Melissa Orijin recalls the moment she will “never forget.” While shopping for toys, she witnessed her young daughter, Esi, select a Caucasian doll with blonde hair. Although she taught her daughter to be proud of her familial ties to Cabo Verde (or Cape Verde) and Ghana in West Africa, Melissa noticed Esi began to shun her skin tone and curly hair when she became the only Black girl in class at school. Another blow to Esi’s cultural esteem: Melissa could not find a doll that resembled her child.
Devastated by the experience, Melissa believed she and her husband, Archyn, failed their eldest daughter. She eventually discovered a solution to this vexing problem through her husband’s game-changing suggestion: “Well, why don’t you just create the dolls you want to see?”
That life-changing idea produced a flourishing business and a viable pathway to generational wealth.
Melissa launched Orijin Bees in 2018. Over the past half-decade, the company grew into a disruptor within the toy industry, selling 30 multicultural dolls, according to its website. It offered a collection of dolls representing Black and Brown children with assorted complexions and hair textures.
The ambitious founder also became driven to use Orijin Bees as a wealth-building vehicle for Esi, her creative partner, and the rest of the family.
With a mission encouraging self-love and inclusion, the brand proved to be a huge hit with customers—including several celebrities—and retailers. Orijin Bees gained massive exposure when it landed on “Oprah’s Favorite Things List” in 2021.
“I wasn’t sure if it was legit because we [didn’t] have any direct relationship, and I didn’t understand how they found us,” Melissa says. “But the guy upstairs made it happen.”
Furthermore, according to Advertising Week , Melissa expanded Orijin Bees’ product reach by scoring partnerships with retailers such as Target, QVC, and Maisonette. The website also reported that the company plans to launch Sankofa Bees in 2024. Programmed using AI, the doll will interact with children by telling folktales, teaching them different languages, and playing multicultural tunes. Melissa says: “We don’t want our kids to be anything other than who they are.”
Now, the company is braced for more growth within the toy industry. Rising demand from targeted consumers and greater spending by parents on children’s toys have been reported as contributing growth factors.
Launching Orijin Bees, however, has not been child’s play. As a CPA with 20 years of experience in the financial services sector, Melissa made the tough decision in the startup phase to leave her secure job to operate the business full time. She was able to apply her finance and management skills to ensure its profitability.
Melissa made the firm a money-maker by focusing on distribution, making the product line available on its website, marketplaces, big-box stores, and through partnerships with an array of organizations. “As we increase our production, it decreases our unit costs. So, the goal is just to continue to grow without sacrificing the core of what Orijin Bees is,” she says.
A self-funded venture, Orijin Bees has and maintains its forward momentum through bootstrapping. That type of funding can allow a business to rely on financing from an owner’s personal savings or operating revenues while remaining independent. “We’re family owned, and we haven’t brought in investors, but we’re not necessarily against it,” Melissa says. “We would only be open to the right investor because we don’t want to change how we run our business.”
Orijin Bees has served as a wealth-building asset and financial education tool for the millennial couple and their children—two daughters and a son that range in age from nine to four. (They also include Archyn’s company, Orijin Culture, an Afro-luxe fashion brand, as part of their strategic plan.)
Financing college educations—including the development and execution of a savings and investment strategy—and teaching their children money management and budgeting skills represent the couple’s highest priorities.
Melissa emphasizes insurance and retirement planning as vital items for them to check off their generational wealth agenda for their children. She believes “whole life insurance is really a great way to enhance wealth planning.” Building cash value and retirement income are among the advantages of whole life insurance over time. But the coverage can come with pros and cons.
“No matter how old they are, no matter how great they’re doing, I would want to be able to be a part of building that generational wealth for my children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren.”
Further, the Orijins plan to enhance their family’s financial well-being and provide options with the inclusion of real estate. “So, just having different streams of wealth generation, that’s how we focus on our retirement and what we’ll leave to our babies.”
Melissa maintains their daughters have already gained valuable entrepreneurial and financial insight that can apply to the company’s potential and their respective financial future. Says Melissa: “They know the dolls…they know so many parts of our business that if they choose to take our businesses on when they’re adults, they will be 1,000 steps ahead. They would be able to take the business to levels that we could only imagine.”
If they choose not to move forward as business owners, Melissa believes her children will have businesses that will generate wealth for them and provide resources for any other dreams they seek to fulfill.
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