Speaker 1: Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Eating While Broke.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Colleen Witt, and today we have two
Speaker 1: very special guests. We have owners, founders creators of Mixed Chicks,
Speaker 1: Wendy and Kim are in the building. Hi, Hi are
Speaker 1: having us. Thank you for coming. I was like emailing
Speaker 1: your team. I think we had emailed them. We're going
Speaker 1: back and forth for a while, and they were just like,
Speaker 1: if you reach out at this date and this time,
Speaker 1: you could maybe get them. And so we are so
Speaker 1: happy to have you. I am extremely happy to have you.
Speaker 1: I love interviewing entrepreneurs and Mixed Chicks. You guys, I
Speaker 1: remember when you guys started hitting the shelves back in
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, well two thousand and five, two
Speaker 1: thousand fours. Yeah, actually want to start it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: remember when you guys first hit the shells. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's something for us, something specifically for us. This is
Speaker 1: before everyone else started, you know, pounding the pavement. So
Speaker 1: take me back to well, actually before we even start there,
Speaker 1: tell me what you're gonna have me eating today.
Speaker 2: You are going to have linguini with clam sauce today. Yes,
Speaker 2: it sounds like something that will cost a lot of money,
Speaker 2: but when you see how simple the ingredients are, you
Speaker 2: will see that anybody can do this on a budget.
Speaker 2: We're using canned clams, and that is really what kind
Speaker 2: of makes the price cut.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I'm gonna start.
Speaker 1: Oh, you know what, can you tell us all the
Speaker 1: ingredients for your dish?
Speaker 2: Yes, we have some fresh garlic here that we're gonna chop. Fine,
Speaker 2: we have fresh parsley that's been chopped. We have some
Speaker 2: fresh lemon. We also have just a little bit of butter.
Speaker 2: You don't have to do the butter, but you know,
Speaker 2: butter makes everything taste good. Yeah, yeah, butter, uh huh so,
Speaker 2: and a little olive oil and lemon.
Speaker 3: Juice and like we said, the can clamps.
Speaker 2: So yeah, we just start out by saute and the
Speaker 2: garlic in some olive oil about two tablespoons, and I'm
Speaker 2: gonna finish chopping these off.
Speaker 1: And then just for the listeners hearing like this dish,
Speaker 1: I always say the cheaper the dish, the better the story.
Speaker 1: This dish was probably at most ten dollars, and I'm
Speaker 1: only saying ten dollars because you know, you have to
Speaker 1: if you want to add the parsley and fresh lemon
Speaker 1: because we have lemon juice on the side, Like this
Speaker 1: dish could probably honestly be all in like six dollars.
Speaker 1: So this is really creative. It's the first time we've
Speaker 1: ever had it on the show. And I even played
Speaker 1: around with the recipe yesterday and was like, huh, I
Speaker 1: just found a new mom hack and it took less
Speaker 1: than twenty minutes.
Speaker 4: So, well, you're nearly on the West coast, you might
Speaker 4: have a lemon tree in your backyard, especially in La Yeah,
Speaker 4: so that shuts down, okay, right, Yeah, so that's a
Speaker 4: good thing.
Speaker 1: So take me back to what was going on during
Speaker 1: the clam Linguini era.
Speaker 2: Ooh, so I was living in my hometown in Atlantic City,
Speaker 2: New Jersey, and I was teaching in the same school
Speaker 2: system that I am from, and Atlantic City is it's
Speaker 2: pretty rough right now.
Speaker 3: Especially the public school system.
Speaker 2: And it was whenever that was that must have been
Speaker 2: I was probably Yeah, let me not date myself completely,
Speaker 2: but I'm gonna say it was about twenty five years ago.
Speaker 2: And so living on a teacher's salary isn't easy, especially
Speaker 2: when your income is also going to help.
Speaker 3: I was a math and science teacher.
Speaker 2: So if you wanted to do the experiment in the book,
Speaker 2: you had to come up with those supplies. You had
Speaker 2: to purchase, You had to puse. You really wanted your
Speaker 2: students involved, you didn't have to. You could have just
Speaker 2: read the assadne you could have read it with them.
Speaker 2: Do you think they really would have been engaged?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: So yeah, you were. You didn't really have a lot
Speaker 2: of money for yourself.
Speaker 4: So this this was a teacher making a difference, right, wow,
Speaker 4: by offering something to her students.
Speaker 1: And what about you? What was your broke dish?
Speaker 4: Now you know we joke about that because you could
Speaker 4: be broke, but we were always going to eat right,
Speaker 4: So it was like we could make any concoction in
Speaker 4: the house.
Speaker 3: But I was thinking, I always loved to make these.
Speaker 4: I would call them egg rolls, right, so you know
Speaker 4: the big Asian style, you know egg girls you find
Speaker 4: in the store, the long eight rolls, and I would
Speaker 4: use chicken, So just get some.
Speaker 1: You would make them from scratch? Oh yeah, and what
Speaker 1: would you use to make it?
Speaker 4: So all you need is the paper, the squares, right,
Speaker 4: any type of chicken, chicken brass, you know, whatever's on
Speaker 4: sale chicken at that time, and you could substitute it
Speaker 4: for another kind of meat, right, I used black beans,
Speaker 4: I'd use parsley, and I'd.
Speaker 3: Use no, actually not parsley.
Speaker 4: I'd use cilantro, cilantro, and i used cheese.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: And it's really simple. I just saw te you know,
Speaker 3: my chicken cheese.
Speaker 1: So it would be like a burrito.
Speaker 4: But it's like a burrito in an eggrol and you
Speaker 4: just so you cook everything on the stove, take your
Speaker 4: wan ton, roll it up, deep, fry it. Boom, You're done.
Speaker 4: And those would last for like two days. That's actually
Speaker 4: pretty it's really good.
Speaker 1: I hope everyone's like notes on that. I'm gonna try that.
Speaker 3: We're going to do two meals.
Speaker 1: We'll do I'll come back and do that, Yes, come back.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So that's okay.
Speaker 1: So you were a teacher and what did you go
Speaker 1: to school for? Are you Kanye? Are you? Are you
Speaker 1: Kanye West dropping out of college?
Speaker 4: Or did you absolutely entrepreneurs the power? Actually my career
Speaker 4: started in television. I was in TV production. Okay, what
Speaker 4: is the TV production everything? I started from being a
Speaker 4: PA that's the first step, production assistant of course, to
Speaker 4: coordinating producer assistant to line producer, assistant to production coordinator.
Speaker 3: So I worked my way up.
Speaker 4: Then I became a mommy and the stress of appeasing
Speaker 4: everybody else just became too much.
Speaker 3: It was like, you know what, I have a kid.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't really want to play this game anymore,
Speaker 4: and I bowed out.
Speaker 3: But I do miss TV.
Speaker 1: It's crazy because when I think of people in entertainment,
Speaker 1: you're always put in these like I hate to say it,
Speaker 1: it's terrible, compromising positions, but you always have like these
Speaker 1: limited budgets, short timelines, fast deadlines.
Speaker 3: You know what.
Speaker 4: Actually, I got to tell you it's television really helped
Speaker 4: me with my career.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 4: I worked a live TV so the reality was that,
Speaker 4: you know, when that clock hit that time to go on,
Speaker 4: everything had to be perfect. So it was chaos before that,
Speaker 4: but at the end of the day, it always went
Speaker 4: on without a hitch.
Speaker 1: And so you think that also played a role in
Speaker 1: your success as entrepreneur.
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely.
Speaker 4: I mean I worked with some of the biggest producers
Speaker 4: at that time, and you know, you couldn't make excuses
Speaker 4: if they wanted something. It wasn't oh well, how well
Speaker 4: how do I do that? It was figure it out?
Speaker 4: So I always tell people all the time, you know,
Speaker 4: the biggest mistake you can say that when someone asked
Speaker 4: you a.
Speaker 3: Question is I don't know or I'm not sure, or
Speaker 3: give one of these, it's like figure it out, figure
Speaker 3: it out, or the best thing you can say is
Speaker 3: I'll get right back to you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, I learned that lesson. I was working with Nick Cannon,
Speaker 1: and one of the first hard lessons I learned was
Speaker 1: him having a conversation with like, you never come to
Speaker 1: me talking about you don't know, right, definitely don't come
Speaker 1: to me with no solutional options. And I remember just
Speaker 1: being really like like mortified, almost like I will never
Speaker 1: make this mistake.
Speaker 3: Again because I don't know, we'll get you fired.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. It's never a good answer
Speaker 1: that striver in any industry, in any industry, Yeah, an industry.
Speaker 1: I just went in television, Yeah, yeah, anything entertainment. I
Speaker 1: feel like.
Speaker 3: It's listen you hot to get it done. Yeah. So
Speaker 3: that that's where my training came from.
Speaker 4: So it's kind of like, you just figure it out,
Speaker 4: and that's exactly what we did.
Speaker 1: So how does a teacher from Atlantic City? And where
Speaker 1: are you from?
Speaker 4: I was born in New York Long Island, But I
Speaker 4: was raised here in California, So I'm an l A girl.
Speaker 1: I'm both How do you guys?
Speaker 3: Ass?
Speaker 1: Were you guys? Uh?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So so Wendy worked in I was in TV.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, Whendy you started to work in music?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I actually, yeah, I was. I had gone through a breakup.
Speaker 2: Uh, and the best way to make sure it's over
Speaker 2: is to move three thousand miles away.
Speaker 1: Hilarious. Was it one of those on and off relationships?
Speaker 1: Is that why you had tomor on.
Speaker 3: And off since like to tenth grade? What I'm saying,
Speaker 3: so you've had to bounce? Yeah? It was no good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's hilarious. So we're still friends today, you know,
Speaker 2: just some people.
Speaker 3: It's better that way, right.
Speaker 2: But anyway, So I had an opportunity from just a
Speaker 2: guy I had known before that was looking for a
Speaker 2: He was looking for an assistant a little bit and
Speaker 2: and and so, and I just figured, you know what,
Speaker 2: let me get out of here, because you know, now
Speaker 2: all of my bills are all on me, and teaching
Speaker 2: alone just you just can't really do it. So I
Speaker 2: figured let me just give this a try. He said,
Speaker 2: he'll pay me a little more than a teacher. And
Speaker 2: he was closing down this New York office and coming
Speaker 2: out here to LA and I just said, I'm going
Speaker 2: to go for it. And the desk right next to me,
Speaker 2: it was like he was a branch of Virgin Records.
Speaker 3: It was actually a Cheeva.
Speaker 2: Sound and he managed de'angelo and Mark Bronson and a
Speaker 2: lot of really cool bands.
Speaker 3: So it switched my life. I ended up going on
Speaker 3: tour a few times just as his assistant.
Speaker 2: But his sister was at the desk next to me,
Speaker 2: and I didn't really know many people out here. She
Speaker 2: just kind of took me under her wing, took me
Speaker 2: to her big sister's house. She used to have barbecues
Speaker 2: all the time, and then we just kind of met
Speaker 2: and started talking about hair and things like that.
Speaker 1: Wow, and you guys, are you're both mixed?
Speaker 3: Yes? What are you mixed with? So my mother's black
Speaker 3: and my father's white.
Speaker 1: Oh, you're like me. It's so rare to see that mix,
Speaker 1: that mix, right, it is.
