Like many entrepreneurs, Tracee Ellis Ross had to think creatively about how she launched her business.
As AFROTECH™ previously reported, she is the proud founder of Pattern Beauty, a haircare brand that serves as a love language to the textured hair community with offerings including washes, treatments, styling tools, and more.
She pitched the idea while she was acting on the TV show “Girlfriends,” and it was not initially understood, but her self-belief helped bring it to the market in 2019.
“Nobody was interested. Nobody would understand why an actress would be making hair products. Nobody understood the difference between hair products that were for curly, coily, and tight-textured versus straight,” she explained during an interview with Self Magazine. “People were just like ‘I don’t get it.’
“So I heard all different kinds of nos and, from ‘Girlfriends’ into ‘Black-ish,’ not only was I gaining this larger platform, but I was learning how to express myself in a way that was much more effective for what it is that I was trying to accomplish. In these years between 2019 and now, I really discovered that I am a business builder,” she continued.
Claiming that title of business builder was made possible by Ross’ strategic decisions early on, such as onboarding business partners to operationalize the venture after securing retail partners. As a Black actress in Hollywood, she wasn’t able to self-fund the venture, though she maintains majority ownership of Pattern.
“So, someone told me early on not to use my own money,” ” Ross explained during an episode of Aspire with Emma Grede.
“I will also tell you I’m a Black actress in Hollywood. I did not have that money to use … I have full creative control and I am majority owner of the company. The difference is I brought this fully fledged idea to my business partners and when I brought it to them, I already had retail partners.”
She has no regrets over that decision, and reflecting on that decision, she said, “It’s fantastic … I really love being founder and a CEO.”
