John Paul DeJoria Started Again From His Car, With a Partner and $700

John Paul DeJoria grew up in Los Angeles and started working young. He has described delivering newspapers with his brother as a boy and selling subscriptions door to door, with the money going to their mother.

As a young man he took jobs wherever he could find them, including janitorial work and a stint in a magazine circulation department. He also spent about three and a half years selling encyclopedias door to door on commission, with no leads. He has recalled that most people in that job quit within days, and that the lesson he took from it was simple: keep the same enthusiasm at the hundredth door that you had at the first.

DeJoria has said the first time he was homeless he was 22, with a two-year-old child. By his account, his wife left, the money was gone, and the bills had gone unpaid. He has described collecting soda bottles from vacant lots and cashing them in to get by until a friend offered them a place to stay and he could get back to work.

He rebuilt slowly. He moved into the professional beauty industry, working in sales and management for hair care companies and learning how products were formulated and sold to salons. Not every job lasted; he has said he was let go from more than one position. But each one added to what he knew.

By 1980, DeJoria had teamed up with Paul Mitchell, a respected hairdresser. As DeJoria has described it, Mitchell understood hair and stylists, and DeJoria understood business and formulation. They planned to launch a salon hair care line with outside money, and DeJoria has said an investor had promised a large sum.

The investor pulled out. The economy was rough, with high inflation and high interest rates. DeJoria has said that he and Mitchell put in about $350 each, and that he once again ended up living in his car. The company's own history confirms that John Paul Mitchell Systems began in 1980 with $700 between the two founders.

With almost no capital, DeJoria leaned on what he already had: his industry reputation and his sales training. He has recalled persuading suppliers to give them time to pay and ordering a small sample run of bottles instead of a full production order.

Then he went out and sold. By his account, he drove along Ventura Boulevard calling on salons one at a time and came back after a week with a dozen orders. He used those orders to convince a beauty supply distributor, who had first said no, to carry the line. The years of knocking on doors had trained him for exactly this moment.

DeJoria has never told this as a solo story. Paul Mitchell's craft and name with stylists gave the products credibility, and the early stylists, distributors, and suppliers who extended trust made the start possible. Mitchell died in 1989 at age 53, less than a decade after the company began.

John Paul Mitchell Systems grew into a global professional hair care brand. The company describes itself today as the largest family-owned professional haircare brand, and it has expanded into a network of Paul Mitchell Schools. DeJoria later co-founded Patrón Spirits and is known for philanthropy; the company's history recalls an early promise to give back as soon as they started to make money.