Speaker 2: But I swear because of my mom's ability to uh,
Speaker 2: you know, deal with the challenge of textured hair, she
Speaker 2: really taught me so many tricks and gifts and gave
Speaker 2: me a real knack for curls. My hair was easy
Speaker 2: compared to what she was used to, you know, working
Speaker 2: with her whole life. So she really made me appreciate
Speaker 2: the uh, you know, which products to use to make
Speaker 2: your hair easier to maintain. So because I had a
Speaker 2: mother with textured hair, I feel like it really really
Speaker 2: gave me an advantage. Okay, Like my school pictures growing up,
Speaker 2: they're fantastic. My hair was laid everything baby hairs before
Speaker 2: baby hair, you know, and we see a lot of
Speaker 2: a lot of mixed girls with white moms back then anyway,
Speaker 2: did not have it mastered.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, definitely had a white mom.
Speaker 3: I had the white mom.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3: I was like life was.
Speaker 4: It was great because I learned how to do hair. Okay,
Speaker 4: I mean, at the end of the day, you have.
Speaker 3: To learn how to do it, so I mean, come on.
Speaker 4: My mom definitely didn't have the same hair texture, so
Speaker 4: she embraced all that I had and was happy to have,
Speaker 4: you know, a child that had different hair. So we
Speaker 4: were wild, right, we were running around like, you know,
Speaker 4: hair here and there. But I had black ants, so
Speaker 4: you know, it was like, come on, get down on
Speaker 4: this lap. You fall asleep because they're hitting you with
Speaker 4: the comba. They're braiding the hair, remember those. Yeah, but
Speaker 4: so I learned how to do my hair early. So
Speaker 4: my mom's irish and my father's splat.
Speaker 1: Now did you guys that's so funny? Do you guys
Speaker 1: decide barnet? But do you guys notice any.
Speaker 3: How?
Speaker 1: Am I gonna word this safely? Say it safely? So
Speaker 1: I suld I grew up with a black a black
Speaker 1: mom and the white father. You grew up with the
Speaker 1: white mom and the black father, and both parents stayed
Speaker 1: together on both sets.
Speaker 3: No, not mine. My my divorce when I was like twelve. Oh, okay, okay,
Speaker 3: and her parents are still married.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we just celebrated their sixtieth wedding anniversary. They got
Speaker 2: married when they were in high school, Atlantic City High School,
Speaker 2: the same high school I was in.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now, this is the question that's gonna be don't
Speaker 1: get So, when you grow up with the white mom,
Speaker 1: do you still feel I don't know how I'm gonna
Speaker 1: work black? Yes, it sounds crazy, but like you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes you meet some people with the with the say
Speaker 1: the mom's white, maybe they feel it's.
Speaker 4: Settle more connected to her yeah, rather than the father. No,
Speaker 4: I don't think that's the case with anyone. I think
Speaker 4: the case comes from parenting. So it's about how your parents.
Speaker 4: You know, what they teach you, right, So growing up,
Speaker 4: my parents said, you're Kim.
Speaker 3: End of story. You have a problem, come to me,
Speaker 3: that's it.
Speaker 4: So I didn't have like I needed to connect. I
Speaker 4: connected better with her or with him. I grew up
Speaker 4: in Culver City, California, very very mixed environment. So I
Speaker 4: grew up in this condominium complex shout out to Tara Hill,
Speaker 4: That's where I'm from. And there were so many mixed kids,
Speaker 4: whether they had a black mom, white dad, black dad,
Speaker 4: Asian mom. I mean, there were a blend of many people.
Speaker 4: So we kind of just were all connected. I don't
Speaker 4: think we really had an identity issue growing up because
Speaker 4: we were together. But elementary was great, right, Junior high
Speaker 4: came another story.
Speaker 3: It was like, so who were you? What you're going
Speaker 3: to choose?
Speaker 4: You know, you think this and you know that kind
Speaker 4: of stuff, and it was like, WHOA, what's going on here?
Speaker 4: Or you started to see some of the kids that
Speaker 4: you grew up with acting a little different, or you know,
Speaker 4: I think about in elementary school.
Speaker 3: You have the crush on Brian or you know Ryan.
Speaker 3: Then you get to.
Speaker 4: Junior high and it was Marcus and you know Jamal. Know,
Speaker 4: it started to change. But that's no, I didn't have
Speaker 4: that issue. My father's very strong presence in my life.
Speaker 4: He was, you know, the parent that would kind of
Speaker 4: dictated our life. I knew where my father came from.
Speaker 4: I knew the struggles that he had, the challenges that
Speaker 4: he had and still would face. Right, So I understood
Speaker 4: my history. I understood how the world saw him and
Speaker 4: how they would see me. And I understand where my
Speaker 4: mom came from, and I understood the struggles they had
Speaker 4: being a couple in Long Island, New York. So there
Speaker 4: was no issue for me. But I can say I
Speaker 4: grew up with other friends, right, and I could see
Speaker 4: this one kind of tend to be a little bit
Speaker 4: more like this or that. But I also looked at
Speaker 4: the dynamic of the parenting, the mom sharing, the heartache,
Speaker 4: the drama, you know with the dad, things that that's
Speaker 4: not kids business, right, So then you see how they
Speaker 4: start to choose their paths just based on the experiences
Speaker 4: of their parents.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, Well I'm glad, I'm Loki Glad I asked
Speaker 1: that question, I would have thought that the response. I
Speaker 1: was expecting something different because.
Speaker 4: I love too lemony, but that's all would be good.
Speaker 4: Put a little bit of the pepper Chile.
Speaker 3: I'm not spicy enough, and I think that's gonna be fine.
Speaker 3: I love how you guys are.
Speaker 1: You guys have been partners for such a long time,
Speaker 1: and you could it's it's really.
Speaker 3: Everybody were sisters.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So I don't I don't want from the mixed uff.
Speaker 1: I'm a mixed babe from the eighties. And going back
Speaker 1: to what you said I experienced, I saw racism for
Speaker 1: the first time around like nine after we moved to
Speaker 1: upstate New York. We went from Brooklyn. Never really questioned
Speaker 1: our race. Definitely the whiteside question like how would we identify?
Speaker 1: And that was like kind of scary for me, Like
Speaker 1: what do you mean?
Speaker 3: How would I identify?
Speaker 1: So I'm thinking that since you guys are a little older,
Speaker 1: that maybe you guys had it even harder because we
Speaker 1: didn't know that many mixed people.
Speaker 3: Seventies I had found like yes, but.
Speaker 1: To hear that, like even the home environment, I was thinking,
Speaker 1: maybe it's the just the overall environment, because even when
Speaker 1: I got to high school, it was like I couldn't
Speaker 1: like my homeboy, white boy Tom because his parents were
Speaker 1: absolutely gonna end that relationship because they didn't want us
Speaker 1: mixing with them. So it's different to hear. But I
Speaker 1: also like hearing, like in Long Island that your parents
Speaker 1: had a struggle, but then in Culver City it was different.
Speaker 1: So do you think it was I feel you like
Speaker 1: where it's like it's not just your parents, but it's
Speaker 1: also that whole environment.
Speaker 4: But I think it's about toleration too, right, And it's
Speaker 4: about what you're going to deal with. And I think
Speaker 4: when you have had such struggle and you move on,
Speaker 4: you say I'm not going to deal with that, and
Speaker 4: you have to make that change. It doesn't mean you're
Speaker 4: not going to experience anything, right, But that's where the
Speaker 4: foundation comes from, the foundation at home, of understanding who
Speaker 4: you are, understanding that, hey, everyone's not going to like you,
Speaker 4: so get off of that high horse, right. Don't think
Speaker 4: you're too cute. You know you're not something so special.
Speaker 4: You are here, but you know what, in life, nothing's fair,
Speaker 4: and you need to work hard and let people see
Speaker 4: you for your talent. And who you truly are, rather
Speaker 4: than looking at you here, which people do all day, right,
Speaker 4: but you know, make a difference by being someone of substance.
Speaker 2: And for me, like my parents, actually my father got
Speaker 2: disowned from marrying my black mother. That's why they rushed
Speaker 2: it and got married in high school so he could
Speaker 2: take off the Vietnam So you know, Atlantic City, that
Speaker 2: area is extremely segregated. So when I was young, we
Speaker 2: lived in the projects, and you know, it was like hard.
Speaker 3: We had to fight a lot, just over just nonsense.
Speaker 2: And then we ended up to get away from the violence,
Speaker 2: we moved to this all white neighborhood, the ones that
Speaker 2: the racist grandparents lived in, you know, and lived with
Speaker 2: all white kids for a long time.
Speaker 3: And you know that I was called all kinds of names.
Speaker 3: But my dad taught us how to fight.
Speaker 2: So there was a lot of you know, a lot
Speaker 2: of not going up had to happen, you know, and
Speaker 2: I didn't really want to. I feel like I would
Speaker 2: have been more of a love child. I know, I
Speaker 2: feel I naturally am, but you know, I always had
Speaker 2: to have my guard up. And then fortunately when a
Speaker 2: brown the sixth grade, my dad got he was in
Speaker 2: the military and he got stationed in Fort Carson, Colorado,
Speaker 2: and I lived on an army base for the first
Speaker 2: time with so many other mixed children.
Speaker 3: It was like odd to not be mixed, kind of
Speaker 3: like what she experienced at Tara Hill.
Speaker 2: And that to me was like the Christmas Special when
Speaker 2: the like when they make it to the Land of Misfits,
Speaker 2: and I really felt like that, like I really identified.
Speaker 2: But I love that Christmas Special. I watch it every
Speaker 2: year because that felt like me. So then when we
Speaker 2: went back to Atlantic City, instead of wanting to be
Speaker 2: like everybody else, I pitied them for their limited view
Speaker 2: because that's all they knew and I was believe in
Speaker 2: it too. But you have to you have to have
Speaker 2: different perspectives and experiences to really know. So, you know,
Speaker 2: some some people they should do more work older people.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, we have to live leave
Speaker 2: room in our hearts for forgiveness.
Speaker 3: And you know, when you know better, you do better.
Speaker 3: A lot of them just don't know better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my mom definitely taught us to give grace. A
Speaker 1: lot of grace been dealing with racism, but I think
Speaker 1: it forced us to feel like if we're gonna have
Speaker 1: to choose a side, I guess we're gonna choose the
Speaker 1: side where what we've been called obviously the N word
Speaker 1: or you know, we're black, oh what have you. But
Speaker 1: it wasn't until like I was like thirty around thirty
Speaker 1: under thirty five and I realized Trevornoah had released a
Speaker 1: book Born a Crime. After I read that book, I
Speaker 1: was like, Oh, it's okay to say I'm mixed. But
Speaker 1: even society you'll see, like they'll slam a mixed person
Speaker 1: for saying you're a mixed versus well, just claim black,
Speaker 1: or the blacks will claim just black, and the whites
Speaker 1: definitely don't want you to claim white. So it's just like,
Speaker 1: you know, imagine where you are, right, Imagine how a
Speaker 1: lot of children feel. I mean, at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, why are we choosing the draft?
Speaker 2: Some of those comedic drafts are really funny when they pick,
Speaker 2: when they pick which race they want the mixed person
Speaker 2: to be.
Speaker 1: You know, that's who.
Speaker 3: You've never snow. I've never seen people like no, no, no,
Speaker 3: you can have him. Yeah right, it's like a whole raft.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like you are, like I think having a.
Speaker 3: Like Spacey Dash. Yeah, they don't want her, they don't
Speaker 3: want her. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I heard politics.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, no, it was funny, but it's interesting.
Speaker 3: It's ready to of you guys.
