Hello, today's Thursday, which means we're bringing you Girls at Startup, a weekly series where we spill the tea on how to create a seven-figure side hustle because no one saves their way to well. You're joined today by Sim, a seven-figure business owner, and with me is Maya, a solopreneur.
Hello, Maya. We've never done an episode like this before, so I'm really excited because we are going to talk about the incredible journey of the richest self-made woman in the US, not just about her, but exactly how she made her money, her history, her journey, her triumphs, the death of her husband, the divorce of another, the self-made billionaire behind America's largest roofing distribution company, Diane Hendricks.
So how did this farm girl from Wisconsin rise the top of the business world? Well, Sim. Let's let me tell you. So, Sim, Diane, she was born in 1947. So that makes her 77 now. Like you mentioned, she grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin.
She had a modest upbringing, traditional, family, home and dynamic. She fell pregnant with her first child at 17. She has seven kids. Was that old for her time? No, 1947. No. No. So Grandma had my mum in her 20s. Yeah, I think 17 she would have, I was gonna say she would have been in high school.
Do you think she was in high school? No, she was in high school because she graduated from Osayo Fairchild High School in 1965. Okay. Osayo Fairchild, I thought that was an odd name. Kind of sounds like a cult, doesn't it? It does. It does. It's exactly my thinking. And she worked as a playboy bunny. Yeah. Isn't it? I think that's a hustler. That is the sign of someone that is going to put in the work.
When you have a child to feed, when you have bills to pay, or what else did woman in that time do could do to make money? You weren't even allowed to go to university. Yeah, that's true. There's so much judgment. Sorry, she literally could not get a law degree she wasn't allowed to. Yeah. I just love learning about people's stories that have just these kinds of quirks.
You know, I guess it's character. It's not, you know, traditional buildings. They're just like us. Just like us. So she had her first child at 17. She was a Playboy bunny. And in 1975, she met her husband, Ken Hendricks. She did
get divorced, she was married and then divorced before she met her second husband, Ken Hendrix. I see. And she, so in 1975, so she would have been 28 when she met Ken. So it's like if I met my billionaire husband, well, not billionaire at the time, but if I met someone next year, oh my God, no, if I met someone in three weeks,
No, but before she met her husband, Ken, she was married before. Yes. And had a child. And had a child. And with you. Yes. And so in 1975, she met Ken Hendrix, who later became her husband. He was a roofer and a high school dropout.
And they married and became business partners. So in 1982, they got a loan out to establish their business, ABC Supply. Very, very interesting. And so she does this, she meets her love of her life, same time around, her second husband, and she's like, okay,
Like, let's do this. Like clearly that she had like hustle mentality in her because I can't imagine that like, guys, it's the 80s or the 70s. Like people are not thinking let's start companies together. People are not letting and literally not letting because it wasn't something you could let. It was only a year ago in 1974, the year before she met him, that woman were allowed to get credit cards.
That's crazy. Like we have landed on the moon at this point, but women have not been given credit cards. And so she's very new and they're very new to this idea of like, they probably would have gone to these contracts that they were signing or banks and people probably were like, oh, it's so sweet.
for you to have your wife. So in the 80s, Ken was running a successful roofing company, but he faced a lot of challenges with his wife. There were contractors that had difficulty sourcing the materials reliably. And so it kind of gave him this idea of maybe
They need to have a company called ABC Supply. That was the source of these. Rather than just giving the labor, the people to build the roofs, why don't we also be the people that bring the material or sell the material to all the builders in our neighborhood and be like, oh, you guys need like, I don't know, concrete. We have that. Do you have concrete on your roof? I don't know. I'm Timba.
Nails, look, I'm not that picky. And also in India, it's concrete. Oh, okay, well then I'll just shut up. Okay, so. So Diane and Ken recognize a few things, but one was that if they were streamlining this process, they could definitely change up the industry. It wasn't about selling roofing materials. They also wanted to offer good services, become trusted partners,
And because they did not come from a lot of money like my said they started off with lines of credit as loans and then they started taking out business loans and personal loans and it was basically a high state gamble to try to build this but it was the birth of the company. They were like let's just get it started and a few years they had made it like a good.
What we call in the business world like a mum and dad company, like something sweet and modest and does the job and pays the bills. But up to this point, they were still just a modest company. Okay. So they weren't anything big. They weren't definitely in the billions there. They were not billionaires. No. No. So they were starting out. They maybe had a nice home and car. Okay. And a established small business. Yes. Okay.
And that leaves me to 2007, where her husband, Ken, unfortunately died. Yeah. Like I was reading this and I was like, oh, so he died falling off a roof. That's he was a roofer. Yeah. So it was a tragic accident that left Diane clearly heartbroken and shaken up. Sorry.
