I'm very humble to be on the show like you
Speaker 2: guys are.
Speaker 5: You know, this officially makes you alumni.
Speaker 2: Bro. Whatever, let it be, bro, I don't even want
Speaker 2: to give me like a small little life up. Man.
Speaker 2: It's it's very powerful. I'm not kidding. I hope you
Speaker 2: guys in the universe I'm putting out that. I hope
Speaker 2: you guys really win the noble peace price for the culture.
Speaker 6: Bro.
Speaker 2: Like appreciate you guys are changing it. Appreciate it.
Speaker 8: It's just the beginning to like sometimes people catch on
Speaker 8: the things later, you know, social media, sometimes one post
Speaker 8: will blow up and or somebody will blow up. But
Speaker 8: like you could blow up and have money or have followers.
Speaker 8: But if what you're doing ain't really genuine impact, it's
Speaker 8: gonna stop real quick.
Speaker 2: I'm telling you. If I have kids, they're gonna learn
Speaker 2: about y'all. And if no one's riding your biography world,
Speaker 2: get that done. I'm being dead bro, like for real.
Speaker 5: Wells traveling.
Speaker 2: For real. Man, appreciate that's greatly appreciate it, Humbler.
Speaker 4: Thank you, thank you guys for coming in. Man, I
Speaker 4: really appreciate it. Man, what what would you like to
Speaker 4: tell the people? How can they follow you? Social media?
Speaker 2: Website already above, Yeah, man at Twisted Up t W
Speaker 2: I S t I t U P. It's our Instagram,
Speaker 2: Twisted Up Combs on Facebook. You can find the comb
Speaker 2: on Amazon or our website Twisted upcomb dot com. And
Speaker 2: for anyone that is an entrepreneur that wants to grab
Speaker 2: anything from this conversation, don't overthink it, just jump. I'm
Speaker 2: a perfect example, man. I didn't know anything about stocks.
Speaker 2: I jumped made some money in it because of you guys,
Speaker 2: So thank you very much. Watch market one day, Yeah, man,
Speaker 2: it's uh, it's dope. And at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: like you can't be overwhelmed with what if when a
Speaker 2: you're going to get yours astill to get paid for
Speaker 2: a year now he's rent card, cell phone is paid
Speaker 2: for by the company. Like, it's stay down until you
Speaker 2: come up.
Speaker 8: Yeah. That's one thing we always talk about is a
Speaker 8: effort is worth more than currency.
Speaker 2: You put.
Speaker 7: You put that effort and everything else will follow.
Speaker 2: But trademark that man, I see how you know, bro,
Speaker 2: I'm seeing how you're not in your head broa that bro,
Speaker 2: it's effort's worth way more than currency. Man. You can
Speaker 2: take a million dollars now and not have the education.
Speaker 2: But you ever see a thirty for thirty. That's why
Speaker 2: people go broke. They don't know what to do with it. Honestly,
Speaker 2: ask yourself that question. You want a million bucks right now,
Speaker 2: tomorrow you got it, what would you do with it?
Speaker 2: Go back to your habits, you spend it. Yeah, not
Speaker 2: gonna change, nothing's gonna change. And then in two years
Speaker 2: you're gonna ask for another million. You don't know what
Speaker 2: to do? You do what you know?
Speaker 5: We just had that conversation.
Speaker 2: Facts, it's it's uh yeah, I was just stealing it
Speaker 2: because you're gonna steal my quote. You know, facts, Man,
Speaker 2: got anything to tell them? Man, any advice? Nah?
Speaker 7: Man, just just keep it sounds cliche, but just just
Speaker 7: keep grinding. Man, Just just keep hustling.
Speaker 8: And if you feel like it's cliche, then living proof
Speaker 8: is the guys right in front of us, yourself, and
Speaker 8: it's the other people out there.
Speaker 2: That's all.
Speaker 7: We all in the same boat. We all in the
Speaker 7: same struggle. But just keep your head up, just keep grinding.
Speaker 2: Appreciate y'all, gentlemen.
Speaker 3: Man Troy, I'll do it for Noel since he didn't
Speaker 3: say congratulations on your engagement.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you very much. Man. Yeah, I'm gonna look
Speaker 2: at man. Yeah, thought before you get mad. We got
Speaker 2: a two and a half year engagement because she's in school,
Speaker 2: so I'm just like you, I want to celebrate it too.
Speaker 5: So this is ours I'm gonna apologize for.
Speaker 2: He was a little nervous, so you might have forgot
Speaker 2: about you. That's an engagement ring. Yeah, congrats, Yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: being dead bro, Like, that's the first time I've ever
Speaker 2: seen that. I'm telling I did not think I was
Speaker 2: going to get married man, Like, I honestly did not
Speaker 2: think that I was ever going to get married. By
Speaker 2: my family, my friends can attest to this. Man like
Speaker 2: I'm happy, Like I'm a better executor when I'm single,
Speaker 2: Like I'm happy. And then you think you happy and
Speaker 2: you find someone bro that like keeps the peace and
Speaker 2: like it's what you need, Like I'm still in that
Speaker 2: like happyly ever after a fairy fairy phase. Man, Shout
Speaker 2: out to uh Mike, my fiance, Grace. I love you
Speaker 2: so much, thank you so much for all that you do. Man,
Speaker 2: I appreciate you wholeheartedly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Grace, I make sure it's a big moment, the
Speaker 3: biggest show. He almost forgot you. Yeah, shout everybody on.
Speaker 7: Edit edit that out.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: Shout out to everybody on fishy on dot com that
Speaker 3: is our proud to pay program. Shout out to all
Speaker 3: the earners there, and shout to all the earners in
Speaker 3: e y L University. Over ten thousand of y'all just
Speaker 3: taking information and applying and executing at a very high level.
Speaker 3: So shout out to y'all. Shout to everybody that's been
Speaker 3: supporting the merch. Shout out to the entire merch team.
Speaker 3: Y'all are killing it. Yeah man, Love is love.
Speaker 2: Yes, thank you rock And what's we see next week? Peace? Peace.
Speaker 2: My graduates from my school being forced back drop drop
Speaker 2: Mike drotdrops.
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