Sometimes the best business ideas are hereditary. And I don’t mean family businesses.
Every family has a secret sauce or skill: maybe a green thumb or a gift for gab. Turning the family tradition into a business may not be so easy — unless you’ve inherited the entrepreneurial gene. That’s because everyone is trying to sell the family recipe these days. Especially in Acadiana, where every last name seems to have a seasoning blend.
But not every spice entrepreneur knows krav maga, like Kisha Formica.
Spice
Kisha is maybe best known for Kitchen Bravo, her online cooking and recipe brand. It started as a hobby, a way to share her love of cooking with the world wide web. But it’s also become a vehicle to sell Gunpowder Spice, based on a blend developed by her grandfather, who was an avid game hunter.
Kisha Formica, it’s about the taste not just the heat – her spice blend, Gunpowder Spice, is developed from the blend her grandfather created to season game
The product has been a family staple for decades, but it was Kisha who brought it to market in 2022, packaging it in a bottle shaped like a shotgun shell and a pair of dueling pistols — all of it a nod to her grandfather’s love of hunting.
Kisha is from the Lafayette area and also teaches krav maga.
Skincare
If you pick up a product by Bea’s Bayou Skincare, you’re buying a little homage to Arielle Brown’s grandmother, Beatrice.
Beatrice was an herbalist and an entrepreneur in her own right, known for her legendary pies. When Arielle began making skin products, she turned to her grandmother’s gift for horticulture for inspiration. The result: a line of creams, serums and solutions made with Louisiana plants like saw palmetto, blue green algae, sassafras, nettle and sugar cane.
Arielle Brown, her Bea’s Bayou Skincare line inspired by her Lafayette roots and refined by cutting edge medical technology is finding its way to drugstore shelves across the country
Arielle’s flagship product — Good Biome Scalp Relief Solution — was developed as a salve for her own skin issues. The solution took off on Etsy and spurred Arielle to expand her product line. Arielle has turned the concept into a successfully formula, winning thousands in funding from pitch competitions like Fund Black Founders and the Essence and Aveeno Skin Health Pitch.
Arielle is also a social worker and real estate agent and grew up in Lafayette.
Kisha Formica, Arielle Brown, Out to Lunch at Tsunami Sushi
Out to Lunch Acadiana was recorded live over lunch at Tsunami Sushi in downtown Lafayette. Photos by Astor Morgan.
