A Mother-Daughter MBA Journey feat. Misty Fehler ’24 & Alexis Weaver ’24

Owl Have You Know

We have plenty of Rice families in our history. But it's rare to see a mother and daughter earn their Professional MBAs at the same time.

Misty and Alexis graduated in May and co-founded La Mer Macaron, offering an assortment of homemade macarons for home delivery.

Misty is the CEO of La Mer Macaron. She spent most of her career as an independent petroleum landman for various companies in Texas, before pivoting to nursing. In 2023, she left nursing and co-founded La Mer Macaron with her family.

After years of working in public and behavioral health, Alexis eventually left those industries to launch La Mer Macaron with her mom, and is the vice president. Our host Maya Pomroy ’22 catches up with this mother-daughter powerhouse to discuss their motivations, the challenges of balancing family life with education, the importance of collaboration and the inception of their macaron business. The conversation highlights the support system within their family, their experience at Rice Business, and their aspirations for the future.

Episode Guide:

01:10 Alexis's Journey from Public Service to getting her MBA

02:46 Misty's Career Pivot: From Oil and Gas to Nursing and Beyond

04:43 The Decision to Pursue MBAs Together

09:55 Launching La Mer Macaron: A Family Business

19:58 The Impact of Rice Business and Future Plans

27:40 Reflections on Family, Support, and Success

Owl Have You Know is a production of Rice Business and is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

On the intricacies of macaron making

18:49 [Maya Pomroy]: When you're making macarons, take me through the process because I'm curious. They definitely have a shelf life, and they're just like perfection, right? When you get them, they melt in your mouth, and all that, and they seem like it'd be really hard to make.

19:04 [Misty Fehler] They are very difficult to make. It's a lot of fun. So, I think that's the thing about that we like so much: that there's a challenge, and some of us are super challenge-driven, and then some of us are, you know, structure-driven. There's all, all of our personalities mix in, so we work really well together, by the way.

How the Blue Launch program helped scaled their ideas for their business

13:57 [Misty Fehler]: All the things that we learned in the MBA were very helpful to apply, and just backing up to the accelerator, why that was so amazing? Because everything we were learning in school, we were getting more of a specialized educational program catered just for that. So, we were learning a lot that we didn't know, which was the whole reason we wanted to do the MBA in the first place. So, it takes all of your ideas that you have to start a business and just trashes everything because you think that you can just go out and start a business, but it's not exactly like that if you want it to be successful. So, we started revamping. Okay, we've perfected making the macaron, but scaling up is incredibly hard. And we were mastering that when we started the Blue Launch program. It was very challenging, but it pushed us to actually put something into action, which we're so thankful for.

On their plans for the future

23:36 [Maya Pomroy]: So, what are your plans for the future of your business?

23:42 [Alexis Weaver]: We're always looking for what the new innovative thing is. I think we all don't want to get too caught into just being a small business. We'd, like, to find a way to make it more innovative, as my mom was saying. And so, hopefully we can take everything we've learned.

Show Links:

• Transcript
  
  

Guest Profile:

• Misty Fehler | LinkedIn
• Alexis Weaver | LinkedIn
• La Mer Macaron
• Rice Alliance

Listen to OWL entrepreneurs Hassan Panahi, Taylor Ann Adams, and Delaney Berman in this episode titled "Giving Entrepreneurs the Tools to Change the World" here: https://business.rice.edu/owlhaveyouknow-season-3-episode-19