Speaker 1: It looks delicious. I hope now I see why the parsley. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so whenever you're ready. So the so you guys are
Speaker 1: both mixed chicks. Are you starting to struggle with your hair?
Speaker 1: Because curly hair is one of those hairs. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: just speaking from experience where it's like you fall in
Speaker 1: love with a product and then all of so one
Speaker 1: day your hair is like, you know what, I love you,
Speaker 1: but uh, I'm used to this product. Switch teams or
Speaker 1: if you guys probably battle that. Sometimes we use the
Speaker 1: same product for twenty one years. I want to say
Speaker 1: something because I hear people say that all the time.
Speaker 1: Oh you know, I can't use the product for so long.
Speaker 1: You know, I have to switch products. I have to
Speaker 1: say the proof is in the pudding. Look at all
Speaker 1: of this hair. Yes, and we're we're not young. I'm
Speaker 1: telling you the truth.
Speaker 4: So for us, you know what we are, our product
Speaker 4: and luckily for us, I don't switch products.
Speaker 3: I've been using the same products forever.
Speaker 2: There's been times that, like you go on vacation or
Speaker 2: maybe you didn't mean to, like you just thought you
Speaker 2: were like going for a day trip to the beach,
Speaker 2: but instead like you're like, oh, let's get a hotel here,
Speaker 2: and you stay overnight, and then you don't have your products.
Speaker 2: You trying to use something that the hotel has. You
Speaker 2: realize like, oh my gosh, like what would I do
Speaker 2: without it? Or you find something in the grocery store
Speaker 2: and that's not mixed chicks, and then you I'm really
Speaker 2: grateful that I have.
Speaker 3: A hotel, a warehouse full. Yeah the hotel, that's a hotel.
Speaker 2: So but but prior to that, when I talked about,
Speaker 2: you know, just my mother being able to teach me
Speaker 2: how to deal with textured hair, that wasn't the only
Speaker 2: well just mixing and matching products, you know, growing up
Speaker 2: we had to you know, the one aisle like it
Speaker 2: the only ethnic aisle was like dusty in the back
Speaker 2: corner and it had pink oil bo five and you
Speaker 2: know some some something that was like dark shoeshine for
Speaker 2: men to.
Speaker 3: Slick their hair down. Like, no, they didn't have a
Speaker 3: lot of good stuff back there. Oh there you go,
Speaker 3: Murray's I remember.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh I'm sorry because back then at one point, yes, yes,
Speaker 2: there was girl activating. Okay, So over the years I
Speaker 2: had mixed and matched so many things from both aisles that,
Speaker 2: you know, you had to master your own concoction because
Speaker 2: it just wasn't out there. You know, we were none
Speaker 2: of us were there creating products.
Speaker 3: We were just.
Speaker 2: Taking what they fed us instead of making something for us.
Speaker 2: So Kim and I were really surprised when we met
Speaker 2: and started sharing, you know, different secrets over the years
Speaker 2: of our concoctions.
Speaker 1: And oh, you guys were already individually making your own
Speaker 1: concoction complete.
Speaker 3: Anybody that met me would be like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 3: what are you using your hair? I say, do you
Speaker 3: have a pen and we'd write it down.
Speaker 2: And then I started mixing and actually like give like,
Speaker 2: let me just pre mix it for you here.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah no, and I just try a product and
Speaker 1: then like break up with the product until I found
Speaker 1: the product, which I never did. So mixed chicks, but
Speaker 1: you know I would. I never even thought of the
Speaker 1: genius idea of trying to blend because that style, right, you.
Speaker 3: Want that look. My mom was a hairdresser too growing up,
Speaker 3: so it's not just that.
Speaker 1: So you guys were swapping recipes at some point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like I shared my kind of concoction.
Speaker 2: She shared some extra stuff about it. We went to
Speaker 2: a lab, we worked with a chemist, and we mastered
Speaker 2: our own concoction.
Speaker 1: But before you went to the lab and started saying
Speaker 1: like we have something here, like can you talk more
Speaker 1: about like that pre experience right before Mixed.
Speaker 3: Chicks, Like I said, I was what we were using,
Speaker 3: well not what you were using.
Speaker 1: Like you guys were starting to hang out. So you're
Speaker 1: starting to hang out, You've become friends, and then are
Speaker 1: you guys like starting to complain about out the hair products?
Speaker 3: Like hair.
Speaker 2: We get on the boat together and it's like, look
Speaker 2: at this ship, right like look at my hair. You know,
Speaker 2: you're like look try this one, no, this one on
Speaker 2: this time, and you know, after a while, your hair
Speaker 2: and the what kind of day it's going to have?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Is it? Well?
Speaker 2: It consumes your day sometimes. Yeah, here's the thing. It
Speaker 2: was never consistent.
Speaker 4: So every day, no matter what you used, what you blend,
Speaker 4: you know, all the different things. Some days you had
Speaker 4: a great day. Some days you just did it and
Speaker 4: you're like, what went wrong? And that was what the
Speaker 4: conversation was about. The conversation was like, God, your hair
Speaker 4: looks so good today. What did you use?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
Speaker 4: But you know, it wasn't every day thing for us,
Speaker 4: but it was a problem forever for us. But we
Speaker 4: were so accustomed to dealing with it it was normal.
Speaker 2: And I was also an athlete in high school, so
Speaker 2: I the option of like wearing your hair straight was
Speaker 2: I mean, all the time you put into it and
Speaker 2: then you sweat it out. So I had to figure
Speaker 2: out out how to get washed and go curls. You
Speaker 2: had to because it was just a way of life.
Speaker 1: So then tell me about like that first conversation where
Speaker 1: you go, let's kind of so I want to enjoy
Speaker 1: all of this. So that first conversation where you're like
Speaker 1: maybe we have something here or or what do you
Speaker 1: think about actually making this legit? Like who had that
Speaker 1: idea first? Or how did that happen?
Speaker 2: I believe I had kind of the concoction that I
Speaker 2: would premix that was kind of like.
Speaker 3: Something that I like just had.
Speaker 2: I didn't just And it was for years this thing
Speaker 2: developed depending on what got discontinued and what didn't. This
Speaker 2: mix of ten different things in Kim and I's conversations.
Speaker 2: She was like, listen, let's go to the mall and watch,
Speaker 2: or let's go out. Watch how many people ask what
Speaker 2: we use in our hair?
Speaker 3: Watch? Watch? Watch.
Speaker 2: We couldn't get from three stores without somebody asking what
Speaker 2: do you use in her hair?
Speaker 3: And she's like, listen, I got I know this girl.
Speaker 3: I know a lab. We can go there.
Speaker 2: We're going to start our own thing at this point.
Speaker 2: At this point, I was I had like left the
Speaker 2: music industry and I was a gym teacher at North
Speaker 2: Hollywood High School. Okay, And she's like, girl, we're going
Speaker 2: to start our own thing. We're about to be rich.
Speaker 2: And I looked at her like she was crazy, because
Speaker 2: I'm thinking it had to have already been done. It
Speaker 2: had to have already been done, and as we did
Speaker 2: the research, it had not been done.
Speaker 1: And no, was any part of you like looking at
Speaker 1: him like this girl's crazy? Where too, or where you
Speaker 1: like if anybody's gonna have this idea as Kim? And
Speaker 1: she you know, she didn't know me that well. I
Speaker 1: was friends with her sister. No, she didn't know me
Speaker 1: that well.
Speaker 4: I think Wendy comes from a background of stability, right,
Speaker 4: like she to have a job, like you have health,
Speaker 4: everything right, and you know, I just come from more
Speaker 4: of you know, there's nothing you can't do right. So
Speaker 4: that's just the attitude. It was exciting. Our issue we
Speaker 4: realized was just not our issue. So maybe that's the problem.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's a bit of a problem with me, right,
Speaker 4: I trying to solve the problem. But it was like, okay,
Speaker 4: wait a minute, we've had consistent hair for these amount
Speaker 4: of days. Now go out and see how many people
Speaker 4: ask you. But the reality is we didn't realize this
Speaker 4: has probably been happening our whole lives that people will
Speaker 4: ask us, we just don't pay attention to it. So
Speaker 4: then when we started just to pay attention to that
Speaker 4: small little step, it was like, there's a bigger issue here, right,
Speaker 4: we're making a product for us. Our friends won't give
Speaker 4: back the samples. They want more and more and more.
Speaker 4: But guess what's happening. People are asking us all over
Speaker 4: So everyone's starting to have this issue, or everyone's been
Speaker 4: having this issue, So guess who's going to solve it?
Speaker 3: We are.
Speaker 1: So what did you think of her when she was
Speaker 1: just like, Okay, we're going to solve this problem.
Speaker 3: I just thought it was.
Speaker 4: I thought it was a hobby, not hot well for me,
Speaker 4: I mean for me, it was as a hobby just
Speaker 4: for me.
Speaker 2: For me, it was like this. I thought it was
Speaker 2: kind of a California thing. I didn't think she was
Speaker 2: just crazy. I just thought, Wow, California really were just dreamers.
Speaker 3: Not just dreamers.
Speaker 2: Wow, they take chances because this is crazy, like to
Speaker 2: just to me, there's no way I could like probably
Speaker 2: sleep at night if I didn't have health insurance.
Speaker 3: Isn't that crazy money?
Speaker 1: So no, I think like more. But even like because
Speaker 1: you're you're in your twenties early or maybe early when.
Speaker 3: We started we started how I was thirty.
Speaker 1: One, okay, early thirties Okay, I'll be honest. Early until
Speaker 1: I had a kid, I didn't care about health insurance.
Speaker 1: Then I was like, well, I guess I need to
Speaker 1: stay healthy. You know, we need to stay healthy. But
Speaker 1: before kid, I didn't never thought about it. I'm definitely
Speaker 1: more entrepreneur set. But you could see the difference. You're saying,
Speaker 1: like I'm thinking about health insurance, You're like, do.
Speaker 3: We really need it?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 4: I'm guessing that's you're like, no, you know why? Maybe
Speaker 4: because I worked in television my whole life. We didn't
Speaker 4: have healthy shirts. I kind of said, we didn't have
Speaker 4: health inshurt. No, that's not I mean, it just simply
Speaker 4: was like it was exciting to be challenged to have
Speaker 4: something exciting. Imagine in life, like right now, we're all
Speaker 4: in our regular schedules, right every day.
Speaker 3: What about having a do over? How exciting would that be? Right?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, because it's kind of our schedules are just repetitive, right,
Speaker 4: our life is monotonous. It was like, oh, this is
Speaker 4: something new, It's exciting and challenging, and I rise to
Speaker 4: a challenge.
Speaker 1: So you were a gym teacher when Mixed Chicks is
Speaker 1: starting to formulate.
Speaker 3: What were you in a basketball ref? I was rough
Speaker 3: from basketball on the side to.
Speaker 1: Make money, okay, And what were you doing?
Speaker 3: I was doing pr oh some athletes Okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I come out of TELL, I came out of TV
Speaker 4: and I was doing some PR.
Speaker 1: So you were doing it. You were already kind of
Speaker 1: on the entrepreneur path. I was working for myself, okay. Okay,
Speaker 1: so now.
Speaker 4: I was always kind of working for myself if you
Speaker 4: think about it. And then when you work in TV, yeah,
Speaker 4: you're part of the studio you're working for yourself.
