Meet Dawn Myers, Founder and CEO of The Most

If you’ve ever spent an entire Sunday afternoon detangling curls, coiling, twisting,
and re-applying product until your arms feel like you’ve done a full upper-body
workout, you already understand why Dawn Myers exists in the hair-care universe.
As founder and CEO of THE MOST and the beauty-tech brand
Richualist, Myers is on a mission to give highly textured hair the
kind of innovation and respect it’s been denied for decades.

She’s a lawyer-turned-hardware founder, a tech innovator serving women of color, and
the mind behind The Mint, a patented styling tool designed to cut
washday time in half while keeping curls healthier, juicier, and more defined. Her
journey is equal parts hustle, creativity, and “okay, I’ll just build it myself”
energy—with a dash of Shark Tank drama for good measure.

Who Is Dawn Myers?

Today, Dawn Myers is best known as the founder and CEO of THE MOST, a company that
designs tech-enabled hardware for textured hair. But her path to
entrepreneurship wasn’t a straight line from beauty school to product lab. Before
she ever sketched a prototype, Myers built a career in
wealth management, politics, law, and real estate. Those roles
sharpened her skills in negotiation, operations, and advocacy, but something was
missing: she wanted to build something that solved a deeply personal problem for a
community she knew from the inside.

Myers grew up experimenting with products in the kitchen, like many Black women who
became “resident stylist” for friends, cousins, and whoever showed up with a spray
bottle and a plea for help. That background, plus her own natural hair journey,
eventually collided with her tech curiosity and business experience. The result was
THE MOST: a company created to put Afro-textured hair at the center of
innovation, not as an afterthought.

From Law and Politics to Beauty Tech

Leaving a traditional professional track isn’t easy—especially when you’ve
invested years in degrees, credentials, and prestige. Myers walked away anyway.
While still working at a firm, she began developing real estate on the side, then
transitioned fully into entrepreneurship. That willingness to pivot laid the
groundwork for her next leap: hardware and beauty tech.

Myers didn’t come from an engineering background, but she had something just as
powerful: a clear problem, a personal connection to it, and the ability to rally
experts around a vision. She immersed herself in hardware accelerators, pitch
competitions, and startup programs, learning how to build devices, raise capital,
and protect her intellectual property through patents. Over time, she evolved from
“curious outsider” to venture-backed beauty-tech founder.

The Problem: Textured Hair and the Time Tax

If you have straight hair, your styling routine might be a 15-minute breeze. For
many people with coily or kinky hair, it’s a completely different story: washday
can easily stretch to two or three hours. There’s detangling, product layering,
sectioning, stretching, drying—and that’s if everything goes right.

For women of color in particular, this “time tax” is more than an inconvenience.
It affects work schedules, social plans, workouts, and even sleep. Traditional hot
tools, meanwhile, were largely designed to straighten textured hair
rather than nurture curls and coils in their natural state. That meant people either
fought their texture with high heat or battled through long washdays with tools that
weren’t built for them.

Myers saw a massive disconnect: the textured hair market represents tens of billions
of dollars in spending power, yet the tools didn’t reflect that importance or
complexity. So she set out to build hardware that treats curls as a feature, not a
problem.

Building THE MOST: A Hub for Textured Hair Innovation

THE MOST began as a platform and tech venture dedicated to
“Afro Tech”—technology designed specifically for textured hair.
The idea wasn’t just another product line; it was a new category. Myers wanted to
create intelligent hardware that could work with conditioners, gels, and creams to
make styling more efficient, healthier, and less painful.

Early on, THE MOST focused on the question: “What if our hair tools actually worked
with our products instead of just sitting next to them on the counter?” That led to
designs that warm and distribute product while you style, so hair is
conditioned and detangled in fewer passes.

What Makes Her Technology Different?

Instead of building another flat iron or blow-dryer and calling it a day, Myers and
her team obsessed over the actual experience of Black and curly-haired consumers.
Her hardware and tools are designed to:

• Work with curl creams and gels, not just bare hair.
• Warm products to a gentle temperature so they penetrate more
  deeply into the hair shaft, especially for low-porosity hair.
• Detangle and distribute products at the same time, so each pass
  is doing multiple jobs.
• Protect delicate curls and coils rather than blasting them with
  extreme heat.

