Homeless twice. Living in a car with $700. Built TWO billion-dollar empires anyway.
John Paul DeJoria was 36 years old.
Just got fired from his third hair care job in five years.
Fired from Redken. Fired from Fermodyl. Fired from Tri.
He had a plan with his friend Paul Mitchell. They were going to start a hair care company. Revolutionary products. Change the industry forever.
They had an investor lined up. Half a million dollars. Everything ready to launch.
Then the investor backed out.
One month before launch. No explanation. Just gone.
DeJoria was broke. Splitting from his second wife. No home. No money. No options.
Everyone said it was over.
"You're living in a car. Nobody takes orders from a homeless guy."
"The investor was smart to back out."
"Hair care needs half a million minimum. You can't do it with pocket change."
"Two guys with $700? That's not a business. That's a joke."
"Just get another job and forget this."
He didn't listen.
Here's what DeJoria knew that everyone else missed:
Being broke wasn't the end. It was just a really clear starting line.
So he called his mother.
Asked to borrow $350. Matched it with Paul Mitchell's $350.
$700 total. That was it. Everything they had.
No investors. No safety net. No backup plan.
The year was 1980. Inflation was over 12%. Interest rates hit 17%.
The worst possible time to start a business.
DeJoria moved into his car. A 20-year-old Rolls-Royce he'd bought years earlier when he briefly had money.
The irony wasn't lost on him. Homeless in a luxury car.
But it had space. And it looked professional when he pulled up to meetings.
Nobody suspected he was sleeping in it at night.
Here's the part most people don't know about DeJoria's first time homeless.
He was in his early twenties. Single father. Three-year-old son.
DeJoria would go out at night. Collect Coke bottles from trash cans. Cash them in for two to five cents each.
That's how they ate.
He'd buy a 99-cent happy meal. Split it with his son.
Made sure the boy got the bigger half.
Rice. Potatoes. Canned soup. Macaroni and cheese. That was the diet.
Anyone else would have broken. Given up. Asked for help.
DeJoria was too proud.
This time was different though. This time he had Paul.
Paul Mitchell handled the formulation. DeJoria handled everything else.
Sales. Marketing. Distribution. Operations. Manufacturing. Accounting. All of it.
They created something nobody else was doing.
Professional-quality shampoo and conditioner. Single application. Leave-in formula.
Products that cut styling time in half.
Made in the USA. Cruelty-free. Premium quality at accessible prices.
But getting into salons was brutal.
DeJoria went door to door. Knocked on every salon he could find. Pitched the products himself.
Got rejected over and over and over.
"We already have suppliers we trust."
"Your bottles look cheap and generic."
"Nobody's heard of Paul Mitchell. Come back when you're established."
"I'm not buying products from a guy working out of his car."
Doors slammed in his face. Literally.
But DeJoria had learned something years earlier selling encyclopedias door-to-door.
You have to be just as enthusiastic on door 100 as you were on door one.
Even when all 99 doors before it slammed in your face.
So he kept knocking.
After a couple weeks living in the Rolls, actress Joanna Pettet came by.
Heard he was sleeping in his car. Couldn't believe it.
Gave him a room to stay in for a couple months until he got back on his feet.
But the business was still struggling.
First year, barely surviving. Revenue trickling in. Not enough to live on.
Second year, same thing. Working 16-hour days. Reinvesting every dollar.
That's where most entrepreneurs tap out.
DeJoria kept working.
Then year three hit.
$1 million in gross revenue.
That's when everything changed.
Salons started reordering. Stylists were telling other stylists. Word spread fast.
Professional hairdressers loved the products. They worked. They saved time. Clients looked better.
The company started growing.
Within five years, multi-millions in revenue.
Within ten years, tens of millions.
But then tragedy struck.
Paul Mitchell died.
Cancer.
The company they built together. The partnership. The friendship. Gone.
DeJoria didn't sell. Didn't walk away.
He kept building. Kept growing the company in Paul's name.
Eliminated 90% of middle management. Gave employees autonomy. Created culture, not bureaucracy.
Employee turnover stayed under 100 people in 40 years. Only two left to retire.
Today, John Paul Mitchell Systems generates over $1 billion in annual revenue.
Sold in thousands of salons worldwide.
Still privately held. Still family-owned.
But DeJoria wasn't done.
Because once you've built one billion-dollar company from nothing...
Why not do it again?
In 1989, while Paul Mitchell was thriving, he saw another opportunity.
He was in Mexico with his friend Martin Crowley. Tasted the local tequila.
It was smooth. Premium quality. Nothing like the cheap stuff Americans drank.
Most tequila in America was positioned as party fuel. Cheap shots. Margarita mix.
DeJoria thought different.
What if you made tequila luxury? What if you charged premium prices for premium quality?
So he partnered with Crowley. Started Patrón.
Handmade in small batches. Recycled bottles. Ultra-premium positioning.
$38 per bottle. When most tequila was $15.
People thought he was insane.
"Nobody pays $38 for tequila."
"Tequila is for shots, not sipping."
"It's cheap party alcohol. That's all it'll ever be."
"You're pricing yourself out of the entire market."
"Stick with hair care. You don't know liquor."
He didn't listen.
DeJoria went to high-end restaurants. Exclusive clubs. Celebrity hotspots.
Gave away bottles. Let bartenders taste it. Let them serve it to VIP guests.
Asked them to compare it to the best tequila they'd ever had.
The response was immediate.
This wasn't tequila. This was something else entirely.
Word spread through the service industry. Then to customers. Then to celebrities.
Musicians started name-dropping it. Actors ordered it. Athletes drank it.
Little by little, Patrón became the luxury tequila.
First year, $1 million in monthly sales.
Then it doubled. And doubled again.
By 2005, Patrón was selling half a million cases of Silver alone.
By 2006, over a million cases total.
By 2010, the number one ultra-premium tequila in America.
In 2018, Bacardi bought Patrón for $5.1 billion.
Today, over 2 million cases sold annually.
In over 100 countries.
The brand that "nobody would pay $38 for" became a global empire.
All because a 36-year-old man living in his car with $700 refused to accept that broke meant beaten.
He turned homelessness into hunger.
He turned collecting Coke bottles into building companies.
He proved that starting with nothing just means you have nothing to lose.
What business are you not starting because you think you don't have enough money?
What investor backing out are you treating like the end instead of the beginning?
DeJoria had half a million dollars lined up and lost it. Started with $700 instead.
He lived in his car. Sold door-to-door. Got rejected hundreds of times.
His business partner died. He kept building.
Built a billion-dollar hair care company. Then a $5 billion tequila empire.
Because he understood something most people don't.
The money doesn't build the business. You do.
Your empty bank account? That's not the problem. Your unwillingness to work with what you've got is.
Being homeless doesn't disqualify you. It just shows you what you're really willing to fight for.
Stop waiting for perfect funding.
Stop listening to people who think you need millions to start.
Start thinking like John Paul DeJoria.
Borrow your $700. Live in your car if you have to. Knock on your doors.
And never let anyone tell you that starting small means ending small.
Sometimes the biggest empires are built by people sleeping in Rolls-Royces with nothing but a dream.
Because when you're splitting 99-cent happy meals with your son, you don't have the luxury of quitting.
You just have the clarity to keep going.
Don't quit.
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