Diishan Imira

Diishan Imira is the founder and CEO of Mayvenn, a technology company that re-shapes how sale retail products are distributed. Graduating from Georgia State’s business school in 2010, Imira has a vast background in international trade, logistics, and investment. Straight out of college, Imira lived in China for two years and built a successful import/export company, running it profitably for about four years. Imira has lived and worked in several countries, including China, France, Brazil, and Ethiopia. Imira also speaks conversational Mandarin. Imira founded Mayvenn in 2012 with co-founder Taylor Wang. The company empowers the 95 percent of African American salons that do not retail products. Their commerce solution eliminates a salon’s inventory cost and opens a new revenue stream for their business. In April 2013, Mayvenn was accepted into the 500 Startups accelerator program. When they got to the program, other entrepreneurs were confused — questioning the probable success of the startup in Silicon Valley. It was unlike anything they had seen before. But that was only half the battle for the startup geared predominantly towards black consumers. During the summer of 2013, Imira and Wang stayed in Mountain View, Calif. where they immersed themselves into the cut-throat culture of the Valley and introduced their product to several investors. By August, they had raised $750,000 in investment funding and in October 2013, Mayvenn was officially launched. As of 2015, the company had raised $3 million in venture capital funding and has a network of over 25,000 stylists. With the continued mission to involve hair stylists in the process of buying and selling products, Imira and Wang’s goal is to eventually expand Mayvenn into an online platform that sells not only hair extensions but other hair care products, as well.