Speaker 3: So that's kind of been my life.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna try this linguini right now before we
Speaker 1: get into the depths of mixed chicks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, go ahead, Cam, Well, what's all the seasoning? You
Speaker 3: didn't use? No seasoning?
Speaker 1: Him? Now that the cameras rolling talk your talk, miss.
Speaker 3: I mean the lemon is good, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: You thought it was too lemonade, but the lemon is good.
Speaker 3: I think it's good.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, I like there's a little kick
Speaker 4: from the little pepper. Yeah, okay, I just you know,
Speaker 4: spiced mine up a little bit. What would you have
Speaker 4: se do with you It was just a little listen,
Speaker 4: the fresh garlic is always the best. I probably would
Speaker 4: have just used just me a little bit of garlic powder,
Speaker 4: just a little extra, a little bit of lemon pepper.
Speaker 3: But that's just me.
Speaker 4: It's like I used the same seasonings and everything, even
Speaker 4: though you know, things taste different.
Speaker 3: That's all so. But it's good.
Speaker 4: It tastes great, and it's very flavorful, just like flavor,
Speaker 4: which is fine.
Speaker 3: I think you used too much lemon.
Speaker 1: No, I think the lemon is perfect and I added
Speaker 1: parmesan cheese to mic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's good. So it's really good.
Speaker 1: The little clams makes me feel like this ain't a
Speaker 1: broken dish.
Speaker 2: I feel like when you chop up fresh ingredients, it
Speaker 2: never tastes broke to me.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm because of the cooking process. Right. Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: almost like it's your chef.
Speaker 2: It's almost the clam broth and all those things just
Speaker 2: saw tan for a little while, almost create a little
Speaker 2: root in a sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And for the listeners at home, definitely ten out
Speaker 1: of ten. This dish is high rated and bang for buck.
Speaker 1: Definitely bang for buck, and I do I will say
Speaker 1: that I would have never thought to saute the garlic,
Speaker 1: the butter and the clams prior to, like, in a
Speaker 1: separate pan. So if you guys are making it at home,
Speaker 1: use the separate use a separate pan.
Speaker 3: So brilliant.
Speaker 4: Yeah, every dish I usually cook, I'm sure Whendy probably
Speaker 4: does too.
Speaker 3: I always saute my.
Speaker 5: Onions, my garlic, you know, whether it's olive oil or
Speaker 5: butter in the beginning, just to get that, you know, base,
Speaker 5: and then add whatever you're cooking.
Speaker 1: So you did olive oil and butter together.
Speaker 3: I did, but you don't have to. I think she did.
Speaker 3: I probably put you know, a table.
Speaker 1: This is delicious because I guarantee you all of us
Speaker 1: are going to finish this plate.
Speaker 6: It's delicious, delicious, delicious delicious.
Speaker 1: So when you guys first came out, I have a
Speaker 1: basket full of products. When you first came out, well,
Speaker 1: when I I'm a fan of your guys, it was
Speaker 1: conditioner and shampoo. At some point, you guys are like,
Speaker 1: let's go to a lab. Tell me about those first steps.
Speaker 1: Did you were you just making it up as you
Speaker 1: went along or were you trying to find mentors in
Speaker 1: the space? How did it go?
Speaker 3: You know, we didn't even We just went for it.
Speaker 2: We started out by like like I said, Kim secured
Speaker 2: the lab. We went there with an ingredient deck, right,
Speaker 2: so we had to look at the combination of products
Speaker 2: that we did. You mix and match like those ten
Speaker 2: A lot of them had common ingredients. But you have
Speaker 2: to come up with you make your potion, and then
Speaker 2: you have to have an ingredient deck when you go
Speaker 2: to a chemist so that they can begin the process
Speaker 2: of creating what you want.
Speaker 3: And then they is the proper raw material.
Speaker 2: Raw materials and then you make notes and then you
Speaker 2: go like round two, round three, until you get exactly
Speaker 2: the formula that you want.
Speaker 1: So you would like you would after they mix it,
Speaker 1: you would come home and test it.
Speaker 2: Yes, so based on our notes, so then we fortunately,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's interesting because if it was just a
Speaker 2: couple of years prior, we would have had to go
Speaker 2: to the library to look up the ingredients. But it
Speaker 2: was like the very beginning kind of internet, Internet and searches,
Speaker 2: so we could search all of these key ingredients and
Speaker 2: actually learn their functions, learn about what was good for you,
Speaker 2: what was bad for you, what might be the hardening product.
Speaker 2: So if we got it and our hair was stiff,
Speaker 2: we could actually speak in the correct terms and say no, no, low,
Speaker 2: we're such and such ingredient it was too stiff or
Speaker 2: you know, increase this increase that we knew the difference speach.
Speaker 1: So you guys had to know that, not the chemistry.
Speaker 2: Well, we had to learn it to give proper notes.
Speaker 2: We're not somebody who private labels. A lot of some
Speaker 2: brands would like get a formula it's already done and put.
Speaker 3: Their name on it.
Speaker 2: Right where we really really wanted to create it to
Speaker 2: our scific needs.
Speaker 3: Well, if you look at the back of.
Speaker 4: Products, well not today, because people don't put their real ingredients.
Speaker 4: That's a big problem on labelsities.
Speaker 3: You look at the products. First of all, the first
Speaker 3: four or five six are the same.
Speaker 4: Ingredients on most products, whether it's your shampoo, your conditioner. Okay,
Speaker 4: now people are just putting essential oils in the beginning.
Speaker 4: Impossible that the products full of us central oils.
Speaker 3: You have to have water, you know, you.
Speaker 4: Have to have you know, all kinds of stabilizers right
Speaker 4: in your product.
Speaker 3: You have to have a preservative in your product if
Speaker 3: you're going to sit on the shelf.
Speaker 4: But when we started, we started to recognize that most
Speaker 4: of the products, whether we had ten products, the first.
Speaker 3: Five may be the same, right.
Speaker 4: And then you start to see the added ingredients, right,
Speaker 4: the suffactants or the conditioning agents or you know what
Speaker 4: you know takes away the static in the product. Right,
Speaker 4: So you start seeing all of those different things. When
Speaker 4: you start, we were able to Google, thank god, because
Speaker 4: Google had come into play. You could say, okay, well
Speaker 4: this is what this is saying. Maybe that's not great
Speaker 4: for me. You know what happens if we take that out.
Speaker 4: Is it necessary to have that? That's what a chemist does, right,
Speaker 4: tells you this. This is the reason why this needs
Speaker 4: to be in here because it stabilizes the product. This
Speaker 4: helps with the pH balance, This helps with this. You
Speaker 4: know some things in products when we began, I mean
Speaker 4: they threw everything in products back in the day. So
Speaker 4: then you just start pulling out of there. And that's
Speaker 4: what you notice now a lot of brands, you know
Speaker 4: that everyone's kind of making products as simple as possible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so a lot of the.
Speaker 4: Things that you know, products started out as they're not
Speaker 4: the same now because you know people started or you
Speaker 4: know the products ATRETT getting regulated, right, I was going
Speaker 4: to say the FDA Prop sixty five, moke RA, all
Speaker 4: of these different regulatory agencies.
Speaker 1: So when you're dealing with so after you get the product,
Speaker 1: you get the potion that you want, then you have
Speaker 1: to still get it cleared through the FDA and all
Speaker 1: those other guys or how does that process?
Speaker 4: Like? Well, regulation is pretty serious now, right, Like depending
Speaker 4: on where you're selling. If you're selling in Europe, you
Speaker 4: have to be EU compliant. They have different rules and
Speaker 4: throughout Europe, so it's a whole different testing there here
Speaker 4: in California where we are. Prop sixty five is a
Speaker 4: real thing. I don't know if you've ever heard of that.
Speaker 4: Sometimes like say, and I hate to say, if you're
Speaker 4: driving through McDonald's or if you're shopping for something, you'll
Speaker 4: see labels, right, this product may contain materials that can
Speaker 4: cause cancer.
Speaker 3: You know, these are all like Prop sixty five warnings.
Speaker 2: If anything has anything that can potentially cause cancer, you
Speaker 2: have to like warrant it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even if it doesn't prove it, put it on the.
Speaker 3: Have the food they sell the you know, you know,
Speaker 3: and that's different. Food is different.
Speaker 1: It's food different because I feel like a lot of
Speaker 1: the food food is different.
Speaker 4: Maybe in and food is different. Food labeling is different.
Speaker 4: I think there's ways can get around it. And a
Speaker 4: lot of in food everywhere, but not not as much
Speaker 4: now because you have these ambulance chasing attorneys that are
Speaker 4: just pulling every single product and uh, you know, reading
Speaker 4: their labels or testing their products.
Speaker 3: And they like to go after the small.
Speaker 4: Guys because you know, the big guys like the Procter
Speaker 4: and Gambles, the Loreals, they all have a legal team
Speaker 4: that can fight.
Speaker 2: And there are things like sometimes like you know, we're like,
Speaker 2: our lab is ordering you know, our raw materials, right,
Speaker 2: So if they get the fragrance, if they source it
Speaker 2: somewhere and they get the safety data sheet, we believe
Speaker 2: that safety data sheet right, whatever's in that fragrance, and
Speaker 2: they're not always forthright. So what happens to a lot
Speaker 2: of small brands once an attorney figures out that this
Speaker 2: one lab is distributing a fragrance that has such and
Speaker 2: such in it that is illegal, but we don't know
Speaker 2: some kind of byproduct of a natural ingredient blend and
Speaker 2: we don't know, and it wasn't revealed to us. But
Speaker 2: then this they get a hold of your products, they
Speaker 2: test it, they tell you, and now you're being sued
Speaker 2: for something that you really flied to you some other
Speaker 2: lab lied to the lab that you sourced it. So
Speaker 2: it's good that we've had a relationship with our lab
Speaker 2: for all twenty four years, so you know, we have
Speaker 2: a lot of access to them and honesty and trust there.
Speaker 3: So we've been pretty safe.
Speaker 2: But a lot of brands I feel for when I
Speaker 2: see them getting taken down because of the big brands,
Speaker 2: they have that same thing in it, but they won't
Speaker 2: sue them because that's what they got.
Speaker 3: Do you think.
Speaker 1: The big brands feel a little threatened by some of
Speaker 1: the smaller brands and then they just I hate to
Speaker 1: say it, but like take them out because I mean
Speaker 1: you'd be like, hey.
Speaker 4: Of course it's such and such, Yes, well, because this
Speaker 4: all our brands are the entrepreneurs. They're the women, right,
Speaker 4: They're like the brands that began for a reason. They
Speaker 4: weren't just trying to capitalize on the consumer and make money.
Speaker 4: Everything was from the heart. So I think maybe there's
Speaker 4: just that.
Speaker 3: They're not the what's the word I'm looking for.
Speaker 4: I don't want to say authentic, But they're not the creator,
Speaker 4: do you know what I mean? So they're not the
Speaker 4: creative force behind it. And I mean there's the difference
Speaker 4: between entrepreneurs and the big boys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the big boys like I hate to use
Speaker 1: their actual names, but like I would imagine like a
Speaker 1: Procter and Gamble type are the big boys, right or
Speaker 1: whoever owns like the Murray's and the TCBs back in
Speaker 1: the day, they were a lot of us now too,
Speaker 1: the big guys, And they.
Speaker 2: Call it now like we are a black owned company
Speaker 2: and certified Black female owned and certified.
Speaker 3: That used to really mean something.
