Beauty Tech Boss: The Journey to ABC's Shark Tank

Dawn Myers, the inspiring founder and CEO of Richualist, shares her incredible journey from law school to launching a groundbreaking beauty tech company, culminating in her unforgettable appearance on ABC's Shark Tank. Discover how Dawn navigated the challenges of starting a business, raising venture capital as a Black female founder, and even battling cancer—all while developing innovative tech-enabled tools for women with highly textured hair. This is an episode you won't want to miss!

To pre-order The Mint, visit: https://richualist.com/

You can also follow Dawn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dawndoesthemost/

and on Instagram and TikTok @getrichualist 

Follow us on Tik Tok @shesambitiousaf for more content and episode teasers!

Transcript

Angelica Maestas (Host): [00:00:00] Welcome to She's Ambitious AF, the bold and empowering podcast that turns up the volume on female entrepreneurship. Join us as we dive headfirst into the wild world of boss babes, where we spill the tea on all things ambition, success, and the occasional hilarious disaster. Welcome listeners. I have a very special guest on today, she is our first Shark Tank participant, and I will let her introduce herself, Dawn.

Dawn Myers (Guest): Hi guys. Thank you so much for having me. I am Dawn Myers, founder and CEO of a company called Richualist. We focus on tech enabled tools, that is appliances and physical products, to help women with highly textured hair style faster, easier, and with more convenience.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Awesome. Thank you for being on.

Dawn Myers (Guest): Sure.

Angelica Maestas (Host): eventually we'll get to what I know listeners are excited to [00:01:00] hear about, which is what was the Shark Tank experience like? The Shark Tank. Did you, or did you not get funding? but before we get to that, I would love to talk more about the journey that led up to that.

Angelica Maestas (Host): I think as founders, we always see the spotlight on a founder when they are shining, when they're in their moment, when they're winning and we neglect to spotlight the trials and the tribulations that led up to that moment. So I would love to hear a little bit more about your background and how you even got started.

Dawn Myers (Guest): sure. So my path to the space has been a circuitous road. I'm a lawyer by training. I never practiced. I worked in politics for some time after law school and then ended up in a law firm, which is where I didn't want to be, but ended up on the bench.

Dawn Myers (Guest): business side of that law firm, right? So now I'm going out and I'm getting business for the firm and I'm connecting dots [00:02:00] and helping to make this mechanism turn. I started out at Wilmer Hales, one of the bigger, more prestigious kind of firms the U S and they have this really, I mean, just so many genius partners, but none of them have the operational minds. So there's a huge opportunity for folks who want to get in and learn operations to come into these law firms and, see how the wheels turn and see how the gears fit together. and I did that. That's exactly what I got from that experience. That experience also confirmed that I didn't want to be in law firms.

Dawn Myers (Guest): I'm working in real estate and in corporate and in I P all over the place. 

Dawn Myers (Guest): And so I get this really great experience, but I do not want to be there. And I see real estate as my way out. So I start buying up properties in DC and I start divvying them up into multi units and rezoning them and putting them back on the market. And that's what I [00:03:00] think my next move is, right?

Dawn Myers (Guest): So I start going to startup events to learn more about that. That to learn more about real estate. And all I'm hearing about is startups, tech, tech, startups, tech, and I'm from DC. We don't do startups the East coast. We don't do tech out here. Right. So I'm just befuddled. But the more I immersed myself into that world, I saw,these are my people.

Dawn Myers (Guest): This is my tribe, right? These were all people. This wasn't,Silicon Valley types who were interested in the next billion dollar company. These were people who were first and foremost interested in solving a problem that was near and dear to them. And that was my tribe. I saw these people as advocates, 

Dawn Myers (Guest): That's what I went to law school for was to become an advocate. And I see this opportunity to do that and be that, but in a completely different space that I had never really anticipated for myself. So, I start thinking about what my startup is going to be, and it's very cheesy but I am watching shark tank one night [00:04:00] and there's a woman.

