When life handed 11-year-old Mikaila Ulmer of Austin, Texas lemons, she turned them into an $11 million lemonade business and became an advocate for bees and entrepreneurship. The figurative lemons that life handed Mikaila was the experience of being stung twice in one week when she was four years old. After being stung, Mikaila would have meltdowns when she came across bees…as one would…so something had to be done. Her mother, D’Andra in an effort to make the experience less traumatic, saw this as an opportunity for Mikaila to learn about bees. During the research project, little Mikaila discovered that bees were near extinction and set off on a mission to save the bees. “I found out how incredibly important pollinators they are and that they were dying and I decided to create a product to help save the bees.” At four, she started a lemonade stand using her great-grandmother Helen’s lemonade recipe from a cookbook where she used honey instead of sugar to sweeten the drink. Scientists suspect pesticides are behind the decline of honeybee colonies. Since honeybees help pollinate crops, their extinction could threaten the food supply. After a while, Mikaila had bigger dreams for her lemonade business and wanted to sell the product in stores. Mikaila, the founder and CEO of ‘Bee Sweet Lemonade,’ and her family started making the family recipe for local events and then bottled some for local small businesses. After a few years, it grew into a business and they donated a portion of their proceeds to organizations that help bees. Whole Foods Market caught wind of 10-year-old Mikaila’s efforts and started selling her product in 32 stores and 4 states. Earn Harper, Whole Foods local producer loan program, talked about young Mikaila as a young businesswoman: “She’s asking questions about logistics…or what retail prices should be…or margins. She’s incredibly sharp.” Truly an entrepreneur, Mikaila wanted to expand even further and ended up on the show ‘Shark Tank’ looking for an investor for her business. Damon John, FUBU CEO and investor, offered to invest $60,000 for 25% of her company and said of the mini mogul, “She knew her business. She knew where she wanted to go and that’s [why she’s] my youngest entrepreneurial partner.” Since her Shark Tank episode, she was invited to the White House Kids’ State dinner and met President Barack Obama, and traveled to Cape Town, South Africa to speak to young girls about entrepreneurship. This year, a now 11-year-old Mikaila scored a sweet deal with Whole Foods to sell her lemonade. The chain will now carry her lemonade in 55 stores in her home state of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana and pending its success, the store will consider selling it nationwide. Now that is some black girl magic.
