John Paul DeJoria

From a $700 startup to two major brands

Forbes records that DeJoria co-founded John Paul Mitchell Systems in 1980 after selling shampoo door to door and living in his car, with the partners starting the hair-care business using $700. He later co-founded Patrón Spirits, which was sold to Bacardi in 2018 in a $5.1 billion transaction. ^[1]

A separate Forbes account describes a childhood in a struggling single-parent household, time in foster care and two periods of homelessness before the Paul Mitchell launch. Those circumstances make the later fortune a case of business creation from severe documented financial disadvantage rather than inherited wealth. ^[2]

The two major businesses created different kinds of founder economics. Paul Mitchell converted a very small startup stake into long-lived private-company ownership and cash generation, while Patrón ultimately produced a major liquidity event when the spirits company was sold. Neither mechanism means DeJoria personally received the full value of either business; his wealth reflects only the ownership interests and proceeds economically attributable to him. ^[1][2]

The admitted evidence also shows repeated reinvestment rather than a single windfall. DeJoria moved from direct selling into brand ownership, then used the capital and operating experience created by that first success to participate in another company that reached multibillion-dollar transaction scale. That compounding path is central to how a $700 launch became billionaire wealth. ^[1][2]