Kim Lewis started her first business with the money her husband Tim won on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Luck? Strategy? She was impressed by his ability to answer question after question while watching old episodes on the couch one night. So she booked him for a trial and a trip in New York. After correctly answering the $100,000 question, he was able to secure the seed money of $25,000 and then he bowed out. Kim quit her job on Monday. Although the startup was unsuccessful, it inspired Kim to start CurlMix, a Chicago-based beauty brand. It also taught her how she could build a loyal following. This last part was crucial to her, but she didn't realize it at the time. Eric Hagerman, as told
No. 93 2021 rank Kim Lewis & Tim Lewis CurlMix 4,149.7% Three-year revenue growth
Kim: Kim, if you are Black in America, your hair is altered to avoid being discriminated against. Black women grow up with chemical relaxers that straighten or damage their hair to fit in. My hair was starting to fall out by 2010, so I asked Tim for a trim. I wanted it to grow back naturally. I began mixing my own curly hair products because I was unsure of the ingredients. This was something many of us did.
Tim: She would spend hundreds at Whole Foods, then spend hours making products that may not work and leave me with the food.
Kim: CurlMix was launched as a DIY box similar to Blue Apron. It included prepackaged, organic raw materials--flaxseeds, guar gum, hemp seed oil--along with an instructional video. The first year we sold $130,000 worth, and the second year $140,000. However, I feel subscription boxes should have snowballed.
This is when I began to look at my customers and ask them what they really want. It was our flaxseed jelly. We were asked by people to mail it ready-made because it is so difficult to make. Flaxseeds must be boiled, and the gel can be difficult to separate. It is very gooey. We began to go to manufacturers to find out if they would make it. Even though they did not want to, we kept going. My advisor said, "Why don’t you just figure that out?"
Tim: Kim was seven-months pregnant. Kim spent over a month in the kitchen, trying 50 different batches of the product. We sent 60 bottles of the presale to our email list. It sold out within minutes. Another round was held and we sold out the first one. We knew we had something that people wanted.
"My goal is for the first Black-owned beauty conglomerate to be traded on the stock exchange."
Kim: We were the first to mass-produce shelf stable flaxseed jelly. This was done by boiling flaxseeds and extracting the gel. The gel was then put in a bottle.
Tim: In three months we went from $3,000 to $30,000 and were like, "We have to get out of this kitchen!" We discovered a commercial kitchen, and our sales grew three times month-over-month until we reached six figures. My aunt called us to inform us of a Shark Tank audition the next day. We were unable to find a babysitter so we worked over the night to prepare a pitch.
Kim: It was a casting at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The baby began crying during our pitch to producers.
Tim: They thought we had failed, but then they said, "Oh, how do we love your story!" Kim and Tim, your names rhyme. It's adorable! High school sweethearts! They ate it all up. Shark Tank was filmed in September 2018. We made more than a million sales that year.
Kim: Robert Herjavec offered $400,000 and 20 percent equity. Robert refused to negotiate and I was unwilling to give up more that 15% of my business. We declined. It was second only to natural childbirth.
Tim: We started with flaxseed gel. But we added products as we needed them. Each launch was a success because of the customer feedback. Kim would stream to our Facebook group each Wednesday, fully clothed, doing her hair in a shower to show us how to use the products. We simply continued to meet demand and develop products based on the feedback of our community. That's what allowed for us to grow quickly.
Kim: We reached $5 million in revenue in 2019. I went to fundraise but nobody invests in women who are of color because it's too niche. Or, you can get a deal but it's not a good deal. Black women receive less than 1% of venture capital. It's devastating. Instead, we decided to launch a crowdfunding campaign on Wefunder. In just four hours, we raised over a million dollars. We raised more than $5million from our customers.
My goal is to create the first Black-owned beauty conglomerate that trades on the stock exchange. I would like to be Procter & Gamble. It's my goal.
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