anita-grant-hellohair

# S01E11 · Anita Grant — Founder of Hello Hair <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwnGXJjlW5g" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="uv-poster" src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/TwnGXJjlW5g/maxresdefault.jpg" alt="Anita Grant on The Useful Podcast Episode 11" loading="lazy" /></a> Anita Grant started Hello Hair as a children's book, which every business person in her life told her was a mistake — authors do not make money. Four years later it is a product line, a doll, a six-week workshop program running in community centres, and a brand that has been on Dragon's Den. The thing worth studying here is how she built the ladder: book first, because it was cheap and it proved the idea. Then styling dolls, because you cannot practice braiding on a child. Then workshops, because the dolls only work with the education attached. Every product she launched created the demand for the next one. In this conversation, Gokul and Anita get into the Dragon's Den pitch and how she prepared her financials for it, what actually makes a business VC backable when it does not look like a tech company, how a UK prison partnership came together, and how she balances a mission and a margin without treating profit as the enemy. ## Listen <ul class="uv-linkrow"> <li>Watch<a class="uv-ico uv-yt" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwnGXJjlW5g" target="_blank" rel="noopener">YouTube</a></li> <li>Show<a class="uv-ico uv-sp" href="https://open.spotify.com/show/033DRed1adLXd1bg8honOl" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Useful Podcast on Spotify</a> · <a class="uv-ico uv-x" href="https://x.com/theusefulpod" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@theusefulpod on X</a></li> </ul> <a class="uv-btn" href="https://useful.ventures/podcast/anita-grant-hellohair/transcript">Read the full transcript</a> ## Key facts <ul class="uv-facts"> <li>EpisodeThe Useful Podcast, Season 1, Episode 11</li> <li>GuestAnita Grant, Founder of Hello Hair</li> <li>HostGokul Bala, co-founder of Useful Ventures</li> <li>Company<a href="https://hellohair.family" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hello Hair</a>, a children's book, styling-doll, and hair-education brand built for textured and natural hair</li> <li>TopicsBuilding a product ladder from a book to a movement, the Dragon's Den pitch, what makes a business VC backable, community and prison partnerships, balancing mission and margin</li> <li>LengthAbout 47 minutes · Published August 2026</li> </ul> ## Guest <ul class="uv-linkrow"> <li>Anita<a class="uv-ico uv-ig" href="https://www.instagram.com/anitagrant/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Instagram (@anitagrant)</a></li> <li>Hello Hair<a class="uv-ico uv-ig" href="https://www.instagram.com/hellohair_book/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Instagram (@hellohair_book)</a> · <a class="uv-ico uv-play" href="https://hellohair.family" target="_blank" rel="noopener">hellohair.family</a></li> <li>Host<a class="uv-ico uv-x" href="https://x.com/GokulsVision" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gokul Bala on X (@GokulsVision)</a> · <a class="uv-ico uv-ig" href="https://www.instagram.com/gokuls.vision/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Instagram (@gokuls.vision)</a></li> </ul> ## Key insights **A book is what "authors don't make money" is supposed to warn you off — that is exactly why she started there.** Every business-minded person around Anita told her a children's book was the wrong move: authors don't make money, that's not how you build a company. But a book was cheap enough to test whether the real idea — teaching people to actually understand and care for textured hair — meant anything to anyone beyond her own household. It was never meant to become a brand. The reception when she started sharing it made not building on it feel selfish. **Every product she launched created the demand for the next one.** The book proved the idea. Styling dolls came next because children will not sit still long enough for an adult to practice detangling or braiding on them — the doll lets anyone build the skill and the confidence before they ever touch a child's hair. The six-week workshop program came after that, because the dolls only work once real education is wrapped around them: the science of the scalp, the cultural history behind the hair, and the emotional weight people carry around it. **Preparing for Dragon's Den forced her to redefine what "VC backable" actually means.** Her first business, Fleeky, chased tech because tech was what got funded. For Hello Hair, she had to dive into her own financials for the first time in her life and learn to pitch the trajectory — an eventual animated world built on the book, not just the book itself — rather than only where the business stood that day. Her takeaway: VC backability isn't about today's revenue, it's about whether you can show someone where the story is going. **Her daughter's loose tooth is the reason the pitch worked.** Minutes before walking into the den, Anita's daughter Tiana — whose tooth had been loose for six months — had it fall out on camera. Producers panicked and offered to pull Tiana from the room; instead, Anita asked her daughter how she felt. Tiana wiped her tears and said, "Mom, I'm ready." That moment grounded the whole pitch in authenticity instead of performance, and Anita walked out of the den with an investment. **She builds partnerships by cold-emailing, not waiting to be found.