Healthy Roots

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This season, we're bringing you stories about people finding their professional stride by virtue of who they know, whether it's breathing new life into an age old profession, taking the reins and a family business, forging your own path with a new idea, or landing the perfect job doing something you'd never before even considered. Today reporter Otis Gray travels to Detroit to meet a young woman undertaking the challenges of being a self made entrepreneur. It's just twenty four

years old. Eliza Jean Charles is in the thick of getting her startup off the ground and fielding innumerable tasks that come with it starting her business, Healthy Roots, just out of college. Eliza's and goal is to change the world one doll at a time. Here's Otis. So I spent a day in the life with Eliza Jean Charles and her job. Well, she does a lot, so I

think it's just best to start at the beginning. First, she wakes up at seven, she does yoga, and before she leaves the house she has her makeup and hair routine. I'm very much a fashion over person. She's got a big day and she wants to look good. So I have to go check out the performance service um and then I have mentor meetings all day and like a happy hour with mentors, so I like to look presentable for that to people can see that I'm a professional.

So that's what I That's what I'm getting ready for now. Elitsa's company is called Healthy Roots. It's a toy company that teaches hair care to young girls of color with black dolls that Elsa has designed herself. I'm gonna do setting sprint and I'm gonna try to do isline it really quick. We do have to go in like five minutes. But also people in Detroit drive really crazy. Oh is that the cap? I've been looking for this? At around eight,

we're out the door to start the day. Unlike a lot of young people who apply for work at big places where they might find stability, Eliza has gone out on a limb to start her own toy company completely from scratch. I still don't know my way around your Troy. Pitching a business like this and making it work is not easy, but twenty four years old, Eliza is exceptionally good at it. Hi. My name is Elitsa Jean Charles.

I'm the CEO and founder of Healthy Roots. Healthy Roots is a toy company that creates dolls in storybooks that empower young girls of color through hairplay. I created Healthy Roots because I never had a doll that looked like me growing up. And I also didn't learn how to do my hair until I was twenty. And that's crazy because I have really great hair, and there's lots of little girls with beautiful girls that don't know it yet. So that's why we made Zoe the first of all

that teaches natural hair care. She's our first healthy roots all and she's really cute. So it's a good elevator bit that seems practiced and perfect. I mean part of it is practiced, but people ask me what do you do all the time? So as to tell them something. In the last four years, Aulitsa has taken the doll from an idea to an actual product. She secured some funding and is now in the process of getting more

dolls out into the public. After a successful first holiday season, of startups like this fail so Eulitsa has completely devoted her life to her company and is currently working out of a startup accelerator here in Detroitrophone. In a world with a lot of reliable, stable job paths, we follow Eliza as she forges her own. Did you have a lot of dolls when you were a kid? Didn't have a lot of dolls when I was a kid. Uh yeah. My mom would only buy me gifts if I did

something good or if she did something bad. Only times I got dolls I had this giant bin. Um. I had like so many different versions of Barbie had swan like Barbie. I had the Barbie ware you could pull hair out of her head and cut it. Um. I had tons of my scene dolls. Um, they had the coolest fashion. Then there were the Brat's Betty Spaghetti. Um. Yeah, I had a lot of dolls, A lot of dolls. Elitsa is of Haitian descent. She's first generation, but like a lot of kids growing up in America, most of

Eliza's dolls growing up were white. In a recent video that Elitza made for her website, it shows her walking through a toy aisle at a big store just to show how much lighter skinned dolls vastly outnumbered dolls with darker skin. Elita remembers one Christmas when she and her cousin were kids, a family member noticed that most of their dolls didn't look like them. He noticed we didn't have any black dolls, and he bought us some and I like unwrapped it and I started crying something. I

didn't want this one. This is ugly, and like I said that, and they were like, you said it was ugly because it was a black doll, not because it was a black doll, but because it was a black doll, because it was like to me, the doll that like they always show in the commercials, was like the white one. So let's say that they had Rapunzel Barbie, they do white pun Barby, they do black. They got me the black one, and I didn't want that one because I want the one that is the popular one, which is

always the white one. Yeah, unfortunately, you lead to this experience is not at all unique. There's been multiple studies done where young black kids sit down in front of two dolls. One is white, one is black. Then they asked some questions. It's called the doll test, and there's videos online that you can watch just like this one which the doll is the nice doll. The young boy in front of the camera points over to the white doll. Which doll is the bad dog? Now, one after another,

the kid's point to the black doll. Which doll is the ugly doll? A young boy touches the black dog. Why is that all ugly? Black? Which doll looks most like you? Which one looks like Okay? She points to the black doll. The videos can be pretty hard to watch, but they're a big part of why you leads it does what she does it all because her mantra is that young black kids need to see themselves represented in a positive way because that hasn't been the case for

a long long time. And he leads his experience. A lot of that had to do with her parents coming to the US to give her a better future and encouraging her to just be successful. They were just like, do whatever you gotta do to to learn to grow to be successful. And for a lot of people that looks like whiteness, like assimilating or like acting white, I

actively participated in anti blackness as a kid. I like didn't always play with the black kids, or like, I didn't listen to certain music because I thought that's what black kids listened to. I didn't watch certain things and I thought that's what black kids listened to or watched. And I um did those things because I didn't want to get treated like them, because I saw how they got treated and it wasn't And then it wasn't till I got older that I learned how problematic that was.

