Asking Billionaire Women How They Got So RICH!

More than 7 million women in America are millionaires, and they're building some of the biggest fortunes in the country. So I traveled across America to meet some of the most successful self-made women to find out how they did it. And our first woman started with just $67 and turned it into an 8-figure soap empire. Here's how. Michi, thank you so much for... Thank you for making the time to come out here. Let's do it. I'm from Miami, so anytime I get the time... Are you actually? Yeah. And you're based in Orlando now? Mm-hmm. Okay, awesome. You built an incredible company. Yeah. What was the business that made you rich? Rich? Yes. Oh, man. Wait, hold on, get this fan, because that's too ghetto. It's kind of funny, that rich word, but I would say what made me break a generational pattern was Salt XL, my feminine hygiene brand. And this is a soap company. Yes. Yeah. I sell soap online. How big is the business today? What's the biggest year you've had so far? We've done a strong 8-figures. In one year? One year. Congratulations. I did a million in 30 minutes. No, you did not. Are you serious? And what was the secret? We're going to be breaking it down, but, like, I mean, selling soap. Yeah. Everybody thinks they have to go invent the next Google. You built an 8-figure company selling soap. It's fascinating. How did that happen? Honestly, I'm happy that we even survived COVID, because it was an essential business. And people don't think to sell soap or oil. It's boring. It's not fun, you know? Like, people want to do the fun stuff. I love what I do because it's a need, and I met a need, and so many people feel like they can't go without it, because Salt XL is the best. You ever afraid of competition? I don't care. You don't care. I don't care. And I really don't believe in an oversaturated market. It's a myth, because what's for you is for you, especially when you live in your purpose. Like, I'm living in my purpose. Nobody can't tell me, like, oh, yeah, this isn't going to work. I dismantle all doubt. I have one rule for all my interviews. There's no holding back. We're going to give them the actual blueprint on how to become millionaires in today's world. Can we make that happen? Let's go. Let's do it. Did you come from a lot of money growing up? Oh, my mom made $30,000 a year. She had five kids. How much money did you have when you started the business? $67. No, you did not. I started my business in college with my roommates that were in my room. I literally, it was like 700 square feet. I had four roommates, and I started in college with $67. That's all I had. So you turned $67 into eight figures. Eight figures over eight years. How? Honestly, I've had to learn valuable lessons very fast. And the hard ones, too. Like, I'm really big on don't let me have to understand a really hard lesson more than once. Because my grandfather used to always tell me, like, a hard head makes a soft ass. And I would hate to have to endure something again and again and again. Because honestly, when you have to learn hard things more than once, I feel like God's wrath is much greater than anything, and I don't want him to sit me down again. And I've been sat down. God had to sit me down a few times. Do you believe in God? Absolutely. Who is your God? Jesus Christ. You can tell me Jesus is king. Jesus is king, for sure. I live my life by Jeremiah 29 11. For I know the plans I have for you, and it's to prosper you and not to harm you. And I believe that because so many times where I've been like a really dark place or felt like I couldn't really execute on the level that I wanted to. I'm like, God is not gonna forsake me. He's not gonna abandon me. He's not gonna leave me. He's not gonna make me feel like I came all the way here just to turn me back around. So I heavily believe in Jesus Christ, for sure. How did you scale from seven to eight figures? A lot of entrepreneurs don't never hit that mark. What was your secret to scaling the business? My secret is my organic marketing. So a lot of businesses, they rely heavily on paid marketing. But I think what set us apart is that my organic marketing was fire from the beginning. Like people, the word of mouth is what really sold the brand. So I didn't really have to do too much. The product sold for itself. So then once I realized that I had something really good with organic marketing, once I put ads on top of that, it was over. That's game right there. You know that, right? It was over. What is your best sales and marketing advice to anybody in business? Get online and take the mask off. A lot of us think that we have to be like, if you're not a poised individual by nature, right? Don't get online and hi, can I serve? No, be you. Be yourself because authenticity sells and be your authentic self and make sure that you are selling a product that not only you believe in but people can vouch for because people can see through that people can see through. Oh, yeah, you're just trying to sell a product. You're just trying to get me to buy something like no, like it's easy to tell somebody what they need but to convince them that they need it. That's a whole different ballgame. You made your first million at 25 years old. How old are you now? 31? 