Jane Marie grew up in a small town near Flint, Michigan called Owaso.

And back then, the obvious place to work was General Motors. But not for everyone.

My great grandma was an Avan lady. I grew up going to Topperware parties with my mom,

and then my aunts and my grandmother and my uncle. And for me, it's like every day part of my life.

The thing about Michigan is that it's like a mecca for multi-level marketing companies,

like Avan, Topperware, and Mary Kay. It's an MLM heartland.

Kind of everyone from back home has some connection, if not working, as a distributor for one of these

companies, you know, going to parties. Jane was surrounded by MLMs, but she was also skeptical

of them. Except for this one moment when she had a brief flirtation with one.

I'd forgotten this, blocked it from my memory, but I remember when I was 20, I hosted one at my

house once. I didn't even know that. That's Jane's partner, Dan. I told you.

It was a lingerie one. Oh. And they brought in like a rolling wardrobe rack,

and then there were like prizes. And if you if you modeled it in front of everyone,

it was all all ladies. But if you'd come out of the bathroom and like show the night gown or whatever,

you would get like extra prizes. And so I got a lot of extra prizes because I have no

humility. No shame. What were the prizes? It was just like an extra pair of panties or,

you know, a candle or so it was gross. Like don't get me wrong. It was totally gross. But it was

fun. I had a good time. How old were you? 20. Yeah. Okay. And did you like have a conception of MLMs

and all these reputations and all that back then? Me? Yes. I've never joined one myself.

But she still could fully avoid them. When Jane moved to Los Angeles, she'd see Facebook posts

from friends back home trying to recruit new distributors to this or that MLM. And she'd wonder,

how is this okay? How is this not a pyramid scheme? For the last year, she and Dan have been

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