Speaker 2: The big boys have interchanged it with black founded, so
Speaker 2: they use a black face there and they just say
Speaker 2: it's black founded, and we end up believing that it's
Speaker 2: black owned and it's not. And that's a lot of
Speaker 2: major brands that are out there that we all support.
Speaker 1: I believe that because I, uh, I tried. My daughter's
Speaker 1: hair is a little bit curlier than mine, so I
Speaker 1: always dibble and dabble, and her hair is like fine,
Speaker 1: but curlier, So you know, I'll test different things. But
Speaker 1: I remember one time I got a product I probably
Speaker 1: was black founded, but definitely I could just tell immediately, well,
Speaker 1: I just told I was like to say, this is
Speaker 1: probably like a white brand or some big company day, Yeah,
Speaker 1: this isn't come on man, you know. And now gotten
Speaker 1: to the point where I could like touch, I could
Speaker 1: touch a product and tell you if it's gonna work
Speaker 1: or not.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, it used to be a big issue
Speaker 4: when we began. I mean there were probably eight brands.
Speaker 4: We were all different, we all serviced, you know, something.
Speaker 4: If something didn't work for you, someone else's product did.
Speaker 4: And that was the beauty of the brands at that time. Right,
Speaker 4: everything's not for everybody, but there was a choice. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean, and everyone has a choice today too. But
Speaker 4: every brand that was founded at that time in the
Speaker 4: two thousands, I really was from a personal need, but thinking.
Speaker 3: About the consumer. Who is our consumer?
Speaker 4: So when we all began at that time, it was
Speaker 4: a hot thing, right. We were all online. We were
Speaker 4: selling online. We weren't in retail stores. And actually Richelieu Dennis,
Speaker 4: who owned Shaye Moisture at the time, he was the
Speaker 4: first to go into mass retail.
Speaker 1: So is he black or wise?
Speaker 3: He's black?
Speaker 1: Just want to make sure. Yeah, okay, because people think
Speaker 1: who's a baby sweet baby rais they'd be.
Speaker 3: Like, that's black ome and barbecue sauce.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh yeah, we can get your black owned barbecue sauce.
Speaker 3: Buying Bobby Brown foods okay, just giving that.
Speaker 1: Little Bobby Brown shout out, yes, thank you.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 3: But you know, so.
Speaker 4: When rich you know started, I mean, and we always laughed,
Speaker 4: but this is the way we used to sell products,
Speaker 4: Like we were selling records out of the trunk of
Speaker 4: our car.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just how we were pushing it. We
Speaker 1: were pushing so you guys would show up to like
Speaker 1: games and be like here we.
Speaker 4: Had these little jill packs, right, there were our samples.
Speaker 4: We they're called pillow packs. But what was our nickname?
Speaker 4: Hot Somali's so like creamy crack, creamy crack, liquid gold everything,
Speaker 4: let's name it.
Speaker 3: But but we were pushing them. I mean we were
Speaker 3: pushing them like here, try this, try this.
Speaker 4: You know everywhere there's always had a box in a car.
Speaker 4: I love it, like wait, wait wait sometimes and.
Speaker 1: Then at this point you were just selling online, yes,
Speaker 1: and you were pushing these out of your pushing and
Speaker 1: like samples or were you actually trying to sell.
Speaker 3: We were the real dealers, baby, I love it. Okay,
Speaker 3: we were. We were the pusha okay for like for real.
Speaker 4: But but when we started and I was just saying,
Speaker 4: when he came into retail, well, there were only like
Speaker 4: five people that went on the first wave, right, and
Speaker 4: these were all brands founded run by owned by black individuals,
Speaker 4: women and men.
Speaker 3: So it was great because we were all online.
Speaker 4: So our price points were you know, wherever we saw fit.
Speaker 3: I mean it wasn't like we knew the rules.
Speaker 4: We made up the rules, right, and it was really
Speaker 4: based on like the cost of our goods. Or you know,
Speaker 4: just what we thought our products were worth. It was fine,
Speaker 4: we made good money, it was great. Everyone was for it.
Speaker 4: But once we went into mass retail, there were things
Speaker 4: that we didn't know we should have considered, like what
Speaker 4: like you can get on the shelf, but they're going
Speaker 4: to charge you a slotting fee, or you know, your
Speaker 4: returns can take you out of being on that shelf.
Speaker 4: So once there was a retailer, once you sell into them,
Speaker 4: they could return all that merchandise to you once that
Speaker 4: they paid you, all of a sudden that those products
Speaker 4: come back to you because customers return them they're damaged
Speaker 4: or are or yeah, like this.
Speaker 2: Another common practice in mass retail is like like she
Speaker 2: said about they're charging you for the door, right, So
Speaker 2: say there's a new line review and we want to add.
Speaker 3: A product to the products that are up on the shelves.
Speaker 2: Now, when we were younger, and they said, oh great,
Speaker 2: we're going to put you in all of the doors
Speaker 2: right away. Right, you get excited and you let them
Speaker 2: put you in five thousand doors.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you don't have the.
Speaker 2: Promotions and the people to support that, in six months,
Speaker 2: they're going to go, we're shrinking you down to two
Speaker 2: thousand doors. You owe them, and then they put your
Speaker 2: product for twenty five percent off, then half off, and
Speaker 2: then clearance, and you owe them every dime. They didn't
Speaker 2: make the heck every time, So when you get shrunken
Speaker 2: on a shelf, you're fucked through.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, say it loud. Yeah. But wait, so, like
Speaker 1: you get this phone call and you're like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: we phone call.
Speaker 3: An email?
Speaker 1: You get an email? But are you now at this
Speaker 1: point are you reaching out to them or they reaching
Speaker 1: out to You're having a meeting like with the distributor, okay,
Speaker 1: and then you get really excited a I got five
Speaker 1: thousand retails.
Speaker 3: Of course it's exciting.
Speaker 1: Now at that point if you don't have the bank
Speaker 1: world to help promote well. And I have the two
Speaker 1: questions when you start out. Are they because I learned,
Speaker 1: especially since having a kid, that product placement in stores
Speaker 1: they are very genius by putting the candy in the
Speaker 1: checkout section that right, But like as I got older,
Speaker 1: I started realizing like where you shelf place and where
Speaker 1: the important a store? So like if they roll out
Speaker 1: five thousand stores, right, they're not going to start you
Speaker 1: at the premium placement, right.
Speaker 3: And it depends on who you are and when you begin.
Speaker 4: Now, I'll be honest, when we started, when we went
Speaker 4: into retail with the rest of the group, like we
Speaker 4: went a year after we all had prime real estate,
Speaker 4: we were all right there for everyone to see because
Speaker 4: there was a demand. We were original, we were genuine,
Speaker 4: we were authentic, and the consumer wanted our product.
Speaker 3: You start to lose that space.
Speaker 4: When the big boys realize, wow, there's money to be
Speaker 4: made here.
Speaker 1: And they're able to pay for that space.
Speaker 3: They either pay for the space.
Speaker 2: That was how they first came in, but more recently,
Speaker 2: now that this world is so trendy due to social
Speaker 2: media and people's like just love of famous people, the
Speaker 2: big boy now will get a famous space or that
Speaker 2: social media the person with all the followers just can
Speaker 2: say I'm actually going to launch a brand now, and
Speaker 2: because of that following, a mass retailer might give them
Speaker 2: prime space with no experience because they understand how much
Speaker 2: promotion that is for their store.
Speaker 4: Jesus, social media is running thing. Ell gets king, it's everything.
Speaker 4: And listen, we're a twenty one year old brand, right,
Speaker 4: so you know we need to pivot and of course
Speaker 4: still running a band you have to pivot.
Speaker 3: But we're some old broads. We're not doing all of that.
Speaker 4: Meaning I'm not going on social media, you know, acting
Speaker 4: like I'm living the.
Speaker 3: Goods you guys are.
Speaker 1: You guys are like a more legendary brand at this point,
Speaker 1: Like you guys call a legacy brand. Yeah, a legacy
Speaker 1: I would say, a legacy brand, so you don't have
Speaker 1: to do as much.
Speaker 3: We have to do a lot.
Speaker 1: You still do, like it's day one, Are you serious?
Speaker 3: Still is not the same?
Speaker 5: Really?
Speaker 3: Social media? It's just it's not. It doesn't. It doesn't.
Speaker 2: The quality of the product is not where the sale
Speaker 2: comes from.
Speaker 3: It comes from the trend.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I can see that.
Speaker 4: So it's just yeah, times are different for everybody, right.
Speaker 4: I think a lot of consumers shop based on their pocketbook,
Speaker 4: you know, so sometimes okay, it's just okay, you know,
Speaker 4: instead of it has to be perfect or the best.
Speaker 1: I one hundred percent agree with you, though, because I
Speaker 1: don't I don't know how to do that. Delicately Mixed
Speaker 1: Chicks is a legacy brand, I do see. Like when say, uh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say this delicately, like a Tracy Ellis Ross
Speaker 1: becomes a face of a brand, right, everyone's talking about it,
Speaker 1: but they're only talking about it because it's a face
Speaker 1: of brand. I'm not gonna totally slamm her. I did
Speaker 1: test the product, didn't like the product, you know.
Speaker 3: Not hating on a product, you.
Speaker 1: Know, Yeah, but like, but you get what I'm saying. Like,
Speaker 1: I bought it because of course everyone jumped on the
Speaker 1: brand because it was you know, you see this girl
Speaker 1: this she looks like us, right, she's famous, so we
Speaker 1: went in, we bought the product.
Speaker 3: Funny, she's cool, she's cool.
Speaker 1: Definitely, don't hate her. But I'll try. My whole thing
Speaker 1: is I'll try everything at least once. Of course i'll try.
Speaker 1: If you guys gave me some absolutely ridiculous, I'll be like,
Speaker 1: but I'll try it. So I do see how a
Speaker 1: lot of my peers were like, oh, she has this line,
Speaker 1: let's go try it. And it is trendy to be
Speaker 1: like the person that's trying the new Kylie. You have
Speaker 1: the same lip gloss you've been using forever. So I
Speaker 1: can see where you say, like, you know what, No,
Speaker 1: we still have to bust our ass because the trend
Speaker 1: is everyone's hopping on the bandwagon and it's not about
Speaker 1: how good the product is. Is just jumping onto.
Speaker 2: Our loyal customers or like and you know in our wheel,
Speaker 2: which is beautiful and we're so grateful for them. I
Speaker 2: just there was one other part that I left out
Speaker 2: of mass retail, just to shift also to the convenience
Speaker 2: of shopping online and Amazon. The stores are suffering on
Speaker 2: the shelf level, right, so their ask from us is
Speaker 2: more than it used to be. They want us to
Speaker 2: give them more promos, which we have to pay all promos.
Speaker 2: They take it out of the invoice that they're about
Speaker 2: to pay you that they have your product of. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so these are the things that are doing even the
Speaker 2: way people are promoting now, you know, these mob stuffs
Speaker 2: and all of this, and people just swipe and you
Speaker 2: see people running out of walk ground remember during COVID
Speaker 2: H and they're still doing it.
Speaker 3: We get we're getting asked now.
Speaker 2: Like the shrinkage of the stores is overwhelming, just missing
Speaker 2: product and they'd like to take that out of our
Speaker 2: invoice too. So the negotiations have gotten pretty like.
Speaker 3: Steep, that's all.
Speaker 1: It's just are you guys are now if you're a brand,
Speaker 1: are you able to like call them up and haggle
Speaker 1: it out.
Speaker 2: It depends on who the buyer is. No, some buyers
Speaker 2: are more accessible.