31. I'm going to challenge you. Take us back to the most life-changing conversation you ever had. What is the greatest piece of advice you ever received throughout your career? Oh, I got a good one. Where's my phone? I got a good one. I wrote it down. I said, this is a good one. To whom much is given much is tested. Yeah, and I've been tested. I've been tested. Yeah, I've been tested. I have been robbed by my CFO and I've been robbed by my accountant and I've been robbed by a mentor that brought someone into the business and put themselves on payroll and I had to learn a lesson very quickly. I said, God, this is a test and the test was make sure that no matter how big you get, no matter how much you grow, stay in tune with your finances. Do not leave that in the hands of anybody. What's the best financial advice you could give to the younger generation? Oh man, a money lesson that I've lived by is your business money is not your lifestyle money. So the moment you come into money, you think, oh yeah, let me uh, let me buy that Benz. I was a multi-millionaire driving a Nissan Altima and living in a 700 square foot apartment. The goal is still the goal. Now, there'll be times where you'll get to ball and have a good time, but stay focused on the goal because at the end of the day, it's not about you. You're making an impact. You're building an empire. So make sure that you're using that money that you're earning and reinvest it into your business. One of my favorite sayings, stay small enough, long enough and you'll be big enough suited up. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Do you have to be crazy to become this rich? Do you have to be somewhat kind of crazy to... You have to be delusional because when I first started my business, I made a video. I was like, in five years, I'm going to make $100,000 and in seven years, I'm going to be a millionaire. I made a million dollars within the first year. Don't underestimate how much you can do in a short period of time. Don't underestimate yourself and don't put limitations on yourself. Can I tell you something? Yes. You have amazing advice. Thank you. Thank you for your time. I really appreciate that. Thank you. I connect with all the millionaires and billionaires I interview. Can I get your contact? Yeah, absolutely. Let's do this. All right, you guys, we just interviewed the soap mogul. Look, she owns one of the biggest soap companies in America. They're doing over $20 million in here, and she just gave us a phenomenal interview from start to finish. It's no wonder why she became one of the richest self-made women in the United States. But we got to go find our next interview right now, you guys. Come on, guys. I have a surprise for you all. As you can see, we're not in Miami anymore. We're out here in Los Angeles, out here in Beverly Hills, and I'm about to interview one of the richest women in all of California, Trixie Castro. She built and sold not one, but two companies to two of the biggest companies in the world, Goldman Sachs and Fidelity. So we're about to meet up with her right now, figure out exactly how she got rich and how you watching do the exact same thing. Trixie. How are you? It's good to see you. 100%. We came all the way out here to Beverly Hills. We were in Miami not too long ago, flew in to make this happen. You've had an incredible career as an entrepreneur. We're trying to show the most successful self-made woman and figure out how they got rich. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much. Well, you know, I sold two companies. Who'd you sell your companies to? Well, imagine that starting a company with a phone and a desk and selling it to Goldman Sachs and the second one to Fidelity National Title. Did you come from a rich family? Absolutely not. You want to know? My grandmother came from Cuba. She was completely illiterate. She didn't know how to read or write and would stamp her thumb. That's how she would sign her signature with a thumb print. My mom made it to the 10th grade in Cuba. For us, it wasn't about coming from money. It was about survival and how are you going to put food on the table? I bet your grandmother's pretty damn proud of you. Yeah, she was. Well, I have one rule for all my interviews. There's no holding back. We're going to give them the blueprint on how to actually become millionaires in today's world. Can we make that happen? Oh my gosh, it would be my honor. Absolutely. You sold two companies. What type of companies did you sell? Oh my gosh, my first company. I started with a phone and a desk, sold that one to Goldman Sachs and it was the top private money lending company in the