Head first.

Heloisa Helena de Assis grew up poor in a slum, later working cleaning houses, doing laundry and taking care of other people's children. Known as Zica, she seemed to be headed toward lifetime membership in Brazil's enormous, mostly black, underclass. Yet one good idea instead turned her into a successful businesswoman. Everything began to change when she came up with a cream for curly hair in the early 1990s. As with many an innovative product, she had originally set out not to create a business but to solve a personal problem. "I couldn't get a job or a boyfriend because of how my hair looked," she says. Determined to conquer her bad hair days, Zica experimented to come up with the final secret formula for a cream that would hydrate and relax curly hair. Now it's made in a factory along with her own line of 25 cosmetics. Known as Beleza Natural, the former backyard business is today a chain of six beauty salons with 35,000 customers and annual sales of US$8.5 million. She expects to open 40 more salons by 2012. "Above all, we sell self-esteem," says Ziea. "Beleza Natural is not just beauty parlors but something different, big rooms with nice decor, specialized in specific hair types that not too long ago the market ignored." Helio Mata Machado, coordinator of Instituto Endeavor, a non-governmental group that encourages entrepreneurs, says Zica's business is successful because it is innovative. "Instead of selling a product, she has transformed a single item into a broader service for lower-income customers," he says. "What they find in her salons, as well, is information on health and careers."