Speaker 1: Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Eating While Broke.
Speaker 1: I'm your host Coley Witt, and today we have very
Speaker 1: special guest, Blake van Putton in the building. Did I
Speaker 1: say that right?
Speaker 2: You did?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I did say that right, owner, founder, creator of fashion
Speaker 1: house brand Sice is in the building.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, So I'm.
Speaker 1: Really excited to have you. I feel like I did
Speaker 1: the grocery shopping guys, so I know what he's making
Speaker 1: us is extremely healthy and budget friendly. Yes, so go ahead.
Speaker 1: What are you going to have me eating today?
Speaker 2: So today we have overnight oats, very very basic. But
Speaker 2: the good part about it is you can get as
Speaker 2: specific and as curated as you want, depending on your
Speaker 2: budget and how many you're trying to make.
Speaker 1: Oh I thought this was like a yogurt parfe or something.
Speaker 2: It is it is. So. The way it is is
Speaker 2: it has a liquid base which is going to be
Speaker 2: like the oat milk and everything that's in it, and
Speaker 2: then has the oatmeals that absorb it. Then you top
Speaker 2: it with whatever types of like food and everything that
Speaker 2: you want on top of it. So you could get
Speaker 2: as intricate as you want, you could get as basic
Speaker 2: as you want.
Speaker 1: I'm nervous about this dish. But is this now? Is
Speaker 1: this considered vegan? No?
Speaker 2: Huh because of the Greek yogurt. It could be depending
Speaker 2: on your ingredients. But I was using what I had
Speaker 2: in my kitchen.
Speaker 1: Okay, And you ate this when you were broken?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: See, I was like talking smack when I was buying this.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: I was actually shopping with my dad, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I called bullshit. I called bullshit. He was eating this
Speaker 1: at a Mason Jars, Like, come on, man. But then
Speaker 1: I was driving and I was like, you know, technically
Speaker 1: it could be considered broke because your oats, your honey,
Speaker 1: your chi seeds, they're the staple, right, And I'm guessing
Speaker 1: oat milk doesn't go bad because it wasn't in refrigerated section,
Speaker 1: So the only moving parts of this dish that you
Speaker 1: would have to rotate out would be the fruit and
Speaker 1: the yogurt. So technically, i'm guessing based on this this
Speaker 1: this dish costs me about forty five dollars, guys, and
Speaker 1: that included the Mason jars. So typically I'm guessing this
Speaker 1: could be your breakfast for at least a week, and
Speaker 1: it would probably run you about twelve dollars if you
Speaker 1: already have the staple ingredients.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and for a lot of it. You have a
Speaker 2: lot of this stuff at home. A majority of people
Speaker 2: have well my assasion, they have honey, they have oats,
Speaker 2: they've got some type of like milk or anything like that.
Speaker 2: Any milk work, yeah, any milk can work. I just
Speaker 2: like oat milkause it's a little easier on my stomach.
Speaker 2: But I've used almond milk. I've used two percent and
Speaker 2: anything that's good. And then, just like I was saying before,
Speaker 2: as you want to curate it, make it more special.
Speaker 2: You can make it high protein by putting protein powder
Speaker 2: in it. You can add a lot of stuff. And
Speaker 2: then Mason jars. You could just get them from like
Speaker 2: the dollar store. The fruits are nice.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you can get everythingle all right, But when you
Speaker 4: make these at home, do you make them like on
Speaker 4: the spot, like when you're making cereal, or do you
Speaker 4: like have these in your fridge?
Speaker 2: Why the mason jar? So, the mason jar is good
Speaker 2: because it kind of ferments it, right you. I usually
Speaker 2: make them the night before, so planning a lot of them,
Speaker 2: I'll do my meal prep for the week. So I'll
Speaker 2: make probably about five or six of these in one
Speaker 2: in one go, So it's really really easy to make.
Speaker 1: But that's not the night before. If it's like, you.
Speaker 2: Can still make it like really quickly. It's just the
Speaker 2: flavor absorbs into the oatmeal the longer you wait, so
Speaker 2: it could be really dense and kind of just not
Speaker 2: as hard to eat if you're just like really in
Speaker 2: a quick like punch. But you can also make it
Speaker 2: and plant it out, so the meal that you make
Speaker 2: that night before three days later would be even better
Speaker 2: and even sweeter from like the fruits and like the
Speaker 2: honeys and stuff that absorb into it the longer you wait.
Speaker 1: I'm just genuinely curious if you make it, say I'm
Speaker 1: I'm like, I love this dish. It's fantastic. I'm going
Speaker 1: to make these at home. And I like to meal
Speaker 1: prep on Sundays. I'm a huge meal prepper. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: but my whole thing is consistency. Like if I make
Speaker 1: this on a Sunday and I go and eat it
Speaker 1: on a Wednesday, is everything going to be like mushy
Speaker 1: and slimy?
Speaker 2: It depends if you go and put fruit in it
Speaker 2: and stuff, Like the fruit eventually can start to get
Speaker 2: like mushy and things. I'm the type of person that
Speaker 2: I can make something on Sunday and eat the same
Speaker 2: dish over and over and over and over. Yeah, if
Speaker 2: you want to make sure it's not like a crazy consistency,
Speaker 2: you can always put like the fruit in at the end.
Speaker 2: So when you're about to eat it, maybe just like
Speaker 2: Garners shit and put it on, you're going to.
Speaker 1: Say the milk was gonna make it nasty. All right,
Speaker 1: let's how to make it. I'm excited, Mason jars out.
Speaker 1: All right, what's the first ingredient?
Speaker 2: So the first ingredient? You want to put the liquid
Speaker 2: in first. A lot of people put the oats in first,
Speaker 2: but I find that it absorbs easier when you start
Speaker 2: off with the liquid. So, okay, we got the oat milk.
Speaker 2: Care show me how it's done.
Speaker 1: You're making two by the.
Speaker 2: Way, Okay, perfect one's going to be all I display take.
Speaker 1: We're gonna shoot pictures with it because I'm probably gonna
Speaker 1: like this dish and be like this is amazing. All right,
Speaker 1: So we got the oat milk. For the oat milk
Speaker 1: how much?
Speaker 2: So we do like half a cup like.
Speaker 1: Big Mason Jars so use the little ones at home.
Speaker 2: I used the little cheap ones that I just got
Speaker 2: because I got like fifty of them. I've got I
Speaker 2: don't know, I don't.
Speaker 1: Because they were selling the little ones at rouse and
Speaker 1: they were so cute and I was like, we should
Speaker 1: totally get it. But it was like sixteen bucks and
Speaker 1: these Mason jars were.
Speaker 2: Three and I was like, Yeah, the funny thing about
Speaker 2: it is you get so many and then you eventually
Speaker 2: lose the lids and you eventually like lose them and
Speaker 2: put them different places. Yeah, so this is just kind
Speaker 2: of one of those things where you have a whole
Speaker 2: bunch but you kind of don't know where they came from,
Speaker 2: and as long as they're all the same size, you're
Speaker 2: good to go.
Speaker 1: So all right, so we're not going to fill these
Speaker 1: Mason jars ideal?
Speaker 2: No, absolutely not. So it says the measurements on it,
Speaker 2: which is also like a cool little hack. I eyeball
Speaker 2: stuff in general, but I use pretty much half a cup,
Speaker 2: so it's like a two to one ratio. So the
Speaker 2: oatmeal is going on cups today. No, I'm not eyeballing, No.
Speaker 1: No, no, you eat this still to this day or.
Speaker 2: No, sometimes no my stomach for a lot of the
Speaker 2: most part is I've done a lot more stuff of
Speaker 2: being more gluten free and more considerate of it as
Speaker 2: opposed to before I could just kind of have the
Speaker 2: same thing every single day. So I have to be
Speaker 2: a little bit more intentional with what I'm prepping so you.
Speaker 1: Can be like, okay, yeah, have fun. Yeah all right.
