Who is Tyla-Simone Crayton? Meet the ‘sauce boss’ CEO on ‘Shark Tank’ who got the idea for Sienna Sauce at 8
A dream can take you places you had never imagined! A kidpreneur and her mom from Houston, Texas, persevered through hardship to launch a successful sauce company and their story will make you believe yours can come true too. ‘Shark Tank’ spills surprises every week and this time around, a little ‘sauce boss’ will stump you. The tale first began when the “curious kid” who was “always making inventions” realized her favorite wing restaurant closed and she wanted to recreate the wing sauce recipe. Tyla-Simone Crayton was just eight when she first had the idea.
Crayton and her mom, Monique Crayton knew it was a hit right from the beginning when their near and dear ones just couldn't get enough of it. Did you know the sauce was almost lost when they realized they never penned down the ingredients? “The funny thing is we almost forgot the recipe because we just threw a bunch of random things in there at first, but then I remembered, so I went back and I put all the ingredients in there and it’s been history since then.”
RELATED LINKS
Who is Tyla-Simone Crayton?
The creator of the “You Won’t Stop Licking Your Fingers” Sauce is Sienna Wing’s 17-year-old Tyla-Simone Crayton. The business-savvy CEO of the company has spoken to CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and continues to take the condiments industry by storm.
Not only to disrupt the male-dominated industry, but Tyla-Simone’s goal is to change the way we use and buy sauce and give society a swift kick on how we view sauce buyers. Sienna Sauce is a versatile non-bias product that can be used as a dip, marinade, glaze or an added ingredient to any recipe. With a sauce being so versatile, it frees up space in your refrigerator. Sienna Sauce is classified as a BBQ sauce (according to the ingredients). However, Tyla-Simone is creating her own lane in the Sauce industry. She often says, “my product is not a ketchup or a BBQ sauce, this is Sienna Sauce”.
Tyla-Simone confesses, “I make Sienna Sauce for all households whether it’s Mom and Dad or two Moms and two Dads”.
How did the Sienna Sauce journey begin?
Sad to know that her favorite chicken wasn't selling the sauce anymore, she decided to experiment with her mother. Who knew they would come up with something better while recreating the signature ingredient?
“I ended up coming up with something better,” Crayton told Atlanta Black Star during a recent interview. “It was just me, a late-night, my mom was having a wing and wine Wednesday, I woke up, and a lot of my aunts and stuff were at my house, and so my mom cooked and she was talking about how she didn’t have any sauce. I was like, ‘Let’s play around and try and make some!’ and we ended up coming up with the base of the sauce, which is now Tangy.”
Now, the Sienna Sauce Dynasty is run by two talented women alongside Tyla-Simone Crayton. Her mother Monique Crayton is the President / COO and aunt Nia Crooks is the CCO. As a team of three, they have joined forces in creating a blueprint to leave for generations to come. “My mother allowed me to follow my dreams and create and bottle my sauce just as long as I did not drop the ball in with my school work. So while running a successful business, I make sure to succeed in my studies by maintaining a 4.0 GPA or higher,” Tyla-Simone says.