Dawn Myers (Guest): Who has beautiful, long, straight hair and she developed a very simple product that was a very small iteration on a product that had been on the market. I said to myself, there are so many products in this saturated, Mainstream facing space. are no products for people who look like me, for people who look like me with highly textured, obviously my hair's up right now, but normally this stuff is out and big and, and large and in charge. And said, for this consumer, there really aren't any physical products, physical solutions for her. What would it look like to build a solution? And I mean, when I tell you it was the most organic of experiences, I just literally. Jotted down an idea on a legal pad. And that next day I went to the hardware store and to the beauty supply store and bought up a bunch of hinges and soldering irons and combs and brushes, and then came home and started prototyping. [00:05:00] And I took that prototype to my friends and family and said, Hey, if, if this thing, this ugly Frankenstein prototype could do X, Y, and Z, would you buy this? And I saw people's light up in a way that I had never seen before. And so I said, okay, there's something here. I still don't think that I'm about to start a beauty startup. So I get on the train from DC to New York and I meet with any kind of beauty exec that I can get my hands on anybody who I can get in touch with. And I say, Hey VP at L'Oreal. You guys should make this, here's this thing. This is our problem. You guys clearly don't understand what our problems are, but I'm telling you, you guys should make this. And most people, their eyes just glaze over. They're not paying me any attention. They don't get it Most of the folks in R and D at those companies don't have. Our hair don't understand what our lives look like. But I ran into one young man, Kenan Beasley, who was a VP at L'Oreal. And he said, I get this. And this is genius, but L'Oreal isn't going to make this. You should make [00:06:00] this. so I went home and started building and several years later, here we are.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Oh my goodness. Okay. So what was the year that this journey began? 

Dawn Myers (Guest): The idea came to me in 2017. We officially incorporated in 2018.

Angelica Maestas (Host): And you were only just recently on shark tank. So tell me more about the in between. what have you been up to? why wasn't this to market sooner? What's been going on?

Dawn Myers (Guest): Those are exactly the right questions. So I'm in hardware, right? And a lot of folks listen, the venture space isn't particularly welcoming to women. They certainly aren't welcoming to black women, and they certainly aren't welcoming to concepts that don't fit their very limited myopic paradigm of value. Right. And a product that they widely see as a beauty product. I see our concept more as personal care and health and hygiene. another story. The point [00:07:00] is they look at this product that I'm making for black and brown women with a with a problem that they do not understand and cannot identify with. And they don't see it. They don't see the value. And so that real estate that I told you about I ended up actually selling that real estate off to fund the first three years of my company. And so during those first three years, we were doing you know, iterative prototyping. Obviously we couldn't do commercialized prototyping because.

Dawn Myers (Guest): That requires big venture dollars, but I sold off my property, which gave me enough to live on and enough money to do prototyping and some early IP work so that we could just get the ball rolling and get to MVP. It took us about three years to get to a fully functional MVP. Once we got to that MVPI happened to run into a. Black venture investor who understood this problem. And when I told him about it, he immediately invested. I got the ball rolling. One of our bigger investors [00:08:00] Dow the big kind of chemical manufacturer they signed on. And that really sped us up, right?

Dawn Myers (Guest): Their expertise is in engineering and manufacturing. And so they were able to come in and say, okay, not only are we going to invest money, we're also going to lend you our expertise. And they really were partners with us and developing the product. testing our product would have been a very expensive endeavor. But they helped us do testing with customers and teach us how to do testing and filled in some of the gaps in engineering and filled in some of the knowledge gaps in manufacturing so that we could get to market. And so it's 2022 and we are just on the verge of going to market and I get a stage three colon cancer diagnosis.

Dawn Myers (Guest): And so now we've got to figure out how to keep the company alive, how to keep me alive and how to keep the company alive. While still launching and finishing our fundraise. And so that yearwe went through a ton. but we [00:09:00] got through it. I actually ended up fundraising from the hospital, From the chemo chair for during and before surgeries, So before surgeries, after surgeries and recovery, I was still taking investor calls the reason that I did this, and I don't say this to be. I don't know, braggadocious,