distressed real estate space. The second company was an online auction company where I sold distressed real estate and I sold that to Fidelity National Title. A lot of people think you have to have a ton of money to start a business in today's world. Do you agree with that? Absolutely not. You have to look to see what you have. What is your superpower? What do you have? We all have God-given gifts. We all have resources. Focus on what you have. The company before the phone and the desk was Trixie's Tudor Time when I was 14 years old. And you know what I had? Crayola magic markers. And I had computer paper. And within one month I was making more cash under the table than most of my parents combined. Did you have people that doubted you as a woman in business? Oh my God. Literally, not only did they doubt me, they would be like, why are you here? And I learned when you're not let in through the front door, you're going through the window. It doesn't matter. I belong here. You created your own seat at the table. Absolutely. And I wanted to make sure that I could be that fearless girl that created a seat for anyone else that wanted one that had earned one. And it's not based on what you look like and where you come from. What was the most amount of money you made in a single year? Oh my gosh. We were lending a couple billion dollars a year at a time when people were saying you'll never make it and it'll never happen. So it was a multi-billion dollar company. Yeah, it was incredible. Super fun. How did you scale? A lot of entrepreneurs, they have great business ideas. They start that company, but they don't know how to scale. What was your secret to scaling businesses? Building great teams and knowing when to get out of the way. Because in the beginning, you have to do all things and you're applauded for it. In the beginning, I did every single role, but as I grew the companies and grew the team and let them showcase themselves and their talents, I had to learn how to get out of the way. And I had to learn, hey, there's no ego here. Whoever is the best person for the job, set the pavement for them. How important is the understanding how to hire the right people? The most important, that makes or breaks your business. And did you use any platforms to hire people? Yes, I'll tell you. ZipRecruiter was amazing. There was one time I had to come up with two entire departments in like 48 hours. I used ZipRecruiter. They filtered everything for me. So then it was just a matter of me putting in my magic sauce of what do I want? Who am I looking for? Made the process so much easier, 100%. Because ZipRecruiter, it matches you up with the most qualified and most skilled candidates for ZipRecruiter. Exactly, exactly. So I was able to say, okay, I need to build out this department and this department. I think we hired something like 35 people in a 48-hour period. So if they want to hire people for the business, they got to be on ZipRecruiter. 100%. It's the quickest and they do all the hard work for you. You're part of the top 1% and you have more knowledge about money than 99% of other people. Where do the richest people in the world put their money? I'm always going to tell you real estate, right? Because real estate is a great foundation to be able to establish your financial roots. You like real estate? Love real estate, absolutely. I tell everybody to go invest in real estate. What part of real estate would you be investing I invest in all sorts. I'm agnostic. I started with the one thing, single family, fix and flip, fix and hold. Then I expanded. Then it was ground up. Then it was multifamily. You just grow and grow and grow. As your knowledge grows, so does your business grow and so do your investment strategies grow. How do you feel about debt? I love debt. I'm a lender, right? I'm always going to be a lender. Why do the richest people use debt to build wealth? You got to always use someone else's money. So if you have two homes or you have three homes and you can turn that into 30, imagine the profits and how that goes up. They say OPM. Absolutely. What do the richest people understand about money that broke people don't know? That it's possible and they walk into a room knowing that it's for them. That's the shift that has to happen. It had to happen for me. It has to happen for anyone that wants to make money. You have to believe that it's possible and that it's in your wheelhouse to make. How do you know? 48, but I tell my kids 38, so 38 forever. Me and you die tomorrow and you can leave one last message with the younger generation. What would that be? It doesn't matter where you start. It doesn't matter what adversity you have to face and you deal with. It matters how you choose to grow your life. You have the power to change what you want. I love that. You have amazing advice. Thank you for your time. I really appreciate that. I love what you're doing. I connect with all the billionaires that I interview. Could I