How a teenager built a mission-driven lemonade brand from age four

Executive overview

Mikaila Ulmer started Me and the Bees Lemonade at age four after getting stung and researching why bees matter. A great-grandmother's flaxseed recipe sweetened with honey became the product. She scaled from a lemonade stand to 1,800 stores across 40 states — without ever losing the original mission.

Passion plus consistent action beats waiting for perfect resources.

Curiosity about a cause, combined with early sales practice, compounds into a real business faster than any plan.

From bee sting to bottled product

• Got stung twice in one week at age four; fear turned into research, then obsession.
• Found great-grandmother Helen's flaxseed lemonade recipe; sweetened it with honey.
• Sold out at every lemonade stand — ran out within hours no matter how much she made.
• At age eight, a pizza shop owner offered to carry it if she could bottle it.
• Started with one local Austin store, invoicing by hand, delivering by cart.
• Second store across the street asked to carry it unprompted — early validation signal.

Getting into stores

• Walked into a coffee shop as a customer and pitched the manager on the spot.
• Bravery came from excitement about the product, not from confidence about outcomes.
• Being told no was the worst realistic outcome; it stopped feeling catastrophic with practice.
• Learned a formal pitch approach after early informal approaches worked.
• Whole Foods came later; the family consulted local Austin entrepreneurs before committing.
• Key question for any big opportunity: do we have the capacity to fulfill it right now?

Managing fear

• Fear shows up as avoidance — putting off an action because the outcome is uncertain.
• Also appears as silence in meetings: not speaking because the idea might be wrong.
• Two antidotes: prepare as much as possible, and accept that learning something is always a gain.
• One practical trick: the right song before a high-stakes moment (her go-to: "WOW" by Beck).

Working with people who are older and more experienced

• First tested this teaching bee workshops to kids older than herself.
• Father's reframe: everyone has something to teach and something to learn.
• Adaptability is a learnable skill — exposure across different contexts builds it.
• Now equally comfortable with any age because curiosity about the other person replaces self-consciousness.

How her parents led and followed

• Never killed an idea — tested it instead ("Try selling it for a day, then we'll see").
• Taught financial literacy through the business: what's a budget, what does it cost to make a batch.
• Led her through frameworks but let her reach conclusions herself.
• As the business scaled, they stepped back — national sales brokers, regional reps, and a full ops team now run most of it.
• Her mom runs the company; her dad stays at Dell and handles finance for the business.

What's next

• Expand from 40 states to all 50, then international.
• Actively seeking investors to accelerate distribution.
• Long-term brand vision: be "the Hello Kitty of lemonade" — products beyond drinks (lip balms, skincare, snacks), all tied to the bee mission.
• Book (Be Fearless, Dream Like a Kid) extends her reach to audiences she can't visit in person.
• Free business-plan workbook to accompany the book, covering financial literacy through the lens of starting a business.

How to help

• Plant native flowers; avoid neonicotinoid pesticides and herbicides.
• Connect with local environmental groups working to restrict those chemicals.
• Buy local honey and local groceries where possible.
• Actively seek out and buy from Black-owned businesses — investment and consumer support both remain disproportionately low.