Speaker 1: So what was going on in the time of Mason
Speaker 1: jar are cereal whatever be called? Second you add this
Speaker 1: milk to it, I'm I'm nervous. I thought this was
Speaker 1: gonna be a.
Speaker 2: Part fait it kind is at heart right During this time,
Speaker 2: I was I was starting my business up, and I'm
Speaker 2: very as you probably know, like when you start your
Speaker 2: business up, you're very hard on yourself. Where all the
Speaker 2: money goes in that you're making right back into the
Speaker 2: business exactly. So I wasn't investing a lot of it
Speaker 2: into anything else aside from strictly the business and the brand.
Speaker 2: So I didn't have that extra time where I was
Speaker 2: going to the grocery store. I go to the grocery
Speaker 2: store a whole bunch of times a week now, but
Speaker 2: before I was just what do I have on my
Speaker 2: pantry for a couple a week I do. I go twice.
Speaker 2: I go twice, but it's mainly because I forget to
Speaker 2: get everything the first time.
Speaker 1: Yeah ye.
Speaker 2: So nowadays, uh, I'll just go and I have a
Speaker 2: lot of this stuff at the house, so it's fine
Speaker 2: and it's easy to just put together. But when I
Speaker 2: was building my business out, I wasn't getting any haircuts.
Speaker 2: I wasn't like going outside.
Speaker 1: I was just as lovely as you do today.
Speaker 2: Oh man. I was just strictly just deoderant, deodorant in lotion.
Speaker 2: That's that's all.
Speaker 1: I that's right.
Speaker 2: You know what.
Speaker 1: I have a rule on every company I own, because
Speaker 1: I've been an entrepreneur since I was nineteen, especially after
Speaker 1: my first company, I don't take on my second company.
Speaker 1: I don't take a paycheck until year three. I make
Speaker 1: it a rule, absolutely not, and year three the company
Speaker 1: has to have a really nice cash flow to budget
Speaker 1: for the year.
Speaker 2: I like that rule.
Speaker 1: Okay, if I can't cover all the expenses without another
Speaker 1: dime coming in for the year, then absolutely not.
Speaker 2: In my pulling.
Speaker 1: And when I say a paycheck, I mean like it
Speaker 1: can pay the mortgage.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It's not paying for anything outside of like mortgage, gas car,
Speaker 1: you know, and then you know, typically year three and four,
Speaker 1: by four or five, you start to see, oh, she
Speaker 1: has a little bit of money, I'm saying, But yet
Speaker 1: I feel like cash flow is the king and the
Speaker 1: life and death of a company. So definitely, like you're
Speaker 1: pretty much working with like a side hustle and your business.
Speaker 1: But your side hustle is like a full time job,
Speaker 1: and your business is a full time job, and your
Speaker 1: lover and your boyfriend and your cousin and your whatever,
Speaker 1: there is no life. When I meet people that are
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs and like I volunteer, I'm like, yeah, you're not
Speaker 1: there yet. You're not there yet, So pour some oats
Speaker 1: in this because we are going to eat.
Speaker 2: During the episode.
Speaker 1: So the next thing is oats. So you're building SI
Speaker 1: Sprand how long has SIS been around?
Speaker 2: Has been around for four and a half years right now, geez.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And to your point earlier, I think it's important to
Speaker 2: note that I am the same way when it comes
Speaker 2: to like paying myself for the business, because I would
Speaker 2: hate to be in a position where the business tanks
Speaker 2: because of my personal wants. When it comes down to
Speaker 2: like a paycheck before, just like waiting that investment in
Speaker 2: the future. Right, So if I knew that I was
Speaker 2: out going getting something crazy to eat for dinner and
Speaker 2: bawling out the first couple of years, year three, we're
Speaker 2: no longer able to stay afloat. It's because of those
Speaker 2: personal reasons. I just like to kind of thug it out.
Speaker 2: Just make sure we keep your head low, keep the
Speaker 2: costs low, and you also get creative. You might start
Speaker 2: off and say, hey, I want to sell a couple
Speaker 2: of items, but then you find out that you completely pivot,
Speaker 2: which is yeah, if that's what our brand did. We
Speaker 2: started with T shirts and hoodies, and then we eventually
Speaker 2: hand back.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, you started there, Okay exactly. Now you can multitest.
Speaker 1: You can do this every time. Every time he starts talking, y'all,
Speaker 1: he's like, he puts down the oats, and I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: we still got to eat on this show. It's okay.
Speaker 1: If you make a mess, I am the being. I'm
Speaker 1: like the I clean kitchens, I do the groceries, I
Speaker 1: wash the fruit.
Speaker 2: Got it.
Speaker 1: But another reason why I think it's important to skip
Speaker 1: payroll is one, yes, you're talking pivots, but two. There's
Speaker 1: nothing worse than having someone that is working for you
Speaker 1: and they're not really making the adequate money, and then
Speaker 1: you messed up the cash flow and you technically can't
Speaker 1: pay them to me, Like everyone has to get paid
Speaker 1: around me, and I don't want to mess around because
Speaker 1: chances are in the beginning, when they're starting out, they're
Speaker 1: not making the type of money that you know they're worth.
Speaker 1: So you have to be a very good employer. You
Speaker 1: have to be extremely you know, gentle, but you also
Speaker 1: got to make sure that when they ask for their money,
Speaker 1: like it's in their pockets immediately. That's the difference between
Speaker 1: them being like, yeah, I guess I'll make a couple
Speaker 1: of bucks, and man, he ain't paid me a two
Speaker 1: weeks again, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's never been a position where people have asked
Speaker 2: to be paid for me, so I was. I always
Speaker 2: make it a rule and a point that you never
Speaker 2: have to ask me, like, hey, so what's up with
Speaker 2: the money? You'll know ahead of time before working with
Speaker 2: me at all, because I know that people people translate
Speaker 2: that to their work right where I like, I don't
Speaker 2: get paid enough to do this and anything like that
Speaker 2: is nobody will ever say that working with me is
Speaker 2: because we will make sure that you're taking care of
Speaker 2: and anything. The expectations are upfront. And I'm also the
Speaker 2: type of person that's like, if we have enough payroll
Speaker 2: to pay for three people and we have four people
Speaker 2: on the team, I'll take that cut, Like I'll take
Speaker 2: the one hundred percent loss on that and make sure
Speaker 2: everybody else is good, but before myself, because I know I'm
Speaker 2: the one that cares the most about the business compared
Speaker 2: to anybody else. Like anybody else who comes to work
Speaker 2: for us, they will love the company and love everything
Speaker 2: part of it. But I'm going to be the one
Speaker 2: that's putting all my investment in compare to everybody else.
Speaker 1: So what made what's the what a site stand for?
Speaker 1: So are definitely not your initially.
Speaker 2: No, it's not. I went to school at Howard in DC,
Speaker 2: and at Howard, to size something in DC means to
Speaker 2: like hype it up. Yeah, just eyeball it. It means
Speaker 2: to hype something up. And part of CYSE is to
Speaker 2: uplift and celebrate the black community. So we sice it up.
Speaker 2: That's what it is. And then I always write an
Speaker 2: all caps So that's why it looks like an acronym,
Speaker 2: but it's not.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you've sized it up. So you started with clothing.
Speaker 2: Yes, we started clothing back in twenty twenty. We started
Speaker 2: with the murder of George Floyd. We felt as if
Speaker 2: we were operating as an agency, and as an agency,
Speaker 2: we were creating clothing, so if you wanted to make
Speaker 2: something for like your show, we could create the start
Speaker 2: to finish, from the designs to the websites everything. We
Speaker 2: felt as if George Floyd was murdered, that's literally not
Speaker 2: helpful for us to just make like T shirts for
Speaker 2: you guys. So we pivoted to be more for the
Speaker 2: community and we donated to the first organization, which was
Speaker 2: Anti Racism Fund. So after all of that, we came
Speaker 2: out with the first collection called Tech Black People donated
Speaker 2: all the proceeds to different nonprofit organizations that were focused
Speaker 2: on celebrating the black community.