Speaker 4: Now we're still paying, you still pay, still pay, you
Speaker 4: still pay.
Speaker 3: No, it's just a different world.
Speaker 1: Are you guys more thankful now that the shift is
Speaker 1: going back online? Now? Because then or is like retailers
Speaker 1: like Amazon charging like crazy amounts. Now.
Speaker 4: We started as an online yeah business, right, so we
Speaker 4: began to pivot about six years ago back online. So
Speaker 4: online's been great for us. But again, you have an Amazon.
Speaker 4: Luckily we have presents there, we're selling there. I mean,
Speaker 4: I think the consumer is about convenience and if they
Speaker 4: can go to Amazon and they can find all of
Speaker 4: our products that they can't find at a store, that's
Speaker 4: what they're going to do. And we're grateful for that,
Speaker 4: you know. But it is a different time. Nothing lasts forever. Okay,
Speaker 4: We've been in this game twenty one years. That's a big,
Speaker 4: big feat.
Speaker 3: It's been a good run. At the end of the day,
Speaker 3: it's a good feet.
Speaker 4: You can look at tons of brands and listen, God
Speaker 4: bless everyone who got in and got out. Right, they
Speaker 4: got in, they got out. We're still in it. But
Speaker 4: we went to twenty one years. We're at twenty one years.
Speaker 4: People didn't go past ten years. Yeah, so you know,
Speaker 4: hard work, determination, perseverance. You know, we're still standing. But
Speaker 4: it's a different day.
Speaker 1: And then how when you twenty one years in the game,
Speaker 1: you have to be the best pivoter because a lot
Speaker 1: has happened in twenty one years. You know, print faded,
Speaker 1: digital came in stores. Were now we're just running in circles.
Speaker 1: But are you guys? Are you guys now like almost
Speaker 1: like foreseeing the storm before it comes. Are you guys
Speaker 1: in that phase of life? Are the story is hit?
Speaker 3: The storm is hit. We're in the hurricane baby, So no, no,
Speaker 3: because fema.
Speaker 2: But you're hilarious at the same time, you know, like
Speaker 2: in our fifties, so you know you're once your priorities
Speaker 2: they shift. We have teenage girls, we have twenty kids
Speaker 2: in their twenties, so it's like you know, and then
Speaker 2: health changes, menopause hits, and just priorities kind of shift
Speaker 2: and what you're grateful for it shifts. So even though
Speaker 2: there's a storm, and you know, at the same time,
Speaker 2: I'm learning to be more grateful about things outside of that.
Speaker 3: Just whether you wake up without a.
Speaker 2: Pain that day, or to have healthy parents, you know,
Speaker 2: or to just see your kids smiling and just laughing
Speaker 2: for a bit. I'm trying to find more joy in
Speaker 2: that so that you can have like authentic power and
Speaker 2: move through any storm.
Speaker 3: It's work, but that's where my head has been. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean for me, I'm a single mom, so
Speaker 4: the work doesn't stop me.
Speaker 1: I just became a single mom. Yeah, it doesn't tell
Speaker 1: start for me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So even though there's a shift, I dig in
Speaker 4: deeper because I'm the sole provider.
Speaker 3: So you know what I mean. Time have changed.
Speaker 4: Life is lifing, but I mean, thank god I'm still
Speaker 4: here and I'm still going to press on into the
Speaker 4: Fat Lady sings.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's really what it's about about.
Speaker 1: I'm curious what is a day in the life of
Speaker 1: you guys, and what responsibilities? How do you guys? Who
Speaker 1: handles what? In the company? You could start with We
Speaker 1: used to kind of do it all you like swap.
Speaker 3: It was like we.
Speaker 2: Wore eight hats each and everything kind of interchange. I
Speaker 2: finished her sentence, she started that job, finished my job,
Speaker 2: whatever it was. But as we've kind of moved on,
Speaker 2: we've kind of kind of fell into.
Speaker 3: The spots that we're best at.
Speaker 2: But at this point, we like we have discussions where,
Speaker 2: you know, sometimes the balance isn't fair over the years.
Speaker 3: And it takes it.
Speaker 2: You know, it's you have to really be a partner
Speaker 2: and they're going to figure out how to get through that. Currently,
Speaker 2: Kim does a lot of sales and would like me
Speaker 2: to do more sales.
Speaker 1: I do a lot of I love that you're really
Speaker 1: really saying this right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I like that. Let's keep it real.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's really real, kah.
Speaker 2: But I really enjoy math and I manage all of
Speaker 2: the inventory, like that's man going and trying to make
Speaker 2: sure that we don't went out of things, and that's
Speaker 2: like a constant thing. And also there's a whole lot
Speaker 2: of things there. That's a full time job. But you know,
Speaker 2: we all wear our hats and we got to sit
Speaker 2: down and hash it.
Speaker 3: Out to keep it or make it fair. But you know,
Speaker 3: we've been.
Speaker 2: Doing it for twenty one years and I don't have
Speaker 2: any doubt that we won't figure it out.
Speaker 1: You guys will continue to grow, definitely. It doesn't surprise
Speaker 1: me that Kim would be responsible for sales because usually
Speaker 1: is the entrepreneurial one. You're like constantly hustling receivables too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I need to see where our money's going everything,
Speaker 2: every bill that comes in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm thinking of It makes sense though, even like
Speaker 1: looking at how you guys lined up originally to see
Speaker 1: that that's how the workload is kind of like you're
Speaker 1: more into this section. It actually lines up all the
Speaker 1: way down to your guys beginning roots, like even with you,
Speaker 1: like where's the money going? Like you're more the stability
Speaker 1: kind of one, and.
Speaker 3: Well, god forbid the ground shakes. She's freaking out.
Speaker 1: I love you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, She's like I'm running, I got a hold on
Speaker 4: you know whatever, and I and then she's all.
Speaker 1: Casual, like we'll get this. We got there last week, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll be fine.
Speaker 3: It's week to week. It's week to week at the
Speaker 3: end of the day. I love it.
Speaker 1: Twenty one years later and you're still saying this now.
Speaker 1: When you guys branch into these different products, can you
Speaker 1: just talk just a little bit about like what that
Speaker 1: process looks like and whether or not it's an extreme
Speaker 1: headache and risky when you do that, because you have
Speaker 1: your your main staples and then you have well.
Speaker 3: I mean, our leavens are staple.
Speaker 4: It's still our number one selling product, right and obviously
Speaker 4: we moved on to shampoo condition from customer demand. But
Speaker 4: as Wendy we were talking about retail earlier. You know,
Speaker 4: they always want something new, right, Like, we didn't come
Speaker 4: from that, Like we came on a stable ground that
Speaker 4: Hey it works, we.
Speaker 3: Solved the problem.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this problem yet, right, we thought.
Speaker 3: That's what it was. We forgot.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, we're never satisfied, right, women were never satisfied.
Speaker 3: We always want something new.
Speaker 4: Or when you buy those great shoes, oh yeah, those
Speaker 4: shoes are the bomb. Right, but guess what we do
Speaker 4: want another pair of shoes. But where are we going
Speaker 4: to get the shoes from? Well, I love that brand.
Speaker 4: So if they have a different type of shoe, because
Speaker 4: I know they're dependable, I know that, you know, I
Speaker 4: can rock them for this amount of time and they're
Speaker 4: great or they're comfortable, I'm going to go back to them.
Speaker 4: So we had to start thinking that way. It wasn't
Speaker 4: we didn't think that way right away. We were going
Speaker 4: off of the demand of the customer, the past the
Speaker 4: customer or the was it it was the customer then
Speaker 4: the store started demanding, and when the store just became
Speaker 4: more of a copycat syndrome.
Speaker 3: And that's something we never have been like.
Speaker 4: So when you're running a race, right, you don't look back,
Speaker 4: you don't look to the side. You have to keep
Speaker 4: looking forward. So we had to start blocking that out.
Speaker 4: And I don't really think we ever copied. We just
Speaker 4: listened to we need something else from you, We want
Speaker 4: a collection from you. But the problem is when you
Speaker 4: start making things because they're asking. If they don't take it,
Speaker 4: then you're stuck with the product.
Speaker 3: Right, So we.
Speaker 1: Had to we had to go to aciety.
Speaker 3: We had to go back to.
Speaker 4: Making what we know our consumer would look for. We
Speaker 4: knew we had our online outlet. We knew there were
Speaker 4: online outlets for our consumer to find the product. So
Speaker 4: we just have to keep running it that way. We
Speaker 4: didn't keep up with the stores, so I think people
Speaker 4: would say, oh, well, you know they didn't turn over
Speaker 4: a new product every year, But why would we were
Speaker 4: not going to like, we can't how many people have
Speaker 4: you know?
Speaker 3: Well, when we started.
Speaker 4: No one how to leave in conditioner only we had
Speaker 4: to leave in condition We all know it's makes case.
Speaker 3: We need any conditions right.
Speaker 4: Now there's fifty five leave in conditioners. You know, we
Speaker 4: had a deep conditioner. Everyone had a conditioner. We had
Speaker 4: a deep conditioner. Now everyone has a deep conditioner. So
Speaker 4: what happens is they start saying, oh, there's too many
Speaker 4: leaving conditioners, there's too many deep conditioners.
Speaker 3: So we just try to make products that we know.
Speaker 4: We need that our consumer says, oh, I love this,
Speaker 4: you know, you know, would you guys think about making
Speaker 4: something like that? And most times these are people have
Speaker 4: been loyal to us for so long. It's nice to
Speaker 4: listen to their wants and their desires, especially when they
Speaker 4: want to stay within the brand. And that's what we
Speaker 4: try to do. Again, how many shampoos and conditioners can
Speaker 4: you make? I mean, it just becomes that you're not
Speaker 4: you're just making so many. You can't do that, you know,
Speaker 4: not for us, Like we're not changing all of these
Speaker 4: sense you know, uh, you know, they're just making the
Speaker 4: same product with a different frame, Grandson, We're not doing
Speaker 4: all that. Sorry, I mean, I know everyone's looking for that,
Speaker 4: but we're just not doing it. We want products that work.
Speaker 1: And then is there this is the question that's probably
Speaker 1: gonna have you guys thinking for a second, but was
Speaker 1: there it in the whole twenty one year span, was
Speaker 1: there ever a real pivot moment where you guys were like,
Speaker 1: that's it, I'm done. What was that moment and what
Speaker 1: was the thing that got you over the hump?
Speaker 3: I'm done, I'm done.
Speaker 1: I don't think you guy's never had the I'm done moment.
Speaker 5: I have it.
Speaker 1: Oh it's high we want because my cash flows tighter
Speaker 1: over But you guys never had that moment of.
Speaker 2: Like, oh, I just like, I mean, there's frustration constantly
Speaker 2: and anxiety like you said, but it's not I'm done.
Speaker 1: Well obviously twenty one years, but I'm saying, was there
Speaker 1: ever a point of that, like I can't do you know?
Speaker 4: I think I think there are times when we could
Speaker 4: say we were overlooked several times in different areas, right,
Speaker 4: Like we weren't the choice intentionally, right, that's frustrating.
Speaker 1: When you mean from from hulo name it.
Speaker 4: I mean whether it's a distributor, whether it's a retailer.
Speaker 4: I'm just saying there's a time sometimes their favorites, right,
Speaker 4: and we could say, wow, we've been selling that product
Speaker 4: for about four years and now they're taking that from
Speaker 4: these people, like, what's the deal, right, I mean, we
Speaker 4: went through all of that, but you can't be a
Speaker 4: cry baby, you can't whine over it. You just have
Speaker 4: to move on and do something else.
