Miss Jessie's: Creating a Successful Business from Scratch---Naturally

by Miko Branch

  What they saw was the two of us and a couple of people who worked in our hair salon, like busy little ants with our pushcarts, swiftly loading product, which was all boxed and ready for pickup by the UPS man, Jeff, who pulled up on our block every day like clockwork at four P.M.

  “Hey, ladies, how you doin’ today?” he asked us, jumping out of the driver’s seat to scan each item and help us with the boxes. Jeff was always cool about extending himself. “Dag, y’all got a whole lot of boxes! What’s in there?”

  It was a typical daily order, with packages of the most highly sought-after products in hair care to be sent to our online customers. With no advertising, just reviews from loyal customers on the Internet, we’d attracted a passionate cult following that was quickly spreading to the mainstream as magazines such as O, Lucky, Allure, and Essence discovered who we were and announced the curl-enhancing qualities of our products to the rest of the world.

  The numbers were growing steadily every day. Through our website, women (and a few men) were writing in from all over the country, requesting product. Business was coming in fast, and we could barely keep up. As Miss Jessie would say, we were up to our ears in “high cotton.”

  In addition to the daily delivery, there was a monthly delivery of fifty-five-gallon drums of liquids and oils for the next batch’s run, brought to us on a tractor trailer so huge it could hardly squeeze down our narrow residential street. It wore us out, lifting and rolling those huge barrels into our small home factory, which could barely contain the production materials and equipment. If our neighbors only knew what we were up to in that converted basement of ours, with the assembly lines and constant hum of machinery. Deep inside our brownstone, it was the birth of an industry.

  It was almost too scary to acknowledge what was happening in our lives at that juncture. Titi and I were an unlikely pair at an unlikely place and time. Overnight, our salon and product business were exploding, and we were insanely busy. We didn’t have the time or inclination to lift our heads up and see where we were or how we’d gotten to that point. All we were doing was getting our grind on, never stopping for a minute to think: This is it. We did it!

  SOMETHING FROM NOTHING

  This was just the beginning. Using our imagination and our hands, we not only built a successful business, but we also were about to revolutionize the beauty industry. We created something from nothing.

  The rapid growth began with a product we’d created on our kitchen table two years earlier, in 2003—the first leave-in styler for the tighter-coiled texture that defines curls, cuts frizz, and adds shine and moisture. Depending on how much was used, it created a looser, wavier texture. In the past, when people with a tighter-coiled texture wanted a more relaxed curl, they had to constantly feed their hair with wet activators to counteract the harsh double processing required to get that look from a Jheri Curl. Those treatments never dried, creating a Soul Glo greasy look. But we’d finally found a non–chemically altering styling formula that produced curls without harsh heat and chemical processing, leaving hair healthy and conditioned. It was something no other formulation targeting tighter-coiled hair had been able to do. It was truly revolutionary.

  We couldn’t wait to try out our latest concoction downstairs on our toughest critics: our clients.

  “It’s so fluffy and creamy, it looks like pudding!” one of our regulars exclaimed.

  “Oh my God, it even smells delicious!” chimed in another.

  All of a sudden, it occurred to us what we should call it—Curly Pudding. It was perfect, because our approach was exactly what our grandmother used to do in her kitchen all the time, making that irresistible banana pudding. It was all about the color, texture, and consistency. It became the standard we applied to all of our hair products. Not only must it look, smell, and feel good, but it must work well, too.

  Beyond the appealing scent and texture, our clients loved how it made their hair look. It wasn’t our original intent to make something for retail. It was just something we planned to have on hand in our salon, to better service our clients and deliver on our new curly-service menu more effectively and reliably. But people kept asking us if we had some to sell. They wanted to take home supplies of Curly Pudding to tide them over between salon visits.

  We bought a couple of six-quart KitchenAid mixers for making larger batches. The trick was to remember the exact order and amounts of the ingredients, how they were mixed, for how long, which stage of the process required heating or cooling. It wasn’t just the ingredients, it was a recipe, and it had to be duplicated exactly, repeating the same quantities and sequences of mixing and blending to keep the product perfectly consistent.

  LIKE NO OTHER

  We also stockpiled containers. If we were going to start making batches of the formula, we figured we might as well put our stamp on it. I called on my friend Garrett for help. I had admired his clean, edgily graphic skills at New Word Magazine but couldn’t nail them on my own at first. What we didn’t want was something that looked like the stereotypical products targeted to customers with tightly coiled hair. Interestingly, the manufacturers of products for this market did not share the same hair issues. We also did not want our product to resemble something one would find in the back of a health food shop or market stall. Instead, we wanted a more prescriptive, apothecary look that evoked something down-home and reliable.

  The references to pudding, and the fact that it really was a recipe, gave us the idea to present our product like one. I worked with a local graphic designer to come up with labels that resembled old-fashioned recipe cards, with a doily border and detailed descriptions of the jar’s contents. This product would look, smell, and feel like no other in our customer’s medicine cabinet. The labels also referenced old circus posters and newspaper ads, with newsprint on doily-motif labels and content that was detailed, informative, prescriptive, and fun. Presenting the information in the right format was key.