Dawn Myers (Guest): That's, that's not the aim here. I say it because I knew that it was so difficult for us to get any dollars in the bank at all from venture investors. I knew that if I showed weakness, I knew that if I took the six, nine months, 12 months that I needed to really focus on my health, we were not going to recover from that. And that's We weren't going to be able to, weren't going to be able to come back and get more, more dollars. And so I kept things going. We fundraised from the hospital chair. We became amongst the very shallow list of fewer than a hundred black women to raise over a million dollars in venture funding that year [00:10:00] from the hospital. we also you know, got through chemo treatment, got through radiation, got through five surgeries. my cancer was healed. We also, because this was a pelvic cancer, We ended up doing some experimental surgeries, because traditionally women who go through any kind of pelvic radiation end up essentially being rendered infertile almost immediately. But we completed a series of experimental surgeries that saved my fertility and that we are currentlywhen I say we, I mean my medical team we're going out to the FDA and to other academic institutions and telling them about this technique so that they can offer it to their patients. Young patients who are going through any kind of pelvic cancer. And that year landed into tech stars and launched our product and got to market. And so 2022 was [00:11:00] a crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy time. But it's one of the most proud moments of my life. And I'm so proud of what, what I was able to do physically and what my team was able to do despite the odds.

Angelica Maestas (Host): My God, your words can't describe it. I got chills listening to you. And so, so I want to touch on a couple of things. One is the, the technique that you're going to other health systems for to, to share about that. I want to learn more about that. Post recording, because I want to be able to spread the word on that, 

Angelica Maestas (Host): So it saddens me to acknowledge that the fears that you had, if you had. Deprioritized health that there would have been no impact to your investment. And unfortunately it's very true. Like you, you were spot on. It would have killed it. And that's the nature of this awful, awful beast [00:12:00] that we have with venture.

Angelica Maestas (Host): This is why we need to change the face of funders. But that is the harsh reality of that. And that that's sickening. And I know it's sickening to anyone listening to that, but that is reality.

Dawn Myers (Guest): It is.

Angelica Maestas (Host): the investor that you found that understood the problem. That's part of making the case for diversity in venture 

Angelica Maestas (Host): If you have the same avatar of investor, their lens of problems, they experience that they're just, they're not relatable to diverse founders who are trying to solve problems that have not been solved for.

Dawn Myers (Guest): Right.

Angelica Maestas (Host): so, you know, just not saying anything new, but just wanting to call attention to that. Yeah.

Dawn Myers (Guest): you know, I'd like to also say that it's so benign, this problem that we have. The problem isn't benign, but where it comes from is a relatively benign place. And I think that's really important for people to understand. It's not the case [00:13:00] that every VC I talk to hates black people. That's not the case. That's not the case. These are regular people who naturally are just drawn to what they're drawn to, what they have experience around, what they like, what they don't like, right? And it's important that we note that because a lot of folks are hesitant about this diversity conversation in VC because they think that we're demonizing. Folks. And that's not the case. The simple, simple fact is we are missing opportunities. There are things that are literally invisible to other folks that are visible to me. There are things that are going to be visible to you, Angelica, that that I just can't see. I don't have a lens into those spaces. And so, I think it's just important when we talk about diversity in V.

Dawn Myers (Guest): C, we understand that this isn't a conversation about charity, This isn't a conversation about doing [00:14:00] good. This is a conversation about good business, This is a conversation about widening our aperture with people who are caring. Talented who come from different backgrounds and who can see around corners that you can't

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yes, ma'am. Amen. And it's about the diversity and the lived experience. And. It, and I'll use myself as an example, when I watched your episode on shark tank, though, I'm a female, I've been a founder and now I'm an investor. I had no idea that it takes women three to six hours to do their hair.

Dawn Myers (Guest): right

Angelica Maestas (Host): said that, I was like, what?

Dawn Myers (Guest): Yep.

Angelica Maestas (Host): That's really a thing that that's, that's. Yeah.

Dawn Myers (Guest): Those that I talked to at all of the majors, Unilever, Procter and Gamble who else? I talked to L'Oreal. I mean, you name it. I talked to them. They had no [00:15:00] idea either. These are folks who are responsible for putting out products for this consumer, and they have no idea what this consumer is experiencing.

Dawn Myers (Guest): Right? So how could a venture investor have any idea what's happening there?

