At age 10, Diane Hendricks determined she needed to work within the enterprise world. It took years to attain that purpose, and many years for her profession to construct a fortune.
This week, Hendricks topped Forbes’ latest American’s Richest Self-Made Girls record for the seventh consecutive yr. Her estimated $20.9 billion internet price comes largely from her roofing supplies firm ABC Provide, which she co-founded together with her late husband Ken Hendricks in 1982.
Hendricks, now 77, and Ken began the corporate after realizing there have been valuable few one-stop retailers for roofing supplies made by completely different producers, she informed Forbes in 2022. Roofers typically purchased immediately from particular person producers, locking them into an ecosystem and permitting producers to drive up costs.
They took out a $900,000 mortgage from Beloit Financial savings Financial institution and pledged every part they owned to launch their firm and fill that hole, Hendricks mentioned.
Inside 5 years, ABC Provide had 50 shops, and it introduced in $1 billion in annual gross sales for the primary time in 1998, in response to the corporate’s web site.
The key to their success, Hendricks mentioned, was filling a niche available in the market — and elevating the usual of respect and professionalism in contracting.
“We felt like we [roofers] weren’t being treated with respect,” mentioned Hendricks. “That was part of our goal … to build a company that would [help] the guy in the pickup truck, and provide service and respect to [everyone].”
‘It is not an organization that is ever going to be on the market’
Even earlier than the Beloit, Wisconsin-based firm grew to 900-plus places, beginning the corporate felt like a dream, Hendricks mentioned.
Rising up on a farm in Osseo, Wisconsin, Hendricks dreamed of transferring to a giant metropolis — Minneapolis, particularly — the place she might put on blue fits and drive fancy automobiles, she mentioned.
Then, after getting pregnant at age 17, she completed her senior yr of highschool from house. As an alternative of going to school, she labored a wide range of jobs — even waitressing as a Playboy Bunny for a yr — whereas making an attempt to construct a profession in actual property.
“That’s when I really started to look at a career, a career I’d always dreamt of having, which was being in business,” mentioned Hendricks.
Hendricks owns 100% of her firm and has been its chair since 2007, in response to ABC Provide’s web site. She nonetheless enjoys going to work, and plans to cross the corporate all the way down to her youngsters, she informed Forbes in 2022.
“It’s not a company that’s ever going to be for sale,” mentioned Hendricks.
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