Before founding any company, John Paul DeJoria had already worked as a door-to-door encyclopedia and shampoo salesman and been homeless on two separate occasions, at one point collecting soda cans for spare change. In 1980, at one of his lowest points, he was living out of his car on Los Angeles's Sunset Strip.
That year, he and hairdresser Paul Mitchell pooled just $700 to launch John Paul Mitchell Systems, a hair-care company they built door to door out of salons — the same way DeJoria had once sold shampoo to survive. In 1989, he co-founded a second company, Patrón Spirits, betting that a small ultra-premium tequila brand could compete with mass-market liquor.
John Paul Mitchell Systems grew into a hair-care business generating hundreds of millions in annual revenue, and Patrón became one of the world's best-selling ultra-premium tequilas before Bacardi bought it in 2018 for $5.1 billion. DeJoria's net worth is now estimated at over $3 billion.
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