Speaker 1: And this is around when George Floyd. So you was
Speaker 1: giving up a lot of money, all of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you just was signing a money yeah. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: the devil wasn't like, hey man, you shouldn't want to
Speaker 1: go to don a seventy percent because during that time,
Speaker 1: I'm sure that was a lot of money.
Speaker 2: It was a it was a dark time. I felt
Speaker 2: as if a lot of times where people felt I
Speaker 2: felt so hopeless. During that time, I would come into
Speaker 2: just environment of people not understanding what it's like carrying
Speaker 2: the burden of not knowing somebody and feeling the pain
Speaker 2: of his death and like his murder that I just
Speaker 2: didn't know what else to do, and I felt like
Speaker 2: everything I was doing I had a guilty conscious that
Speaker 2: I wanted to pivot and I wanted to do it
Speaker 2: in my own way. So all of that money, it
Speaker 2: was never a thought to me about how it could
Speaker 2: be a business out of it. It was really a
Speaker 2: side project. I was trying to do the agency side
Speaker 2: first because I was helping these black owned businesses with
Speaker 2: their production of clothing. So it was very easy because
Speaker 2: I saw other people involved in things, and I'm very
Speaker 2: much big supporter of if somebody's better in something, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna let them do that. Yeah, And there were different
Speaker 2: organizations that are very strong within the community. The I'm like,
Speaker 2: let's just donate all the proceeds, because if I tried
Speaker 2: to start the organization up that's trying to help the
Speaker 2: Black community specifically, I didn't have the pillars and the
Speaker 2: structures that these other companies and organizations had.
Speaker 1: So is that why you call it a fashion house?
Speaker 1: Because you initially started as like a creator of clothing
Speaker 1: for different brands exactly particular in particularly slice like in
Speaker 1: the black community.
Speaker 2: Exactly to help build the branches out. If you think
Speaker 2: of an entity, and the entity like branches out where
Speaker 2: we have the agency side of it, we have the
Speaker 2: clothing side of it. Everything around it is its own
Speaker 2: entity in its own face. Where the fashion house aspect
Speaker 2: of it we go beyond just like a T shirt.
Speaker 2: We started with that in mind, but there's so much
Speaker 2: that goes into it. Even when we were talking earlier
Speaker 2: about what goes into like a five dollars T shirt
Speaker 2: versus actually construction of the shirt, from like the overall
Speaker 2: grading of a shirt to the fit of it, there's
Speaker 2: a lot more that people don't really think about, and
Speaker 2: I want that to be the business. So a fashion
Speaker 2: house celebrates where it's not just oh yeah, we have
Speaker 2: a clothing brand. It's not just another clothing brand. It's
Speaker 2: focused on the purchase you make goes beyond the items
Speaker 2: that we have. We have statement pieces, but it goes
Speaker 2: deeper than that, and people can feel that in the
Speaker 2: clothing that they wear.
Speaker 1: So but now if someone buys the Protect Black Women
Speaker 1: bag or the Protect Black People back, do those proceeds
Speaker 1: actually go to SISE now or do they still go
Speaker 1: to Anti Racism?
Speaker 2: So that was a partnership with the organization when we
Speaker 2: first started with Anti Racism Fund. Now we do a
Speaker 2: lot of contributions externally and internally for our proceeds. So
Speaker 2: a purchase of a size back, the campaigns that will
Speaker 2: produce will hire like black photographers, videographers, editors, producers, social
Speaker 2: media managers, the set and the crew will be like
Speaker 2: focused on the black community. We also do like in
Speaker 2: kind donations where we're working with organizations now within like
Speaker 2: Los Angeles and the US to help like uplift and
Speaker 2: celebrate the community. To date, we've donated over sixty thousand
Speaker 2: dollars in products to different black owned organizations and eighty
Speaker 2: thousand dollars monetarily to different orgs. So we take like
Speaker 2: part of the proceeds from the sales to do that.
Speaker 2: And then the way we operate, like our team is
Speaker 2: completely like black lad and just we focus on just
Speaker 2: celebrating and all in all building the community around us.
Speaker 1: Nice. Yeah, we got milk, yeah, oh.
Speaker 2: Yes, you want to stir it a little bit though, Oh,
Speaker 2: I got to stir it just a little bit so
Speaker 2: that way it can like absorb it.
Speaker 1: Do I really want it to absorb it?
Speaker 2: Though?
Speaker 1: I feel like I put way too many.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be too It's gonna be too much on
Speaker 2: the stomach. If you're just like eating it, it's.
Speaker 1: Gonna be mushy.
Speaker 3: Nah.
Speaker 1: I have no idea what I'm doing.
Speaker 2: Guys, you're doing good?
Speaker 1: All right? Do I have too many oats? Is it
Speaker 1: supposed to be this?
Speaker 2: Like this? You can always add more like if it's
Speaker 2: not working out, we can always add more more oat milk.
Speaker 1: Okay, So their mine looks all cereal esque. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: so you know, I'm not a huge fan of oatmeal.
Speaker 2: It looks like a little granola bur aunt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, except for it doesn't have anything sweet in it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, what's the next step.
Speaker 2: So the next thing that we'll do is we'll add
Speaker 2: y yogurt that'll give.
Speaker 1: It more of a Is there a reason why we
Speaker 1: have vanilla flavored?
Speaker 2: So that way you don't have to addohole bunch of like
Speaker 2: sweeteners and stuff. It gives it its flavor without having
Speaker 2: like ado whole bunch of sugar and stuff that comes
Speaker 2: with it.
Speaker 1: Here, you want to use different spoons?
Speaker 2: I personally don't care. Oh yeah, just kidding. I care
Speaker 2: a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like this sho yeah yeah, here here, oh
Speaker 1: just use I'll just you're using it just to right,
Speaker 1: You're right, I'm helping you, Okay, okay, So we're putting
Speaker 1: a spoon.
Speaker 2: Two spoons, two or three tablespoons in it? Nice on
Speaker 2: your consistency? Do you want it more like running consistency?
Speaker 2: Do you want it thicker? How do you like if
Speaker 2: you were to choose thicker?
Speaker 1: I just don't want it mushy? Okay, all right, this
Speaker 1: definitely Oh man, here we go. Okay, all right, here
Speaker 1: we go. I'm gonna all right, what's the next step
Speaker 1: after this?
Speaker 2: We're gonna add our garnish in here. So cheese seeds,
Speaker 2: cheeseas are really good for fiber and like digestives, Like
Speaker 2: when you have things like oatmeal and stuff, it's pretty
Speaker 2: heavy on the stomach, so it'll keep you full. And
Speaker 2: I just like to add a little bit of cheese
Speaker 2: seeds in it to get the fiber side of it,
Speaker 2: but they have to soak up in the liquid. So
Speaker 2: I just add just really a third of it, tablespoon
Speaker 2: in here, just a little bit, because seeds can get
Speaker 2: kind of.
Speaker 1: Crazy crazy as in mushy, yeah, mushy, or you'll be
Speaker 1: on this kind of both.
Speaker 2: That's too much.
Speaker 1: We bought this big bag of chis seeds just for this.
Speaker 2: I could have brought something from home.
Speaker 1: All right, Is that enough? Or do I need to
Speaker 1: put less?
Speaker 2: That's good?
Speaker 1: Okay, that's good. I'm gonna end up in the middle
Speaker 1: of interviews. All right, So we got the chis seeds
Speaker 1: on the Greek yogurt.
Speaker 2: It, honey, you add stuff on top of it, honey,
Speaker 2: makes it a little week sweeter too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do that.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: You better put a lot. I'm joking. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: not even mine. Who knows. I know, the one with
Speaker 1: the least is probably gonna be yours mine. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: treat it like it's syrup.
