As children, many of us ran our own lemonade stands. Mikaila Ulmer did the same, but never truly stopped. Today, she not only runs a beverage empire, but she is also saving the bees too!
If you are a fan of lemonade, it’s likely that you’ve heard of Mikaila Ulmer. And if you haven’t, it’s likely that you’ll have heard of her lemonade brand- Me & The Bees Lemonade.
We recently covered Rachel Zietz and Moziah Bridges, other so-called “Kidpreneurs”. Today, we will cover teenaged beverage baroness Mikaila Ulmer.
The Beginning
Mikaila Ulmer was born to Theo and D’Andra Ulmer in 2005. As with many families, Mikaila’s paternal great grandmother, Helen, had many family recipes. One of these, was a flaxseed lemonade recipe.
At the age of four and a half, a young Mikaila was stung by a bee. Less than a week later, she was stung by another bee. This resulted in her, naturally being deathly afraid of bees.
However, this did not last too long. Soon, she began to research bees. As a part of her research, she found that bees were not only on the verge of extinction but were also vital for the environment and ecosystem.
Both of Mikaila’s parents had studied business at university. As such, they encouraged entrepreneurship with all of their children, not only Mikaila. This was when she was only 4.5 years old.
At roughly the same time, Mikaila’s great grandmother Helen, sent the family her 1940’s cookbook. One of the recipes inside was that for her so-called “famous” flaxseed lemonade recipe.
This got Mikaila thinking: How could she combine her grandmother’s recipe and save the bees at the same time? Her answer: a lemonade brand that doesn’t just exploit the bees, but helps them too.
Me & The Bees Lemonade
Soon after coming to this conclusion, Mikaila Ulmer asked her parents if she could establish her own lemonade stand. Her parents agreed, and she soon started selling her own lemonade, operating as “Bee Sweet Lemonade”.
However, Mikaila Ulmer made one major alteration to her great grandmother’s lemonade recipe- switching out sugar for honey. Thus, making bees an integral part of her business.
Soon after starting up, Mikaila was forced to change the name due to legal issues. Mikaila decided to change it to “Me & The Bees Lemonade”. Soon after this, a local pizza shop asked Mikaila to supply them with lemonade.
This gave Mikaila the idea to start bottling her lemonade, rather than just selling it outside her house. Soon after this, she began offering her lemonade to nearby stores, many of whom began to sell her lemonade.
In 2015, Mikaila Ulmer appeared in Shark Tank Season 6, Episode 23 with her father, seeking an investment from one of the sharks. Mikaila was successful, with Daymond John giving her $60,000.
After her appearance on Shark Tank, then-president Barack Obama invited Mikaila Ulmer to the White House. Soon after this, Mikaila introduced Barack Obama at the United State of Women Summit in 2016.
Today
Today, Celebrity Net Worth estimates that her net worth is around $11 million, although this could be higher or lower. (Mostly, this estimate comes from her $11 million deal with Whole Foods in 2016).
In terms of her lemonade, Me & The Bees Lemonade is sold in over 1,500 stores in the US alone. In 2019, Me & The Bees Lemonade sold over 1 million bottles in these 1,500 stores combined.
Recent years have also proven quite lucrative for Me & The Bees Lemonade. They have diversified beyond just bottling and selling lemonade to other products such as lip balms, similarly made from bee-related products.
In 2019, Me & The Bees Lemonade and Mikaila Ulmer celebrated their 10th year anniversary. As of that date, Me & The Bees lemonade had five flavors of lemonade, having grown past their original one, only 10 years previously.
Starting in 2016, Mikaila has given several motivational speeches about social entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship in general. Some of her talks have even later been given as TED Talks.
Next month (August 2020), Mikaila will publish her first book- Bee Fearless, Dream Like a Kid, published by Penguin Random House. This book will talk about her life as a social entrepreneur as well as her school-business balance.
How Can I Replicate Mikaila Ulmer?
Short Answer: You can’t really replicate what Mikaila has done. At least, you can’t 100% replicate what Mikaila did. She is known for having turned her passion into a multimillion dollar empire through her own hard work.
Plus, you wouldn’t really want to replicate exactly what Mikaila did: otherwise, there probably wouldn’t be much of a market for you. Mikaila has already taken that place!
Long Answer: Patience. With that being said, you can learn from people who have come before you. Many of the most successful entrepreneurs have written books about their life or have had books written about them!
