The story that I told in class was the story of how I decided to start my own online company. In class, I felt that I was not able to go into as much detail as I would have liked. In this assignment, I plan on elaborating more about what essentially brought me to the idea of starting my own e-commerce clothing brand.
Rewinding back to a few years ago, I suddenly got the idea of trying to start my own company and essentially wanting to sell a product. I don’t know how exactly I came to the realization that I wanted to start my own company, but I knew that it was something I definitely wanted to try. I knew that I wanted my name on a product and that I wanted to create something that people used on the daily. The first product I was trying to sell was my homemade hair masks. I was in love with anything beauty and I wanted to try to make my own product that people could use at home to enhance their beauty overall. After buying a ton of mason jars and mixing both egg, olive oil and mayo together, I decided to use my boyfriend as a guinea pig and test my hair masks on him. Not only did it make his hair extremely greasy, but it was horribly messy. I had the feeling that my hair masks were not the route I wanted to go down.
After some evaluation, I decided to try making body scrubs. I put the mason jars that I purchased to use and started concocting. I bought a heaping abundance of body lotion, sugar, food coloring, fruit extracts and started getting to work. I came up with names for my body scrubs that sounded appealing like “Creamy Coconut” and “Orange Creamsickle”. I even made an Instagram page and a Tumblr page for my body scrubs as well. I tried selling my products on Etsy, however I started getting the feeling again that my body scrubs weren’t going to work out.
I knew I had to think of a different approach but I really had no idea what else to start selling. One time I took my old hair extensions and dyed them different colors. I tried to sell each of my funky hair accessories for fifteen dollars each, but that idea soon came to an end as well.
Finally, I came up with an idea that I knew that I wanted to invest in. After coming across a friend’s Instagram page, I noticed that she was selling crewneck sweatshirts. After doing some investigating, I noticed that she had a YouTube channel with over 17,000 subscribers! It was at that moment that I decided that I wanted to start a YouTube channel and work on being a beauty and fashion influencer. I created my channel back in 2016 and I worked at it for over two years. I had the privilege to work with several beauty companies and help advertise their products. I noticed that for a little while I had stopped worrying about selling my own products and I worried more about branding myself on the internet. However, after many sleepless nights due to spending hours editing, my channel became more of a chore and a complete stress to me. I noticed over that time I developed severe anxiety. Although I suffered with anxiety before, my anxiety had never been this out of hand. I knew it was time to sit down and reevaluate again.
After taking some time off of YouTube and just focusing on enjoying myself and my life overall, I knew I was ready to jump back into another project. One day at work, I thought to myself how I wanted to start my own company. I came up with the idea of selling loungewear and channeling my style into a project. I wanted to see myself in something that I created. I contacted a friend of mine, who has had a ton of experience in creating online companies, and we got to work. My mentor had asked me what my purpose in starting this company essentially was because we needed to get down to the nitty gritty about what my company was going to be about. After much thinking and much accessing, I noticed that I was the type that always kept grinding and wanting to work on something that I could call my own someday. I noticed the reason as to why I wanted to create a company was because I am happiest and less stressed when I am focusing on a positive project. I felt like working on a project was a way of coping with my anxiety. It was at that moment that I decided I wanted to start a clothing company that raised anxiety awareness.
Until this day, I have been working alongside my mentor and I have been watching my company come to life. I have finally found the project worth working on. In starting this business, I am learning all of the steps to starting a company properly and slowly I am watching my dreams come true. I am the happiest I have ever been and my anxiety has been moderately low. We are hoping to launch my company, Nova & Skye, sometime in February! I am so happy that I am able to channel my anxiety into a positive project as well as help raise awareness for anxiety and mental health!