Angelica Maestas (Host): Ah, that's so wild to me. All right, back, back to conversation and back to the, the journey that you've been on. So you're a lawyer by training, thought that's the route you were going to go down. What have, what have you found to be advantageous having that kind of a background now as a founder? Sure.

Dawn Myers (Guest): there are specific things. And then there are higher level things. I'll start with the higher level. Generally speaking, when you leave law school, you don't know anything about the practice of law, right? All you know is how to be diligent and And how to learn, your entire legal training is about figuring out how to do diligence, figuring out what sources to go to, to get the information you need to do this thing [00:16:00] that you couldn't possibly know how to do, right?

Dawn Myers (Guest): Nobody comes out of school knowing how to lead a Acquisition. but you do have the skills to figure it out. And so, writ large, that really was the benefit of me coming into the space with that background. I didn't feel intimidated by figuring out how to patent my design and feel intimidated about trying to figure out how to get my design designed.

Dawn Myers (Guest): I didn't feel intimidated by the engineering or the manufacturing or any of these pieces because I had training teaching me how to learn. So that's the first thing. The second piece is listen the fact that I'm a lawyer does not make me more qualified than anyone else to do this work, however, it did lend some prestige and some credibility that frankly was unearned.

Dawn Myers (Guest): Then very specifically, While I was in school, I gravitated toward business law classes. And so not only did I have the [00:17:00] benefit of having taken a bunch of IP classes and, I wasn't a patent attorney by any stretch of the imagination, but I had just enough of a background where I understood where to start and how to think about building this moat of IP around my company. 

Dawn Myers (Guest): ........thank you for sharing that. That just fed my curiosity asI don't know many people that finish school and they know what their next thing is going to be as a founder and what they're going to build. you don't generally grow up knowing that. And so I'm always curious how our training 

Angelica Maestas (Host): Influences and impacts that journey. So thank you for sharing that.

Dawn Myers (Guest): for sure. Absolutely.

Angelica Maestas (Host): All right. Now to the shark tank experience. First off, how did you even get on the show? What was the process? What was the motivation to even apply it? The odds of getting selected and making it there are pretty slim. So share a little bit about what that was like.

Dawn Myers (Guest): They're incredibly slim every [00:18:00] year, something like 40, 000 people apply to this show and episodes are taped. And from that. 200 episodes. I think something like 120 of those episodes actually air. So it is very, very, very slim pickings. But we were one extraordinarily lucky to here's the thing as women.

Dawn Myers (Guest): And for me, as a black woman in the space, there are a lot of disadvantages that you have to deal with, right? It takes longer to get funded. There's a higher level of diligence that's expected from you. However, our job as entrepreneurs, particularly as women in tech is to find the silver lining. So the silver lining for me is.

Dawn Myers (Guest): By the time they actually let me in the room, I'm way overqualified to be in the room. And so by the time we applied to shark tank, it took us a lot longer to get to market to this longer, to fundraise, it took us longer to do all the things. But by the time I got into the [00:19:00] tank, I had been pitching for years and I knew my company in and out. Not only that. Every pitch competition, every pitch accelerator, every pitch, everything has an application, right? And so not only am I a master at that pitch, I'm a master at that application. I know how to make sure that, our application rises to the top. And then in addition to that, I've been in this space for a really long time.

Dawn Myers (Guest): I've developed, a really great network of folks who have seen us grow and who are invested in our success. And so I leaned on that network. And when your network is extensive enough, somebody is going to know a decision maker at Shark Tank. so, we had a lot of people who were pulling for us and we had a lot of people who, believed in us.

Dawn Myers (Guest): And that energy carried through. It carried through. the producer's team that took us on it carried through that producer's team was on the [00:20:00] floor taping our episode with us and they were rooting us on and giving us tips and They were bringing the lawyer for shark tank over to my green room to have him. Speak with me about my ask because they thought that it could be more compelling or, or more persuasive to the sharks. Right? So it's really about that cumulative buy in you get buy in from the people who've watched you grow over the years

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah.