Speaker 2: And sometimes in the ethnic aisle mix the name mixed
Speaker 2: chicks isn't black enough, right, and we get a little
Speaker 2: heat on that. We did more so years ago. But
Speaker 2: now that everybody's understands they're a mixed chick and this
Speaker 2: whole world in section is multicultural, it's different. But in
Speaker 2: the beginning, when we really needed, you know, to be
Speaker 2: somebody's favorite, to have to challenge all the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, something like that.
Speaker 1: But it's crazy because it's also kind of what set
Speaker 1: you apart for that lane of people, because I remember
Speaker 1: going through the products and you know, you either had
Speaker 1: your black you had a certain koili here, you know.
Speaker 1: Even like I'm not gonna mention name brands because I
Speaker 1: want to focus on mixed chicks. But yeah, at that
Speaker 1: time when mixed Chicks came out, I love that you
Speaker 1: guys carved out that lane. Was like this is what
Speaker 1: we handled, this is you know, And we grew.
Speaker 2: Up in a time where when we were checking a box,
Speaker 2: we had to check one, yeah, right, and not.
Speaker 1: And they don't don't click it because back in the day,
Speaker 1: if you check both, they would.
Speaker 4: Unple You know, you can they put you to the
Speaker 4: side at school, excuse me, So you can only be one?
Speaker 1: And then you know what one that had to be?
Speaker 1: Of course I said, you know what one that had
Speaker 1: to be.
Speaker 4: When you have a mouthy child, you're saying why you know,
Speaker 4: But that's what it was.
Speaker 3: But I think.
Speaker 4: We have to be very proud that when we did
Speaker 4: come out, regardless of the static, regardless of our bottle
Speaker 4: saying whether you're black, White, Asian, Latin, Mediterranean, or any
Speaker 4: glorious combination, we told the consumer who we were. I
Speaker 4: let it from the beginning. There's no guessing, right, Well,
Speaker 4: what does that mean?
Speaker 3: Mix?
Speaker 4: What are you talking about? Read the bottle? That's what
Speaker 4: we all did leave out Native. We did leave out
Speaker 4: Native America or Pacific ISLANDERFIC Island.
Speaker 3: Okay, listen to our customer. Yes, yes we left all
Speaker 3: of that out.
Speaker 4: But it's for everyone, right, And I think we truly
Speaker 4: have always from day one been multicultural. We paid that
Speaker 4: lane that is now multicultural.
Speaker 1: And now it's kind of Now do you feel like
Speaker 1: the market's oversaturated because sometimes I feel like that when
Speaker 1: I walk into a store, I'm like, now, like I said,
Speaker 1: now I'm buying products that I'm like, eah, you ain't.
Speaker 1: This is just a label just to get me to buy.
Speaker 4: But you know what, there's there's the pros and the
Speaker 4: cons of that, right, because let's really think about for
Speaker 4: all of the decades that we didn't have a choice.
Speaker 4: Think about it, for all of the decades that no
Speaker 4: one was focusing on products for us. So that is
Speaker 4: a beautiful thing, right, Yeah, it is a beautiful thing.
Speaker 4: It's just not beautiful when you're not telling a real story.
Speaker 4: So don't front and tell this story. Just say, you
Speaker 4: know what, I saw that this was a market and
Speaker 4: I wanted to get in on it, and we want
Speaker 4: to provide something for you.
Speaker 3: That's great. We can all respect that, but don't don't
Speaker 3: tell our story.
Speaker 2: You don't tell the story about how you were mixing
Speaker 2: it in your kitchen and selling it out of your garage.
Speaker 1: Now, but you can always tell the difference right away
Speaker 1: from you and story and that you know. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: thank you guys so much for feeding me, broke this
Speaker 1: and taking time out. Oh matchack, you guys, isn't it
Speaker 1: tell me a day in the life? Love you guys
Speaker 1: right now, Like what's a day in the life. I
Speaker 1: desperately want to know, Like when you like, what's the
Speaker 1: average day in the life of you guys?
Speaker 2: Oh wow, it depends like okay, so oh our lives
Speaker 2: are COVID has changed them and given us a little
Speaker 2: more time prior to that, like a day in the
Speaker 2: life was I mean literally like every at least once
Speaker 2: a month, or if at least once a month, we
Speaker 2: were packing up to go somewhere in the country to
Speaker 2: do a trade show, which meant we are packing pallettes,
Speaker 2: taping them up, ourselves, getting there, unloading one thousand pounds
Speaker 2: of products. This is after we put our kids to
Speaker 2: sleep and cook all their meals that stick it in
Speaker 2: the refrigerator for so they can eat while we're away,
Speaker 2: and you know, make sure the pets are taken care
Speaker 2: of and all that stress, so all that anxiety, like
Speaker 2: just leaving your family to get there, and then all
Speaker 2: the manual labor and then you wake up in the
Speaker 2: morning and then you're smiling for three days telling people
Speaker 2: how to use your products in hopes to secure a
Speaker 2: new customer or a salon on or you know, or
Speaker 2: find somebody that's better at packaging whatever it is to network,
Speaker 2: and we're doing that and also the line reviews for
Speaker 2: all of the places that we wanted to be in
Speaker 2: or keep our our products on the lot a lot.
Speaker 2: And it would be like for twenty minute meetings. Sometimes
Speaker 2: we had to fly to like you know, won Woonsocket,
Speaker 2: roll it on for twenty minute meeting and then fly
Speaker 2: all the way back here and then catch up at
Speaker 2: work because we're still processing orders. We're still on a
Speaker 2: busy sale on our internet. We're out in the garage
Speaker 2: taping boxes with our employees. I mean, it was all
Speaker 2: like crazy like this.
Speaker 3: Ah, it was like that. It was fun.
Speaker 1: It was like you guys started without having any children.
Speaker 1: My daughter, Yeah, I have a twenty five year old.
Speaker 3: So you had.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you had, but you had a young kid.
Speaker 3: I did. Oh you were yeah child.
Speaker 1: Dang, that's crazy because you guys became well, you became
Speaker 1: a mom. You were absolutely my mom the whole time.
Speaker 2: And the baby okay, yeah, we had we had late babies.
Speaker 3: Hers was forty. What what did you have your last one?
Speaker 3: We don't have.
Speaker 1: We don't have to say the world.
Speaker 3: Okay, but.
Speaker 1: You guys were entrepreneurs. I'm here traveling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, baby, yes, yeah, it was. It was a lot.
Speaker 3: Today now at least we can do those zooms.
Speaker 2: Trade shows are picking back up again, you know though
Speaker 2: they have so you know we.
Speaker 1: So you have to like form like a little village
Speaker 1: to like kind of manage. So you're like managing mom
Speaker 1: and managing Yeah, we have a village.
Speaker 2: I do have a husband that you know, does a
Speaker 2: lot of the driving, right because my daughter is an
Speaker 2: athlete too, so there's a whole lot of driving to
Speaker 2: practices in school and all that. I mean, it's practice
Speaker 2: or games or tournaments like crazy. So today I'm doing
Speaker 2: more of that driving. I'm helping more with her. I'm
Speaker 2: intentionally she's about to turn sixteen. I'm intentionally making my
Speaker 2: mind open and present for all that's coming.
Speaker 1: Uh, you know, in addition to running, in.
Speaker 3: Addition to running the brand.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, you have to stay healthy
Speaker 2: and you have to prioritize your health right, mental too,
Speaker 2: And sometimes it changes your time your work timing or
Speaker 2: where you work from. We work home from a lot
Speaker 2: more we work from home. We all have like a
Speaker 2: little home computer. I can log in and do things
Speaker 2: so that we can be present in our homes where
Speaker 2: before we were at the office from morning until after
Speaker 2: everybody left, and it was every day. So you know,
Speaker 2: the way we work is changing. It's a little bit smarter,
Speaker 2: smarter and smarter.
Speaker 4: Kim is the same for you, you know, No, it's
Speaker 4: for me. It's mixed chicks all the time. Okay, just
Speaker 4: for me. I mean, of course, I'm a mother. My
Speaker 4: kids are a priority. So yes, more of my time.
Speaker 4: My twelve year olds in gymnastics, so you know she
Speaker 4: has more activities, right, She's a little more of a
Speaker 4: social a butterfly than my older daughter.
Speaker 3: But you know, they're at different stages of their life.
Speaker 4: I I've always been present for them, spending more time,
Speaker 4: of course.
Speaker 3: But you know, I'm up in the morning.
Speaker 4: I'm on the computer at home, so I can you know,
Speaker 4: dive into my I can connect to my computer in
Speaker 4: my office if I need anything. So I'm kind of
Speaker 4: up in the morning. I'm still going. It's it's still like,
Speaker 4: you know, like day one for me. Even though you know,
Speaker 4: life is different, right, It's not as much travel, you know,
Speaker 4: the accounts are not the same. You know, life's different,
Speaker 4: but the brain doesn't shut off. It's constant. It's this
Speaker 4: is my livelihood until I move on to something else.
Speaker 4: So at the end of the day, you know, you
Speaker 4: have to keep pressing on. When you run a business,
Speaker 4: you know, yes, you need cash flow, but until that
Speaker 4: cash flow runs out, you still need to run a business.
Speaker 1: Yes, And so my life, at what point did you
Speaker 1: guys give up the day jobs? How early into mix
Speaker 1: ships did you get? Were you guys able to give
Speaker 1: up any type of day job just to go one
Speaker 1: hundred percent?
Speaker 2: It was at least two years before. I think I
Speaker 2: gave up my day job first. But also it was
Speaker 2: you know, for what two hundred and fifty dollars a week.
Speaker 3: Because we're not making any money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I, like I said, I have my husband, right,
Speaker 2: so I didn't have to worry as much about rent
Speaker 2: where she was a single mom.
Speaker 1: And then how long did it take you?
Speaker 4: Two thousand and seven, so it was like three years? Okay, yep,
Speaker 4: freaking gangsters. Yeah you have to We always say that,
Speaker 4: don't quit your day job.
Speaker 1: I mean until yeah, until it's like yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, awesome.
Speaker 1: There was one question I had that was, oh no,
Speaker 1: I forgot it. Damn I'm gonna remember when I'm driving later.
Speaker 3: You're gonna be like, oh.
Speaker 1: I know, Oh, I have a girlfriend that I do
Speaker 1: work with. And we had to come up with it
Speaker 1: very early on that, like when we get on the
Speaker 1: phone with each other, we have to say is it
Speaker 1: friendship or is it work? How do you guys handle
Speaker 1: that dynamic? Do you have that similar thing where it's
Speaker 1: like I'm calling the complain about the hubby're the kids?
Speaker 1: I don't know. You guys have been friends for so long,
Speaker 1: I mean partners for so long that I would imagine
Speaker 1: that now it's like a friendship sisterhood. Do you guys
Speaker 1: have rules like that where it's like we announce whether
Speaker 1: it's work or friendship. How do you guys?
Speaker 3: And we're more work partners than really friends.
Speaker 2: I mean we we like the same we have some
Speaker 2: of the same friends, so we end up at a
Speaker 2: lot of the same stuff. And her family really is
Speaker 2: like my family here, so it's more like sister work.
Speaker 3: Okay, we don't. We don't. May work in a while,
Speaker 3: mess with each other on the weekends.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we have two different lives and it's not disrespectful.
