Co-founder Monica Williams ’91 has gone from informally canvassing shoppers at the mall to earning national distribution through Ulta Beauty for her Scarlet by RedDrop products.
Launching Pad
Co-founder Monica Williams ’91 has seen her period-care products designed specifically for tweens take off.
It’s been a wild twelve months for Monica Williams ’91. Her four-year-old business, RedDrop, won the $1 million grand prize at the fourth annual Black Ambition Demo Day in Atlanta in November 2024. She then rebranded the business this past August, became a finalist for the 2025 Atlanta Startup Awards, was named one of Pepperdine Graziadio Business School’s Most Fundable Companies of 2025, and expanded into Ulta Beauty supply stores nationwide. Through it all, Williams has continued to watch with satisfaction as her product becomes an increasingly valuable ally to young girls on the precipice of puberty – commonly known as “tweens.”
Scarlet by RedDrop, the new name of the company Williams founded with her daughter, Dana Roberts, was created on the idea to help girls navigate their first periods with confidence. By creating the first period-care products designed specifically for tween bodies and providing education to make periods less scary, Scarlet by RedDrop has earned plenty of attention – and backing – in the business community.
“There are a lot of people talking about this thing,” Williams told Rachel Wallace in Entrepreneur. “[W]e’ve been able to start conversations and community around normalizing and desexualizing periods. I honestly attribute our growth to the fact that for generations we as women have figured it out with subpar products, or even great products that just didn’t fit well for young girls.”
Williams, who graduated from Howard University before earning her M.D., is also glad to strike a chord with investors who have historically been reluctant to fund Black-owned startups. In 2023, Black-founded startups received less than 0.5 percent of the $140 billion in venture capital invested into American startups, according to data firm Crunchbase. That was the purpose of the Black Ambition Demo Day in Atlanta, established by entertainer and entrepreneur Pharrell Williams (no relation to Monica).
“It’s like, girls are worth it,” Monica Williams told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It’s a validation of us and our ability to run this company, but … the purpose is really to provide a better experience for girls.”