I'm just really empathetic. So this left iron heartbroken and also heavily impacted the business. So it kind of derailed the company and many believed that ABC supply might not survive without Ken's leadership.
Like some mentioned, this was late 70s, 80s, so women weren't seen as, you know, kind of working and then even more so being bosses of companies and then even more a business that is
heavily, heavily male dominated. And it's worth mentioning that even though this happened in 2007, like these are still, it's not like everyone in that company in 2007 was like a brand new young person that just graduated. It was like the same ideas and the same beliefs like carry through in a company's culture, even when the times start changing. Yeah. Well, even now in 2024, they're still as like, the words not stigma, but
just women being in traits. Oh my god, yeah. Like, there are still issues where women are facing, you know, misogyny and sexism and all of that kind of stuff. So I can only imagine what it must have felt like for her, how she started off with her husband and then early 2000, suddenly dying when they're creating a business.
And so this led to Diane stepping up as CEO. This was quite a shock for people. They were skeptical about it because she was a woman and they didn't know whether or not she could effectively lead the company. Many viewed her primarily as Ken's partner rather than a business leader in her own right.
Boils my blind. Yeah. So she's worse nightmare. She's not only lost her husband, critically, she's stepping up. Off a roof. Off a roof. She's stepping up to take control of the business that she started with him. And people are like, no, you can't do it because you're a woman. Are you sure that you're in the right?
state of mind, she's not too frail. Yeah, usually you don't want like another male business partner or something. Well, you find a good CEO to step in for you. Yes. So internally, Diane had to win over some of the company's senior leadership and employees to ensure them that she was capable of steering the ship.
So she had to do groundwork, had to convince them that she was capable of doing this. And then externally, industry insiders and competitors watched closely to see if ABC supply would falter under her leadership. Everyone was like, I cannot wait for this coming to falls. I can buy it for like half the price. Yeah, they were kind of preying on who are down for.
There's some haters out there. There's some haters. And then we'll accept every day. And she's like, I will not let the haters win. No, she's like, my husband died. I've got kids. I've got this business. What else am I meant to do? So one of the most significant strategic moves Diane made as CEO was the acquisition of bread co-supply in 2010. So three years after her husband, Ken's passing,
This was a game changer deal that doubled ABC's supply size and cemented its position as the largest roofing supply company in the US. Diane's decision to make such a massive acquisition just a few years after Ken's passing and in the midst of a challenging economy as well.
Yeah, it was 2008. Yeah. So this was a really big bold move. It was a statement to the industry and not only was ABC supply not faltering under her leadership, but it was expanding aggressively. And that is on Diane. And that is on Diane. And that is on women in business. And that is on women CEOs.
What is your favorite position? CEO? The original girl boss. I love that. I don't think I'm going to like, ever complain about like a bad workday. Or imagine losing the love of your life. The entire industry is hoping for your downfall. Yeah. Telling you that you can't do it because you're a female.
You probably have no female friends in the office because it's a construction company. And there's so much like, well, there's just so many barriers to entry, misogyny. And you're a mum as well. And on top of all of that, when you do well, people are like, well, she was just given the company because he like, he made the mistake of like giving her half of it when they started. Yeah.
So you might be listening and going, okay, that sounds like quite the journey, but how did she turn it from, you know, a somewhat successful business to a business with billions of dollars? Because, you know, now it has annual revenue exceeding 15 billion per year. When we were doing this, I was this research, I was like, she's virtually Beyonce. Is she? I know B's B, my girl B. I know she's a billionaire Beyonce.
Oh, no. I thought she was a billionaire. 540 million, according to Forbes. Well, Diane has 21.9 billion. So the next segment of this series with Diane is understanding how she went from a quite successful business to turning into a business that has billions of dollars in revenue. Like, what's the secret source? Because a lot of people can have
A good business that maybe has multiple stores, but how do you scale that to be billions and be the largest roofing supplier in the US? After they acquired Bradco, Bradco was a huge acquisition. Like Maya said, it was during a time when people were quite skeptical when the market was low.
But what it did is it allowed them to have, it's like a business jargon term, but it means economies is scale. And it's just another way of saying that now that they have this entire other construction company under them, is a
can negotiate better terms because they are buying way more product. And they can go, hey, actually, we're doubling how much cement we need or how much iron we need or steel we need. So give them to us at a lower rate. We're buying lots more from you, more competitive pricing to contractors. Hey, we're kind of the people that are going to do this. So if you don't do it from us, you'll probably do it from another one of our branches. So it's going to be us in the end. So we're going to lower that down and then obviously increasing their possibilities.
There were two things that I found that they did really well that kind of attributed to their success of going from like a hundred million dollar company to a billion dollar company. And the first was just doubling down on expansion and market dominance by buying up lots of companies. Dominance being the keyword. Dominance being the keyword. Yes.