Speaker 2: Here we go, and then mix it. Just make sure
Speaker 2: that consistency. I know, it's just mine doesn't look too
Speaker 2: good right now, so why I just don't like the
Speaker 2: way it looks.
Speaker 1: It doesn't look right.
Speaker 2: This one doesn't. This one looks fine. Yours looks good too.
Speaker 1: Why don't you eat the one that looks fine?
Speaker 2: You gotta give GC some time otherwise it's gonna be
Speaker 2: like too hard on your stomach.
Speaker 1: You keep saying hard on your stomach. You're making me nervous.
Speaker 2: Wells is like absorbed with the consistency and texture that
Speaker 2: they have with it. So when you put chiese seeds
Speaker 2: into these different yeah, just a little bit, but chis
Speaker 2: is also absorbed to about like ten times the size
Speaker 2: of it. So you don't want to just be like
Speaker 2: crunching on them. It's not supposed to be all that.
Speaker 1: I'd rather crunch in slickery slick.
Speaker 2: No, it's not gonna do all that just cause you
Speaker 2: got like a little tea spoon of it.
Speaker 1: Okay, this looks like uh, is mine supposed to look
Speaker 1: like soup?
Speaker 2: You should probably put like a little bit more oatmeal
Speaker 2: in it.
Speaker 1: Oh alright, guys, so when you're making it at home,
Speaker 1: it's not supposed to look too soupy. Alright, When do
Speaker 1: we hit the fruit?
Speaker 2: That's the last step, to be honest. So that's right now, Thanks, alright, there.
Speaker 1: I love this one.
Speaker 2: Mm hm like hm or mmm.
Speaker 1: It's pretty good.
Speaker 2: Okay, there you go. And the cool thing about the
Speaker 2: fruit is that the longer you let it sit, so
Speaker 2: if you're making them overnight, the fruit, it's natural sugars
Speaker 2: go into the oatmeal. So it's it's good.
Speaker 1: There's it good because of the honey or the yogurt.
Speaker 2: I think it's just a culmination of everything. What I
Speaker 2: like to do now is when I do make it,
Speaker 2: I'll add a protein powder in it, and the protein
Speaker 2: powder I have would be like either like a chocolate
Speaker 2: or like a honey protein powder.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna front it's good, right, as long as
Speaker 1: it doesn't get too soggy, I'm with it. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna be all being septical loves right now.
Speaker 2: No judgment, no judgment.
Speaker 1: All right, we got the little fruit in there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you got the fruit.
Speaker 1: I thought this was gonna be a yogurt parthe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why I said kind of right, because it
Speaker 2: kind of looks like it, but it's also not.
Speaker 1: So are we supposed to smash the fruit in here?
Speaker 2: You can? I don't like that just because it's like,
Speaker 2: what am I eating, but.
Speaker 1: Oh, yours looks I put a way too.
Speaker 2: No, No, it's cool, all right, let.
Speaker 1: Me see, No what I can get good down with this.
Speaker 1: But I would never male practice hmmm, because I'm afraid
Speaker 1: that it would be mush m.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's good if.
Speaker 1: It's probably two week because I'm not trying to let
Speaker 1: it soap. But I like it. Yeah, as long as
Speaker 1: the consistency is more like this, because I promise you,
Speaker 1: I feel like in a couple of hours this will
Speaker 1: be mush.
Speaker 2: And then you can always add more oatmeal, just kind
Speaker 2: of how you had a lot going on earlier, but
Speaker 2: you add more so it's not too much. If you're
Speaker 2: prepping it in the morning or you're doing it on
Speaker 2: the go, you can maybe do like half of it
Speaker 2: and then mix it so it's like maybe like half
Speaker 2: of it might be a little bit more soggy compared
Speaker 2: to like half of it is not as much.
Speaker 1: If I get in the bottom, is it gonna be
Speaker 1: really soggy?
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm impressed.
Speaker 2: See you were questioning it before.
Speaker 1: I was questioning the whole time.
Speaker 2: This is really good and I would make a lot
Speaker 2: of them at the same time because you can just
Speaker 2: have it. Some people like it a little bit runnier.
Speaker 2: I don't because I like to have a hearty feeling.
Speaker 2: If it's if we're looking like a breakfast and stuff,
Speaker 2: I like it to be a little thicker.
Speaker 1: And why do you like the oat milk with the yogurt?
Speaker 1: Is there a reason that if someone wanted to just
Speaker 1: do it with the yogurt and the oats, would it work?
Speaker 2: Mm hm. I feel like it wouldn't be as good.
Speaker 2: It would be like a little harder. So it's just
Speaker 2: like eating dry oatmeal. I love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it. I don't know it's because I
Speaker 1: put a lot of sugar in its.
Speaker 2: Right, you know, it works.
Speaker 1: It's a definite win for affordability mm hm, portaste, and
Speaker 1: I guarantee I won't be hunger.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's definitely feeling. And you have a lot of it,
Speaker 2: you don't have to eat it all in one go.
Speaker 2: You can always add more to it.
Speaker 1: The fruit are just amazing in it.
Speaker 2: And people will put like chocolate chips and stuff in it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it depends on what you're trying to do. Right, Like
Speaker 2: when I was first starting my business, I didn't have
Speaker 2: all those chocolate chips and all that stuff. I wasn't
Speaker 2: like baking cookies. This was eating this.
Speaker 1: Yeah during the pandemic.
Speaker 2: During the pandemic, you didn't try to get.
Speaker 1: Did you get unemployment during the pandemic?
Speaker 2: I did? But like it? Yeah, like especially just from
Speaker 2: like my livelihood perspective, it wasn't. I'm also a person
Speaker 2: of habit. So I'll eat this and I'll just continue
Speaker 2: eating it until I just get sick of it, and
Speaker 2: then I have another obsession.
Speaker 1: Not mean, not me.
Speaker 2: You want variety.
Speaker 1: It's weird. I'll meal prep for the week. This week
Speaker 1: it's sprends. You know. Oh, let me tell you something.
Speaker 1: Someone better email me if you're listening to this episode
Speaker 1: about how to properly cook benzino man, because when I
Speaker 1: go to the store, they cook it in a way
Speaker 1: where it's really soft. Yeah, but when I cook it,
Speaker 1: I cook it on a very low heat in butter. Now,
Speaker 1: I do add a lot of flavorings of mine. Is
Speaker 1: like taste great, But I can't seem to get the
Speaker 1: benzino to be soft without going dry. And I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's because I'm paranoid. Because some parts of
Speaker 1: the fish don't look fully good. Yeah, you know, it's
Speaker 1: like it looks cooked, but it doesn't look cooked.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm very big proponent of overcooking instead of undercooking.
Speaker 1: That's not say like when you try it today, Like,
Speaker 1: but I'm like, yo, try this benzino. You're gonna be like,
Speaker 1: it's good, but it's a little dry. But then I'll
Speaker 1: go to like a restaurant and they make it perfect
Speaker 1: and I'm like, what the fuck are you doing? Can
Speaker 1: someone just tell me how to cook brenzino?
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: I went to this restaurant when I was in New
Speaker 2: York for a New York Fashion Week and it had
Speaker 2: a They had this branzino. It's the best branzino I've
Speaker 2: probably ever had, But it was on top of this dish.
Speaker 2: It was boiling in a stew the whole time, so
Speaker 2: it was still cooking while all of the juices inside
Speaker 2: of it were kind of marinating it.
Speaker 1: Where was that.
Speaker 2: It's a place called fish Cheeks.
Speaker 1: Fish Cheeks, so we need to go hit a fish.
Speaker 2: I'm going at the best one brazino I've had.
Speaker 1: Really Yeah, that sounds really good.
Speaker 2: It was really good.
Speaker 1: I love me a good bronzino, but I still haven't
Speaker 1: perfectly mastered cooking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the art.
Speaker 1: Yeah it's I know it's a low heat. It's got
Speaker 1: to be a low heat. Question is is like I
Speaker 1: always get nervous, like it has to be cooked.
