Me & the Bees Lemonade & Buttons Working Together
In the years following a then 9-year-old Mikaila Ulmer’s $60,000 investment win on NBC’s ‘Shark Tank’, she’s become one busy little bee with her company Me & the Bees Lemonade est. 2009.
At 13, the young entrepreneur and businesswoman has a hugely successful lemonade company, Me & The Bees, which she started at just four years old after being stung by not just one, but two buzzing bees. To add insult to injury, both stings happened in just one week.
Deciding to learn about bees instead of dismissing the tiny insects and their duel attacks on her skin; Mikaila unexpectedly developed a fascination for them after many hours of research. She discovered that honeybees are essential to the ecosystem and for the pollination of our crops. She also found out that they are under threat of extinction.
This strange coincidence happened while Mikaila was also trying to come up with an idea for the Acton Children’s Business Fair. While still smarting from her bee stings, Mikaila’s Great Granny Helen sent the family an old cookbook from the 1940’s that contained a recipe for Granny Helen’s special Flaxseed Lemonade.
And then an idea was born. Flavoring her granny’s lemonade with honey made by local bees, Mikaila opened her very own lemonade stand to sell her sweet concoction to neighbors, at city events and eventually, a small Austin pizza shop. She decided to donate a portion of her sales to help organizations like the Texas Beekeepers Association, which conduct research into the preservation of bees.
Little by little, Mikaila began to grow her lemonade business until it bloomed into a full-blown company complete with contracts from Whole Foods and United Natural Foods distribution, enabling her lemonade to be sold in nearly 20 states.
All the attention that Mikaila and Me & the Bees received on ‘Shark Tank” after CEO of FUBU clothing, Daymond John, decided to invest in the company for a %25 stake share later led to an invite to the White House for the annual kids’ “state dinner” in 2015 where Mikaila first met then President Barack Obama. She met Obama again in 2016 when she introduced him at that year’s annual Women’s Summit.
In the last year and a half, she has parlayed her rising fame and success into the creation of the Healthy Hive Foundation, became a member of Microsoft’s People of Action network, speaking onstage with Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella at the WE Day Conference in Seattle in 2016, traveled to Cape Town, South Africa to teach a class in Finance 101 and was named one of Time magazine’s “most influential teens” in 2017.
As for 2018, Mikaila will take on a brand new challenge: writing her first children’s book. It will, of course, instruct kids on how to start and run their own businesses.
On March 7th, Mikaila will be speaking at the Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim, CA. She will tell her story of bee stings, honey and hard work, called “When Life Gives You Lemons.”
Me & The Bees ordered 1.25″ pin-back custom buttons from CustomButtons.com By Everyone Loves Buttons® to help promote her business at this huge event in Southern California this coming weekend. If you’re in Southern California and will be attending, please stop by booth #N2331 to try out Mikaila’s unique lemonade (available in four delicious flavors) and to show your support with a button. Always remember when you see Me & The Bees lemonade being sold around town, don’t forget Mikaila’s motto: Buy a bottle, save a bee.