This kind of design may sound obvious, but in an industry dominated for years by
tools focused on straightening, it’s quietly revolutionary.

Richualist and The Mint: Tech for Textured Hair

As Myers continued to refine her vision, she launched
Richualist, a beauty-tech brand under THE MOST umbrella focused on
hero hardware. Its star product is The Mint, a patented device that
has quickly become one of the most talked-about styling tools in the natural hair
space.

The Mint looks like a sleek, futuristic hybrid between a detangling brush and a
flat iron. Inside the body of the tool, there’s a chamber that holds your favorite
curl cream, gel, or conditioner in refillable pods. As you style, The Mint gently
warms the product to an optimal range and feeds it through the
bristles or plates, so each stroke:

• Detangles curls and coils.
• Evenly distributes warmed product from root to tip.
• Helps products penetrate more deeply for better moisture and slip.

The result? For many users with type 3 and 4 hair, The Mint can
cut detangling and styling time by up to half while reducing
breakage and shedding. Instead of juggling three different tools and re-wetting and
re-applying products constantly, you get a more streamlined, predictable routine.

The device features interchangeable attachments, so people with different curl
patterns and lengths can customize their experience—whether they’re going for
super-defined coils, elongated twist-outs, or soft, fluffy curls.

When Shark Tank Came Calling

In 2024, Myers took Richualist and The Mint onto ABC’s business show
Shark Tank. It wasn’t the obvious choice: The Mint is a premium
device with advanced technology and a higher price point than most impulse-buy
products on the show. But Myers knew that seeing the tool in action on national TV
could help people finally understand the problem it solves.

On the episode, she pitched The Mint as a
“washday revolution” for textured hair. After tough questions about
pricing, margins, and the size of the textured hair market, she ultimately secured
a six-figure deal from investors Mark Cuban and Emma Grede. The partnership brought
not only capital but also deep expertise in scaling, retail, and supply chains.

Following the episode, Richualist saw a dramatic surge in traffic and pre-orders.
Sales multiplied, waitlists grew, and The Mint moved from “niche hardware for hair
nerds” to a widely recognized name in the textured hair community.

The Grit Behind the Gloss

All the TV moments and glossy photos can make the story look effortless, but Myers’
journey is anything but. To bring The Mint to life, she
sold her house, tapped her retirement savings, and spent years in the
prototype trenches. She’s also navigated serious health challenges and
spoken publicly about surviving cancer while continuing to build her company.

On the business side, she’s built Richualist as a venture-backed startup,
raising capital from funds and accelerators that believe in both the market and the
mission. At the same time, she’s advocated for more equitable access to funding for
Black women founders, who still receive only a tiny fraction of venture investment.

That combination of personal resilience and systemic awareness shapes how she leads:
Myers is building not just a product, but a platform that can unlock economic
opportunity for underrepresented innovators across beauty and tech.

Rewriting the Rules of Beauty Innovation

One of the most powerful things about Dawn Myers’ work is who it centers. For
decades, beauty innovation has been built around Eurocentric norms: straight hair,
lighter skin, narrower definitions of “professional” and “polished.” Tools,
marketing, and research dollars followed those assumptions.

Myers flips that script. By designing for highly textured hair first,
she’s proving that “niche” customers are actually massive, loyal markets that drive
trends and culture. When you invent for people who’ve historically been
underserved, you’re not just selling productsyou’re correcting a power imbalance.

She’s also vocal about the importance of intellectual property. Through speaking
engagements and startup events, she encourages creators—especially founders of
color—to protect their work via patents and trademarks. For Myers, owning the
underlying technology is a key step toward shifting economic power toward the people
who create culture in the first place.

Lessons from Dawn Myers for Founders and Creators

Whether you’re building a beauty brand, a software platform, or something completely
different, Dawn Myers’ journey offers a few practical lessons:

1. Design for Problems You Know Intimately

Myers didn’t blindly chase a trending category; she zoomed in on a pain point she
had experienced countless times: washday exhaustion. That deep understanding helped
her see opportunities other founders missed and create a tool that resonates
emotionally, not just functionally.