Dawn Myers (Guest): see how hard you're working and they know that you've got something. those people, when they kind of get you to the next level, whether it's getting you into that accelerator program or getting you onto the show, they communicate that enthusiasm to those stakeholders and then those stakeholders, their enthusiasm carries you to the next stage. And so it was very palpable to me, right?

Dawn Myers (Guest): That in that moment, we've had lots of examples of people who got behind us and helped us get the thing done. But Shark Tank, it was me. I put in the application, but it was all of those people getting behind us. That's how we did it.

Angelica Maestas (Host): [00:21:00] Oh man, that's incredible. watching you pitch. You absolutely know the business in and out. there was not a question that made you pause or anything. You just, you know exactly what the vision is for the product. You explained it so well tell me what it was like after you delivered the pitch and you're just waiting there for feedback from the sharks.

Angelica Maestas (Host): What were you feeling in that moment?

Dawn Myers (Guest): The entire experience was one of just jubilation. It was really a celebratory moment. And as you know, Angelica, we don't get a whole lot of those, right? We are constantly, even if you get a little wind,You're onto the next thing you're onto the next hurdle, but filming shark tank was this moment of absolute celebration.

Dawn Myers (Guest): Because I went into that tank It was already a win, right? I kind of knew, listen, the kind of performance that I'm going to put on this episode is going to get aired, So that sounds a little cocky, but I know my work, right? I didn't know whether or not I would get a [00:22:00] deal. That's completely out of my hands, but I know I'm about to put on the show. and I think you can see this in the episode I went on and I had a blast the entire time I'm

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yeah. It's in Canada.

Dawn Myers (Guest): and I'm laughing them off. Like I just had a great time because, this was a celebratory moment. Either way I win, if I get a deal, that's wonderful.

Dawn Myers (Guest): But one way or another, I know that this is going to bear fruit. And so I got to just have fun with them and have a conversation with them. And there were so many moments that didn't get aired, right, because the episode gets cut down tremendously. And one of the moments that didn't get aired, that still, I just kind of go back to when I need a little lift. I tell them the story that I just told you, Angelica. And I tell them, you know, we went through five surgeries and radiation and chemo and we kept the company alive and we launched and we found a way, And all of the sharks, I've been watching since I was a girl, right, used to watch it in our kitchen with my [00:23:00] dad on Friday nights, these sharks give me a round of applause. They all just give me a hoot and holler. It was Crazy. It was crazy. And so it was pure energy that entire day. There was not a shred of nervousness. it was just a celebration of what we did.

Angelica Maestas (Host): man, that's incredible. I mean, you were totally in your element for sure. what I'm hearing is, there's a win in everything. Even if the outcome is not exactly what you hoped for, there's, there's something that you learned, or there's something that you gained in every experience.

Angelica Maestas (Host): And so you being up there delivering that pitch before you knew what was going to happen, you were already just. in the moment and loving it and embracing it and celebrating that experience. And we do get so little of those that you do absolutely have to take the time to enjoy the moment.

Dawn Myers (Guest): Yeah, that's [00:24:00] absolutely right. And you know, that's just a part of this entrepreneurial, Proclivity to find those silver linings, right? You cannot go through this thinking about the worst case scenario because there's so many worst case scenarios and there's so many stumbling blocks. You've got to find that bright shining star to hold on to, to keep you jubilant throughout this really difficult process.

Dawn Myers (Guest): Because at the end of the day, people want to do business with people who they like with people who have a certain energy and you can't have that energy when you take the opposite approach.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yep. All right. why don't we share for listeners who haven't seen the show, what the shark feedback was. Yeah,

Dawn Myers (Guest): Every investor we've ever pitched has always been really excited about our business model. So just to back things up a little bit, we essentially we went to some early C sweeters at Keurig, And we said, and I said, [00:25:00] Hey, I want to build a Keurig K cup model in the hair and beauty space.

Dawn Myers (Guest): Andyou might be thinking what in the world does a. Coffee machine have to do with hair, and the answer is very little. But that consumer is very similar, right? That cure egg consumer, that coffee consumer, they wake up in the morning, they need their product, and they're looking for any modicum of efficiency or time savings that they can scrounge out.

