Miko Branch and her sister Titi are truly pioneers. They founded Miss Jessie’s, a line of natural hair care products, and were one of the first entrepreneurs to monetize natural hair and make curly, kinky hair something to aspire to rather than hide from.
“Not only were Titi and I trying to do curls and kinks and waves,” Branch explains, “we had to also change the mindset. We had to tell our customers what they had because when they walked in our brownstone, they didn’t understand they had gold on top of their heads.”
The story behind how the sisters turned black hair care into gold is a fascinating one that any aspiring entrepreneur should listen to (starting at 22:22 in the video above) or read about—the sisters wrote a book, Creating A Successful Business from Scratch—Naturally. They went from doing hair illegally in their Brooklyn brownstone to lining the shelves of Target with products that can go from $20 and up.
In the video above, Branch speaks with Her Agenda about the business she started with her sister Titi, whose December 2014 suicide sent shockwaves through the community. She speaks frankly about the difficult parts of building her beauty company: getting kicked out of their first salon, battling with her own sister in a lawsuit, and moving forward after her sister’s death.
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