Speaker 2: It has to be cooked. You can't have that under But.
Speaker 1: You see how they make it in the restaurant where
Speaker 1: it's like just the perfect texture and.
Speaker 2: You're like, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: Are you like, is it like the type of butter
Speaker 1: or because you got to be cooking it in a butter.
Speaker 1: I would imagine.
Speaker 2: Something like that. Got probably covering it and doing.
Speaker 1: You think covering it? Maybe I was thinking that yesterday
Speaker 1: actually covering it.
Speaker 2: Maybe I don't cover it. You know, one part of
Speaker 2: it's going to be really good and the rest is like, okay.
Speaker 1: I love me. By the way, guys shout out to
Speaker 1: Trader Joe's because Trader Joe's sells uh Brenzenore with all
Speaker 1: the bones out lace bag.
Speaker 2: I had their cod. I didn't have the branzino.
Speaker 1: Oh do you know how a cood cod?
Speaker 2: I try? We talked about burning stuff. I'll try it on.
Speaker 2: Try it.
Speaker 1: Okay, So let's go back into sice here you can
Speaker 1: slide all these ingredients. Ober, Now we know we could
Speaker 1: make affordable, healthy meals exactly. So take me back to siss. Yeah,
Speaker 1: under the bags into the picture.
Speaker 2: The bags entered the picture a couple months after the
Speaker 2: first collection we came out with. So the first collection,
Speaker 2: we donated all the proceeds to Anti Racism Fund. And
Speaker 2: then I just remembered I have a background in finance,
Speaker 2: so I used to work in New York, and in
Speaker 2: New York I did project management, and a big thing
Speaker 2: people cared about were watches and purses. I knew that
Speaker 2: the way that somebody cared about like collecting, you're even
Speaker 2: talking about like cars in general, the way people I.
Speaker 1: Love me to watch. I was trying not to say
Speaker 1: it because I'm broke, so I don't have the Rolexes yet,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I dream of rolex.
Speaker 2: All the time. And I think that that's the feeling
Speaker 2: I want people to have when they have my products,
Speaker 2: is that it's the even if I'm not buying something immediately,
Speaker 2: I want to aspire to have that or I want
Speaker 2: to be around that. It's not just the status symbol.
Speaker 2: It's like the acquiring it's you look forward to it.
Speaker 2: So that feeling and seeing people I'd see people get
Speaker 2: so excited about the handbags and I didn't understand it
Speaker 2: at first, and I said, I want that same feeling
Speaker 2: with the clothing that we make, especially with the messaging
Speaker 2: we make. Because the messaging we say says protect black people,
Speaker 2: protect black women. Those are statements, and when you think
Speaker 2: of the messaging that you have from that, it's very
Speaker 2: easy for the messaging to get carried away if the
Speaker 2: branding is not very intentional. Yeah, and I think a
Speaker 2: lot of times when you look at iHeart New York
Speaker 2: t shirts, people slap that on a whole bunch of shirts.
Speaker 2: You don't know who originally started it and how it
Speaker 2: became what it is. And I don't want that for
Speaker 2: the brand. I wanted to be like, protect black people,
Speaker 2: how this is the brand of cis, this is how
Speaker 2: we do. So I've translated that over to handbags, and
Speaker 2: I wanted to do an embossing effect, and with the
Speaker 2: embossing effect that way, it's not just like a big, bright,
Speaker 2: screen printed design. I wanted to be something that's still subtle,
Speaker 2: bold and stands out.
Speaker 1: With the definitely stands out. Yeah, I'm like, yeah, it
Speaker 1: is right there, exactly out there. So how hard was
Speaker 1: it to do that transition into back.
Speaker 2: It was interesting. A lot of my community didn't believe
Speaker 2: in me making them, so at first my friend was like,
Speaker 2: you don't know how to make handbags. You're never going
Speaker 2: to be able to do that.
Speaker 1: Is that friend still your friend?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yes, shout out to JB YEA.
Speaker 1: All the way out there. Okay, he's very I don't
Speaker 1: know if he's gonna be a friend after this interview. No.
Speaker 2: It's funny because he always like, there's absolutely no way
Speaker 2: this can work. This is the dumbest thing ever, Like,
Speaker 2: there's no way that you can do the bus. But
Speaker 2: as the brand started to build up, he would call
Speaker 2: me and he's like, I just saw the release that
Speaker 2: you did, and I've been doubting you all this time,
Speaker 2: and I just like to say, I'm sorry everything I
Speaker 2: doubted about you making this like you did it.
Speaker 1: He's like, now when you call me, you can say
Speaker 1: that you're making Tou Tou and I'm on board. Does
Speaker 1: I know you're gonna do it?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So he when that happened, he would call me
Speaker 2: for every release, and it was so funny because he
Speaker 2: would call me and be like, I just didn't think
Speaker 2: that you could do it and you're really doing it.
Speaker 2: He bought his family bags, he bought like everybody friend. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so it's it's not yeah, but I'm the person that's like,
Speaker 2: when you say I can't do something, I'm gonna go
Speaker 2: out of my way to try to figure out how
Speaker 2: to do. So.
Speaker 1: He's a really close friend. He's a close so when
Speaker 1: he said it, you were like, all right to challenge mofo. Exactly, Okay, exactly,
Speaker 1: Thank you JB for your contribution towards this bag that
Speaker 1: we all now can celebrate and rock. Yes, because of
Speaker 1: you and Blake, it's possible.
Speaker 2: Yes. And then my other best friend Vernon, so Vernon
Speaker 2: was like, yeah, don't listen to him. You can definitely
Speaker 2: do it. He was a very big proponent when we
Speaker 2: started as an agency. He makes grooming products, and with
Speaker 2: his grooming products we made hoodies with like satin lining
Speaker 2: on the inside to be protective hair. He was one
Speaker 2: of our first clients, so as we were starting to
Speaker 2: like produce clothing for him because he's focused on grooming,
Speaker 2: he wasn't focused on the apparel side of it. He's like,
Speaker 2: you just need to do it. This is something that's
Speaker 2: like maybe might not be in your wheelhouse, but you
Speaker 2: can learn it take the steps to it. So Vernon
Speaker 2: was like my crutch in terms of like, oh, do
Speaker 2: you think that this is a realistic thing that I
Speaker 2: can accomplish? And Vernon helps a lot with like the
Speaker 2: thought and intentionality for programming for me. So my community
Speaker 2: has been like even if it was like a form
Speaker 2: of doubt, that form of doubt has been a pillar
Speaker 2: to the success and the growth around. Instead of it
Speaker 2: being like people behind my back saying that you can't
Speaker 2: do it and wanting me to fail, it's more so
Speaker 2: like saying that this is a challenge, you can overcome it,
Speaker 2: but there are requirements to be able to do that.
Speaker 2: So I'm very thankful for the people that are running me.
Speaker 1: Well. They also sound very much like because you have
Speaker 1: the guys that are like, you can't do this, and
Speaker 1: they're like whatever. But when he calls and he says like, hey, wow,
Speaker 1: you did it, and I'm not only gonna you know,
Speaker 1: you know, just be like shout out. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: buy it from my family and friends like oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a really good Yeah, it sounds like you have
Speaker 1: a good set of friends.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the community. I wouldn't be anything without the
Speaker 2: community around us. So not only my friends, my family,
Speaker 2: the people who I don't know were the people that
Speaker 2: launch and got the business to where it is. So
Speaker 2: without them, when we were originally starting to advertise, we
Speaker 2: couldn't advertise because of the presidential election in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Anything that's considered a political message was paused. It was
Speaker 2: illegal to promote any type of political statements, so we
Speaker 2: couldn't do any type of paid advertisement on Facebook, Google, Instagram,
Speaker 2: you couldn't do anything like that. So everything had.
Speaker 1: To be I don't even know that was a rule,
Speaker 1: it was.
