Entrepreneur: John Paul DeJoria been there, done that, and now, billions shared

John Paul DeJoria. Gage Skidmore / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

As a kid growing up in downtown Los Angeles in the 1950s, John Paul DeJoria didn’t really think times were tough.

The second son of an Italian immigrant father and Greek immigrant mother, DeJoria’s parents divorced in 1946 when he was two years old. Eight years later, he and his brother landed in a foster home.

After two years in the U.S. Navy, DeJoria got a job as a janitor. Then he peddled encyclopedias door-to-door. Next, he sold life insurance the same way.

After getting fired from an entry-level job with a hair company, DeJoria slept in his car while selling shampoo door-to-door until 1980, when he and Paul Mitchell took out a $700 loan to launch John Paul Mitchell Systems, Inc.

The idea was to sell their unique new shampoo to hairdressers only. According to CNBC, their shampoo required only one wash (saving time and money) and a conditioner that remained in the hair. The big deal about the conditioner was that while acting as a sculpting agent for the hairdresser, it also defended hair against the blow dryer’s heat and neutralized any chemicals on the hairdresser’s hands.

The shampoo took off like a rocket, and almost 40 years later John Paul Mitchell Systems remains one of the premier hair-care companies in the world.

Not long after their shampoo’s debut, Paul Mitchell died in 1989, and DeJoria took over the company. DeJoria and partner Martin Crowley acquired a stake in the Patron Spirits Company to develop what they said was the smoothest tequila ever. In 2018, they sold it to Bacardi for $5.1 billion.

Having been down and out so much of his life, DeJoria, now 76, relishes giving back. In 2011 he signed Bill Gates and Warren Buffett’s pledge to give half his earnings to better the world. Today — with a net worth of $3.1 billion — John Paul DeJoria’s view of wealth is this: “Success not shared is failure.”