00:01Hello my name is Yalitza Jean Charles I'm the CEO and founder of Healthy Roots
00:05Dolls a multicultural children's product company all about teaching girls how to
00:09love their curls I live in Detroit Michigan I'm from New York and I started
00:12it all as a class project so I don't know about y'all but I never had a doll
00:20that looked like me growing up and when my parents did try to actually give me
00:23a doll that kind of looked like me I wasn't feeling her so when I went to the
00:27Rodan School of Design I was in this class where they gave us fairy tale
00:30characters and said reimagine them and I was like okay what if I took Rapunzel
00:34turned her into a little brown girl with kinky curly natural hair to show other
00:37little brown girls that we can be beautiful princesses too and from there
00:41we had this whole conversation on a social media site where I was like 200
00:45comments of other black women saying I never had a doll that looked like me or I
00:48didn't know how to do my hair or I didn't know what I was doing until I was 22
00:51years old and it's like wow what can I do as an artist to try to combat this issue
00:56so that the girls that come after me love themselves just the way that they
00:59are and that's how I ultimately took that class project designed it as a
01:03real doll and brought it to market I think school set me up pretty well okay
01:08you have a pencil what else can you do with this pencil you can take the light
01:11out you can grind it up mix it with water paint so seeing all the ways that I
01:15can say yes before I can say no to make something happen I did the class
01:20project had the conversation did crowdfunding brought the product to market
01:24got our first customers I got into accelerator programs I drove eight
01:28hours to the night to get to those program going to essence fest and
01:31winning first place in the first new voices fun pitch competition I was
01:34passionate about the problem and I kept making progress and every milestone that
01:40I set for myself I met so why not keep going even if that means I'm now an
01:44entrepreneur and I didn't necessarily set out to do that I'm doing
01:47something really great so this is one piece of advice that I followed to get my
01:52business from okay this class project to being in Target stores and having an
01:56expanded product line one figure out what you want to do to figure out how to
02:01do it and then three this is the most important step you have to do it you
02:04have to actually execute it on your ideas okay well I know how to design
02:07things and I know how to you know market an idea but I don't know how to
02:12actually manufacture what it's like to get into retail or any of these other
02:15parts of the business so I went out and sought people who had that
02:18information who could advise me and added them to my journey so that they could
02:22support me along the way and that led me to raising almost 1.5 million dollars to
02:27launch our new products which are now in Target so we have the full curl friends
02:30line all these other accessories that kids can use with their dolls and helped
02:34us ultimately achieve our mission which is to empower the next generation and
02:37teach them to love themselves just the way that they are I want girls in their
02:41college dorms to be like oh yeah I had a Zoe doll or I had a mighty soul doll and this is
02:45what I did with her hair and know that I had an influence on the development of
02:49children and like who they became so let's get into the curl friends they
02:52have curl power which we like to say that the girls are activating when they
02:55wash and sell their hair so we have my first baby Zoe which is the one that
02:59everyone loves then we have Guyana and Marisol which help us expand our
03:04collection to have dolls with different skin tones facial features and hair
03:07textures we love showing the fact that you can actually do their hair so box
03:11braids obviously don't use your mom's good
03:14shampoo but like get into it our ultimate goal is obviously a total doll
03:19domination we want to reach all of our international girlfriends we want to
03:22expand our line to represent girls from around the world and telling their unique
03:26stories I would have to say that one of the biggest challenges I had right off
03:29the bat was the fact that I was an art student I didn't know anything about
03:32business so I had to learn and it can be really difficult because there's a lot of
03:36ego ego in things and you think you know everything you don't you don't ask
03:41questions I think there's nothing more intelligent than recognizing when you
03:45don't know something I don't know if I ever process like she's in Target so I'm
03:52super excited to have even been given the opportunity and also very grateful for
03:56what I've learned so far my favorite thing about it is like the photos we get
04:00of people like putting Zoe in their cart and like taking for like the fact that
04:03there are little girls I get to walk down the aisle and be like she looks like me
04:07chef's kiss perfect so I'm Haitian American and I always say that when my
04:12dad found out that he had a girl he raised me with the confidence of a six
04:16four man so when I think about you know black beyond measure and shining and all
04:22these things I just think about the fact that I've never let myself not do
04:26something because I thought somebody else thought I couldn't do it you don't have
04:29to you know wear a black suit to be taken professionally you don't have to have
04:34you know straight hair in order to be a professional you can do whatever you
04:38want to do and if they accept it or not that's up to you whether or not you take
04:42that but you don't have to
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