Wenceslaus (Wen) Muenyi
Founder of HercLéon
Muenyi, a 2016 College of Business graduate who earned a BSBA in marketing, was invited to pitch his company, HercLéon, on the reality TV series “Shark Tank.” Although he was unable to strike a deal with investors, Muenyi impressed them with his company HercLéon, and Mark Cuban called his pitch the "best pitch ever." Later in the same year, he was named a winner in the Meda Million Dollar Challenge, the nation's largest business competition for BIPOC-owned businesses, where he earned $200,000.
How did you come up with the idea for HercLéon?
I was lucky enough to discover the fantastic world of materials many years back after a trip to Iceland, where my clothes started to smell horrible, and I was too lazy to find a laundry machine. After that experience, I decided to find a way to develop products that would allow me to travel the world without any luggage and still smell clean and be comfortable. I did a lot of research and created our first version of HercFiber, a material that can be worn for days, weeks and months without having to be washed.
What advice do you have for UWF students and alumni?
Follow your curiosity; remember, passion fades, but curiosity can last a lifetime. Find something that you get excited learning about, something that brings you joy to share with others, then find a way to use what you’re learning to make the world better for those around you. When you live life through curiosity, joy and service to others, success will always follow you.
How did your professors prepare you for the pressure of the real world?
Professor C. Scott Satterwhite is probably the single most important teacher I had at UWF. His class’s focus on the Beat Generation characters like Alan Watts is the reason I live such a peaceful life today. From the people covered in his class, I learned the importance of emotional development and now I know that any investment made to cultivate internal peace and joy will pay 10 times more than any external investment I can make in life. Now, my life and business work is almost effortless because my internal world is so peaceful and that means nothing that happens externally can cause me to become less joyful for more than a few minutes and that is a critical feature when you’re an entrepreneur and are always dealing with new issues. I have friends who are billionaires and their life is not anywhere near as fun, peaceful or as enjoyable as mine because their whole life was focused on external achievement and they neglected to fix the internal issues that made them so dependent on external success. So, above all that I learned from UWF, the biggest lesson I learned had almost nothing to do with the actual purpose of the class and that’s the beautiful part about college - the benefits aren’t always obvious or direct.