Daymond John:
Hello everybody, I'm the Shark, Daymond John, and today we're talking business.
(jazz music)
Welcome, I'm Daymond John. And today I’m speaking with Anna-Mieke Anderson, of MiaDonna. How are you doing?
Anna-Mieke Anderson:
Hi, Daymond, thanks so much. This is great to be here.
Daymond John:
So let me ask you something, Anna-Mieke, tell me your backstory because I had the fortune of reading it, but I want more people to hear about this.
Anna-Mieke Anderson:
In a nutshell, I'm trying to create the greenest diamond store the world's ever seen because I come into this industry as an activist, more than anything else. It was back in 2005 when I had found out I had most likely purchased a conflict diamond. And I was so disappointed in myself because I'd always been raised as a conscious consumer. And I always thought that I was a conscious consumer, but I really wasn't. And so by buying this product, I unintentionally hurt a whole generation of children. So to make things kind of right in my own mind, I started sponsoring a little boy in a diamond mining community. He was seven years old, his name's Ponpon, and he's from Liberia, Africa. And that was gonna be the extent of my philanthropy. I said, okay, great, I made better on this. However, something unexpected happened, is that we developed a relationship myself and my children and Ponpon and his mother. We developed a relationship through letters. And it was such an eye-opening experience because I got such a roar and unbiased look of what it was like for a little child to grow up in a diamond community. It wasn't filtered by the media and adult. It was just purely brought information from a seven year old. And I'll never forget the day he wrote to me and said, "I had a great summer because only one of my classmates was killed." That right there, those words, as a mother myself, I thought I needed to do more, this is ridiculous. And the simplest form of MiaDonna was, how do I sponsor more children? I didn't go out on like, I'm not a corporate tycoon or anything like that. It was just simply the love of mother. How do I sponsor more children? So the simplest form was, let's sell conflict-free fine jewelry to fund our foundation.
Daymond John:
So let me unpack a little bit of that for those who aren't aware. First of all, how would you find out if you purchase a conflict diamond?
Anna-Mieke Anderson:
That's exactly the problem. It's incredibly difficult. The origin is the problem. Only one in nine diamonds can be traced back to their origin. And then 65% of diamonds originate from Africa. Only one in four diamond mines are regulated. So it is a huge wide gap, but we just don't even know where our diamonds are coming from.
Daymond John:
What is your history, your personal history, and tell us a little bit about your company.
Anna-Mieke Anderson:
My personal history, I feel has been a real gift in what I'm doing right now. I really connected with these children because I was these children. My mother died when I was a child and I was raised in foster care. So I personally knew what it was like to be orphaned. And I knew what it was like to be hungry. And that's what I always say when people are like, how do I start a social enterprise? A lot of people think you start with a business and then you try and shove the philanthropy part in. However, it's the other way around. You need to find a problem in the world that keeps you up at night. Something that you connect passionately with and then you start with the business. So that's kind of how I started. And I feel like my past has been a real gift in me pursuing this.
Daymond John:
I definitely appreciate you doing this. So tell us about the business. What is the business now?
Anna-Mieke Anderson:
Well, back in the day when I was like, okay, how do I sponsor more children? I was gonna sell a conflict-free fine jewelry. And then that would be as sustainable funding source to go back to these communities. First thing I found out was, well, there's no such thing as a conflict-free diamond if it comes from the earth. I mean, not even talking about the humanitarian, there are absolutely no environmental regulations from mining diamonds. I was very disappointed that I didn't know what to do. I couldn't by conscience, sell an earth-mined diamond, and then undo the damage that it was making. So that's when I turned to science and I started working with scientists to grow a diamond in a lab. To me that just seemed like a no-brainer. I knew NASA was creating diamond Hubble, cause it's hardest, heat resistant known substance to man. And obviously we've been using them in drill bits and medical appliances for a very long time. So the question was, how do we get diamond into gem quality? So that's where we started. When we first started, we could only grow diamonds to a quarter of a carat that were yellow in color. The technology was very much in its infancy, but now we're growing diamonds that are better than anything we'll get out of the earth. And they're up to about 40% less the price than earth-mined diamonds.
Daymond John:
So why don't we talk about your most interesting challenges right now.
Anna-Mieke Anderson:
The most interesting challenge right now, I would say, would be financial backing for a social enterprise. And it's not because of the state of the economy, it's more, investors caqn’t wrap their heads around me giving away some of the profits. I can't tell you how many times people are like, you're gonna grow what in a where and what are you doing with the profits? It's just a really hard concept. And what can I do to attract the right investors that will actually be like-minded to partner with me on my mission?
Daymond John:
You know, that's a great question. But the story needs to be really, really more wrapped up in tight where it's easily digestible and somebody can say easily, at the water cooler on Zoom, by the way, you see these they're X amount better than so forth and this helped save the world. You wanna give people soundbites out there and not make it too complicated for them. So it really is, trying to give people digestible information to share with others. And as well as of course, take back the feedback on why it's working or not working.
Anna-Mieke Anderson:
Exactly. We started in Portland, Oregon. And I feel like that was the perfect place to start a social enterprise because we are one of the greenest states in America. So we did get a quick and loyal following in Portland very quickly, which was great with the word by mouth of what we were doing.
Daymond John:
Are you working with any organizations right now?
