Bottles sold by the lemonade brand she started at age 4, now in 1,500-plus stores.
Mikaila Ulmer was four years old and had just been stung by bees twice when, instead of fearing them, she got curious about them. She learned how vital bees are, dusted off her great-grandmother's flaxseed lemonade recipe, and started selling lemonade that would help save them. It was a kid's lemonade stand with a mission attached.
The kid's stand became a real company. Ulmer built Me & the Bees Lemonade into a brand now carried in more than 1,500 stores, including Whole Foods and Kroger, having sold close to 10 million bottles, with a portion of every purchase going to bee conservation. She has been running it most of her life.
And she never dropped the mission. Now around 19 and a college student still serving as CEO, Ulmer kept the bee-saving purpose at the center as the business scaled, proving a company can grow up without abandoning the reason it started.
"She started at four to help save the bees. She never let go of why."
Plenty of mission-driven brands quietly drop the mission once the money shows up. Ulmer did the opposite, keeping bee conservation wired into the business from a lemonade stand all the way to national shelves. The purpose was not marketing, it was the point.
This is the founder ANF loves to spotlight. Build the company around a reason that matters, and refuse to let go of it as you grow.
She was four when she started. She still remembers why.
