While selling hair care products, DeJoria met Paul Mitchell in 1971. Mitchell was a well-known stylist but was “going broke,” according to DeJoria.
Eventually, DeJoria made his pitch, “Paul, you’ve got to know how to sell. Let’s start a company,” he recalls in the movie trailer.
Mitchell agreed and and 1980, the pair launched Paul Mitchell Systems with only $700.
“It took off,” says DeJoria.
His next big success came in 1989. DeJoria’s friend Martin Crowley promised to bring him back some tequila from a trip to Mexico. Instead, Crowley came back with an idea, DeJoria told Fortune. He believed the world was ready for a higher end tequila product than existed at the time in the U.S.
Patrón Spirits produced 1,000 cases in its first year and has now grown that to over 2 million, according to its website.
DeJoria has come a long way from living in his car. But he believes, “success unshared is failure,” so he has also committed to philanthropy. The 73-year-old pledged to give the majority of his wealth away to charity as a member of the The Giving Pledge, a charitable campaign led by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates.
“Success is not how much money you have, success is how well you do what you do,” he says.
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