FOUNDERS
Trader Walks Away From Citadel and Funds Her Own Laundry Bet
Maria Cabral Menezes, 27, left a trading career at Citadel to build WashWise, whose $29 Reset Spray reached $10,000 in sales in under 36 hours after launching on August 10. Before outside capital arrived, she put between $50,000 and $70,000 of her own savings into the company, which later raised $1.2 million from investors including Jack Abraham, Brian Tate, Alex Jankowsky and FJ Labs.
The sales figure records what came in; it says nothing about what the founder gave up to get there. Menezes has not paid herself in more than a year, routing money into hiring and customer acquisition instead. She also traded the fast, quantitative feedback of public markets for decisions on hiring, brand and partnerships that resist measurement, a cost no revenue line captures.
Source: Entrepreneur · September 18, 2026