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At 11, she's an entrepreneur

By Carrie Mason-Draffen | carrie.mason-draffen@newsday.com

7:32 AM EDT, July 26, 2007

Not many entrepreneurs are told to do their homework before they devote time to their business.

But that's the rule laid down by the parents of Leanna Archer, who at the age of 11 owns Leanna's Inc., a Central Islip mail-order and on-line business that sells hair-care products.

Leanna is the persistent entrepreneur, according to her dad, Gregory. Since the age of eight she had bugged her parents about selling a hair-care dressing her mother, Maritza, mixes up using such ingredients as almond and avocado oils. Leanna felt her long tresses had benefited from her great grandmother's recipe for hair oil and conditioners, and that others might, too.

But her parents considered her interest a whim.

"We didn't take her seriously," Gregory Archer says. "She was only eight at the time."

The answer was "no" for two years. But Leanna didn't give up, he says. "She kept talking about it \[so much\] that we had to give it a try."

So she began selling the products to classmates. And her mother started selling them at work. They say the products work on any kind of hair.

After people started asking about a website, Gregory Archer responded by setting up one. And he helped his daughter register the business and open a corporate bank account.

These days when the CEO, who is an honor student, comes come from school, she does her homework and then turns her attention to filling customers' orders by packing bottles and jars into boxes.

The company sells to individuals and to salons and averages 20 orders a day, Gregory Archer says.

Leanna says she wants to build on her experience by becoming a motivational speaker for kids. This Sunday she will speak to a youth forum featuring young entrepreneurs at the African American Museum in Philadelphia.

"I want to inspire other kids to go into business," she says. "There could be a whole bunch of new ideas that nobody knows about." And she says, "If their parents help them out like my parents did, we could find great new things."

Web site: http://www.leannashair.com/