** A UK partnership with the organization Treasure Tress — which went on to bring Hello Hair's styling dolls into a UK prison program teaching incarcerated fathers to braid their daughters' hair — started with Anita cold-emailing a company she had been following, just to pilot the brand internationally. A relationship with Peel Regional Police, which grew into a six-week program funded by ProAction Cops and Kids across several Mississauga, Ontario schools, started because an officer who happened to watch her Dragon's Den episode reached out to her directly. **Profit funds the mission; it doesn't compete with it.** Anita spent years doing community work with no financial return and burned out from the lack of structure that created. Her shift: profit isn't selfish greed, it's what allows Hello Hair to keep making impact over the long term. She now runs a handful of trusted social partnerships alongside a revenue-generating product line, deliberately keeping both in motion rather than treating one as a distraction from the other. ## About Hello Hair Hello Hair is a hair-education brand built around textured and natural hair, organized into four pillars — Roots, Research, Journey, and Growth — that starts with identity and the science of hair before it ever gets to styling. What began four years ago as a children's book, designed to mirror the 90s Black hair magazines founder Anita Grant grew up reading, has become a line of styling dolls used to practice braiding and detangling before working on a real child, and a six-week workshop program run in community centres. Partnerships include a program with Peel Regional Police in Mississauga, Ontario, funded by ProAction Cops and Kids, and a UK partnership with Treasure Tress that brought Hello Hair's styling dolls into a UK prison program for incarcerated fathers. Anita Grant pitched Hello Hair on Dragon's Den and secured investment. Learn more at [hellohair.family](https://hellohair.family). ## FAQ <div class="uv-faq"> ### Who is Anita Grant? Anita Grant is the founder of Hello Hair, a children's book, styling-doll, and hair-education brand for textured and natural hair. She grew up in a household split between a Rastafarian father who wore locks and an English mother who permed her own hair, and spent more than twenty years before fully embracing her own natural hair. Before Hello Hair, she founded and later dissolved a beauty-tech venture called Fleeky. She is based in the Toronto/Mississauga, Ontario area and is the mother of a daughter, Tiana. ### What is Hello Hair? Hello Hair is a brand that started as a children's book about textured hair and has grown into styling dolls, used to teach braiding and detangling before working on a real child's hair, and a six-week workshop program built around four pillars: Roots (cultural history), Research (the science of hair and scalp health), Journey (styling, tools, and products), and Growth (the psychological and emotional side of hair). The workshops run in community centres and schools. ### Why did Anita Grant build Hello Hair as a children's book first? Anita's previous venture, Fleeky, chased tech because tech was easier to fund. With Hello Hair, she deliberately started with a book because it was cheap to make and it let her test whether the underlying idea — that hair education, not just hair styling, was missing — actually resonated. The book was never intended to become a company; the positive reception from people in her network is what pushed her to build the doll line and the workshop program on top of it. ### What happened when Anita Grant pitched Hello Hair on Dragon's Den? Anita auditioned for the Canadian version of Dragon's Den almost as a personal milestone, without originally planning to ask for investment, since the doll line hadn't launched yet. Minutes before filming, her daughter Tiana's loose tooth fell out on camera; Anita let her daughter decide whether to stay, and Tiana chose to stand beside her. Anita pitched and secured an investment, which she credits with giving Hello Hair credibility as a VC-backable business even though it started as a children's book. ### What are Hello Hair's community and prison partnerships? Hello Hair partnered with Peel Regional Police in Mississauga, Ontario, on a six-week program — funded by ProAction Cops and Kids — that paired officers with youth at local schools and a Boys and Girls Club to learn styling on the dolls together, alongside conversations about safety and trust. Separately, Hello Hair partnered with the UK organization Treasure Tress, which brought Hello Hair's styling dolls into a UK prison program teaching incarcerated fathers how to braid their daughters' hair. ### What is The Useful Podcast? The Useful Podcast is a series of founder-to-founder conversations from Useful Ventures, hosted by Gokul Bala. Each episode digs past the highlight reel into the actual work of building a company. This is Season 1, Episode 11. </div> ## Related * [[podcast]] is the full Useful Podcast index. * [[manifesto]] is how we see the world and how we work. * [[notes]] is where we write about the world we see coming. * [Hello Hair](https://hellohair.family) · [The Useful Podcast on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/033DRed1adLXd1bg8honOl) · [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@TheUsefulPodcast) · [@theusefulpod on X](https://x.com/theusefulpod) Back to [[podcast]].