Dawn Myers (Guest): And that's what the curate provides. This customer All right. Is exactly the same my space. She is addicted to her products and she must have them now. And she's looking for any kind of efficiency that she can eke out in that three to five hour process that we described. And so, I went to those C sweeters and said, Hey can you help me develop this cake cup in the beauty space? And every investor I've ever talked to has. Loved that they love a renewable. They love a subscription model. They love [00:26:00] partnerships that you can piggyback off of to create for suppliers for your company. They love it, but the sharks had very different feedback. They said Mark and Emma both said, you know, why are you focusing on all these partnerships?

Dawn Myers (Guest): Focus on the technology. Get the technology exactly right. forget the pods for right now. You're making money off of the tool now. And so, that really stuck with me and I gotta be honest in that moment when Mark gave it, everyone asked this question, how did you feel when he told you that it just destroys your business model? But the reality is I felt such a sense of relief when he said that because this Keurig model, this cake cup model, this partnership model is almost a completely different business that requires completely different logistics, completely, completely different everything. And I was so stressed at that moment. Feeling like I had to launch that subscription model immediately. But what Mark said to me really took the [00:27:00] pressure off. I can just focus on the technology. The partnerships will come. That's still very much a part of what we're offering, but we offer it down the line once we've tightened up the technology itself.

Dawn Myers (Guest): And so that's really what I've been doing lately is just focusing on the technology. And that has been such a relief, right? Right. My mind is more organized because I'm dealing with fewer variables. My very small team is less stressed because we have fewer projects on our plate. So it's been a, it was really great feedback.

Dawn Myers (Guest): Mark is Mark for a reason.

Angelica Maestas (Host): I was so curious about that because I think you were selling the units for, for 400 bucks

Dawn Myers (Guest): Yes.

Angelica Maestas (Host): and I think you sold out for the limited supply you have. And I thought, wow, people paid 400.

Dawn Myers (Guest): Yeah. For this thing that, even the folks who were buying from us at the time, they still didn't understand what it was. They didn't understand what the tool was. They didn't completely understand how it worked. [00:28:00] All they knew is that I said, textured hair, Afro textured hair, time savings ease. And they were like, I'm in. And so even with very little marketing budgets, even with, mostly organic marketing, we were still able to offload that initial batch. And that I think was really convincing to market Emma.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Well, tell me, what did Mark and Emma offer?

Dawn Myers (Guest): They offered us. Whew. They offered us $150,000 for 20% of our company, 20% of my company. Now you have to remember at this point I'm dealing with venture investors at an eight to $10 million valuation, and they're essentially knocking my valuation down to depending on how you look at it, between $750,000 to $1 million. And that kind of nuance comes from the way that our deal was structured. gave us 5 percent in advisory shares. So technically our valuation was at a mill for the sharks. Now that presented all [00:29:00] kinds of logistical difficulties, right? Because we're raising in that at that exact same time at a completely different valuation with other venture investors.

Dawn Myers (Guest): And those venture investors look at that shark deal and they say, there's a huge discrepancy here. How we can't, we can't invest, right? So I almost took that 150, 000. And sacrificed a few hundred thousand dollars from other investors that ended up pulling out because we couldn't figure out how to ameliorate that discrepancy. But we did figure it out. And we essentially just kind of offered a really compelling package to the investors that were kind of left in that round and said, Hey, you know, we can't afford it. offer you what we offered Mark. Here's why we're offering X to Mark. This is where he gets us. but we want you to get in on that deal as well.

Dawn Myers (Guest): So we offered them a little bump. We did a lot of pro forma kind of back and forth trying to figure out exactly what that number, what that sweet spot was that would make them feel accommodated and would [00:30:00] still be fair to our company. But we landed on a number and it was just really a process of really in depth negotiations from there.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Wow, man, when I watched the episode and they got to that point and you, you paused, you're like, well, you know, to protect the interests of my investors. And for a moment I was like, wait a minute, is she going to say no? I know how this ends, but like the, maybe it was dramatic pause for the show, but I'm like, wait a minute,

Dawn Myers (Guest): No,

Dawn Myers (Guest): It was dramatic for me. It was a really tough pill to swallow because I felt like I walked into the tank offering a really great deal. And, and here's the thing. We modeled out lots of different scenarios beforehand. But I hadn't anticipated, I hadn't anticipated two sharks coming in and essentially, you know, doubling what I was asking for.

