Can you really turn a $750 Yellow Pages ad into a large-scale global company?

According to Derrick Porter, executive chair of Clean Simple Eats and Founder and former CEO of Beauty Industry Group, you can. He has spent over two decades building businesses from the ground up. 

But long before any of that started, Derrick was a young entrepreneur painting curbs with spray paint and stencils. He was learning the value of hustle, one $5 job at a time.

Fast forward to today, Beauty Industry Group is recognized as the world’s largest hair extension company, with operations spanning several countries. And Clean Simple Eats is recognized as one of the most well-known supplement companies in the nation.

But the story of how Derrick got there is anything but a straight line.

An Unlikely Start

Derrick didn’t grow up talking about college. He grew up talking about business. As a kid in Utah, he spent his free time running a curb-painting operation with a Huffy bike and a Radio Flyer wagon. 

Later, after returning home from serving an LDS mission in Nashville, his dad presented him with an opportunity: 10,000 square feet of warehouse space to use, as long as he paid for it.

He took that deal, and that space became Porter Brown Distribution, a third-party logistics business. 

That company landed Overstock.com as a client and grew into a multi-state operation. But the margins were thin and the hours were brutal: open 364 days a year, with Black Friday as the only day off.

Then, in 2006, a small husband-and-wife company asked Derrick’s business to warehouse their hair extension products. Derrick had never heard of them. But watching that business up close, he saw an opportunity for something better than he currently had. 

So, he left Porter Brown Distribution to become a partner in the hair extension company. That company would eventually grow to become Beauty Industry Group.

Reflecting on the first day in his new venture, Derrick said, “The phone didn’t ring all day. I went home that night, and I told my wife, ‘I don’t know what we are thinking… I don’t know how we’re going to make this happen.” 

His answer, and the answer that carried the business for the next 20 years, came down to two words from his business partner: “Just grow.”

Creating Thoughtful Frameworks

Beauty Industry Group didn’t scale by accident. Derrick credits much of the company’s growth to two business school frameworks he leaned on before ever hiring a single employee.

  1. Porter’s Five Forces, used to evaluate whether an industry can support real scale.
  2. VRIO, a framework for assessing whether a product is valuable, rare, hard to imitate, and backed by the right team.

Once Derrick had those boxes checked, everything came down to people. “You just simply hire the right people at the right place at the right time, and your job is to let them be able to break free,” he said.

That philosophy extended to his business culture. At Beauty Industry Group, there were no “employees”; only team members. Org charts weren’t built top-down; they were built with the CEO in the center and functions built around them. 

Derrick described this as an “intangible value chain,” where the right leadership actions drive employee commitment. Which then drives customer experience, which drives business value.

In 2015, Derrick took that philosophy even further, sitting down with as many Utah CEOs as he could find to learn from their experience. He compiled their insights into a single framework document.

He turned that into a handbook and later handed it to every new hire he had. It’s a homegrown playbook built from the state’s most successful business minds, giving new hires every resource they could need to succeed.

The Hard Days Behind the Headlines

However, growth wasn’t linear, and Derrick doesn’t pretend it was. 

In the company’s early days, he sold used cars on nights and weekends just to make ends meet. He and his wife tried and failed at side businesses, while the hair extension business slowly found its footing.

Years later, during COVID, Derrick faced a different kind of challenge. With salons shutting down worldwide and thousands of jobs on the line, he found himself working 18-20-hour days. 

After about a year and a half, he started to recognize signs of depression creeping in. “I hadn’t been inspired in a really long time,” he said. 

The fix wasn’t complicated, but it required intention. He needed the simple things: to get outside, watch a favorite movie, spend time with family.

Those small things are the ones that helped restore the mindset he needed to keep leading.

A Surprising New Chapter

Later, in late 2023, after 20 years at the helm of Beauty Industry Group, Derrick and his wife decided it was time for him to step back as CEO. 

Then, just days after announcing his transition plan, he received an unexpected invitation: a request from the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, asking if he would consider taking on the role of writer and presenter for Music and the Spoken Word — the world’s longest continuously running network broadcast, airing weekly in more than 60 countries to over 12 million listeners.

After some thought, Derrick said yes. And he has spent the last two years writing and presenting the broadcast’s weekly message. The experience has taken him around the world, including a recent three-week trip through South Africa and surrounding countries. 

That travel experience shaped how he thinks about leadership, gratitude, and what matters most. 

“Sometimes those that have the least really have the most,” he reflected, “because they recognize what matters most. And what matters most is people.”

Lessons for Entrepreneurs

Looking back on his path from painting curbs to leading as a global CEO, Derrick shared what’s made the biggest difference along the way:

  • Predefine what success looks like. Before starting something new, decide what winning actually means to you. It makes all the difference.
  • Hire people who are better than you. Find people far more talented and specialized than yourself, then get out of their way and let them work.
  • Use frameworks to remove guesswork. Tools like Porter’s Five Forces and VRIO helped Derrick evaluate opportunities with more clarity and less second-guessing.
  • Treat people like coworkers, not subordinates. Building a culture where no one “works for” anyone helps drive commitment and brings results.
  • Protect your own inspiration. Burnout doesn’t announce itself. Derrick learned that briefly stepping away from the desk was essential to leading well.

Looking Ahead

These days, Derrick’s primary focus is with Music and the Spoken Word. He plans to hold that role for roughly the next ten years. 

Alongside that work, he continues to serve as executive chair of Clean Simple Eats, sits on the board of World Trade Center Utah, and stays engaged in mentoring the next generation of entrepreneurs.

Above all, Derrick says the goal going forward is the same one he’s carried for years: to keep becoming a little better every day. 

As he put it, “All that matters is who you’re going to be ten years from now.”

Want the full story behind Derrick Porter’s journey?

Listen to the complete MountainWest Capital Network Podcast episode, where Derrick shares the full story behind his journey with Beauty Industry Group and Clean Simple Eats.

[Listen to the full episode here →]

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/building-a-business-from-scratch-frameworks-for/id1818372923?i=1000777038106 


Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/49ycIFEr2EDhEieMRbyam7?si=RzfbfAo0Rcayjst5EcS_fA 

Connect with Derrick Porter, Beauty Industry Group, and Clean Simple Eats:

About the MountainWest Capital Network Podcast: Your gateway to the Winners’ Circle, featuring stories and strategies from Utah’s fastest-growing companies. For more than 31 years, MountainWest Capital Network has celebrated entrepreneurial excellence through the Utah 100, recognizing the state’s most dynamic businesses and their founders.

Disclaimer: The views expressed are for informational purposes only and do not constitute investment advice. Any references to specific investments or outcomes are illustrative and not indicative of overall performance. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Investing involves risk, including loss of principal.