The Lice Diva Of New York City – Strange Success

Strange Success visits Adie Horowitz and her Licenders business, which brings in millions killing nits.

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Adie Horowitz wasn't supposed to be a successful entrepreneur.

"I'm an Orthodox Jewish woman from Brooklyn," the 60-year-old says. "In my community, it was expected that I would be a teacher or a secretary, or work for somebody else. It was not expected that I would grow a multimillion-dollar business."

She defied expectations and created a multimillion-dollar business.

Not just any business. A business that's weird, embarrassing and, well, kinda gross.

Horowitz owns Licenders, operating six lice removal locations in New York and Connecticut. She employs about 40 people and says she has more than a hundred contracts with schools.

Head lice affects an estimated 6 million to 12 million U.S. children a year. They only like human hair, Horowitz says, who adds they don't fly or jump, they crawl, so you need to have head-to-head, hair-to-hair contact (one reason more moms than dads end up catching lice from their kids). "It wraps its legs around the hair, then takes a little bite, and that's what's itchy, and lays an egg," says Horowitz. "If you miss one egg, the whole thing starts all over again."

First year revenues in 1997 were $25,000, and she reaped a profit of $4,000. "I ran out and bought myself a ring," she laughs. "It just enforced to me, you know what? I have to be able to hold my head up, I want to make money. This has nothing to do with lice, this is about business."

Horowitz originally called her business Lice Advice, but in 2004 she bought out a competitor and kept its name — Licenders. Last year revenues hit $1.7 million. She estimates that over the years she's put about $1 million into the company. Treatments cost between $125 and $215, with the more expensive treatment including an FDA-approved machine called an AirAlle which dehydrates and kills lice eggs. "Did you know that nits are actually 80 percent water?" Horowitz asks.

This unexpected entrepreneur says her "aha!" moment was when she realized she could afford to move the business out of her basement in Brooklyn, New York to a storefront in Manhattan. "If you can be successful in Manhattan, you can be successful anywhere," she says with a smile.

But the path to riches didn't happen without breaking a few lousy eggs. "The biggest mistake I made was hiring the wrong people."

Horowitz says she also wasted money opening stores in bad locations, cutting her losses and starting over. It was sometimes difficult at first to convince renters to lease her space when her business was head lice. "In my first salon, the landlord thought we were selling headlights."

At the same time, friends in her traditional Orthodox neighborhood couldn't understand what she was doing. "The men were very condescending about it, didn't take me seriously," she says. "And when it came to my lady friends, they kept saying to me, 'What are you so busy with?'"

However, the business continued to thrive. Three years ago she brought on partners with expertise in expansion and marketing, and they invested $600,000. "That was probably the best thing that I ever did," Horowitz says. The plan is to get to 11 locations by the end of 2021, bringing in $4 million a year, with $1 million in profit.

Through it all, this nice Jewish girl from Brooklyn kept her marriage together, and her husband even agreed to take out a second mortgage for her business. All of their children have grown up to be entrepreneurs who work for themselves. "I think that when you're driven, and you're so independent, you just end up working for yourself, because it's very hard to take orders from other people."

Horowitz couldn't be prouder of what she's accomplished. "It wasn't sexy, and people were saying to me, 'Oh, so you're a lice lady. Oh, you're a nit lady.' I said, 'No, I'm the lice diva.'"

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Killing her kid's lice led this mom to start a business bringing in millions | CNBC Make It.