Speaker 2: It was. It was started back in September of twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: I believe, and it was supposed to only go through
Speaker 2: the election, but they pushed it all the way from
Speaker 2: September up until I believe March or April of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one.
Speaker 1: And these are like social media.
Speaker 2: This is like Facebook, Instagram, this is the start of
Speaker 2: everything for the brand. So our brand was all social media.
Speaker 2: So if you were focused on that and you're focused
Speaker 2: on paid advertisement, it would have killed our business. So
Speaker 2: the community around us was really like, we're promoting you
Speaker 2: the word of mouth We had a lot of celebrities
Speaker 2: wearing our items without asking them to do it. They
Speaker 2: were just part of the community that built us. And
Speaker 2: it's funny because the original start of it was for
Speaker 2: the community, but the community was the backbone to actually
Speaker 2: help us thrive as well.
Speaker 1: You got to clarify when you say community because it
Speaker 1: sounds like I don't know what you're talking about when
Speaker 1: you say that.
Speaker 2: So community to me would be the people I work with,
Speaker 2: the customers, it'd be family, friends, anybody who's in charge
Speaker 2: of like having opportunities to be on a show like this.
Speaker 2: This is like community to me. And I think community
Speaker 2: is somebody that wants you to be around in any
Speaker 2: type of environment they see fit. So that would be
Speaker 2: if I can see success in other people without any benefit,
Speaker 2: that's community to me. So if I were to say that, oh,
Speaker 2: do I know a good show that I want to
Speaker 2: invest in, I think of your show. I'll be like, hey,
Speaker 2: look at this show. This is a good opportunity for me.
Speaker 2: I might not get anything out of it, but because
Speaker 2: you are there for me, that vouch is the community,
Speaker 2: and people would buy these items, buy the handbags and
Speaker 2: be like, regardless of if I know you are not.
Speaker 2: This is what I stand for, this is what I represent.
Speaker 2: I'm part of the thing.
Speaker 1: And then they're in, they're posting this and they're like
Speaker 1: integrating in any power that they can't. Oh, okay, that's
Speaker 1: amazing yea. So even though you couldn't advertise, the community
Speaker 1: was the one that really built the brand. Yes, that's awesactly.
Speaker 1: Now take me back to like the very beginning first steps.
Speaker 1: You said you had a background in finance. Yes, so
Speaker 1: let's backtrack a little bit. Yakay, what's going on there?
Speaker 2: I used to study supply chain management before going to Howard.
Speaker 2: I did a lot of T shirts and I had
Speaker 2: like a brand where I was creating T shirts, screen
Speaker 2: printing and doing a lot of that, and I was
Speaker 2: doing international design. So with that, I was creating varsity jackets,
Speaker 2: T shirts for fraternities and sororities on campus. I wanted
Speaker 2: to figure out what the business side of it was,
Speaker 2: so I wanted to take a job on Wall Street
Speaker 2: and that's when I did project management under financial institution groups,
Speaker 2: which in it like.
Speaker 1: Give me an example of financial institution.
Speaker 2: So like a credit rating agency, you will issue a
Speaker 2: bond for a company if they're able to secure like
Speaker 2: a loan or like a large amount of money. It
Speaker 2: rates the likelihood of them paying them back or not.
Speaker 2: I was doing the operation, data and control side of it,
Speaker 2: so any of the operations internally within the company. I
Speaker 2: was helping them build that out from like a project
Speaker 2: management soe of like saying that you guys need to
Speaker 2: do this in order to succeed. Here is what I
Speaker 2: was doing. I was learning the business intricacies of how
Speaker 2: to build the business and how the corporation was running
Speaker 2: from like a day to day perspective.
Speaker 1: That's a lot. Yeah, I think that's the first time
Speaker 1: where I almost would need us to go off camera
Speaker 1: and take that down. Okay, that's a lot. I'm not
Speaker 1: even gonna entertain how intrat that just went down a
Speaker 1: hole that I it was almost like you speak at Chinese.
Speaker 1: But okay, so you were in this line of work
Speaker 1: and then what happens.
Speaker 2: I broke my ankle. I was at a rollerblading birthday party,
Speaker 2: and I thought I was better than what I was.
Speaker 2: You've seen a roll bounds, right. I'm having the time
Speaker 2: of my life. I used to play hockey as a kid.
Speaker 2: All of a sudden, I am just getting too conceded.
Speaker 2: I'm going around the rink doing like three sixties and
Speaker 2: all that, and I fell back clip my broke my ankle.
Speaker 1: I mean I would have been mortified.
Speaker 2: It was crazy. So I ended up calling an uber
Speaker 2: to the hospital and they're like, yeah, you broke it
Speaker 2: really bad. You need to have surgery on your ankle.
Speaker 2: And I remember, I'm like, oh, I don't have time
Speaker 2: for this. I flew from New York to LA to
Speaker 2: go to to have surgery on my ankle. My mom
Speaker 2: had knee replacement surgery and I took care of her,
Speaker 2: so I was like, I'll just go to the same
Speaker 2: place that she went to have the surgery that comes
Speaker 2: with it. And I just remembered how happy I was
Speaker 2: being back in LA because everything I described to you
Speaker 2: was exactly how it felt working in that office. It
Speaker 2: was just very structure, structure, structured. It's confusing what am
Speaker 2: I doing on a day to day basis. My habits
Speaker 2: were very like New York. Every single day was very repetitive,
Speaker 2: and I remember that when I had surgery. It's it's
Speaker 2: fun to come back and visit. I love coming back
Speaker 2: to visit New York, but I'm glad that I moved, like,
Speaker 2: I'm glad that that chapter has So.
Speaker 1: You went all the way home to do.
Speaker 2: The surgery, to have the surgery.
Speaker 1: And what's your job saying at the time.
Speaker 2: I don't know because I sent an email I said,
Speaker 2: broke my ankle going to LA to have surgery. I'll
Speaker 2: be back.
Speaker 1: And they were like, oh, it's cool.
Speaker 2: Probably not because at the time it wasn't popular to
Speaker 2: work remote. So this is before this was before COVID,
Speaker 2: and I was saying that, hey, I should do a
Speaker 2: remote role. They're like, that's never going to work. That's
Speaker 2: never going to work, anything like that.
Speaker 1: Okay, got you got fired?
Speaker 2: No, I didn't you. I didn't. I was like, okay, cool,
Speaker 2: I'll come back. So after I healed, I flew back
Speaker 2: to New York and I was like, okay, well, I
Speaker 2: was really happy in LA. Do you think I could
Speaker 2: do remote? And They're like, hmmm, probably not. I don't
Speaker 2: see how that could work in the foreseeable future. So
Speaker 2: I said, okay, well, I really want to pursue for
Speaker 2: my own happiness, like clothing and production and apparel. I
Speaker 2: put in a month's worth of notice before.
Speaker 1: I left my job, so you literally told them that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I said, so I want to go do this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we got four weeks to figure it out out. I'll
Speaker 1: train whoever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because normally people will give like two weeks or
Speaker 2: even if if company is very confidential, if you tell
Speaker 2: somebody about to leave, they'll kick you out the same day,
Speaker 2: depending on.
Speaker 1: The company they valued you. You were like, I'm going
Speaker 1: to LA. They're like, there's New York hospitals all over yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. And then being in La, I just felt
Speaker 2: really happy and I didn't think about it is just
Speaker 2: so great because I could do everything. I was sitting
Speaker 2: at home eating better.
Speaker 1: You can't eat pizza over there. There's no good Chinese.
Speaker 1: But okay, there's good Chinese here. There's good Chinese food here.
Speaker 1: There's a couple not there are spots, I'll tell you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so comparable.
Speaker 2: No, it's not as good, but it's comparable. It is comparable.
Speaker 2: Like you can't get that.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you're eating you know, alts and stuff in La,
Speaker 1: got it right?