2. Don’t Be Afraid of Hardware

Hardware is notoriously difficult: it’s capital-intensive, slow to iterate, and
unforgiving when something breaks. Myers dove in anyway, building a team of
engineers and experts who could translate her vision into a physical product. For
many underrepresented founders, simply claiming space in hardware and patented
technology is itself a radical act.

3. Protect Your Ideas

From patents to trademarks, Myers has been deliberate about protecting The Mint and
the technology behind it. That protection not only discourages copycats but also
increases the company’s value and leverage when negotiating with investors and
potential partners.

4. Lead with Community, Not Just Clout

Richualist’s branding and messaging speaks directly to “curlfriends” who are tired
of gimmicks and broken promises. Myers treats every testimonial, DM, and review as
validation that the community, not the trend cycle, is her true north.

Real-World Experiences: What “Meeting” Dawn Myers Really Means

On paper, “Meet Dawn Myers, Founder and CEO of The Most” sounds like the title of a
formal fireside chat. In real life, “meeting” Dawn is as much about the
experiences she’s shaped as it is about shaking her hand.

A Washday That Doesn’t Steal Your Whole Weekend

Picture a busy parent with coily hair and two kids who also inherited those glorious
curls. Before discovering The Mint, washday was a multi-stage production: separate
wash times, deep-conditioning sessions, endless detangling, and at least one meltdown
(sometimes from the kids, sometimes from the adult). The whole process could stretch
across an entire afternoon.

With a tool that warms and distributes product while detangling, the routine starts
to shift. Instead of re-applying conditioner over and over, the parent fills a pod
with their favorite product, snaps it into the device, and works through each
section with fewer passes. The kids still squirm, because they’re kids, but the
process feels more like a focused task than an overwhelming event. That’s not just a
better hair day—it’s more energy left over for homework help, movie night, or
finally sitting down.

Confidence for First-Time DIY Stylers

For many people with textured hair, going natural after years of chemical
straightening can be intimidating. YouTube is full of tutorials, but translating
them into your own routine is another story. Tools like The Mint are designed to
flatten that learning curve: instead of figuring out which brush to use, how much
product to apply, and when to add heat, you get a guided system that does several of
those steps at once.

Imagine a college student away from home, trying to care for their hair without
their usual stylist or family support. A tech-enabled tool that reduces breakage and
makes washday more predictable can make the difference between “I’ll just keep
straightening it” and “I’m actually enjoying my curls.” Dawn Myers’ work shows up
in those quiet, private victories long before it appears in glossy before-and-after
photos.

Support for Stylists and Salons

Professional stylists who specialize in curls and coils often carry the emotional
load of educating clients, fixing damage from years of harsh treatments, and working
within the limits of existing tools. A device that cuts detangling time and improves
product performance doesn’t just help them work faster—it helps them serve more
clients well.

Some stylists incorporate Richualist tools into their services, using The Mint in
treatment sessions or as part of a “washday boot camp” where they teach clients how
to care for their hair at home. In those settings, Myers’ innovation becomes a
teaching aid, a revenue booster, and a confidence builder all at once.

The Founder Behind the Brand

When people finally meet Dawn Myers in person—at a conference, a pitch event,
or a pop-up demo—what they’re often struck by isn’t just her resume or her
Shark Tank appearance. It’s how clearly her mission lines up with the lived reality
of her customers. She talks about curls and coils as an asset, not a challenge. She
treats hardware and patents as tools for liberation, not just profit.

In that sense, “meeting” Dawn is less about celebrity and more about recognition.
Many Black women and other people with textured hair see their own stories in hers:
long washdays, improvised solutions, and a sense that mainstream beauty tools were
never really built for them. Her success signals that those experiences are not
just valid—they’re worthy of serious innovation, capital, and IP protection.

Final Thoughts

Dawn Myers, founder and CEO of THE MOST and the force behind Richualist’s Mint
device, is doing far more than launching another hair tool. She’s challenging an
industry to see textured hair not as an afterthought, but as a driver of innovation.
By combining beauty, engineering, and unapologetically Black perspective, she’s
building technology that honors curls and coils exactly as they are.

Whether you connect with her as a fellow founder, a beauty lover, or someone who’s
just tired of losing entire days to washday, Myers’ story makes one thing clear:
when you design for the people who’ve been left out the longest, you don’t just
create better products—you create a more equitable future.