Melissa Solis, CEO of Inbenta, built a tech company with her brother Merlin from $300 to a $610 million exit. In a conversation with Adam Highfill, Head of Marketing at Inbenta, Melissa shares her journey from childhood hardship to business success and how her experiences shaped her approach to leadership and entrepreneurship.
The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.
How did your early life experiences shape you?
I would have to honor my mother with a lot of who Merlin and I are. She was a fighter. She never gave up and she refused to accept the status quo. When my dad left, I was not quite seven years old, Merlin was not quite two.
I remember when he left, we came home to our double-wide trailer and it was empty. My dad had run off with another woman and took the furniture. He had wiped out the bank accounts. We ended up on welfare.
There was this woman named Katie, who brought her little boy to our house for my mom to babysit. Katie gave my mom the first car she had after the divorce — a $200 car without air conditioning. After Katie passed away, we found out she was actually a prostitute. And yet, she was the one who ensured we had food to eat that first Christmas after my dad left.
Looking back at those moments, they really gave Merlin and me the foundation to know that regardless of what you’re faced with, if you don’t give up, you will win. It’s when you stop and quit that you lose.
If you don't give up, you will win. It's when you stop and quit that you lose.
Talk about the founding of GIACT with your brother Merlin. What was your partnership like?
The thing that makes Merlin and me so unique and strong is that we complement each other. So many companies fail because they’re lopsided. They either have someone technical but no operational partner, or they’re all operational with no strong tech.
Merlin is a magician with technology. I’m very strong on operations, customer support, and go-to-market. Together we made an incredible team. As brother and sister, we will go at each other because if we don’t agree, we will tell each other. But at the end of the day, we always agree to agree.
We also always made the same money. If I made a dime, he made a dime. But we didn’t do this for money. We did this for purpose.
If you're just doing it for money, you already have the wrong plan. You have to have a purpose that drives you every day.
What prompted the decision to scale GIACT after 10 years?
For the first 10 years, we didn’t want to scale. We wanted to grow it where we had a great living and our original seven employees made great money. We did that purposely because we had children. I was a single mom, and I wanted to be present for my daughter.
We always had this dream that our children would take over the business someday. I remember the day they basically told us they weren’t interested. It was 10 years in when we woke up one day and said, “What if?” Once we turned on the engine and said, “Let’s go,” we grew over 50% year over year, every year.
What unconventional strategies helped your growth?
We went and found talented, everyday people that had been overlooked, and we paid them extremely well. We paid 100% of healthcare for our employees and families. From day one of GIACT, we believed that healthcare is a right, not a benefit.
I hear people say all the time, “I’ve got to hire this well-known person so I can get into Walmart.” Guess what? We got into Walmart and they didn’t even know who we were. If your product is good and there’s a need, they will meet you where you’re at.
We were never ones to throw people at problems. We threw technology at problems and we were already using AI back then.
We were never ones to throw people at problems. We threw technology at problems.
What does “building your own table” mean to you?
I want to help create a future where anyone, regardless of race, religion, size, or abilities, has a seat at the table if they’re willing to invest and do the work. I never expected a free ride. What I expected was a seat at the table once I’d done the work. When I realized that didn’t always happen, I went and built my own table.
That’s what I would challenge women and others: if you’re sick of not being celebrated, go where people celebrate you. If they won’t give you a seat at the table, go build your own table.
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