If you want to become a beverage baron like Mikaila, read the biographies of people like John Pemberton (who founded Coca Cola). If you want to become a media magnate, read the biographies of people like William Randolph Hearst!
By reading about them, you will begin to understand what made them tick. And more importantly- what made them in particular so successful, when so many others before and after them failed.
Sadly, however, there are no books as of yet about Mikaila. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t find out how she is so successful. Due to her age, she has been written about and interviewed by several major news organizations.
Many of these articles and interviews provide you with great insight into her business and life! Plus, if you’re a teenage who’s looking to found their own empire, there are more than just Mikaila, just Google search “Most famous kidpreneurs“.
What Can we Learn From Mikaila Ulmer?
The story of Mikaila Ulmer and Me & The Bees can teach you a lot, not just about becoming financially free, but also for business too!
Give Back to The Community
Despite running her business to make a profit, Mikaila always makes sure to give back to the community. Unlike most of her competitors, Mikaila will only buy honey from local (Texan) beekeepers.
Since she started out, Mikaila has also donated 10% of whatever she made to local charities concerned with saving the bees. Many of these charities help the same beekeepers that supply her with her honey.
Mikaila does this in order to help her local community, and let them share in her success. As her business has grown, she has also increased the amount she has given back to the community in total.
By giving back to her local community, not only is Mikaila helping a great cause, but she also helps herself. There’s something that’s just so great about helping people and the community, as well as saving it!
Side Hustle
In my opinion, Mikaila probably shows this the best of anyone we’ve covered in our Surprising Wealth Stories segment. She perhaps shows this better than other kidpreneurs like Mo Bridges or Rachel Zietz.
At only 4.5 years old, having not even finished kindergarten, she began her business. As she got older, she has gone to elementary school, middle school and now high school, all whilst running a her business.
Whilst at school, Mikaila has had to contend with doing homework, writing essays and revising for tests. This is all whilst she has continued to grow Me & The Bees into the juggernaut it is today.
By starting a side hustle, you essentially get the best of both worlds. Not only could Mikaila get the best education she needs as well as starting (and growing) the business she wants!
Be Consistent
If there’s one thing you need to be in life, it’s consistent. If you want to start a business, you need to be consistent. If you want to invest, you need to be consistent. If you want that great job, you’ll want to be consistent.
Mikaila perhaps embodies this the best. Chances are, almost every night after school, Mikaila is running her business. This likely includes, weekends, holidays and yes, maybe even Christmas.
Following many rich people habits, Mikaila probably gets up far earlier than many of her friends (and most other adults!) It’s also likely that she’ll go to sleep far later than her friends too!
After all, she has to be consistent and spend every waking moment that she isn’t at school, on her business. Otherwise, how could she possibly compete with the likes of Sprite (owned by Coca Cola).
Follow Your Passions
Mikaila’s love and passion for bees and lemonade led to her creating Me & The Bees lemonade. It is the same passion that drives her to get up in a morning and run one of the largest lemonade brands in the country!
By following her passion, she has that drive to continue to innovate and to continue to try and grow her business. This passion is something that you yourself can find, whether that is for bees, or for something completely different!
By continuing to follow her passions, running her business doesn’t feel like work to them. Instead, it feels more like a hobby or something that she does for fun. The result is her business does even better that it would otherwise!
Plus, working to earn money won’t motivate you forever- eventually, money won’t motivate you anymore. But what will? A passion. It’s the same reason why Gary Dahl invented the pet rock- he had a passion for marketing, which turned into the pet rock.
Age Doesn’t Matter
Mikaila Ulmer, just as with Alexander Pask, Rachel Zietz and Ray Kroc have all proven that regardless of age, you can become successful in whatever you decide to do.
For Mikaila, she started running her own business at the age of 4. For Ray Kroc, he founded McDonalds at 52 years old. Mikaila proves that you are quite literally never too young to pursue your dreams.
When Mikaila was starting, she probably never dreamed that her lemonade would be sold in over 1500 stores in America alone, in only 10 years! But, by starting young, she has done all of this, before she’s allowed to drive!
Despite the fact that Mikaila quite literally battles with school, homework and running a multimillion dollar business, she still manages to balance it. But it’s more than just that, she does it so her business still grows each month!
Has the story of Mikaila Ulmer inspired you? Tell me in the comments!
