Jessica Pegula is a tennis player ranked 24 among WTA players. She has played tennis since she was ten and struggled with skincare. She tried so many products and could not find one that fit her. Plus, her skin was struggling because there was too much going on. She needed something that was for athletes, clean, and simple. This led her to create her own skincare line. Pegula had hip surgery and lots of time in her recovery. In her downtime, she formed Ready 24.
Ready 24 has four lines: cleansers, essence water, moisturizer, and recovery skin products. She worked with a company in her hometown and used focus groups to formulate, test, and refine her products. She uses her own products and so do other tennis players! She got Ready 24 into Wegmans, online, social media, and at tennis events.
Pegula said that it really hit her that she was really starting a business when she was making the labels for the products one day. She told
Hologic WTA Tour, “I was thinking to myself, `This is so weird. I can’t believe I’m writing a label for people to use.’ It was so hands-on. Honestly, it was really pretty cool.”
Jessia Pegula’s parents also inspired and helped her. They helped to provide the initial investment and continually offer feedback and ideas. He dad is always full of ideas, and her mom knows how to make it a reality and take risks.
Pegula is driven by her own experiences. Her story is similar to mine because I too had hip surgery and played tennis. It is so hard to find the good in the midst of recovery. Her life was tennis, and she could have been wallowing in her own self-pity, but instead she found a need and addressed it. She used what was in front of her
as an opportunity.
