The following side reflector: Concuring entrepreneurs based in Colorado Boone Whiteside, 29, and Ben Medalie, 28. WhiteSide and Medalie are co -founders of Highland, a hairstyle care brand that has begun as a Passion Passion project in Denver and Hass in three years. The answers were modified for length and clarity.
Picture Credit: With a kind permission of Highland. Boone Whiteside, left and Ben Medalie, right.
When did you set up a side noise and where did you find inspiration for it?
Whiteside: When Ben and I became the best friends during our junior year on Cu Boulder, one of the things that Bushht Close was, our shared desire to build our journey was to go on a 9-5 journey that worked on Somesis’s dream. However, this shared passion would not show the unit much later.
When I first started dreaming of a hair product company that crossed the styling of hair with toxic sh*t, I worked on the launch of a marketing and operational role. We were a small team and the company tried hard to establish. I learned a ton of problem solving in the early stages of business, but I had one leg out of the door and pulled me to my call that I was my own businessman.
Related: This seventeen -year -old high school student has $ 20,000 per month and all of this started the skill he learned in the classroom
Ben worked in the Technology Society in Analytics as analyst, but the real role dared to do so much because he does the same day. Juggling sales, learning is coded, risk analysis, dabbling in marketing and growth … His managers were constantly breathing on his neck to “just focus” on “his leading role”. Neither of us is happy with these career trajectories.
The patient of the archaic inheritance brands that dominated the hair style space with cheap, chemical formulations and unnecessary packaging and unsuccessful in finding a brand that disrupted industry, I came across an idea that would solve my own consumer need. I had Hunch to resonate this problem with people like me.
What were some of the first steps you took to get side noise from the country?
Whiteside: The first steps hit the Google (Bai or before AI) to cover naturally occurring, plant ingredients that could replace plastics, endocrine disturbing formulas. Without licking chemistry or cooking experience by my name, I began to order waxes, clays, oils and other botanical ingredients and started mixing them on my cooking table.
Fortunately, I have always been a weird, so I was strange enough to start putting these unsuccessful mixtures into my hair, weird enough for all my friends to do the same and give me feedback and strange enughtu to be my room ripped and triggered into my hair strange.
Picture Credit: With a kind permission of Highland
Are there any free or paid resources that were particularly useful to start and operate this business?
Medalie: Some technological standouts include: KLAVIYO for e-mail marketing, shopify (and all its amazing plugins) to supply our site, triple WHALE FOR METRICS adgement, amped (now Mailchimp) to capture lead, Adobe premiere to create content and FINLLY FIGMA for non-registered non-registered.
Whiteside: Ben covered most of the paid. The best source we used in was our polite perseverance in difficult help from other business builders. People generally want to help, but you can’t be afraid to ask. We recently grabbed coffee with Justin Gold, the founder of Justin’s, a peanut butter brand, and he summed up: “Be disproportionate.” This mentality was helpful in building an incredible network of people who helped us build a Highland strategy from the ground up and avoiding the mistakes of other founders. So go disproportionate – be polite about it.
Related: This couple started the side noise to improve the basic bathroom. Now the company earns more than $ 3 million per year.
If you could return on your working day and change one process or approval, what would it be and how do you want it otherwise?
Whiteside: I think Highland gets high grades for doing it early, but I wish we did it before. Get your unit economics very seriously from the first day. Find out what your gross margins are. Create a plan to reduce Cogs over time and you know that every penny is calculated. Ensure your finances seriously and find out how and when you can make your business profitable. Meanwhile, the days of Raison Capital are and think how to become profitable later, as most of the businesses that have taken this way.
One of the most beautiful days of the Highlands was when the books of June 2023 closed themselves and we had $ 113 to profit. We would find out how to make business self -sufficient, and that meant that our track was unlimited. Become profitable, die and then find out how to scaling effectively.
But also no regret. The journey was a day and formed us. Let you have your form.