So when you are a company and you're doing really well and you decide, hey, I'm a really good tutoring company, you can either grow by creating new branches in lots of different cities and growing that way, or you can just buy up every single tutoring company nearby you and then rebrand them under your name. And that's another way of doing it a lot faster.
So you're able to expand your reach, you're able to get more people, and rather than competing with the other people in your industry, you're just absorbing them into your mothership. They become one of us. And so...
In 2008, when everyone was scared because the housing market was crashing, I was not the Lehman Brothers, but the Lehman Brothers had given too many loans that were bad loans, people defolded on them, they couldn't pay their mortgages back.
No one really saw that as like housing is good. Housing was a horrible place. People lost like 20 to 30% of their homes value. So no one was thinking roofing. Let's repair our houses. No. And what Diane did in that time, which I think really set her apart is she doubled down into buying even more roofing companies because they were all really weak right now. Cheaper.
It was on sale. She saw the opportunity. She saw, OK, crisis on sale.
Literally. Yeah, I can take the little few. Oh, I'm sorry to hear worse profits in years. Let me say, but hand it over. Hand it over. Go take your retirement. Yeah. Go enjoy. You deserve a break. It's only going to get worse from here. Yeah. So she brought up a lot of companies, numerous regional and national competitors, which further consolidated its dominance in the roofing space.
That was one huge step, like absolutely humongous. That's what it takes to go from a hundred million dollar company to a billion dollar company. Second thing, there's only so many roofs, correct? There's only so many people that need to repair their roof. And you also only repair a roof, I don't know, like every 20 years. Every 20 years, yes. We just got our roof done and it was
Yeah, I think over 20 years, it cost under 20 grand, I think between 15 and 18. That's why I answer billion it. Yeah, that's just for one roof. So yes, there was roofing and yes, that brought them clearly a lot of money. But what they did, and this is what businesses do again to go from the hundred million to the billion range, is they started entering new segments of the building industry.
So they moved into things like windows, exterior building products, like sliding doors, like they pivoted away from just being within roofing, but they stayed within building. Right. So they expanded the product range. So rather than going, oh, we're just going to be the absolute best in one thing. Once they realized they had like completely covered that ground, the only other way to grow was onto the next product.
Since Diane has become CEO, AB Supply has ranked as one of the largest private companies in the US with annual revenue exceeding $15 billion. It has made her the richest woman in the US self-made $21.9 billion. This is her real-time net worth in 2024.
And the fact that her wealth every year, except for 2017, has gone up year by year, I mean, from 2023 to 2024, her wealth went up from 13 billion to 21 billion now. So let's see 7 billion in a year.
Holy cow! I am so aggressively impressed, but I will say, obviously when it comes to someone that has grown their wealth, what they do with their money is something that we also like to cover, because it's important. You build your wealth, you are extremely wealthy, where have you put it? Forbes has a score where they give on a scale of one to five,
how well or how poorly someone has donated. And a number one means they have given away less than 1% of their wealth. And a number five is someone that has given away more than 20% of their wealth. So people like Warren Buffett, Ted Turner, pentagonia. Yes. Yeah.
Number four, someone that's given away 10 to 20% of their wealth, people like Bill Gates, former New York City mayor, and someone that has given away 1 to 4% of their wealth includes Oprah Winfrey, and someone that has given away less than 1% of their wealth.
includes Jeff Bezos and sadly Diane Hendricks. She has not been much of a philanthropist. And if anything, I hope she doesn't mind me saying this, she has had some controversies. She did not pay state income tax in four of the five years from 2010 to 2014. Dan, I think we
could have maybe looked at that. I think definitely. There's no could be maybe. It's a definitely. And she has definitely been criticized for her political donations. She gave $500,000 to a Wisconsin governor to avoid recall. She was the biggest donor of him that year. She's given a million dollars to the Freedom Partners Action Fund, a
pro-Hubblekin fund. She donated $2 million in 2015 and 2016 for that. And she gave a total contribution of $1.1 million to Donald Trump's 2020 presidential campaign. And $5 million to the Super PAC make America greater guergan ink in 2013.
So her political agenda is not quite an alignment with my own eyes. No, but I'm going to try and be unbiased here and say that what she's achieved in her career is incredible. But what this tells me is we need more women to grow their wealth so we can have maybe more diverse political donations and tax options available.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. So if you enjoyed this episode, let us know. We can do more people on the Forbes list and be diving in how they made their wealth, where they put their money, and maybe offering some other suggestions. Yeah. That sounds good. That's us. Yeah. That's us. See you soon, Maya. Can I keep there? Bye.
And as always, to finish off with the disclaimer. Girls That Invest does not provide personalized investing advice for your individual needs. We are not financial advisors. The advice from Girls That Invest exists for educational purposes only and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. Advice from Girls That Invest is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances or as you research and please do your due diligence.