So as a teenager, Elita straightened her natural curls to appeal to the kind of European standard of beauty, straight long hair. But there was a pivotal moment in college when she was an illustration major at Rhode Island School of Design. It was when a friend of hers, who was also black, made a pretty big decision. Um she had really big hair. She had cut off all her hair, and I was like, yo, what are you doing? And she was like, you know, I've just never seen my

natural hair. And I was like, wow, I too have never seen my natural hair. So this experience started really feeding into Elita's artwork. And at one point she was taking an illustration class and a teacher assigned them all

fairytale characters to read create. Elitza was assigned Rapunzel, and I redesigned her and turned her into a little black girl with kinky, curly hair, because I wanted to show black girls that where princesses were beautiful, we don't have to change the way that we looked to be these princesses. And everyone was like, this looks like a doll. This looks like a doll. Have you thought about making a doll?

I took that conversations Facebook and like over a hundred comments. Later, I realized that there was a shared experience for a lot of black women where they didn't have products that look like them when they were growing up, specifically talking about dolls or like sharing pictures of the black dolls they did have, and realizing there was an opportunity there, she came up with the name Healthy Roots and started doing heavy research into the psychological effects of toys on kids.

And I ultimately learned that toys have a huge influence on children. They influence how you think, act, and see yourself. So when little black girls can't find dolls that look like them and negatively impacts their self esteem. And so when I created Zoe, I made her more than just a brown doll. She has hair that girls can style just like their own and learn how to not only love their hair, but take care of it properly. Zoe, the doll that you lead to design, stands about eighteen

inches tall. Um. Zoe has these big, beautiful chocolate brown eyes and these really cute little like pink lips, and um, a little bit of blush, and she has this very round, adorable face. And um, she's these big beautiful curls that frame her face. We've developed a personality for her which is like a little sassy um and very um strong wills. She's like very confident in herself and will not let people talk badly about her or the way that she looks,

which happened sometimes, but she can handle herself. In addition to giving her a great personality, Elitz has also written a whole backstory that makes Zoe even cooler. Her story is actually that she went through the big chop, which is um what we call it when you cut off all your hair, because she went she went to the salon with her mom and she saw another woman there with like these big, beautiful curls, and she was like,

why doesn't my hair look like that? And so her mom helped her learn how to take care of her and they did all these hairstyles um which are featured in the Big Book of Hair, which is our illustrated guide to teaching natural hair care. Her end goal with Zoe is to fight for positive racial representation, starting with when kids are formulating their ideas about the world, which is why it's called healthy. With we're getting to the

root of the problem. Um, you can you can stop problems by stopping it with the youth, and as long as we teach them, we can fight against it. That's what I built healthy with. Yeah, this cute doll is a tool to destroy racism. So an amazing idea, But that was just the beginning. She ended up launching a Kickstarter campaign to fund the making of the first doll.

Her goal was to raise thirty dollars, and she ended up raising I asked her what she remembers feeling now that this idea of hers was about to come to life. I don't remember being excited. I think I remember just being like, oh crap, this is real, This is really really real. This like weight came down on me and I realized just how much work I had signed up for. We'll get back to the story in a set. I can first a word from Express Employment Professionals. A strong

work ethic takes pride in a job well done. This is you. But to get an honest day's work, you need a call back. You need a job. Express Employment Professionals can help. We'll connect you to the right company. We're committed to your success and never charge a fee to find you a job. Express Nose Jobs. Get to know Express find your location at Express pros dot com or on the express jobs app. And now back to our story. Since the beginning, Elitsa has spearheaded every task

that goes into starting a business from scratch. You start with your idea, check your idea valid data of developing your product, defining your customer, defining your go to market strategy. I get figuring out how to build your product, your cause during your like financial projection, then looking at funding, look and building your team, thinking about your sales funnel

and your marketing strategy. And on days like today, she tries to split that up in the meetings with mentors, communicating with the people that are managing our accounts, communicating with my factory, and tying up any loose ends they're dealing with the insurance policies for those factories, organizing meetings

with people for fulfillment. She spends a good portion of the day working on social media and marketing, and then the rest of my day is design work and illustration, which doesn't get done often because it gets pushed and pushed and pushed. Uh So that's my day to day. That is kind of the standard day to day for her, but now that she's part of a startup incubator here in Detroit that comes with all sorts of new tasks