When it comes to this particular business, what you thought to be particularly demanding and/or surprising that people who get this type of work should be prepared, but probably not?
Medalie: Formulation (any kind, but especially in beauty), which are really natural, are incredibly difficult to remedy. We learned quickly why all those who came before cutting the corners they did, and we offered a business formulation that ensures consistency and so -called “performance”.
When we are unquestioning that our products would differ, we ran Isose left and right. Our ingredients are volatile and non -acting; Soon doses would be very different and have a much shorter life than the products we went up. Several times we lost thousands of units on unsuccessful batches, as a result they went out of the warehouse and questioned if it was all a game. In the end, we broke on the other side of this challenge, and now we have redefined what innovations are possible in the “better formulation for you, better for the planet”.
Picture Credit: With a kind permission of Highland
Can you remember a particular instance when something has happened very much? How did you fix it?
Whiteside: We have never received round round values worth several million dollars without not being treated, but that did not spare us to face serious challenges in cash flows. Immediately after the wheels of our friends and families, we came across a rough patch. We burned about $ 10,000 a month when we worked to reduce our losses and slowly increased our marketing expenses. Still, we were not afraid. We had three months of tracks and what felt like a perfect investor sorted – someone ready to write complete control and bring expertise and mentoring in the industry that Ben and I just hoped. We were set up. Until we were suddenly.
The process has been dragging for months. Our bank account was exhausted. The agreement eventually failed. We had to stop paying the bearing, cutting the bones, the delay of growth plans, and the relations with our manufacturing partners. It was the first time we really faced the possibilities of losing society and it was intestinal control.
Medalie: So we mixed. We gained less capital than we planned, but we did it. We still had the confidence of the front for our investors, we were slim and remained miserable. Looking back, it was one of the best things that could have happened. It made us prove our way to become positive in cash and help us maintain more ownership. But it was a hard -earned lesson: Fundraising is not real estate, the money will hit the bank. And no matter what the promising agreement looks like, you can’t build a company on the potential itself.
Related: After lost $ 5 million overnight at the age of 25, he started trading on a $ 50 million track. Here is the “moment of the bulb” that made it happened.
How long did it take you to see, are the income of monthly income? How much did the side noise earn? What does growth and income looks like now?
Whitside and Medalie: We did not start earning, lies in monthly income ($ 10,000-20,000 per month) until mid-2023. The side Hustle started all the way back in 2021, when Ben and I made a lot of our ice poming in our kitchen blender, packed units and sold them at our interpretation and a few salons. The side noise probably generated an average of $ 1,000-3,000 in a month between 2021 and 2023.
Now in 2025, after the launch of our third SKU, we hit our first million-dollar month and we were profitable for almost two years. It’s not a race. Become a success overnight in five to 10 years.
What do you like most about doing this business?
Medalie: Frankly, hot Take … getting all this thing with the people we love and most appreciate in our lives. People always warn of trading with best friends or family, but this part was the most. Every day it is different and seeing themselves and friends grow, prosper and even fail in front of them, it is incredibly strong and motivating.
Whiteside: What I enjoy most is awakening every day to solve demanding problems with my best friend and co -founder and choosing your own adventure in all aspects of what we do. Being your own boss is not an overloaded part of being an entrepreneur. It’s incredibly hard, but it’s also the best.
Picture Credit: With a kind permission of Highland
What is your best piece of specific, special business counseling?
Whiteside: We start is often the hardest, but if someone has, I would offer advice from my dear friend and founder Shopbop, Bob Lamey: “Beware of calling.” It means to be focused on a laser about what you think is for your business and contributes to these goals with intent. Many e-mails, phone calls, playgrounds and everyday tasks become a distraction from what you know you have to work.
This does not mean ignoring the opportunities to appear – it is a challenge to define your vision and hold your responsibility for reviving it. You know what you have to do; Do not allow the noise to dispel you.
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