How Monique Little Grew Her Natural Hair Accessory Brand into a Multimillion Dollar Company

Monique Little

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Updated: May 24th, 2023

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Monique Little is the CEO & Founder of You Go Natural, a manufacturer of pre-tied African headwraps intended to provide a protective styling hack. It all started in 2016 in her mom's living room with a sewing machine.

The company designs satin-lined products such as head wraps, t-shirts, turbans, headbands, and related collections that are made of different styles, fabrics, and colors, enabling users to keep the edges protected and encourage healthy hair in the comfort of home or while on the go.

The platform has grown into a thriving business with an 8,000-square-foot production facility in East Dallas. In their manufacturing facility in Old East Dallas a staff of around 30 people produces and ships headwraps. The factory produces around 11,000 headwraps every month.

The founder would employ seamstresses on Craigslist, buy and cut fabric, and distribute those bundles to needleworkers across the city when orders got too much for her to manage alone.

Monique has collaborated with the City of Dallas’ Workforce Development department to develop an apprenticeship program to retain production in the neighborhood. Approximately half of the sewing operators at You Go Natural are in the apprenticeship program.

In the beginning, she sold about $100,000 worth of the satin-lined, pre-tied wraps she designed to protect kinky and curly hair. After opening a production facility, she increased revenue to $2.2 million in 2020. Today, You Go Natural reports about 50,000 customers and anticipates quintupling revenue by the end of the year.

Key Takeaways

Monique’s launched a jewelry store on Shopify while in college.
She designed satin-lined hair products for personal use and realized that people were interested in them, so she pivoted to hair products.
She ended up upselling the hair products to others.
Six months after launch, her business made more than her day job.
She quit her job in 2016 to focus on growing her business.
Monique used Instagram to grow r community
For the first 4 months, she worked alone and hired casuals until a couple of years when the business became profitable.