All The Other MLMs That The LuLaRoe Family Has Started
Multi-level marketing companies, also known as MLMs, are often a family affair, with women signing up to become retailers and recruit additional retailers under them — sometimes even getting family members involved with their little (or big) home business. In fact, LuLaRoe's founders and their realtives are experts at turning MLMs into a family affair.
The hit Amazon Prime docuseries "LuLaRich" tells the story of Mark and DeAnne Stidham and how they founded LuLaRoe, saw its quick success, and brought their own family members into the business and the corporate office. With 14 adult children between them in their blended family of biological and adopted kids, according to Women's Health, there were a lot of jobs to hand out.
But, apparently, some of their family members learned quickly because they eventually went on to start their own separate MLMs, making the Stidhams one big MLM family, indeed.
Clothing is the name of the game for LuLaRoe family MLMs
LuLaRoe became a household name by selling colorful and unique buttery-soft leggings that one retailer called "magic leggings" in Amazon's "LuLaRich" docuseries. DeAnne Stidham began her business by selling maxi skirts out of the trunk of her car and soon recruited other women to do the same under her while switching her main inventory to leggings. Those women, in turn, recruited other women, and the company grew astronomically in just a few short years, with nearly 100,000 retailers at one point and an inventory full of leggings, leggings, and more (sometimes smelly) leggings.
Not long after LuLaRoe became incorporated in 2013, DeAnne's daughter, Nicole, founded her own buttery-soft clothing company for children, DotDot Smile, and LuLaRoe even sold that line for a while, keeping it all in the family — as the Stidhams tend to do. DeAnne even has a twin sister, Diane, who opened up her own leggings company, Honey & Lace, while DeAnne's niece Buffy Bandley sold leggings under the brand name Agnes & Dora (via CBS News).
The LuLaRoe family tries to explain its connection to other MLMs
Apparently, it's not unusual for multiple members of the same family to own various MLMs, according to William Keep, the dean of the College of New Jersey's School of Business. "Like many industries, the MLM industry is fairly incestual," he told CBS. "Family members often get involved in the same MLM, and there are numerous examples of founders or high-level distributors in one MLM going on to create another. That family members would own multiple MLMs is not surprising at all."
LuLaRoe no longer sells products from its other family companies, and the Stidhams have issued a statement explaining why. "Ultimately, the decision was made that our business was best served by Independent Fashion Retailers selling LuLaRoe products exclusively," it said.
The Stidhams — who are the defendants in various lawsuits, one of which was settled with the state of Washington in February 2021 after they were accused of running a pyramid scheme (via BuzzFeed) — also explained their keeping-it-in-the-family mentality in another official company statement. "DeAnne and her husband, Mark Stidham (LuLaRoe's CEO), are part of an extended family with a long tradition of entrepreneurship," it said.