{"id":16197,"date":"2025-07-22T19:45:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T19:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/16197\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T19:45:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T19:45:14","slug":"how-a-georgia-woman-creates-a-multimillion-dollar-business-in-five-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/16197\/","title":{"rendered":"How a Georgia woman creates a multimillion-dollar business in five years"},"content":{"rendered":"

The products that came closest to what she was looking for \u201cwere the ones that had flaxseed, aloe vera, horsetail, marshmallow root,\u201d Marshall told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.<\/p>\n

ExploreRead more from AJC Her+Story<\/a>\"Flaxseed,\"icon<\/p>\n

So Marshall began trying to make her own gels and curly creams, all while working full time at Mailchimp. At first, she was focused on just finding things that worked for her hair, but then things started to gel \u2014 literally. <\/p>\n

She developed her first product, an orange-scented styling gel made with flaxseed, aloe and other plant ingredients, and started selling it online. For the first few years, she estimates she had maybe seven sales a month.<\/p>\n

But that changed in December 2018. Marshall sent the gel to a woman who ended up posting about the product on social media, and it went viral. <\/p>\n

Marshall got a thousand orders in 15 days. By August 2019, she had quit her job at Mailchimp. She developed more products and saw a huge amount of growth in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic pushed women out of salons and into figuring their hair out at home.<\/p>\n

She has also been selling on Amazon since 2022, and now sells about 3,000 products a month across Amazon, wholesale and her website. <\/p>\n

\"Ecoslay\"icon<\/p>\n

Marshall has been very clear about the values behind her business since Day One. She is passionate about sustainability, so she sources ingredients from local farms, uses pouches instead of bottles to reduce plastic use, has set up a recycling rewards program and recently became a certified B Corp, meaning her business meets certain environmental and social standards.<\/p>\n

Marshall tells other entrepreneurs it\u2019s crucial to be clear on what their values are, because that is what will keep them going through the ups and downs. <\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t come up with your values for what you think the market wants. Come up with your values according to what breaks your heart,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Marshall also measures monthly how well Ecoslay is meeting its values by looking at how many times employees volunteered or how many pouches were recycled.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you look at those metrics alongside the financials, then you don\u2019t get so anxious, \u2026 because there are some months where our revenue isn\u2019t great, but we still helped a lot of people,\u201d Marshall said.<\/p>\n

\"Operations\"icon<\/p>\n

She has also been able to grow her business by hiring others to handle tasks that are not her strong suits.<\/p>\n

\u201cFind people that love what they do and hire them to do those things, and don\u2019t be so concerned about keeping all of the money for yourself,\u201d Marshall said.<\/p>\n

Although building a business requires dedication and focus, she said it\u2019s imperative to also keep yourself a priority. Before checking email or social media in the morning, Marshall meditates, exercises and makes breakfast, because if she doesn\u2019t prioritize herself, \u201cYou forget what you\u2019re doing it for, and you\u2019ll neglect yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

AJC Her+Story is a new series in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution highlighting women founders, creators, executives and professionals. It is about building a community. Know someone the AJC should feature in AJC Her+Story? Email us at herstory@ajc.com<\/a> with your suggestions. Check out all of our AJC Her+Story coverage at ajc.com\/herstory<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The products that came closest to what she was looking for \u201cwere the ones that had flaxseed, aloe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[14218,45,49,48,137],"class_list":{"0":"post-16197","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-ajc-freelancer","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-entrepreneurship"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}