Speaker 2: Yeah. So going from the job of that, it was
Speaker 2: a complete change, because it's a bleat change that I
Speaker 2: didn't have a job. I didn't have anything like that.
Speaker 2: I had my family back home. I wasn't making the
Speaker 2: income I was making in New York, so I had
Speaker 2: resources that I could always fall back on. I'm very
Speaker 2: privileged to have that, but I didn't have it to
Speaker 2: just be like, you know what, We're gonna get a
Speaker 2: haircut every single week.
Speaker 1: So did you move back with your mom?
Speaker 2: I moved back in with my mom. Yeah. Shoot, I
Speaker 2: moved back in with my mom. And my mom didn't
Speaker 2: know what I was doing. She's like, what do you
Speaker 2: do for a living? I was like, I'm trying.
Speaker 1: Like so you you went, showed up to work, gave
Speaker 1: a month notice, and I'm the fallback.
Speaker 2: It was kind of like I'm going to send all
Speaker 2: my stuff back home. She's like, what do you mean?
Speaker 2: What do you mean I got Yeah, I started shipping
Speaker 2: and stuff back back.
Speaker 1: I already moved into your room.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she decorated it. It was like a little area
Speaker 2: that her friends would get together. So I didn't have
Speaker 2: a room for probably about six months when I moved back.
Speaker 2: Because she didn't believe I was trying to move back.
Speaker 2: She's like, it's nuts that you're trying to come back.
Speaker 1: To try to come back, it soun like, yo, you
Speaker 1: really ain't got to come back here.
Speaker 2: I don't have anything for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I was.
Speaker 1: There and she forced it.
Speaker 2: You forced it. I told her stuff was on the way.
Speaker 2: The stuff was on the way, and it's.
Speaker 1: Like wise like, Okay, you come back and you're gonna
Speaker 1: put in on these bills.
Speaker 2: No, because I was I would give her money before
Speaker 2: she asked. And that's just like I was saying before
Speaker 2: payroll is like, let's get it over with before people
Speaker 2: feel as if you're taking advantage of them. And that's
Speaker 2: like the biggest advice I give to anybody is like,
Speaker 2: put those expectations up front. And I told her It's
Speaker 2: like it never surprised her that I was moving back,
Speaker 2: Like I never blindsided her. She may not have wanted it,
Speaker 2: but I moved back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so my mom, you're gonna tell I know this
Speaker 1: story is gonna end.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be great. So my mom never knew what
Speaker 2: I did. And I was creating clothing for all these
Speaker 2: different businesses, and as it started to get larger and larger,
Speaker 2: I helped design my grandmother's obituary. I did like all
Speaker 2: the design for it because originally just standard obituaries they
Speaker 2: put the wings on people, and it's like the background,
Speaker 2: it looks kind of crazy. So I was like, let
Speaker 2: me redo everything, and that's when she understood the branding
Speaker 2: side of it.
Speaker 1: But go back before you get to the obituary. Respectfully,
Speaker 1: you said you were doing this for other brands. You
Speaker 1: move here from finance, you don't have I don't have anybody,
Speaker 1: So how are you picking up these brands?
Speaker 2: Just word of mouth. I'd reach out to people and
Speaker 2: pitch these ideas, and I think that that was like
Speaker 2: a pivot point for me. Is because a company like
Speaker 2: a grooming company, does not make apparel.
Speaker 1: So what'd you call? You were going through not the
Speaker 1: Yellow Pages obviously, Well who were you calling? Like what
Speaker 1: was your mindset? I'm going to land at home. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna call oatmeal companies, Like what. I want to know
Speaker 1: exactly what that plan was? Like, you fly in, your
Speaker 1: mom's like he's crazy. Hopefully he leaves in a week.
Speaker 1: You're sitting at home. You're like, I know, I want
Speaker 1: to do this fashion brand. Yeah, what are your exact
Speaker 1: next steps?
Speaker 2: I just started reaching out to anybody I knew who
Speaker 2: had a company or anybody who had an idea for
Speaker 2: a company, and I just started talking to people and
Speaker 2: you get creative. When the first couple of years of
Speaker 2: my business, I was just I'd make T shirts for
Speaker 2: this brand, I would make hoodies for this brand. I
Speaker 2: would call somebody say, hey, have you thought about making
Speaker 2: a clothing brand? They're like, no, I haven't. Oh well
Speaker 2: I made designs for you. I make the designs for them,
Speaker 2: and then if it works, it works. If it doesn't,
Speaker 2: it doesn't. And I think that that was a turning
Speaker 2: point for me is that with the murder of George Floyd,
Speaker 2: it showed that the clothing that I would make for
Speaker 2: another business may not be conducive as a black business
Speaker 2: to support them. So making T shirts for a grooming
Speaker 2: company was not helping them open up a new stream
Speaker 2: of revenue. It was just kind of like a side
Speaker 2: project for them. So I wanted to instead of it
Speaker 2: being like we're trying to solve the problem for businesses
Speaker 2: that they never had, I wanted to pivot it and
Speaker 2: use the intention that we have with our branding for
Speaker 2: the clothing, and that contribution would give back to the
Speaker 2: organizations around us.
Speaker 1: So you're physically designing, though.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you not outsourced designing. I was making the websites
Speaker 2: of learning how to code. I was just doing anything
Speaker 2: because I just wanted to be involved. And then I
Speaker 2: realized that as time progressed, what is the intentionality behind
Speaker 2: what am I doing with these businesses? And that's refining
Speaker 2: it from business to business to business to consumer. And
Speaker 2: that started the brand of SIS as a clothing brand.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now going back to the grooming. So you call
Speaker 1: me grooming as in pets are grooming as.
Speaker 2: An adult neck beard?
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, groom and beard. Just you're like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: have you ever thought of peril? Absolutely not. I groomed beards.
Speaker 1: You know. You're like, okay, well, let me shoot you
Speaker 1: some ideas on some designs. You see, this is designs.
Speaker 1: He's like, that's great man. You know, as a business owners,
Speaker 1: he's going to say, how much is it? It's great?
Speaker 1: Maybe I will consider who knows, maybe someone will buy it.
Speaker 1: How are you even coming up with the numbers on
Speaker 1: what to charge them? Or is it like I'm doing
Speaker 1: this pro bone if you're in this is the package
Speaker 1: that you get with it?
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm making it up. Like I'm making it up.
Speaker 2: I would lose a lot of money when I first
Speaker 2: started because sometimes I would spend my I wasn't charging
Speaker 2: for my time.
Speaker 1: Mm hm.
Speaker 2: So if I made all these designs and like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: but I don't have the money for it, I lost
Speaker 2: the time on that, Yeah, so it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 2: But then I would charge. It'd be like, hey, maybe
Speaker 2: this could be like a couple hundred dollars i'd make
Speaker 2: or maybe this would be this. I would lose some
Speaker 2: money on stuff. I would make money on things. And
Speaker 2: then sometimes I started to realize that with business there's
Speaker 2: always an extra expense you didn't think about where maybe
Speaker 2: we need to fix the spelling on a sweatshirt, or
Speaker 2: we need to change some things that the size and
Speaker 2: the fit doesn't work. I'm just trying to figure it out.
Speaker 2: But I wasn't trying to take on too much that
Speaker 2: it would become a problem for me.
Speaker 1: Did you have a fat savings.
Speaker 2: I No, I didn't because I just spent a lot
Speaker 2: of my savings on my surgery. So a lot of
Speaker 2: that was you.
Speaker 1: Are a high risk mom. You you can come to LA,
Speaker 1: but you just can't stay exactly. So how long did
Speaker 1: you have to stay with her?
Speaker 2: I was staying with her for about almost a year,
Speaker 2: but six months I was on the couch in her
Speaker 2: house and I was just doing designs and building stuff out.
