May 15, 2023 · 1h 10m · how-i-built-this
Mielle Organics: Monique Rodriguez
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
This episode of How I Built This chronicles how Monique Rodriguez transitioned from working as a registered nurse to founding Mielle Organics, transforming a personal hair care hobby into a global beauty empire culminating in a landmark acquisition by Procter & Gamble.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 29.1% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 3.3 Guest teaching 1.6 Guest disagreement 0.1 Guy pushing back 0.1
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 55:15 Refusing premature big-box expansion
Monique firmly articulates why accepting Walmart's initial offer would have destroyed the company, rejecting the conventional logic of taking every retail expansion immediately.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 58:05 Guy questions funding need amid high growthGuy challenges why Mielle needed outside venture backing when it was already in tens of thousands of stores and growing rapidly, prompting Monique to reveal their hidden unprofitability.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 58:35 The reality of retail unit economics vs topline growthMonique educates Guy on how rapid retail expansion slashed margins in half due to retail fees and slotting costs, explaining that without financial controls, top-line growth nearly closed the business.
Guy holds their own ▶ 1:06:40 Probing strategic independence versus conglomerate acquisitionGuy demonstrates deep business acumen by asking whether Mielle really needed an acquisition by P&G or whether Berkshire's funding was sufficient to build an independent beauty giant.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monique's Childhood and Early Aspirations for a Better Life | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy Raz sets a gentle narrative tone, prompting Monique Rodriguez to share her upbringing and the origins of her interest in beauty. Monique shares candid, personal stories about her childhood and family struggles without any friction. | |
| Parental Guidance and Entering Nursing School | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks about parental encouragement toward nursing as a stable career path. Monique explains how her mother guided her into nursing and why she quickly felt burnt out on the job. | |
| Early Entrepreneurial Trials and Direct Sales Ventures | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Guy prompts Monique to reflect on her early attempts at direct sales such as ACN and Mary Kay. The conversation is collaborative and humorous as they discuss the false promises of MLMs. | |
| Overcoming Introversion Through Clinical Experience | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks how an introverted person navigated sales and agency building. Monique details how bedside nursing taught her empathy and interpersonal skills, explaining the racial and social barriers that caused internal doubt. | |
| Pursuing Advanced Nursing, Family Life, and Premature Births | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy gently guides Monique through the harrowing personal tragedy of losing her infant son Milan. Monique describes how processing grief and faith led to founding Mielle as a purpose-driven venture. | |
| Mid-Roll Interlude and Show Continuity | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Guy introduces the transition back from the break and recaps Monique's early DIY hair care experiments on Instagram. Monique describes the organic reception to her homemade hair recipes. | |
| Pivoting from Hair Salon Concept to Product Formulation | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Guy and Monique discuss the critical pivot from opening a physical salon to developing hair products. Monique explains how blunt advice from an established stylist redirected her business model. | |
| Brand Conception and Mint Almond Oil Development | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy inquires about product formulation, chemistry, and early bootstrapping costs. Monique explains carrier oils, finding a chemist, and financing initial production paycheck to paycheck. | |
| Website Launch Day and Rapid Direct-to-Consumer Sales | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy explores the website launch and initial inventory turnaround. Monique describes creating customer anticipation with modest follower numbers and selling out immediately. | |
| Trade Show Networking and Supply Chain Expansion | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks about overcoming barriers in an entrenched industry without celebrity status. Monique shares how attending consumer and B2B trade shows helped build genuine supplier relationships. | |
| Securing the First Celebrity Influencer Partnership | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy explores the influencer landscape in 2014-2015. Monique shares the story of traveling to Detroit and pitching a reality star during an open Q&A to land her first brand ambassador. | |
| Local Retail Buzz and Connecting with a Broker | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy and Monique discuss how strong sell-through in mom-and-pop beauty shops connected her to a retail broker. Monique admits that fear of rejection initially made her hesitate to call. | |
| Sally Beauty Boardroom Pitch and Securing Growth Capital | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy examines the capital challenge of transitioning to big-box retail. Monique recounts pitching Sally Beauty with her kids present and securing a $250,000 personal loan from a friend. | |
| Viral Sally Beauty Rollout, Chainwide Expansion, and Growth | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy notes how difficult it is to stand out on retail shelves. Monique explains how viral social media posts caused customer demand across all 3,000 Sally stores within six months. | |
| Strategic Expansion to Big-Box Retailers and Saying No | 4 | 2 | 1 | 0 | Guy asks about expansion into Target and Walmart. Monique details why saying no to Walmart initially was crucial for self-awareness and avoiding supply chain failure. | |
| Financial Turmoil, Operational Realities, and New Voices Investment | 5 | 3 | 0 | 1 | Guy presses on why Monique needed outside investment when revenue was booming. Monique candidly breaks down their severe margin compression in retail and the necessity of financial restructuring. | |
| Navigating the Pandemic Boom with Aggressive Digital Marketing | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy discusses the e-commerce surge during COVID-19 lockdowns. Monique explains following Richelieu Dennis's advice to keep her foot on the gas pedal and ramp up digital engagement. | |
| Series A Fundraising with Berkshire Partners and Industry Representation | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy contrasts standard VC rejections with Mielle's oversubscribed Series A. Monique explains raising from strength, meeting with 60 firms, and intentional representation to normalize Black-owned business success. | |
| Acquisition by Procter & Gamble and Generational Legacy | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy questions whether Mielle could have remained independent rather than selling to Procter & Gamble. Monique defends the acquisition as an independent subsidiary designed to cement generational legacy and scale. |
Statements from this episode (23)
Rodriguez applied interpersonal skills learned in nursing directly to business
“I'm an introverted person by nature, but I force myself to come out of my shell in order to get a job done, and I do credit that to working as a nurse because I had to deal with so many different patients from all different walks of life, and I learned very ea…”
Rodriguez initially believed entrepreneurship was exclusively for white men
“You know, I think it's just a fact of, like, you know, you can't be what you don't see, and I'll be honest with you. Like, I thought that Being a business person or business owner, entrepreneur, whatever, like, I thought it was something for, like, white men. …”
Mielle Organics was founded after the traumatic loss of Rodriguez's infant son
“Miel wouldn't exist if it wasn't for what I went through.”
