Beatrice Dixon recalls dealing with chronic bacterial vaginosis that reoccurs every month. During that period, she received medication prescribed by doctors, but they were not effective.
“I was in this perpetual state of taking medicine, going back to the doctor and getting another prescription,” Dixon told the Entrepreneur, “which then led to the doctor’s office of Google. Which is not the one that you want to be in. You don’t want to be on Google trying to figure out what’s going on with you.”
A Google search to find a potential cure for her condition did not yield many results. However, the answers she was desperately looking for came to her in a dream. According to Dixon, her grandmother, who she never met, appeared in her dream with a medical formula to cure her condition.
She started collecting the ingredients her grandmother gave her in her dream for preparation, leading to the birth of a startup called The Honey Pot. She was entirely cured of her disease on the fifth day of using the remedy.
She perfected the formula as time went on, and later shared her discovery with family and friends who helped her to raise money for her homemade product. She gave her product out to people for free in exchange for feedback on how it worked and didn’t work on them, but her circle of friends later declined her free product and offered to pay instead. This made Dixon realize that she could go commercial and generate some revenue.
However, she did not expand until she heard the news that the Bronner Brothers Beauty Show was coming to Atlanta, and decided to take her chance to expand her reach. According to her, she sold out all 600 bottles that she made.
“It felt like the best place for us to launch because there was nothing but humans with vaginas walking around,” Dixon told the Entrepreneur. “So we went to the hair show. We made 600 bottles. We sold 600 bottles. It was insane.”
Since then, the startup has experienced study growth. Although demand has increased, Dixon continues to make her products from her kitchen while working a full-time job at Whole Foods.
Today, her products are sold at Target. Prior to that, the company sold products in stores nationwide. It produced around 24,000 bottles and made nearly $250,000.