Sundial founder Richelieu Dennis talks the racial wealth hole, getting turned away from a celebration at Essence Fest (regardless of proudly owning the model), and what he realized from his second near-death expertise.
Richelieu Dennis bought Sundial Manufacturers to Unilever in 2017 for $1.6 billion {dollars}. It was a surprising story and never simply due to the worth tag; Dennis escaped war-torn Liberia in 1987 and began promoting shea butter out of his dorm room at Babson Faculty. He’s now one of many wealthiest Black entrepreneurs within the nation. And he’s sending the elevator again down for the following technology. As a part of the sale to Unilever (the makers of Dove cleaning soap and Ben & Jerry’s), Dennis insisted the conglomerate make investments $50 million in a fund to empower Black feminine enterprise homeowners.
Dennis, 54, has since backed Slutty Vegan and invested in Monique Rodriguez’s Mielle Organics which bought to P&G in early 2023. He additionally purchased Essence Journal in 2018, vowing to “to serve and empower girls of colour.” However apparently proudly owning the model doesn’t assure admission to the most effective events at Essence Pageant, he admits right here in a brand new interview sequence known as “Cereal Entrepreneur,” hosted by Technique co-founder Eric Ryan and journalist Mickey Rapkin. Over a bowl of cereal, Dennis talks huge exits, greater conglomerates, and that rumor that he’s shopping for BET.
MICKEY RAPKIN: Wealthy, you introduced Frosted Flakes at this time. Why that one?
RICHELIEU DENNIS: To begin with, it’s the cereal I like consuming. I’ve all the time liked the commercials. And I prefer to vogue myself tiger-ish.
RAPKIN: (laughs) Within the early 90s, you have been promoting SheaMoisture on a card desk on a hundred and twenty fifth Road in Harlem. What received you away from bed again then?
Richelieu Dennis, CEO and Government Chairman of Sundial Manufacturers
Courtesy of Essence Ventures
DENNIS: It was starvation. However that’s each entrepreneur. Lease’s due, you’ve received medical health insurance you gotta pay—when you might even afford it. However for me there was this overwhelming sense of accountability: there have been no actual merchandise or manufacturers tied to [our] ancestral tradition. These elements existed. You’d have individuals present up and say, “My mom made so-and-so after we have been in South Carolina. And she or he received it from my grandmother who received it from her mom.” However as a result of Black tradition had been interrupted with slavery, that by no means received translated into precise merchandise and items and companies.
ERIC RYAN: That’s actually highly effective. I’ve by no means heard you say that—about how slavery principally severed these traditions.
DENNIS: You begin to consider all of those younger individuals who do not know what it’s to truly have a product that works to your pores and skin sort or to your hair sort.
Disrupting The Magnificence Aisle
RAPKIN: You as soon as mentioned, “The one place in America the place segregation is authorized is the wonder aisle.” You bought Sundial to Unilever. However weren’t they the individuals accountable for that segregation? Did that come up within the negotiation?
DENNIS: You guess it did.
RYAN: (laughs) There’s Tony the Tiger popping out.
DENNIS: For those who’re going to remodel a market—when you’re going to remodel a method of doing issues that’s improper—generally you want the people who have perpetrated it to acknowledge that after which right it. Unilever, to their credit score, acknowledged that they weren’t serving an enormous group of people who had the spending energy and the willingness.
Repeat Offender
RYAN: One of many challenges of being a serial entrepreneur—one of many causes we wished to do that column—is replicating that first success. After promoting Technique, I had this actual concern: Did I get fortunate or was I good? Wealthy, was that your expertise?
DENNIS: There was by no means a sense of I’ve-gotta-do-this-again. That’s not in my nature. I’m aggressive round mission versus accomplishment. For me, there’s a lot work to be carried out in bringing equity to {the marketplace}. (pause) It’s arduous being an entrepreneur. Interval. However when Black entrepreneurs have been systemically blocked out of alternatives and entry it turns into even tougher. There was no infrastructure, there was no ecosystem, there was no path that Black entrepreneurs needed to depend on or comply with.
RAPKIN: You’ve been known as “the godfather of budding Black entrepreneurs”—
DENNIS: I’m sufficiently old now that I might be the godfather.
RAPKIN: The gray in your beard seems good. However let’s speak Mielle Organics. You’re an investor. They bought to Proctor & Gamble earlier this 12 months. However then comes this on-line backlash from prospects saying: They’re gonna change the formulation, they’re gonna cater to white girls. Was that irritating to see?
DENNIS: I feel when you’re Black, you perceive it. For those who’re white, you marvel at how one might really feel that method. White youngsters develop up on this nation navigating abundance. And Black youngsters develop up navigating shortage. That results in completely different mindsets. Whenever you’ve been marginalized and left in and out a number of circumstances abused, when fantastic issues occur—factor that may be celebrated in a white group—they get scrutinized in another way in a Black group.
RYAN: Say extra about that please.
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – JUNE 29: Richelieu Dennis, CEO and Government Chairman of Sundial Manufacturers, … [+]
Getty Photos for ESSENCE
DENNIS: What has traditionally occurred on this nation—after we’ve seen success in our communities, that will get destroyed. You possibly can return to Tulsa. Black group builds up financial footing, will get utterly worn out. We come out of slavery and there’s the promise of 40 acres and a mule. Then, no. You’re doing experiments at Tuskegee on individuals— That results in main belief points. Black corporations constructing scale and exiting them is new. We have now to normalize enterprise growth over time within the Black group so individuals embrace what it’s to truly construct these companies, take that capital out, and reinvest it again into our group. I’ve had the nice fortune of constructing Shea, which turned the most important within the class, after which had the nice fortune proper after that to accomplice with Melvin and Monique in Mielle and construct the second largest. For me, that’s pleasure.