get your contact? Yeah, absolutely. Guys, we just interviewed one of the richest self-made women in the entire world and she just told us something crazy. Her company was scaling so fast. She had to build out two entire departments at her company in 48 hours. Did you hear what she said? She used to make it happen, ZipRecruiter. That's what makes it so powerful. This is in theory. She was growing fast, needed great people immediately and ZipRecruiter helped her move. So instead of manually digging through hundreds, thousands of applicants, ZipRecruiter's matching technology helps surface qualified candidates quickly and invites the strongest matches to apply and their new feature shows the most interested and most qualified candidates first before anybody else. So when timing matters, you can see who actually wants the job and move faster. That's the real lesson here. Growth creates opportunity, but only if you hire fast enough to keep up with it. Listen to this right here. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a qualified candidate in the first day and you can try it for free by going down, clicking the link in the description of this video or go to ZipRecruiter.com slash Hard Knocks. Once again, that's ZipRecruiter.com slash Hard Knocks. With that being said, let's go get this next interview. How's it going? Hi, it's so good to see you. Great to meet you as well. Yeah, I haven't seen you in a while. I haven't seen you as well, but you know, we're doing a video where I'm going all over interviewing women who have built some of the biggest fortunes in the country. You yourself have made a fortune as well. How did you get rich, Kim? Oh my gosh. Well, I got rich understanding market timing. Right now, there's never been a better time to start a business just like when I started. It was at the bottom of the dot-com and I was able to capitalize on it. So right now, next best idea, next best opportunity. And Kim, what was the most amount of money you made in a single year? I sold my last company for $235 million. So that was a pretty good exit. $230 million? $235. What type of company was that? Tech company. So it was a tech company, yes, which is amazing. What was the tech? B2B SaaS, so marketing and internet advertising. Are you serious? Yeah. And why is this the best time to get rich in today's world and start a business? Tell us why. It's never been easier to start a company in today's world of AI. Everything can be done almost overnight. You don't need a lot of capital. You just have the courage to start. I have one rule for all my interviews. There's no holding back. We're going to give them the blueprint on how to build a million dollar business in today's world. Can we make that happen? Yeah, let's do it. Let's figure out how to get rich. OK. You sold a business for over $200 million. Yes. How? Honestly, a lot of hard work. And taking risk when you're scared and everyone's telling you don't do it, everyone's telling you're crazy, do it anyway. How'd you get the money to start your first business? My grandma. My grandma gave me a $10,000 loan because no one would give me a dime. My grandma made a bet on me when I started my first company. It was an internet marketing company. And she didn't know what the internet was. And she gave me the money. And that bet turned into a hundred times back her money. So I'd say I'm a pretty good bet. What was the best financial decision you ever made? Actually marrying my husband. Why? Why do you say that? Because honestly, life's a team sport. And if you have someone that believes in you and supports you and helps you to achieve your dreams, you can do anything. As a woman in business, do people ever doubt you? Everyone doubts me. They still doubt me. I'm like, not sure why my track record speaks for itself. But it's okay to be underestimated because I know that my results will speak for themselves. So early on, people would be like, hey, can you get me coffee? I'm like, I'm the CEO. But sure, what kind of coffee can I get you? Like, I don't care. And if I could give you these last 30 seconds to give the people watching right now the blueprint on how to become wealthy in today's world and really get rich, what would that be? You just have to have the courage to start. Forget the fears. Forget everything everyone else is telling you about why you can't, why you shouldn't, why you wouldn't, and do it anyway. You have amazing advice. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate that. Thank you so much. So she just gave us an incredible interview from start to finish. I have another surprise for you all right now. You're about to go meet up with an interview, a billionaire out here in Los Angeles, out here in Beverly Hills, Kendra Scott, who founded a jewelry brand that is now worth billions of dollars, you guys. And we're gonna get the blueprint from her on how to build a billion-dollar company in today's world right now. Let's go. James! How are you? What's up, buddy? I'm so excited to be here. Who am I here with today? Kendra Scott. And what was your business? Hey, you remember me. I'm one of the 20 women who founded a billion-dollar brand. Come on. So you built a billion-dollar company. I built it out of my bedroom, extra bedroom in my house on a card table. Did you have a lot of money when you started the business? 