When the founder of Carol’s Daughter sold the company, she became wealthy, but she was hurt by the reaction of her fans

Lisa Price began Carol’s Daughter in her kitchen, and for a long time her fans loved that her company was black-owned. One day in 2014, sold the company L’Oreal. She got a giant check and stayed on as the company’s helm, but many of her fans were like, Wait, Carol’s Daughter isn’t black-owned anymore? They were pissed. Price heard their complaints. She couldn’t help herself—her social media was abuzz with anger. And regardless that she suddenly had a ton of money and was running a wildly successful company, she felt ashamed, like she had done something unsuitable. The disappointment of her fans overshadowed some of her joy.

Price has handled that feeling, and now says she refuses to acknowledge the shame. But she was definitely affected by the things people said. The company remained black-owned and black-focused. There was a fear, she says, that selling it will destroy it, but she at all times felt L’Oreal was the perfect strategic partner. In the years before L’Oreal, she had sometimes flirted with bankruptcy. Now, with L’Oreal’s help, she could ensure that Carol’s Daughter can be in every single place. It can be an establishment.

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Still, she needed to fight the belief that she had one way or the other done something unsuitable by selling the company. There is great pride in owning a business, but many of us understand that there are seasons in business. There is a time to begin it, a time to construct it and a time to money it out. This shouldn’t be a sell-off, where you are taking the value of your corporation and secure a generational asset that may take care of your kids and their children, while also remaining at the helm to be certain that it continues to serve your customers. But many of Price’s fans didn’t understand that, and it caused her rather a lot of stress.

He talks about it in the latest episode of “Masters of the Game”.