Every day, a young entrepreneur dreams of overnight success—only to see that spark fade as quickly as it ignites. However, Courtney Adeleye is the exception. The founder of The Mane Choice, which she built into a $100 million brand in only six years, and now Watch and Sea Beauty, Courtney brings a singular perspective into the beauty space rooted in her background in nursing.
Her transition from healthcare to haircare may raise some eyebrows, but for Courtney, this is a natural evolution that married the science with an innately deep desire to help her community. The Detroit native approaches business in a manner as methodical as her former career in nursing, where precision and attention to detail aren’t just good practices; they’re necessities.
What separates Courtney in this highly saturated market of beauty isn’t just the success of her products but an unrelenting commitment to customer-first business practices. She has built her empire not on flashy marketing campaigns or quick-fix solutions-but in building very real communities around her brands. Under her lead, The Mane Choice became more than a hair care line; it was a movement that showed the world that Black-owned beauty brands could scale without sacrificing quality or community connection.
Now, with Watch and Sea Beauty, Courtney is pushing the boundaries of innovation in the beauty space, incorporating marine-based ingredients, and bringing her scientific background to the forefront of product development. And she’s doing this while actively working to lift others up. Whether through her mentorship, very transparent approach to business education, or, most recently, a move to one-on-one sessions with customers in changing retail landscapes, she proves the fact that true business success is solely about how one paves the way for others.
Her Agenda: You transitioned from nursing to entrepreneurship. What inspired that change?
Courtney Adeleye: One thing I always say about the nursing industry is that I think it’s a special, unique industry more than what people know. There are not too many things you can go to school for, and on day one, you’re in charge. When I say in charge, meaning there’s no room for training. You can’t make a mistake because you’re dealing with lives.
That responsibility is why we hear so many nurses become entrepreneurs. Coming from a science background and having that responsibility, knowing what it actually takes, I just wanted to do something where I could still utilize my degree. It’s just helping people because that’s one thing with nursing – it’s not just about what it looks like, you’re holistically helping people. Being a solution is something that a lot of nurses possess. I still felt it was something where I was utilizing my science degree. From a science perspective, it literally goes hand in hand with understanding hair. You’ve got to understand the body as a whole.
Her Agenda: The Mane Choice became a $100 million brand in just six years. What were some key factors in such rapid success?
Courtney Adeleye: I would definitely say just putting your customer first. I think that’s something that sounds minute and we hear it, but a lot of people don’t implement that. What that means to me is when it comes to customer service, ingredients, complaints, problems – if you put the customer first in every move you make, the customer will feel it. Once the customer feels it, you start to build a community.
When you build a community, that community actually helps to build your brand. You don’t have to go out looking at scaling. When you focus on the customer, they’re going to help you scale your business. The problem is sometimes we look to fix things internally and just don’t look at the basics. I’ve gone toe-to-toe with retailers, just keeping the consumer in mind. That’s something that has contributed to the success of what I’ve built historically—anything I touch becomes a community.
Her Agenda: What makes Watch and Sea Beauty different from other haircare brands?
Courtney Adeleye: With every brand out there, you bring yourself into the brand. My background is in science. I’m from Detroit, so we tend to like flashier things. I love metallic, I love color. At the same time, from a science perspective, I’m not going to play around when it comes to ingredients.
This time around, having time to really differentiate the brand, what’s different in the industry is doing research. That’s one reason we decided to go with a sea theme – not just because we want to say it’s cool, but having time to research more effective ingredients. We’ve used what we’ve used historically, but what are those other ingredients they may not necessarily use in this category that are just as effective? A lot of the ingredients I studied came from under the sea.
When you look at bioavailable minerals, these are in a form that the body can absorb more efficiently. I was excited to see what they could do and put them to the test. You want to see results quicker because the body can utilize them more efficiently, from magnesium to calcium. It’s about understanding the research that’s out there and how you can utilize it within your brand.
Her Agenda: You’ve secured space in Target. What are your thoughts on their recent decision to pull back on DEI efforts?
Courtney Adeleye: The feedback that’s consistent is anytime you have something in place that’s there to help an underserved community, and you take it away, that’s always a problem. But for me being a person in business, from a leadership perspective, you have the thought leadership from a business perspective, and then you have the community leadership – you’re stuck with facing some pretty tough decisions.
We literally heard about the DEI rollback at the same time. The only thing you can do as a brand owner or consumer is figure out what you’re going to do today moving forward. Sometimes, most people aren’t in a position to do anything if you’re already in store. Our products have been sold since last year. The main thing is figuring out what the future looks like so you can make a rational decision on how to move forward.
What was unfortunate about this, and I talked to my distributor about it – Target had and has so many things in place for minorities. The things they have in place, especially in this category, were outside of DEI. Any opportunities we had were outside of it. I’ve never received any perks from DEI when it came to Target. What I did receive is perks they have for small businesses. These are the things they should have highlighted.
In response, I’ve developed a plan—they roll it back, we roll something forward. For the month of February, anyone who makes a purchase of Watch and Sea at Target will have me sit down with them in small sessions to help figure things out because that’s what’s missing. That’s the only way I think we can truly get ahead.
Her Agenda: What’s next for Watch and Sea Beauty?
Courtney Adeleye: I would definitely say secure more retail space because accessibility is very important to us. And it’s not an easy process. People sometimes think because you’ve done it before, it’s easy. That is not the case. We have about 10 products now in our hair care line, but with my last brand, I left with over 100 SKUs. There’s a lot more to do.
I’m not the entrepreneur that likes to make anything. I like to make what my consumer is actually looking for. When she’s saying, ‘Courtney, I would love to see your spin on this,’ that’s what I create. So more products, more space, more accessibility is what you’ll see next.
Her Agenda: Do you have one piece of advice that you feel is very tried and true that you would offer?
Courtney Adeleye: Don’t let anything external or even internal hold you back—sometimes, we can be our [own] worst enemy. I think if you are given a gift of an idea, it’s something special and unique to you. I don’t think we do ourselves justice sitting on it. You should implement it even if it’s in your own way.
I’m a firm believer in putting things in three buckets: what I can do today, what I can do in a month, and what’s probably going to take me a few years. That bucket of what I can do today, if you keep sitting on that and not implementing anything there, then you can get in your own way.
Her Agenda: Lastly, do you have a saying or a mantra that is your go-to or that you live by?
Courtney Adeleye: One I’m known for is, ‘If you didn’t come to disrupt, don’t even bother showing up.’ What I mean is, it’s a very competitive industry. When you tell a person to buy my products and not someone else’s, you better give them a really good reason why they should. Just making something is not good enough.
You have to come and disrupt in any shape, form, or fashion. You have to figure out what that looks like to you. It doesn’t necessarily have to be complete innovation. It could be packaging, messaging – it could be anything, but you need to come and disrupt whatever category you’re trying to enter into.
[Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.]
