When the founder of Carol’s Daughter sold the company, she got rich but she was hurt by her fans’ reaction

Lisa Price speaks onstage during the 2024 ESSENCE Festival of Culture™ Presented By Coca-Cola® at Ernest N. Morial Convention Center on July 06, 2024 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Erika Goldring/Getty Images for ESSENCE)Photo by: Erika Goldring / Getty Images

OPINION: In this clip from our recent episode of “Masters of the Game,” Lisa Price discusses selling her company to L’Oreal and dealing with the backlash that ensued.

Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.

Lisa Price founded Carol’s Daughter in her kitchen, and for decades, a big part of what her fans loved was that her company was Black-owned. Then, one day in 2014, she sold the company to L’Oreal. She got a big check and remained at the helm of the company, but many of her fans said, wait a minute, Carol’s Daughter isn’t Black-owned anymore? They got mad. Price heard their complaints. She couldn’t help it — her social media was roaring with anger. And even though she suddenly had a ton of money and was running a company that was extremely successful, she felt some shame like she had done something wrong. The disappointment of her fans blocked some of her joy.

Price dealt with the feeling and now says she refuses to own the shame. But she was definitely affected by the things people said. The company remained Black-led and Black-centric. There was a fear, she says, that selling it would ruin it, but she always felt like L’Oreal was the perfect strategic partner. In the years before L’Oreal came along, sometimes she flirted with bankruptcy. Now, with L’Oreal’s help, she could be certain that Carol’s Daughter would be everywhere. It would be an institution.

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Still, she had to battle the perception that she had somehow done something wrong in selling the company. There is great pride in owning a company, but many of us understand that there are seasons in business. There is a season when you launch, a season when you build and a season when you cash out. It’s not selling out when you capture the value of your company and secure generational wealth that will take care of your kids and their kids while also sticking around at the helm of the company to make sure that the company continues to serve your customers. But many of Price’s fans did not understand that and it caused her a lot of stress.

She talks about it on the latest episode of “Masters of the Game.”

Toure is a host and writer at TheGrio. He hosts the TheGrio TV show “Masters of the Game,” and he created the award-winning podcast “Being Black: The ’80s” and its upcoming sequel “Being Black: The ’70s.” He is also the creator of “Star Stories” and the author of eight books, including “Nothing Compares 2 U an oral history of Prince.” He also hosts a podcast called “Toure Show.” He is also a husband and a father of two.