Speaker 4: Make sure it's not that you know, we're at work
Speaker 4: and I am work all the time, and it's just
Speaker 4: kind of like the weekends are our time.
Speaker 3: But our daughters love each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, we try to, you know, because
Speaker 2: they traveled with us so much together, so they feel
Speaker 2: like cousins. So we make sure that they get time together.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: I was just genuinely curious because it's very rare. You see,
Speaker 1: like a great partnership lasts as long as you guys have.
Speaker 4: And if we're traveling, right, we're traveling for business, but
Speaker 4: we have a good time because we're traveling and we
Speaker 4: enjoy but like during the week it's strictly business. If
Speaker 4: there's a break and someone has something to talk about,
Speaker 4: we talked about it.
Speaker 3: But I mean as soon as that's over, it's like
Speaker 3: bye bye. We don't it's okay, we don't even hug
Speaker 3: each other. Yeah, we hug other people, but we don't
Speaker 3: talk to you guys are like yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: So you guys have been in a relationship for a
Speaker 1: very long time, and this.
Speaker 4: Is just the longest relationship of my life. So it's
Speaker 4: hard for me. No, it's hard for me honestly because
Speaker 4: I get frustrated or there's things I don't want I'm
Speaker 4: not going to deal with, and I'm in a relationship,
Speaker 4: so it's hard, you know what I mean. Otherwise I'm
Speaker 4: like I'm out, Okay, Yeah, I don't stay committed.
Speaker 1: What advice what advice would you give to an entrepreneur,
Speaker 1: any entrepreneur doesn't mean this line of work, But what
Speaker 1: advice would you give to entrepreneurs trying to get into
Speaker 1: a legacy business position? And what advice would you give
Speaker 1: in regards to maintaining a healthy partnership. You don't even
Speaker 1: say that legacy thing is really a thing anymore.
Speaker 4: I'll be honest. Today, social media, just life itself. Everything
Speaker 4: is momentary. It's a moment. No one's really in for
Speaker 4: the long run. They're in to get in and get out.
Speaker 1: You're talking about like the businesses that start business trying
Speaker 1: to you know, cash out in five years. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about talking to the entrepreneurs that do want to build
Speaker 1: a like myself. I want eating while broke to have
Speaker 1: this legacy of like inspiring people. I would like the
Speaker 1: brand to maintain longevity. Definitely don't want to be in
Speaker 1: and out. No, that's good advice.
Speaker 3: I would say, I don't run across that anymore.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 4: It just seems that's not where everyone is now. I mean,
Speaker 4: I just think life's changing, everyone's kind of doing something different.
Speaker 4: I mean, could you imagine influencers people. I'm just saying,
Speaker 4: people that can talk about something, whether it's a product,
Speaker 4: a restaurant, a car, that they could make more money
Speaker 4: than a doctor. They could make more money than a lawyer.
Speaker 4: And they don't have a degree in that area. They're
Speaker 4: not a professional, and no disrespect it is a business.
Speaker 4: Good for them having a hustle. But just what I'm
Speaker 4: saying is people can just attach themselves to things and
Speaker 4: make so much money now where you know people had
Speaker 4: to go to school for years in order to climb
Speaker 4: that ladder. I mean, in our business, the professional meant something.
Speaker 3: The professional. People don't even consult.
Speaker 4: A professionally more, which is sad to me because the professional,
Speaker 4: you know, they're responsible for your hair. And I think again,
Speaker 4: as brand owners, we sell a product, right, so what's
Speaker 4: on that label? We're selling a product. It's the consumer's
Speaker 4: job to find out and research their hair. Doesn't mean
Speaker 4: that product's going to work for them, but it would
Speaker 4: be great if they consulted a professional to learn about
Speaker 4: their hair. That way, they can make a wise decision
Speaker 4: when they're buying a product.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but consumer has responsibility, but unfortunately it doesn't seem
Speaker 4: that way. So I was just saying, you know, everyone's
Speaker 4: kind of I don't know, everything's up for grabs. That's
Speaker 4: just how I see things nowadays. People are just kind
Speaker 4: of in and out legacy. For you, that's because what
Speaker 4: you're doing is from the heart. It's about nurturing, it's
Speaker 4: about guiding, about giving right, and.
Speaker 3: We just don't have a lot of people like that anymore.
Speaker 4: So for you, I would say, stay authentic, do not
Speaker 4: say very, compromise yourself right, you speak from the heart.
Speaker 4: Give what you know is to be real. Whether someone
Speaker 4: likes it or not, it is what it is. That way,
Speaker 4: you can lay your head on your pillow knowing that
Speaker 4: you told the truth and you had.
Speaker 3: No malicious intent.
Speaker 4: If someone was hurt, but you saw something that they
Speaker 4: couldn't see, and later in life they'll appreciate that from you.
Speaker 4: And that's your that's what you're providing, that's your community service.
Speaker 1: That's really good advice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't tell that yeah, that's mine too, and
Speaker 2: keep your family close like yeah, absolutely, yeah, thank you guys, And.
Speaker 3: Did we missed the same? What was the second question
Speaker 3: I asked?
Speaker 2: I know, we asked a day in the life. I
Speaker 2: told you what it was. It's busy, it's busy. It's
Speaker 2: a lot like advice. Yes, I didn't want emails the
Speaker 2: best advice to keep this partnership strong. Do you think
Speaker 2: there is a secret ingredient that makes your guys partnership strong.
Speaker 4: We always used to say you have to like the person,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean? I mean, I think that's
Speaker 4: like in any relationship. I rather like someone than love them, right,
Speaker 4: because you can love someone and hate them to death. Right, Yes,
Speaker 4: you have to like them, you know. But you know everyone,
Speaker 4: you know, everyone thinks, Oh you have to think the same.
Speaker 4: You have to be the same, you know. Now, everyone
Speaker 4: has a different work ethic. Everyone is an individual. There
Speaker 4: are things that can be frustrating when you try to
Speaker 4: move to a common goal, right, but everyone is who
Speaker 4: they are.
Speaker 3: I don't know how do you make it work.
Speaker 1: I think what you just said too really hones into you, guys,
Speaker 1: Like just sitting with you both you guys definitely like
Speaker 1: own who you are individually and then own who you
Speaker 1: got who you guys are to each other individually.
Speaker 3: Very well, oh thank you. Yeah, well we're not We're
Speaker 3: never going to destroy each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I'm saying, like, you know, it's almost like
Speaker 1: you know exactly what who and how Kim works. You
Speaker 1: know exactly how Wendy works like.
Speaker 2: And maybe that's the partnership when knowing when to give
Speaker 2: that person the ropes and when to back up when
Speaker 2: you move forward, because sometimes you know there are times
Speaker 2: and maybe you do want to be as strong and
Speaker 2: you realize this isn't the moment, right, So I think
Speaker 2: maybe just a little U what is.
Speaker 3: It a grace push and pull or and like over love.
Speaker 1: I think that's true. I one hundred percent think it's
Speaker 1: true because I do feel like too, if you don't
Speaker 1: like the person as much, you may push that boundary
Speaker 1: because it's like I love them.
Speaker 4: But you know, well, I mean, even if you know
Speaker 4: there's you know, maybe for not in full agreement, there's
Speaker 4: a difference of being with someone who is malicious, right,
Speaker 4: or someone intentionally trying to push someone over Like you said,
Speaker 4: I mean, we don't have any of that evil in
Speaker 4: our heart.
Speaker 3: Whether we're frush for each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know it.
Speaker 4: I mean I'm just saying, yeah, I mean doesn't I
Speaker 4: mean we could be to the you know, tenth power
Speaker 4: of frustrated. But I mean, no one would want something
Speaker 4: bad to happen to the other or set them up
Speaker 4: for something bad.
Speaker 3: Do you know what I mean? Because you hear about
Speaker 3: that with people. I mean, I mean, I was just.
Speaker 1: Talking to my dad about this. I said, you know,
Speaker 1: you got to be able to choose. Like I've learned
Speaker 1: in time, you have friends that are rooting for your
Speaker 1: happy when you're up, and then you have friends that
Speaker 1: are rooting for you when you're down. And then you
Speaker 1: have the friend that can do both, that's happy when
Speaker 1: you're up and there for you when you're down. I
Speaker 1: have gotten to the point where I put everyone in
Speaker 1: their in their space. Okay, you're down for me, but
Speaker 1: you're not necessarily happy when I'm up. Hey, you know what,
Speaker 1: You're happy when I'm up, but you know where to
Speaker 1: be found when I'm down. And Hey, there's this small
Speaker 1: group of people that are excited for when I'm up
Speaker 1: and they're for me when I'm down.
Speaker 3: But you have to call it out.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't. I don't know if I'm necessarily to people.
Speaker 3: I have tried to tell people, but.
Speaker 1: You know, then you're living with that. But no, what
Speaker 1: I do is I put them in a circle, so
Speaker 1: I'll be like, okay, the up, the up and downers
Speaker 1: are in the close circle, whether you're family or not.
Speaker 1: You know, I know that circle. That's that's a that's
Speaker 1: one hundred percent yes, positive and negative. That's my first circle.
Speaker 1: Then the people that are like, I'm down for you
Speaker 1: when you're down, that's the second. The people that are
Speaker 1: down for me only when I'm up, that's the third.
Speaker 1: And I just put them in their proper place. I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily remove everybody because some of them are relatives
Speaker 1: or what have you. But I just say, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: put you in your proper place so I don't have
Speaker 1: these expectations or these like letdowns. And then I'm pleading
Speaker 1: with the person, why act you're like this? No, Like
Speaker 1: I put you in your proper place. I no longer
Speaker 1: can be hurt or impacted, you know where I'm trying
Speaker 1: to change you or you know, trying to earn something
Speaker 1: from you that's unnecessary.
Speaker 3: So that's not that's smart that is smart.
Speaker 2: I yeah, because it hurts when you're when you expect
Speaker 2: something and get let down, you know, so to.
Speaker 1: To that's kind of hard.
Speaker 2: Expectations is a huge part of succeeding in life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, thank you guys for coming out into the
Speaker 1: main camera. How can we keep up with you? Can
Speaker 1: you tell us how many cities countries you're in, what
Speaker 1: retailers are in, the different products you're in. Just please
Speaker 1: tell us everything amazing about Mixed Chicks into that camera
Speaker 1: and how to.
Speaker 3: Keep up with y'all. Of course, oh well, of course.
Speaker 4: You can find every single product of Mixed Chicks at
Speaker 4: mixed chicks dot net or mix chicks dot com. You
Speaker 4: can follow us on social on Instagram at mixed Chicks Hair,
Speaker 4: on Twitter at Mixed Chicks Hair.
Speaker 3: Facebook of Mixed Chicks.
Speaker 4: You can also find our products obviously on most online
Speaker 4: platforms like Amazon. You can find us in Target Alta Coals.
Speaker 4: You can find us at Walgreen, CBS, write A, you
Speaker 4: can find us at some specialty stores you know that
Speaker 4: don't promote, but you'll find us if you have a
Speaker 4: little treasure hunt. You'll find us in probably in about
Speaker 4: thirty different countries. But if you need to find anything
Speaker 4: from us, just go along to mix chicks dot net.
Speaker 1: Mix chicks dot net you heard it here first. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for your time in feeding me a
Speaker 1: delicious meal, which I will finish because it was that good.
Speaker 1: Thanks y'all for listening.
Speaker 3: Peace out,