Dawn Myers (Guest): So it was tough. It was tough, but ultimately it made sense. Mark and Emma have been wonderful partners and I'm really [00:31:00] looking forward to see what growth we yield with them.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Gosh, that's, that's so awesome. And that was just a few months ago. That was, that was April, right?

Angelica Maestas (Host): And now we're here in June. So

Dawn Myers (Guest): Yeah,

Angelica Maestas (Host): wow, that they're such great investors, not because of the check and not just the name, but it's the insight and the real commitment to see, to help you succeed when they see the right opportunity.

Angelica Maestas (Host): So I'm, I'm excited for what that's going to yield for you on your journey.

Dawn Myers (Guest): that's right. Fingers crossed.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Yes. All right. I want to jump into some rapid fire questions.

Dawn Myers (Guest): Amazing.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Margarita, wine, or mocktail?

Dawn Myers (Guest): Mocktail for me. Post cancer treatment, no alcohol but I do every once in a while, just like to get a nice little flavor going.

Angelica Maestas (Host): I feel you. Dog lover, cat lover, or NA?

Dawn Myers (Guest): Dog lover for sure. I am far too stretched to actually own a dog, but I am a proud puppy [00:32:00] aunt to many dogs in my community.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Oh, I love that. I'm also a dog lover, so that's definitely the right answer. Dream travel destination.

Dawn Myers (Guest): Dream travel destination There's so many I I think next on my hit list. I want to do a Southeast Asia tour I want to do a Vietnam Cambodia Thailand tour hopefully I can get my things in order for that

Angelica Maestas (Host): Awesome. One thing you can't go a day without.

Dawn Myers (Guest): Hmm. partner. He's wonderful. Keeps me grounded.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Oh, Most inspirational book you've ever read.

Dawn Myers (Guest): Um, I can see it, but I can't think of the name. And I really want to get the name right because it's so good. Inward by Young Pueblo. It is such a short read. You can get through it in a weekend if you take your time. [00:33:00] And it is also the most impactful book that I have ever read.

Dawn Myers (Guest): I have several copies, one of which stays on my nightstand, and I open up it and just read a page every once in a while. It's so good.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Okay. I'm, I'm going to look that up as soon as we get off this call.

Dawn Myers (Guest): It's a good one.

Angelica Maestas (Host): One thing you wish you'd known about being a founder.

Dawn Myers (Guest): If I had known more than I do, I probably wouldn't have done it, and I'm really glad to have done it, and so I am glad for all of the ignorance.

Angelica Maestas (Host): I love it. I love that. All right. And last but not least, what's next for you and your company and how can listeners support you?

Dawn Myers (Guest): Yeah, what's next? Oh, there's so much. We're relaunching product and tech. Denver with new and improved, do dads given the feedback that we've gotten from our customers so far. So we're really excited about that. We're also kind of thinking through those product partnerships [00:34:00] that we just discuss, it looks like that timeline is going to be a little bit more sped up than I had originally anticipated. And also we're having some conversations with some really fun retailers that have been on my hit list for a very long time. And so 2025 is. Hopefully gonna be just as exciting as 2024 has been.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Awesome. And how can listeners follow or support you?

Dawn Myers (Guest): Yeah, for sure. So you can buy our mit check it out. Learn more about our technology at www.getritualist.com. That's, or I'm sorry, ritualist.com. R-I-C-H-U-A-L-I-S t.com. And you can find us on social, on Instagram and TikTok at Get Ritualist. Again, that's GET Ritualist. R I C H U A L I S T.

Angelica Maestas (Host): Awesome. It's been wonderful having you on, and I look forward to following your journey.

Dawn Myers (Guest): Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me, Angelica. 

Angelica Maestas (Host): [00:35:00] And that's a wrap on another episode of She's Ambitious AF. Remember to dream big, hustle harder, and show the world that when it comes to success, we're not just ambitious, we're Ambitious AF.