Sometimes when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. When Mikaila Ulmer 27C got lemons — two unexpected honeybee stings in a week at the age of 4 — she turned the scary ordeal into a national lemonade brand, a nonprofit foundation and a movement to save her newfound flying friends. 

“My immediate reaction was to be terrified by the bees,” Ulmer says. “But my parents encouraged me to learn about them instead of staying afraid, taking me to our local library where I read picture books, watched videos — one set to the classical song ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ — and became completely fascinated by them. Obsessed, even. I also learned how essential honeybees were to our food system and that they were in trouble.” 

Ulmer knew she had to help. 

That same summer in 2009, she started a front-yard stand selling lemonade, sweetened with honey and made with her Great Granny Helen’s 1940s flaxseed recipe. A portion of the profits went to bee conservation. The buzz was good — people loved the drink and her story. She took the stand on the road, spreading her wings by selling lemonade at local fairs in her hometown of Austin, Texas. “That’s how Me & the Bees Lemonade was born,” she says. 

Ulmer wanted her business — and her urgent mission to save the bees — to take flight, but the lemonade stand approach limited her. The turning point came two years later when a local pizza shop owner, impressed by Ulmer’s product and her storytelling, told her that if she could bottle the lemonade, he’d carry it. With help from her parents, who supported her ideas wholly “right from the start,” she found a commercial kitchen used by a salad dressing company that could bottle the drink. “I started small, personally delivering cases to local shops,” Ulmer says. “Then a Whole Foods store picked us up for Pollinator Week. It did so well, it turned into a permanent placement. Everything grew from there.” 

In 2015, she pitched her business on ABC’s Shark Tank and landed a $60,000 investment from Daymond John. Ten years later, Me & the Bees is stocked in more than 600 stores nationwide, including Whole Foods, Target and H-E-B. 

But for Ulmer, the business was always about combining purpose with profit. In 2016, she founded the Healthy Hive Foundation, which focuses on protecting all bees — especially wild and native species most at risk. 

“The mission has evolved greatly over time,” she says. “In addition to saving the bees and making great-tasting lemonade at Me & The Bees, Healthy Hive helps us protect pollinators through research, education and active habitat protection.” 

Now 20, Ulmer is a rising fourth-year student at Emory, studying economics and quantitative sciences as a Woodruff Scholar, the university’s highest merit-based honors program. 

She credits her studies with helping her see both her business and the broader economy through a new lens. 

“I always wanted to invest in companies like mine — minority-owned, mission-driven, youth-led,” she says. “Economics and QSS give me the analytical tools to do that. I’ve gone from thinking like a founder to also thinking like an investor.”

She’s also a Robson Fellow at Emory’s Goizueta Business School, a program for students exploring public policy, macroeconomics and social impact. 

“Those conversations have been transformational,” she says. “I’m excited to be mentored by professors like Jeff Rosensweig and surrounded by other students with big ideas.” 

Managing school and her business is no small feat. “I’ve had to get really good with my calendar, lean on my team and say no to things I can’t take on,” she says. “Luckily, it’s truly a family-run company, which comes with challenges but also trust, shared values and a lot of heart. It makes it easier for me to manage from afar.” 

During the school year, she stays laser-focused on her classes and uses only school breaks to dig into the business. Sometimes, she even finds synergy between the two — like using beverage market data for QSS class projects. 

Ulmer’s entrepreneurial impact has earned national acclaim. In 2016, she introduced President Barack Obama at the United State of Women Summit. A year later, she was named one of Time Magazine’s 30 Most Influential Teens. In 2020, she authored “Bee Fearless: Dream Like a Kid,” a business memoir designed to inspire young changemakers. 

But her purpose remains rooted in something simple: doing good. 

“Our generation sees so many problems that it’s easy to feel paralyzed,” she says. “But passion grows as you act. Start small — just one thing you care about — and the impact builds. You’ll grow with it.” 

Her mantra? Dream like a kid, think like a CEO. “Kids don’t see limitations — they just see what could be,” the young entrepreneur says. “If you pair that kind of dreaming with research, action and a strong community, there’s no limit to what you can create.” 

Looking ahead, Ulmer plans to continue digging deep into her studies at Emory, possibly pursue graduate school and ultimately enter the world of private equity or venture capital — becoming the kind of investor she once needed to get her big idea off the ground. 

“There’s still so much to learn,” she says, “and I want to stay curious no matter what I do.” 

Ulmer has already built a buzz with her business acumen. Now, she’s working toward a future where she can help others’ ideas take flight. 

Story by Roger Slavens. Design by Elizabeth Hautau Karp.