Welcome to Essence Fest
RAPKIN: Let’s speak about pleasure. You likened Essence Fest in New Orleans “to the real-life Wakanda.” Give us an awesome late-night story from this 12 months’s pageant.
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – JUNE 29: (L-R) Richelieu Dennis, CEO and Government Chairman of Sundial … [+]
Getty Photos for ESSENCE
DENNIS: OK. I are available in at two o’clock within the morning, perhaps three o’clock within the morning. Within the foyer is T.I., Lil Jon, the oldsters from Goal, the oldsters from Disney, Taraji P. Henson and Jill Scott—all these individuals simply hanging out within the foyer loving on one another.
RYAN: Solely you could possibly have made that occur—bringing these people to 1 place, to an surroundings the place everyone seems to be loving on one another.
DENNIS: (laughs) I feel they have been there for the wine.
RAPKIN: Give us yet another story.
DENNIS: D-Good does his Membership Quarantine. It received loads us via Covid. He introduced it to Essence Pageant. And so right here I’m—one other two o’clock within the morning deal—coming from the conference middle. And I couldn’t get into Membership Quarantine.
RYAN: They turned you away on the door?
DENNIS: Think about that. I’m texting D-Good, however he’s truly D.J.ing, he’s doing his factor, he’s not his telephone. I’m standing outdoors. I couldn’t get in.
RAPKIN: Whereas we’re speaking media, there have been studies earlier this 12 months that you just tried to purchase Vice. Now there’s speak you’re shopping for BET.
DENNIS: [pause] We’re at a stage within the growth of Black enterprise in America the place there are fairly plenty of Black individuals that may be in that dialog. For me, that’s the large win. There are a number of individuals who have the entry, the sources, and the skillsets to tug one thing like that off.
RAPKIN: OK. However are you shopping for BET?
DENNIS: We have been very centered and bullish on media. We proceed to have a look at no matter there may be that’s on the market that we predict can actually profit from our experience and drive the tradition ahead. That’s all I’ll say on that. However I’m extraordinarily motivated by the truth that there’s multiples of individuals that may have an actual critical dialog about this and that may truly pull it off.
[Editor’s note: After this interview was conducted, the Wall Street Journal reported Paramount Global had informed potential bidders—which included Tyler Perry, Sean “Diddy” Combs and Byron Allen—that it would not be selling its majority stake in BET Media Group.]
Getting Schooled
RAPKIN: We regularly speak about successes. However entrepreneus can be taught extra from our errors. Inform us a couple of mistake you made with SheaMoisture and what lesson you took away.
DENNIS: We have been promoting our merchandise the road. We have been having actual success and we received a chance to enter Macy’s. I took nice delight in the truth that I used to be promoting a product on the sidewalk—on a desk outdoors of Macy’s—and I used to be additionally promoting that very same product inside Macy’s. And that just about put us out of enterprise.
RAPKIN: How?
DENNIS: I didn’t perceive the pricing fashions, I didn’t do the work to grasp them, I didn’t know that I’d should pay chargebacks. I didn’t perceive that I used to be accountable for labor. I didn’t perceive that I couldn’t schedule that labor and inform it when to be and the place to be. I didn’t perceive all of these different prices that went into being in a division retailer.
RYAN: After we had our first huge Technique launch at a grocery chain—it was our largest order ever—we received a verify for a number of {dollars}. (laughs) We went and checked out all of the deductions they took. My accomplice and I have been identical to, “What the f—?”
DENNIS: We grew like a weed in Macy’s. However the extra we bought, the extra we misplaced. That almost bankrupted us.
RYAN: Switching gears in a giant method: You’ve had two close to loss of life experiences in your life. How did that have an effect on your outlook on enterprise? Or your motivation?
DENNIS: The latest one, the newest near-death expertise was Covid.
RYAN: I really like that you just mentioned “the newest one.”
DENNIS: I feel that’s God’s method of regularly reminding me that I’m right here for a cause. And I can’t neglect it. However I received Covid very early on—in February of 2020. It was earlier than the medical institution actually understood what they have been coping with a lot much less the right way to cope with it. It was a horrific expertise. I’m mendacity within the hospital, I’m within the ICU, and each day they’re wheeling individuals by me—people who didn’t make it.
RAPKIN: That was a scary time.
DENNIS: One day an amazing calm came to visit me. I had spent that whole day pondering of my youngsters. And I used to be like, “You realize what? They’re going to be all proper.” Actually that received me via it. As soon as I spotted I had carried out what I wanted to do as a guardian, I turned very calm. I feel that enabled me to deal with preventing versus worrying. That empowered me [then] and that empowers me at this time.
RAPKIN: Final query. This column known as “Cereal Entrepreneur.” We’re speaking over cereal. What have been you consuming for breakfast while you have been promoting SheaMoisture on that card desk on a hundred and twenty fifth Road?
DENNIS: I wasn’t consuming breakfast. These have been one-meal-a-day days, my pal. I ate from a number of meals vehicles. (laughing) Meals vehicles are horny now. There could even be a number of Michelin-starred ones on the market. However again then, that’s not what they have been.
The dialog has been edited and condensed for readability.
Cereal Entrepreneur, a brand new interviews sequence from Forbes carried out by Technique co-founder Eric Ryan … [+]
Courtesy of Eric Ryan
The dialog has been edited and condensed for readability.