  First we had to come up with a brand name. For a minute we toyed with the idea of “Curl Labs Incorporated.” It separated the product from the salon, which we thought we needed to do, fearing the association with a boutique business in Bed-Stuy wouldn’t be high-end enough or taken seriously. But that name was too boring, sterile, and obvious. Then it was “The Best Damn Curl Crème, Period,” which our mother did not like at all. “Too boastful,” she said. Finally, it was named Miss Jessie’s, after our beloved grandmother.

  OUR NAMESAKE

  The decision to name our product business after our grandmother and to take inspiration from her recipes occurred around the same time. She’d been on our minds. In 2001, shortly after my son was born, Miss Jessie had passed after complications from a stroke. It was an especially huge loss for me, because we used to talk every single morning and night. She was my rock when we were going through the transition of moving our business to Bed-Stuy, and my constant emotional support as I was dealing with that first year of motherhood. Titi and I both missed her terribly and wanted to pay tribute to this great woman who’d taught us a lot from an early age.

  In 2005, Titi decided we should also named the salon after our grandmother. By then our product had such a huge cult following, there was no way an association with our brownstone salon could hurt us. Quite the opposite. Since our inspiration was coming from the salon, it made sense to have the continuity, with one side of the business reinforcing the other. The name Curve had served us well, but we had a sense that we were moving on to something bigger.

  The name also evoked memories of all those times my sister and I sat with Miss Jessie around the kitchen table, whipping up everything from hair pomade to cake batter as she taught us how to create something life-enhancing out of the few resources we had. What could be more fitting? Miss Jessie was the ultimate mother of invention, and we were borrowing all her moves.

  The name and its personal story just happened to be a stroke of genius marketing, because many of our customers have a strong woman in their life like Miss Je
ssie whom they respect and look up to. It was not a conscious decision at the time—we were just proud of our story and going on pure instinct.

  Back then, there was no product specifically for curly hair that was named after a delicious dessert-like pudding, buttercream, or meringue. Our labeling—which evoked images of someone nurturing and folksy, with a touch of Southern grace—would eventually become the standard for dozens of other brands. Aunts and uncles started to pop up as names of brands in the curly- and natural-hair space. We started to see puddings, buttercremes, milkshakes, smoothies, soufflés, custards, and more food references than you’d find on a restaurant menu or our grandmother’s kitchen table! There was even a company that put Miss Jessie’s logo and product name on its jar to entice customers.

  At first we did not know what to think. It was surreal to watch all of these developments, because we knew the origins of the trend: our beloved grandmother and everything she stood for, which we represented in a jar of curl magic.

  SMOOTH OPERATOR

  Once we had the product and brand names figured out, we had to come up with ad copy for the labels. Since nothing like this existed, the right messaging was key. We wanted to put all the information that would be helpful to our customer right on the jar. We wanted to talk directly to her. It was our own version of informational and educational advertising—the same approach I’d applied years before when I designed the fliers for our curly-hair services, and even when I made that brochure for Branch Cleaning Agency. It had to clearly and completely answer three questions:

  How does it work?

  Why is this for me?

  What makes it different?

  The result, on our earliest edition of Curly Pudding, read like this:

  Our world-famous Curly Pudding is a “smooth operator” that transforms shrunken kinks to super-shiny stretched-out curls. Instructions for use: Apply a palmful of Curly Pudding to damp, freshly shampooed and conditioned hair. Rake through large sections and air-dry. For maximum elongation, comb a nickel-sized dollop through small sections and air-dry. Great for: Tight-Curly, Kinky, and Transitioner’s hair.

  The more information, the better

  1. Use your label as an opportunity to clearly communicate value to your customer.

  2. Be specific. Not everything is for everybody. Women need to understand which product is for them and why.

  3. In addition to attractive packaging, include witty and engaging text that tells the story of your product.

  Underneath the name “Curly Pudding” was a tagline, “The Best Darn Curl Crème, Period!” We were just calling it as it was, the way Miss Jessie herself would have said it, although she was more likely to have said, “The best damn curl crème, period!”

  CULT FOLLOWING

  We put Curly Pudding on our website, thinking we might be able to sell a few jars. Boy, were we wrong. It caught fire right away.

  Those real-life before-and-after photos didn’t hurt. We used good-looking but ordinary people to demonstrate the amazing results of our products and unique styling techniques. No chemically altering ingredients were used to achieve the natural styling looks. It was almost unbelievable. Some even thought we were posting before-and-afters of curly-hair weaves.

  People loved the fact that our products had already been road-tested and enthusiastically endorsed by salon customers. At this stage of product and business development, it was necessary to have both elements in place: The salon connoted expertise and gave us unique credibility. Even today, it’s through our salon services that Miss Jessie’s maintains its intimate relationship with our customers and gets a direct line on their needs, which in turn generates more ideas for product development. We are never at a loss for what to come out with next, because we are on the pulse of what’s truly needed, and we understand all the nuances and special ingredients a product should have in order to perform.

