U.S. teenage CEO and bee ambassador Mikaila Ulmer, of Me & the Bees Lemonade, is causing quite a buzz. She’s been featured on “Good Morning America,” “NBC News,” and in Forbes and Time magazines for her entrepreneurial success; inked a national distribution deal with Whole Foods; and been invited to the White House — twice. What Ulmer does is more than a full-time executive job: It’s her personal mission to fight the threats facing the world’s critically important honey bee population. The beginning Ulmer was born to Theo and D’Andra Ulmer in 2005. At the age of 4, a young Ulmer was stung by a bee. Less than a week later, she was stung by another bee. This resulted in her naturally being deathly afraid of bees. However, this did not last too long. Soon, she began to research bees. As a part of her research, she found that bees were not only on the verge of extinction but were also vital for the environment and ecosystem. At roughly the same time, Ulmer’s great grandmother Helen sent the family her 1940’s cookbook. One of the recipes inside was that for her so-called “famous” flaxseed lemonade recipe. This got Ulmer thinking: How could she combine her grandmother’s recipe and save the bees at the same time? Her answer: a lemonade brand that doesn’t just exploit the bees, but helps them too. Soon after coming to this conclusion, Ulmer asked her parents if she could establish her own lemonade stand. Her parents agreed, and she soon started selling her own lemonade, operating as “Bee Sweet Lemonade.” However, Ulmer made one major alteration to her great grandmother’s lemonade recipe — switching out sugar for honey. Thus, making bees an integral part of her business. Ulmer later change the name of product to Me & The Bees Lemonade due to legal issues. Soon after this, a local pizza shop asked Ulmer to supply them with lemonade. This gave Ulmer the idea to start bottling her lemonade, rather than just selling it outside her house. Soon after this, she began offering her lemonade to nearby stores, many of whom began to sell her lemonade. In 2015, Ulmer appeared in “Shark Tank,” a U.S. pitch contest for small businesses, with her father, seeking an investment from one of the sharks. Ulmer was successful, with Daymond John giving her US$60,000. After her appearance on “Shark Tank,” then-U.S.-president Barack Obama invited Ulmer to the White House. Soon after this, Ulmer introduced Obama at the United State of Women Summit in 2016. Today Today, Celebrity Net Worth estimates that her net worth is around US$11 million. In terms of her lemonade, Me & The Bees Lemonade is sold in over 1,500 stores in the U.S. alone. In 2019, Me & The Bees Lemonade sold over 1 million bottles in these 1,500 stores combined. Recent years have also proven quite lucrative for Me & The Bees Lemonade. They have diversified beyond just bottling and selling lemonade to other products such as lip balms, similarly made from bee-related products. Starting in 2016, Ulmer has given several motivational speeches about social entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship in general. Some of her talks have even later been given as TED Talks. In August, Ulmer published her first book — “Bee Fearless, Dream Like a Kid,” published by Penguin Random House. This book talks about her life as a social entrepreneur as well as her school-business balance. (SD-Agencies) | 