MADEXXXX
MADEINC
JASMINE BROWLEY
(@JasmineBrowley) of the
“HowIMADEIt” Podcast sat
down with Nailah Ellis-Brown,
Founder of Ellis Tea to
discuss the journey to
propelling her company to a
national success before the
age of 30 and to grow
something out of nothing.
Not long ago, Nailah Ellis-Brown ran
her natural tea company, Ellis Infinity
Beverage Co., from her a basement and
handed out bottles from the trunk of
her car. Today, the founder and CEO
of the Detroit-based bottling operation
managed to grow it into national brand
with distribution in Whole Foods, Meijer,
Sam’s Club and rapidly expanding to
other large outlets across the country.
Nailah recently shared how she started
the company as a struggling college
student, what she learned after win ning
the prize from Shark Tank-like reality
competition show, Queen Boss and
the business advice she received from
mogul, Barbara Corcoran that changed
her outlook on entrepreneurship.
So, here's the tea:
On why she dropped out of
Howard University to start
selling Ellis Island Tea
“ My original plan was to earn a business
degree from Howard University and then
make a fortune on Wall Street to fund a
business in the future. But it made no
sense to incur a ton of debt just to spend
even more money to build a business after
I graduate that might not even work out.
I am pro-education [and] plan on going
back to get my degree, but once I realized
how student loans work and how much
more you’d actually end up paying back
and how much money I would walk away
with, I couldn’t accept that. So I decided to
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