A Black woman’s crown is filled with a story. The defined curls, the short and long strands, locks, braids, straight and every texture far and in between is a part of her. However, without good hair care techniques Black hair can lose its strength and become damaged and brittle. Unfortunately, there aren’t many companies that provide the tech and resources needed to ease the hair care process for women with textured hair – but Dawn Myers is changing that.
Dawn Myers is the founder and CEO at The Most, a company that works to provide Beauty Tech appliances for women that have highly textured hair. Myers strives to create technology and resources that cater to every texture of curls and coils. “I started The Most because for Black women, basic hair hygiene and grooming is excessively complicated and cumbersome. Embracing my natural hair has given me a sense of self worth in ways too profound to describe, but the world doesn’t accommodate my hair type. We’re changing that by making hardware that major industry players lack the cultural insight to develop,” said Myers.
Before creating a space for women with natural hair Myers worked as a lawyer but her passions were so much bigger than law. Myers noticed a problem in the haircare industry while working her then day job. “I noticed that no matter where I went, black women were always kind of huddling at the water cooler talking about hair. Like everywhere we went, we were talking about time saving techniques and what products we are using,” said Myers.
Myers quickly realized that the natural hair care space is inherently surrounded by historical issues and that there is a lack of products catered to Black women. Furthermore, minority women around the world are trying to navigate their hair because its unique roots are unlike any others.
“The way black women’s eyes lit up when I talked about this in this way just indicated really viscerally that there was something special here,” Myers added.
Although Myers knew she had an idea worth pursuing, it wouldn’t be easy. Shortly after she quit her job she started to use her legal background and skills to build her company from the ground up. She says it was scary but it was worth it.
“I shine around building consensus. I shine around being creative about business solutions. But I was stuck in an industry where there’s very little innovation. I just kind of intuitively knew that even though, yes, the salary was robust and was very comfortable. I just felt like I wasn’t going to be able to really expand my potential there” Myers explained.
Unlike hundreds of hair care products, The Most is unique because they create beauty tech hardware and appliances that makes the everyday process of doing one’s hair much easier. According to Myers, many big manufacturers don’t understand the need for certain products, “these are really obvious pain points to black women, but they’re completely foreign to major manufacturers.”
One piece of technology that The Most has created is known as “The Mint”. The technology makes the pains of a normal wash day much easier. The mint is “a compact styling system that relies on renewable pods. So imagine these pods filled with your favorite curl creams or oils or gels. You plug them into our tool. Our tool very gently warms those curl creams or oils or gels. You plug that pod into the tube tool, very gently warms them, and then you’re able to run the tool through your hair,” Myers explained.
As the CEO of The Most Myers understands firsthand the struggles of getting the resources and financial support to start a minority owned company.. Statistically, black founders only receive a small amount of the money investors have for funding new ventures. Although progress is underway for black founders Crunchbase news found, “Black startup entrepreneurs still received only a tiny fraction — 1.2 percent — of the record $147 billion in venture capital invested in U.S. startups through the first half of this year.”
The odds are against black founders that are creating startups. “It’s really difficult for founders, period, but it’s hard for black founders. It’s really even more difficult when we’re innovating for our own problems and solutions because at the end of the day, a lot of investors just kind of gravitate to the stuff that moves them,” Myers said.
While The Most continues to reach new heights they say this is just the beginning. Although, this year Myers is facing a new challenge while maintaining and furthering her company: cancer. “I’m going through chemo, then chemo radiation, then major surgery, and I’m doing all of it while running this company because it’s really important to me that this technology gets out and black women get served in our needs, be seen and heard and acknowledged the way that they deserve to. So I’m going to keep moving. I’m going to keep my health at the forefront, but we’re going to keep moving throughout the process,” Myers said.