Stacey Rusch spent years selling other companies’ products on QVC. Now she’s focused on her own.

The Real Housewives of Potomac star is the founder of Shayo, a cannabis-infused wellness brand that launched in Virginia’s medical cannabis market in partnership with Jushi Holdings. And she wants to be clear about her role.

“I’m not the face of the brand,” Rusch told AfroTech Culture. “I own the brand.”

Back to her entrepreneurial roots

Before reality television, Rusch was already working for herself.

“Many people don’t know that before I joined the cast of The Real Housewives of Potomac, I was a yoga teacher full-time,” she said. “So I essentially was self-employed.”

She taught private and public clients, including the White House Athletic Center, the CIA, NASA and American University. Television brought her a lot of success, she says, but she never let go of the idea of building something of her own.

“I always knew in the back of my mind that I wanted to come back to wellness, and, of course, entrepreneurship,” she said, “and establishing something that I could own, that I could grow, that was a reflection of who I am.”

For Rusch, launching Shayo was “sort of like returning back to who I was.”

Spotting a gap in the market

When Rusch started looking into the cannabis industry, the numbers on ownership stood out.

“I learned that less than 5% of entrepreneurs in the cannabis industry in our country are of African American descent,” she said. “And when you throw in being a woman, that number decreases significantly.”

She saw that as an opening.

“I knew that this was not only a great opportunity to step into wellness, but to also get into a booming industry where people like you and me were underrepresented,” she said.

Along the way, Rusch says she became the first African American woman to own a cannabis brand in Virginia. She says she didn’t realize it until the business was already up and running.

“I honestly didn’t start my wellness company and get into the cannabis industry wanting to make history,” she said. “My intention was to create a brand that could help people, with a focus on women, starting in the cannabis industry, which is so underserved when we talk about Black ownership and entrepreneurship.”

More than a cannabis company

Shayo, which means “to be happy” in Yoruba, launched with fruit chew gummies and has since added an all-in-one vape. But Rusch says cannabis is only the entry point.

“I want to be clear, Shayo is a wellness brand,” she said. “We’re just starting with cannabis, so there’s much more to come.”

The business is growing, too. After its Virginia debut, Shayo expanded into Nevada’s adult-use market last year.

“We are booming here in the state of Virginia,” Rusch said. “We’ve expanded into Nevada, with many states to come, God willing.”