Why Mikaila Ulmer is famous?

If you were stung by a bee, twice, around the same time, you will probably run away from them the next time you see them. But four-year-old Mikaila from Austin, Texas, the U.S. became fascinated with them and is today selling lemonades and donating proceeds from her sales to organizations fighting for the survival of honeybees. This is her story.

Two stings and a cookbook later

In 2009, when she was just four, Mikaila’s parents, both with business degrees, encouraged her to come up with a product for an upcoming children’s business competition and for Austin Lemonade Day. She put on her thinking cap and was coming up with ideas when two interesting events happened in her life – in a span of two weeks, she was stung by two bees, and her great grandmother who lives in Cameron, South Carolina, sent the family a cookbook of hers from the 1940s.

These two moments were to define the path Mikaila was going to choose.

After she was stung by the bees, her parents encouraged her to read up about them and the things they do for the ecosystem instead of becoming averse to them. When she did her research, she learnt about the importance of honeybees and that their population was declining.

That’s when her great grandmother’s cookbook came in handy. Mikaila decided to use a special recipe of flaxseed lemonade her great granny used to make to start her own lemonade stall and help honeybees by contributing proceeds from her stall for their conservation.

This is how her company Me & the Bees was born.

An entrepreneur and a bee ambassador

Mikaila’s company made and sold flaxseed lemonade sweetened with local honey sourced from local beekeepers.

Year after year she would sell out of her Me & the Bees lemonade stall at youth entrepreneurial events and donate a percentage of the profit towards bee conservation.

As the business kept growing, her parents helped her strike the balance between her business and her school life.

In 2015, Mikaila’s business made a breakthrough when it won a contract to supply lemonade to supermarket chain Whole Foods Market. The same year, Mikaila appeared in the U.S. reality show “Shark tank” where she pitched her product to investors. Making an impact, Mikaila found an investor who invested USD 60,000 in her company.

Two years later, a consortium of current and former American football players invested USD 8,00,000 in Me & the Bees lemonade.

In 2015, Mikaila was also invited to the White House by then U.S. President Barack Obama.

Today, Mikaila has sold over a million bottles of her lemonade in the U.S. and is giving speeches at entrepreneurial conferences and workshops. In 2017, she launched her own non-profit – the Healthy Hive Foundation – to conduct research, education and protection projection for honeybees.

Her company continues to donate 10% of all profits to bee conservation groups.

What makes her special?

Her dedication, presence of mind and thought. Despite being stung by bees, she decided to read up on them and help towards their conservation by coming up with a business based on a recipe her great grandmother had sent her around the same time.

Today, even after being in business for nearly 10 years and selling millions of bottles, she continues to donate towards bee conservation.

 

Picture Credit : Google