Anna-Mieke Anderson:
Absolutely, we are B Corp Certified. They are a certification. You obviously know that it verifies your social and environmental standards. And I absolutely love the certification because it's so rigorous and such an in-depth study into my company before I can get that certification. And there's definitely a community of people that aren't doing jewelry, but have like-minded values of a social enterprise and making the world better through business. So we definitely connect with B Corp Certified businesses in Portland.
Daymond John:
So who are you trying to sell to right now? Are you trying to sell to the stores and outlets, the Zales of the world, or are you're trying to sell directly to the customer or both?
Anna-Mieke Anderson:
We are direct to the customer. I mean, I started this company over 16 years ago and I just didn't start a business. I had to start that whole industry and invent a new scientific product. So we spent a lot of time educating consumers that these diamonds are real. So now it's time to take it to the next level because the lab grown diamond industry has arrived and it's now widely accepted by consumers. So now we're branching out and we are evaluating our plans for MiaDonna.
Daymond John:
Yeah, because a lot of times you wanna do is, we always say OPM, other people's money or marketing or mind power or whatever the case is, how can you utilize and solve this problem that maybe some of the companies have that they wanna separate themselves. Jared wants to move above more in a different category, then Zales by saying they're socially responsible. I'm sure I'm not telling you anything new, but how can you package this thing and put a bow on it to say, here's your opportunity. You are going to be X amount of dollars less in this category. You are gonna deal with the socially conscious world right now. And you're actually going to make a change. And people are gonna talk about you more at the dinner table because of their involvement with you. Because every time they bought something, they became somebody fighting for change.
Anna-Mieke Anderson:
Exactly. This is the problem I'm coming against, is that these big businesses that could, like you said, have the pipeline, they don't align with my values. They're not ready yet to make that switch. And that's what I'm finding quite quite difficult.
Daymond John:
So I think you trying to walk in the door, maybe more challenging than trying to get a lot of these people and individuals that are truly inspired by what you're doing. I think, you have to start getting to them to knock on the doors. But again, you have to put together some small campaign and digestible words and information so when they knock on those doors and they say, what have you done for somebody else lately? Sooner or later, somebody's going to say, we need to do something. And that's how you usually get it because you're trying to create change by walking to the door yourself and thank God you doing that. But if you're running against a lot of walls, then you gotta get the customer do that. So I would just suggest that you really find really good talking points to give to people, to go out there and then share this information.
Anna-Mieke Anderson:
That's great advice. Great.
Daymond John:
So when you think about starting a social enterprise business beyond the passion, which is obviously there, what do you think is the most important thing that a person should consider?
Anna-Mieke Anderson:
Like I said before, you need to start with the philanthropy and then work your way into the business. I don't think it can work the other way. Your motivations are just, they're out of whack. Then the second step is really to define what type of social enterprise you wanna be. There's three main types. The first one is the giving back component, which is like Bamboosa and MiaDonna, where a portion of our profits go to support nonprofits that help the environment or societies. Then we have the employment opportunity business model, which employs people that typically have barriers to mainstream employment. Think like The Giving Keys or Goodwill, they do that. And then we have the innovative products, which is companies that actually reinvent or improve products that will help humanity and societies. And that's like MiaDonna with the lab grown diamonds, but the most successful social enterprises actually merge more than one of these business models together. That's how you'd be really successful. The next step is to prove it. Consumers will not take your claims… your environmental and humanitarian claims on face value. They really need you to prove it. And like I was mentioning B Corps before. I think that is the best way to prove your ethics, is to be third-party certified. So you can get away from these companies that are green washing and just throwing around all these buzz words like sustainability and transparency. They're throwing them around like confetti these days. So you just really need to stand out from the pack and make sure that you can prove your environmental and humanitarian standards.
Daymond John:
All right, so my last question is, I wanna ask about your relationship with Chase and what products do you use with Chase.
Anna-Mieke Anderson:
We switched over to Chase a few years ago and we should have done it a long time before that. The reason we changed was purely we'd outgrown the original bank that we were with. But there's a night and day difference, and I feel like the biggest difference is their business manager, the person that will look after you, they are a huge, his name's Aaron. And he's a huge, valuable member of MiaDonna. He reduces my workload. He just doesn't say, okay, call this number and get it worked out. He actually goes and does it for me, and then comes back to me. I mean, if anyone can reduce my workload, I love you. So that is amazing. And he's just really passionate about what we're doing and he generally wants to see us succeed. So like when COVID first hit, I mean, we were sitting there literally watching the numbers on our website dropping before our eyes and there's Aaron on the phone saying, okay, Anna-Mieke, here's the plan. This is what we're gonna do. So, it's great to have someone that is in my corner and just really appreciate what we're doing at MiaDonna and helping us succeed.
Daymond John:
Yeah, I love it. That's exactly what I'm talking about. It's a team sport when you're an entrepreneur. And if you got him over there fighting for you, he's probably also gonna be the one of the ones calling the big companies saying, why aren't you doing this? And you need people like that because you can't do it all. When we get into business, we can't be the manufacturer, the designer, the marketer, the website builder, the factory, that everything else, you need people like that. And that's exactly why I love working with Chase because now that's one less thing that I don't have to do because I have somebody who's helping me. And I know that you are experiencing that. I want you to just find also the people on the customers who are gonna do that for you as well, with the big boys and girls to bring attention to this amazing cause.
Anna-Mieke Anderson:
Perfect, that's great. Well, thank you so much Daymond. I really appreciate that.
Daymond John:
My pleasure.
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