500 bucks, baby. That's it. So what was those first initial steps in deploying that capital? You turned $500 into a billion-dollar company. What did you do with those first $500? I had to make the samples. I had to make materials. I put it all in materials. I put my jewelry in a teabox. I went out to stores here in Austin, Texas. Showed them my product. Wrote orders. I actually sold my samples that day so I'd have enough money to make the orders I wrote. Let's talk about the basics, baby. Just put money back in every single day. Grew a little bit. Step by step, step by step, step by step. Here we are. It didn't happen overnight. I'm 23 years in. So you were reinvesting like a champ, though. Always, always. Let's talk to those young entrepreneurs, though. So many people, they have one good year, one good month, and they want to go start spending, spending. How long were you reinvesting before maybe you kind of took some of those profits to yourself? Ten years. Ten long years. I didn't have any outside capital. I was doing it on credit card debt and a line of credit. So every single dollar I spent had to count. It had to stretch super far. Don't go out and start spending crazy. Take that money and be super thoughtful about where you're putting it and put it in great people that have the strengths where you're weak. Build a winning team. That's where the money needs to go first. You've already built a billion-dollar company, but you're still going. Why is that? What keeps you motivated? Are you kidding me? We're just getting started. It's not about the billion-dollar brand. I built a company that is fashion for philanthropy. We've given almost $100 million in the last 10 years to women and youth charities. For me, I'm building a brand with purpose, and that's what gets me up in the morning every day. To think that not only are we building amazing products that make people feel good and look good, we're building products that are doing good. And that, baby, that's what life's all about. If I'm not mistaken, you started this business a year after becoming a mother. Is that true? I started this business when I was pregnant with my first son. He was actually sitting on my lap and went to my first sales calls in a baby Bjorn going store to store with me. He was my little sales rep. How is that possible, though? There's a lot of people that may doubt themselves and not think that that's possible, but you're living proof that it was possible. How were you able to balance both being a new mother and building a billion-dollar company? I just created a company that allowed my family to be part of my business. Instead of creating a business and family separation, my kids were part of the growth of my business. They were there with me in the pack-and-play at my office. I'd work my butt off when I'd drop them off at preschool, and I just would go all day until I'd pick them back up. They'd come back to the office with me. They traveled with me, all over with me. And so I think that's just, you know, for me, I built a company that family could be incorporated into business. We created a workplace that allows the people that work at Kendra Scott to be present for their families first. How many retail stores do you have? Well, we're about to have 170. What do you say to the people that say retail's dead? Oh, honey, retail is so alive, and brick-and-mortar is not dead. Four walls are a place where you build community, where you build your brand awareness through bringing people into your brand and creating experience. So many things today, we need human touch. It can't just be digital. Experience first. Connection over transaction. The transaction will follow. A final one for you. Your last message to the younger generation. If me and you died tomorrow, and you had one more guiding principle to lead with the younger generation, what would that be? If you build it, they will come. I think so many people want that instant, fast success. It's like, I'm just going to start something, I'm going to blow up tomorrow. You've got to build a strong foundation. You have to build a real business. And when you do that, all those opportunities will come. Don't try to get that really quick, fast win. You've got to be able to really build something over time that means something, that has value, that is profitable. And all the opportunities will come. But be patient. You've got amazing advice, once again. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. I love seeing you. And I can't wait to see you on the inside. With that being said, we'll see you in the next episode.