and opportunities. Like today, she's part of a startup speed dating kind of event where her and other startups in the office go around and meet with successful entrepreneurs and business owners who can give advice and maybe even help you, Liza, with their business. It's kind of like a rapid fire shark tank situation to give me like the cell. Hi, my name is Elza Geane Charles, I'm the O and founder of My name is Steve. I've been doing engineering for ten or twelve years. Hi, I'm Elitsa. So. I

have a toy company. It's called Healthier on the You have a company called Integral. We're a product consulting company. We work with our I think you'll be a great resource, um so Ulitsa. I have a company it's called Healthy Roots. We make dolls that teach natural hair. I personally don't know what it takes to start a business from scratch like Elsa, but being a freelance producer, I know the feeling of constantly pitching and feeling kind of like you're

making up your own job as you go. Do you ever get jealous of people with normal jobs all the time, all the time. Happiness for me is stability. I value stability over all else, which is funny because the most unstable thing you can do is trying to start a business. But that's what happiness is for me. It's like knowing where knowing what I'm gonna eat, knowing where I'm going

to sleep. Um, consistency and balance and like There'll be people who would reach out to me and they're like, girl, I'm thinking about quitting my job, and I was like, don't you quit that job. That's steady income, you got benefits, You've got insurance. You know what it's like to have insurance.

That's great, Go get your teeth clean. Um. Being a person who has quit a stable job before to do what I love, I know the liberation and empowerment of being independent and forging your own way, like Eliza, But I also know that the grass can always look greener on the other side. And while you make this big decision to go off on your own journey, you sometimes really miss the camaraderie of a normal kind of work environment.

Do you ever feel like kind of like a like a lone wolf and what you're doing always I did a lot of this by myself. Um, not to say that I haven't had um mentors helped me or team members at the beginning. That's helped me, But a lot of it falls back on you when somebody can't do it. So it is very much, very lonely. Doing the work that I do is like a slow burn. But then there's also this this chart about entrepreneurship where it's like, yeah, this is awesome. Oh no, this really sucks. Oh look

it's good. Wait, oh my, we're doing amazing. Okay, we're doing just okay. So it's like these crazy ups and downs. There's always highs and lows, And what gets me through my lows it's my end goal, which is like empowering young girls of color. That's my angle. As long as I'm doing work to get to that point, it's fine. Eulitza admits that because she's constantly in the trenches of starting this business, she can sometimes forget that childlike wonder

that her company is all about. But after a long day at the incubator, Elitsa got an email. It was this video that was sent to her by a young social media influencer. This little insanely cute black girl named Jade Robinson who has tons and tons of followers. Jade just got her Zoe doll in the mail from Healthy Roots, So describe what we're watching. We are watching one of our little influencers, do you and on boxing? But she's

so tiny, she's so cute. I'm boxing today this box key and having open I'll be an get all day, David saying no. From Healthy oh, govery because I'm a open. This a little bit for me, but I'm a big guy. Her name, so he should pretty much just look like this, so she pretty much looks like me. Yeah, it's really cute. Wait, I'm trying to focus right now. Oh my god. Four years after you leads illustrated the first sketch that would become Healthy Roots. Here it is. It's real, it's alive,

it's an actual business. It's a tangible thing that she created that's now in the hands of a young girl that she always hoped she can inspire. I asked her if when she sees this, does she finally think I've made it. No, I don't think anything. I'm just like, oh, it's like watching a puppy. It's like, what are you thinking about this. Just your brain is sparkles and rainbows, like it's just it feels good. It's just yeah, I don't think about anything. I'm just like, oh my god,

this is so cute. This is so cute. This is so cute. That's it. That's all I'm thinking. I don't I'm not thinking like, oh my god, another girl has gotten our doll and she's going to become a strong, independent woman. Like no, I'm just like, wow, she looks really cute. I don't see that and go I did it. I'm I'm successful with this. I'm like, oh, she looks really happy. I want to make more happy kids. That's it.

That's it, yesterday. Yes. You can find out more about Eliza at www dot Healthy Roots Dolls dot com, where you can also see pictures of Zoe and order a doll today. Healthy Roots of story is far from over and Eliza is just getting started. You can also see this amazing unboxing video over at Express pros dot com. Slash podcast for On the Job, I'm Modus Gray. Thanks for listening to On the Job, brought to you by Express Employment Professionals. Find out more at Express pros dot com.

This season of On the Job is produced by Audi Asian and Red Seat Ventures. Our executive producer is Sandy Smallens. Our producer is Otis Gray. The show is mixed by Matt Noble at The Loft in Bronxville, New York. Find us on I Heart Radio and Apple Podcasts. If you liked what you heard, please consider rating or reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. We'll see you next time. For more inspiring stories about discovering your life's work. Audiation