De´Vonna Pittman is an entrepreneur, author of three books, founder of the Minnesota Black Author Expo, a successful racial equity consultant and the founder and CEO of Nature’s Syrup Hair and Skin Products, which she started in her kitchen. The amazing thing is those are just a few of her accomplishments! 

De´Vonna is one of those people who make you think - “I want what she’s drinking!” She is a woman who is comfortable in her skin and knows who she is. She is fiercely hopeful, and she exudes a quiet confidence, though that wasn’t always the case. De´Vonna admits that when she was younger she wasn’t always confident enough to speak up or believe what she had to say would be valued.

De´Vonna isn’t afraid to look inward and back to understand her path forward. In 2012, she published her memoir, My Pretty and Its Ugly Truth, which made her want to become her authentic self. But she couldn’t be true to herself while her hair continued to be manipulated to meet a Western European beauty standard. Two years earlier, she noticed a lot of Black women cutting off their chemically treated and straightened hair and returning to their natural hair. De´Vonna was inspired and decided to cut her long flowing straight hair that she’d had since she was a young girl. Her decision to cut her hair was made long before any state signed a Crown Act (Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair) into law. 

After she cut off her hair, she found it hard to find products that gave her hair what it needed. She researched natural hair and the best way to care for it, watched a lot of YouTube videos and experimented with different natural ingredients. De´Vonna became a “kitchen scientist” and created products that gave her hair the moisture it needed. People around her noticed how great her hair looked and how she seemed to be embracing her thick hair the way it grew out of her scalp. De´Vonna gave the products she created as holiday gifts, and people wanted to buy them - they fell in love! She was then encouraged to sell her popular body butter at expos, vendor markets, and trade shows. That is how Nature’s Syrup Hair and Skin Products was born.

De´Vonna continued to work full time while spending her weekends researching, creating, testing, packaging and selling her products to existing and potential customers. She admits that it was a lot of hard work, but building Nature’s Syrup just felt right, and it felt good for her soul. Everything about scaling her company, from sourcing natural ingredients, branding to packaging and selling, she has orchestrated and facilitated.

The main ingredient used in her top selling body butters is sourced from Ghana, certified fair trade and supports women and children. In 2021, De’Vonna secured manufacturing for all of her products except the body butters, which she still makes and packages in her kitchen.

Last April, De’Vonna knew the time was right to quit traditional employment and commit herself to growing Nature’s Syrup full time.  Around the same time, she applied for and was accepted into the Goldman Sachs One Million Black Women In Business program, a cohort program that supports Black women entrepreneurs by providing a boot camp-like business strategy training. At the end of the program, De´Vonna will have the chance to present Nature’s Syrup to venture capitalists. She said working capital to grow her business is one of the biggest challenges. 

In growing Nature’s Syrup, De´Vonna wants to be a CEO who helps other entrepreneurs, especially Black women, start and build their businesses. She wants them to know that if they have a vision for their business, they have to do the work to bring that vision to life. Over the course of her career, she said it was hard to identify mentors, and because of that, if someone approaches her and asks for her help, she does her best to make time.

De´Vonna’s commitment to entrepreneurs was recently recognized by her appointment to a four-year term on the Minnesota Emerging Entrepreneur Board, which works to improve conditions for BIPOC entrepreneurs and job creation in communities of color and low income communities.

Many people have supported De´Vonna as she’s built Nature’s Syrup, but her family members are her biggest cheerleaders. Her husband is a constant source of support, and their daughters are enthusiastic product testers who provide invaluable feedback. De’Vonna said her grandmother is one of her biggest inspirations. Lucinda Bentley taught De´Vonna the basics of running a business very early. The lessons she learned from working in her grandmother’s candy store have stayed with her and are a constant reminder of how important customer service is.

De´Vonna is proving that creating products that help others embrace their natural beauty is good business. Hope, authenticity and hard work have helped grow Nature’s Syrup into a thriving and growing business!