  But there was another intangible contributing to our products’ immediate popularity. When we launched Curly Pudding, our salon already had a kind of unattainable aura, which we deliberately cultivated. There is a bar that is something of an institution in Manhattan’s East Village called Please Don’t Tell, or PDT. It’s both hard to access and next to impossible to find unless you are in the know. The place is located by a hot dog stand and a telephone booth that front the camouflaged entrance of a speakeasy. That was us. We had no sign on our door, we didn’t advertise, and only a select few knew our address. That gave our salon a kind of clandestine allure.

  Keep some mystery. When a product seems less attainable, it gives customers the sense that they are getting something truly special.

  That word-of-mouth buzz rubbed off onto Curly Pudding. Suddenly, there was this hot new product that friends were telling each other about, made in this high-priced salon in the ’hood by these two girls who were curl experts. Everyone had to have it. But they couldn’t get it. Unless you knew about our website—and back in 2004, that wasn’t the first place people thought to look—you had to make an appointment to see us for styling purposes. And, as mentioned, when you made the appointment, you had to make a deposit. The fact that we made it hard to get, with many layers to pass through just to get in the door, somehow worked to our advantage. Our being unattainable made people crazy for our product.

  STAKEOUT

  Not that things didn’t get a little out of hand in the beginning. Many had heard about us from discussion boards, but they didn’t know how to secure an appointment unless someone let them in on the secret. A few women didn’t have the patience to wait their turn and thought it would be a good idea to track us down in Bed-Stuy and stake out our brownstone. Typically, they would park across the street, car engines idling as they watched for signs of life through our front windows. It didn’t matter if we were home or not. For security purposes, we had a strict policy about not letting anyone in the house unless they had an appointment. We’d also noticed that some of these women on the chat boards were downright angry and hateful. We had dozens of random women ringing our doorbell at all hours of the day, night, weekends, even Sundays, and we had no idea what we were in for if we opened the door. With my son inside, and a business operation we were intent on keeping on the down-low, it made me nervous.

  If they rang the doorbell during the daytime, unscheduled, we told them nicely through the intercom to make an appointment. People were dumbfounded. A few were insulted. “But I came all the way here!” one woman exclaimed. “Are you telling me my money’s not good enough?”

  “I’m sorry, it’s just the rules,” we told her. “But you’re always welcome to call us for an appointment.”

  We weren’t about to make exceptions. The last thing we wanted was impromptu visits from people we didn’t know. We feared an influx of customers that we could not manage. We didn’t want to be slammed on the chat boards. An open-door policy also would have exposed us to too many prying eyes in the neighborhood. Besides the fact that we were private people, we didn’t want people from the area coming in who may have been unprepared for our prices and were likely to ask for a friendly neighborhood discount. It wasn’t the kind of conversation we wanted to have. And God forbid too many people would find out what we had going on and report us to The Man. This was an entirely underground operation, and we intended to keep it that way.

  Soon after, we started receiving large orders from Louis Licari’s, a high-end Fifth Avenue salon in Manhattan. That location was the first place where customers could buy our products outside of our brownstone in Brooklyn.

  Next, to meet the overwhelming demand, we picked up our first retailer—Sodafine, a hip consignment shop on DeKalb and Vanderbilt in Clinton Hill run by these two cool white girls. They were actually our second intended stop. We first visited another hip thrift shop on Fulton Street, in Fort Greene, operated by a duo who used to feature those magnificent soul album covers in their storefront. Without skipping a beat, they told Titi they were not interested in carrying Miss Jessie’s. When we walked int
o Sodafine, located on the parlor floor of a brownstone, the owners stared blankly at us. We must have said something right in our pitch, because the more we spoke about our product, the more receptive they became, and soon we were negotiating a deal. We had no idea what we would sell it to them for, but we were so desperate to get the product in a public space and out of our house that we came up with a 60/40 split in their favor. The young female owner, Rebecca, called us back later and said, “Why don’t we do it for 50/50?” We were relieved by her suggested split and jumped on it. That original deal was the same one we used with our retail partners for many years.

  This transaction meant that when women knocked on our door in Bed-Stuy, we had a place to send them. Sodafine quickly informed us that they couldn’t keep enough product on the shelves; before long, our product ended up accounting for a huge portion of their overall sales. In 2004, it was thirty-eight dollars for a professional-salon-sized sixteen-ounce jar. Women traveled for miles to buy Curly Pudding from Sodafine.

  With our new local distribution at Sodafine, I wanted to direct new customers who wanted our product to Sodafine so we took out local ads in the Park Slope Reader (focusing on the Park Slope section of Brooklyn) and Our Time Press (focusing on Bedford-Styuvesant, Crown Heights, Clinton Hill, and Fort Greene). We understood that we needed to chronicle and capture this new hair aesthetic—free-form Afro curly hair. By this time we’d learned how to shoot our own pictures and invested in photography equipment—everything from cameras, fancy lenses, lighting, to backdrop paper—because we did not have the money to pay photographers while building our business back up. We were expert at turning kinks to curls at this point and asked one of our clients, writer/director Dominga Martin, if we could shoot her and her Miss Jessie’s curls. She said yes and we knew we produced the first ad in the world showcasing this new hair trend—no one else was doing or even thinking about it at the time.