Rodriguez realized her consumer influence when followers replicated her DIY recipes
“Women were actually making the exact recipes and trying it and experimenting on their hair as well, and I was, like, that showed me at that moment, like, oh, I have influence. They're taking what I'm saying, and they're, they see value in it, and they're actua…”
Rodriguez had just 500 Instagram followers when her recipes gained traction
“Oh, like, 500. 500. Yeah.”
Rodriguez pivoted from opening a salon to products after a stylist's advice
“I mean, I wouldn't have started my L and blew up how I have if it wasn't for me talking to her because I clearly wanted to start a hair salon.”
Monique Rodriguez spent approximately $10,000 to initially launch Mielle Organics
“And to get the business, like, to launch the website, up until that point, I had spent about 10,000 dollars.”
Mielle Organics has recorded website sales every single day since launching
“And I will tell you from the day that we launched, May 23rd, twenty-fourteen, we have not gone a day without having sales on our website.”
Mielle Organics reinvested all direct-to-consumer profits back into the company
“We bootstrapped our company for so long until we got into retail. But as long as we were like, Online, selling direct to consumer, we were doing okay, but we just invested that right back into more product and marketing.”
Mielle Organics paid approximately $3,000 for its first influencer partnership post
“But I would say I probably, I think my first influencer was like 3000 dollars per post.”
Sally Beauty agreed to an initial retail test in 95 stores
“Sally's were like, you know, we're gonna test you guys in, in about 95 stores, because you guys are new, and I'm like, hey, I'm just happy to be in 95 stores.”
Mielle Organics secured a $250,000 loan to finance its Sally Beauty rollout
“And so his friend gave us a loan for 250 grand. And that 250 was like the push that we needed to like, you know, launch into Sally's.”
Mielle Organics expanded from 95 to 3,000 Sally stores in six months
“So, long story short, we went from 95 stores to 3000 chain-wide in less than six months, and that has never happened to a new brand.”
Mielle grew from $370,000 in year one to $2.7M in year two
“Yeah, so the first year we did about, like, 300 and, I think it was 360 or 70,000. That was the first year. Year two, we did 2.7 million.”
Mielle Organics never pitched retailers; partners proactively sought out the brand
“So, honestly, all the retailers that we're in, like, we never approached them. They all came to seek after us.”
Mielle Organics rejected Walmart's initial retail distribution offer
“We got the call from Walmart, and funny story, like, the call that we got from Walmart, we turned them down the first year. We didn't go into Walmart until, like, the second time that they reached out to us.”
Mielle Organics' profit margins were slashed in half upon entering retail
“Once we got into retail, our profit margins were like slashed in half, because remember, we went into retail with the still the high cost of goods, so, and all of the other fees that are attached with like retail, we ended up spending a lot in marketing and re…”
Mielle Organics required a 2020 New Voices Fund investment to stay afloat
“So when we got to the point of having new voices invest in us, that's how horrible our books were looking, so we needed that to stay afloat.”
Mielle Organics experienced roughly 4x growth during the COVID-19 pandemic
“We experienced, like, forex growth during the pandemic, so when I tell you we close with Richelieu with New Voices end of February the pandemic happened like a couple of weeks later”
An investment group pulled out of a deal with Mielle in 2018
“In 2018, before we received the investment from Richie Lou, when we were upside down, we were in talks with an investment group for almost about a year. And this investment group, like they were going to invest in us and waited until like the last hour to pull…”
Over 60 private equity firms approached Mielle Organics for its Series A
“I mean, we spoke to over, like, 60 different private equity firms that were all interested in, like, speaking with us”