What happens when an entrepreneur refuses to compromise?

On this episode of We Mean Business, hair care entrepreneur and celebrity stylist Chaz Dean, founder of WEN Hair & Body Care, talks about building his brand from the ground up, developing products differently, bootstrapping his business, and maintaining creative control as WEN grew.

Dean also gets candid about navigating major business challenges, including a $26.3 million class-action lawsuit, standing by his product philosophy, and making difficult decisions to preserve his cruelty-free standards.

Beyond business, he shares deeply personal lessons on resilience, loss, spirituality, and staying focused through rejection and adversity.

His message for entrepreneurs is simple but powerful: don’t let “no” be the end of the conversation. Look for another way to get to “yes.”

🎧 Listen to the full episode of We Mean Business with Chaz Dean.

From producing for NBC’s Today Show to co-founding a $20M+ functional chocolate powerhouse, Charlotte Cruz is a masterclass in radical career reinvention and rapid business scaling. In this episode of We Mean Business, Alice Mushrooms co-founder and COO Charlotte Cruze sits down to share the visionary strategy behind her viral, brand-forward wellness supplement. Learn how she and her bi-coastal co-founder, Lindsay Goodstein, took a functional mushroom chocolate side hustle and scaled it into over 3,000 retail stores, backing the brand with over $8 million in funding from Unilever and celebrity angels like Zac Efron, Tiesto and Pedro Pascal.

Charlotte breaks down the secrets to navigating early-stage funding, mastering cross-country co-founder relationships, and using meticulous creative ad strategy to find instant product-market fit. She dives into Alice’s unique approach to experiential and collaborative marketing - from a vintage 1969 ice cream truck at Coachella to high-profile partnerships with HBO’s The Last of Us and Joe & The Juice. Plus, Charlotte opens up about overcoming imposter syndrome as your business grows, the exact grounding practices she uses before entering a high-stakes fundraising boardroom, and her favorite AI workflow tools.

Whether you are looking to pivot your career, scale a product-based business sustainably, or learn how to trust your gut instincts in the boardroom, this episode is packed with hard-won field notes for any entrepreneur who means business.

Pull Up a Seat

This is We Mean Business - a field guide for builders, believers, and bold operators. If you enjoyed the episode, pull up a seat by leaving a comment, share your biggest takeaway, and follow We Mean Business for more conversations about entrepreneurship, brand building, marketing, leadership and growth.

Explore Alice Mushrooms and discover its functional mushroom chocolates @alice.mushrooms on social or www.alicemushrooms.com

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We Mean Business is an original podcast brought to you by The Next Rodeo, in partnership with Connoisseur Media, produced by Good Mess Media, with music by JAM Music Collective.

Thank you!

We Mean Business is the podcast we wish we'd had when we started building. It is a field guide for builders, believers and bold operators. Hosted by CBO Monica Richards, each episode brings you honest, unbridled insights from the founders, executives and operators from those inside the arena. Together, we unveil not just what successful leaders built, but how they think, lead and make decisions about business and life when the stakes are highest.

Pull up a seat for fresh perspectives, practical principles and actionable lessons to help you create what’s next - Because the future belongs to those willing to build it.

Presented by The Next Rodeo at www.thenextrodeo.com

Find us on @wemeanbusinesspod