Speaker 2: And then one day I was packing orders. She was
Speaker 2: trying to but I heard about it every day because
Speaker 2: I used to work in the kitchen, so I had
Speaker 2: like a little desktop set up in the kitchen. She
Speaker 2: come and cooked, She's like, what do you what do
Speaker 2: you what are you doing. I'm like, I'm designing, and
Speaker 2: she's like, please go back to work. So but eventually
Speaker 2: she saw me get a lot of My dad, unfortunately
Speaker 2: passed when I was in college, but he was always
Speaker 2: like an entrepreneur and had his own like his own
Speaker 2: businesses and stuff like that. So she always supported that.
Speaker 2: That's something that she's always known.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, okay, So George Floyd happens during the pandemic
Speaker 1: for the first time. I'm gonna say this is gonna
Speaker 1: sound terrible, shout out to my white fans, but you know,
Speaker 1: white America started paying attention to something that's been going
Speaker 1: on for years.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: I really blame sports for taking a knee, because I
Speaker 1: think if we had sports during the pandemic, George Floyd
Speaker 1: would have been another you know, because it was happening
Speaker 1: this this was happening, happens every year for black people,
Speaker 1: it's it's the norm for us, right, But for White America,
Speaker 1: I felt like to really take it serious. It took
Speaker 1: the whole world coming to an end for them to
Speaker 1: be like, oh damn, this is crazy, and it's like, Yo,
Speaker 1: it's been happen. It's been it happens every six months,
Speaker 1: it happens all the time. But so this huge thing happened.
Speaker 1: You know, at this point, I feel like I'm so
Speaker 1: I become numb to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: For me, I was just like, look, they catch these
Speaker 1: police doing everything on camera, yeah, and they still get acquitted.
Speaker 1: So in my mind, it's just like I am numb.
Speaker 1: Just that's just where I was at. I was not
Speaker 1: I was more dealing with how we're going to survive
Speaker 1: this pandemic exactly. But you, you know, you took it personal,
Speaker 1: and so you what was your next step.
Speaker 2: I think that there was always It's always happened within
Speaker 2: the black community, just in terms of anything from segregation
Speaker 2: to like discrimination, like that's the reality of being black.
Speaker 2: I think that there were a lot of organizations that
Speaker 2: were built in response that kind of forced the hand
Speaker 2: to make change, right, So with fifteen percent pledged for
Speaker 2: Aurora James. She started organization and to force corporations to
Speaker 2: do fifteen percent of their shelf life for black owned
Speaker 2: businesses and stores like Target and like all that. So
Speaker 2: there was response from that. One of the organizations we
Speaker 2: worked with, walk Good, they started as a wellness company.
Speaker 2: They started as a wellness company to host different events
Speaker 2: within the black community from like meditation and everything like that.
Speaker 2: And I think that my reality is that everything I
Speaker 2: was warped around, whether it's having a black owned business,
Speaker 2: we're working with companies like fifteen percent pledge my wellness
Speaker 2: and my mental health. We're working with companies like walk Good,
Speaker 2: everybody that I kind of surrounded myself with. That's what
Speaker 2: built the business. So it's it's really something that was
Speaker 2: the trauma was translated into something that's a little bit
Speaker 2: different than what any of us could expect. And it
Speaker 2: was a it's a weird paradigm and the shift between
Speaker 2: how people are acting in the situation where I had
Speaker 2: I had random white people calling me every day like
Speaker 2: what can I do? How can I be involved? It
Speaker 2: was a it was a weird time. Yeah, it was
Speaker 2: a weird time.
Speaker 1: It was like the first time they heard the cry exactly.
Speaker 2: And it's give and take, because it's good that the
Speaker 2: conversation is happening, but like, at what cost is it?
Speaker 2: It takes all of this to happen to be in
Speaker 2: response to what we're building out. But it was something
Speaker 2: that I think the organizations did a good job in
Speaker 2: leading how people should handle these situations, right, Like, instead
Speaker 2: of it being like the black square, everybody posts the
Speaker 2: black square and now that solves racism, It's like, no,
Speaker 2: that's not you can post the black square all you want.
Speaker 2: But there were companies that were tracking. You said, this
Speaker 2: is the commitment and you're making to these black owned companies,
Speaker 2: and these organizations were holding you to it. And I
Speaker 2: think that that was.
Speaker 1: There were companies behind doing like actually tracking.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I think that fifteen percent pledge was really big
Speaker 2: on that. I think Anti Racism Fund was good for
Speaker 2: pillars for organizations within the community. I think that that's
Speaker 2: kind of the before cancel culture. I think that that
Speaker 2: was like the accountability of people boycotting businesses if they
Speaker 2: weren't standing next to the obligations that they were promising
Speaker 2: to their consumer. Yeah, and I think that that was
Speaker 2: the reality that we were living is like, we're tired
Speaker 2: of spending money on these places and people that don't
Speaker 2: value us. Yeah, and enough is enough. Let's change that.
Speaker 2: And I think it translates back to when people start
Speaker 2: to see it as a regular where people aren't talking
Speaker 2: about this as much as they used to a couple
Speaker 2: of years ago, but people are still having the conversation.
Speaker 2: And I think having the opportunities and educational resources that
Speaker 2: is what controls where people will be in the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, wow, that's interesting. Oh yeah, I remember after Black
Speaker 1: Lives Movement, I saw a lot of corporations step up
Speaker 1: and it was like bittersweet because it was like, damn,
Speaker 1: it took all this, but thank god, you know, but
Speaker 1: it was also like why did it take all this?
Speaker 1: And to see that that change is still in effect
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty for I'm thankful, you know, I'm thankful.
Speaker 1: I a walk into Target or any store and you
Speaker 1: know see black owned brands, Yeah, you know, making headway.
Speaker 1: Brands that you know, we're mainly online or boutiqui are
Speaker 1: now getting picked up by major chains. Huge, huge deal.
Speaker 1: I know Afro Unicorn shout out to them. They had
Speaker 1: the license at first, like licensed character in a major retailer,
Speaker 1: you know, and it was like a black unicorn. It's brilliant,
Speaker 1: you know. And now even when I go shopping and
Speaker 1: I see a white one, I'm like, ah, there's a black.
Speaker 2: One somewhere around here, like Santa yeah, black Santa, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I I know, I'm want to see this. But like
Speaker 1: I tell my dad all the time, like, you know,
Speaker 1: this is the first year actually registered to vote ever.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, I thought I was voting. And then
Speaker 1: I was talking to Tony card AND's wife was congressman
Speaker 1: and I was like calling her about Kamala Harris and
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, I'm voting this year. She was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: did you register? I was like, what's that was like,
Speaker 1: She's like, maybe you're just calling so you can learn
Speaker 1: how to register to vote. And she like sat on
Speaker 1: the phone and help me register. And luckily she was like,
Speaker 1: do a register by mail and she was right because
Speaker 1: I'm going to be in New York. So I was like,
Speaker 1: thank god she helped me with it. But I told
Speaker 1: my dad, this is intentional. I'm specifically voting for Kamal
Speaker 1: and I'm not afraid to say it because she's a
Speaker 1: black woman. Now she was out here murdering kids and
Speaker 1: all that. You know, I would be like, okay, but
Speaker 1: I'm not going to get to anything past. It's about
Speaker 1: damn time my daughter or myself can say, like my
Speaker 1: daughter can be like, you know, I want to be president.
Speaker 1: I'll be like, you know, yes you can. And here's
Speaker 1: an example. And I was even telling her the other day,
Speaker 1: if you become president, forget it. I'm in heaven as
Speaker 1: an adult, like, forget it. Like if that ends up
Speaker 1: being the case, girl, there is no greater gift you
Speaker 1: can give me, you know. And she's only three, But
Speaker 1: I only believe in it now because of comea.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the resources and opportunity people around you
Speaker 2: was not a thing that we had where being the
Speaker 2: first black president was like a dream as a kid
Speaker 2: that you would say, that's adorable, but it was not
Speaker 2: a reality that people were really facing. And I think
Speaker 2: that now as the world is starting to have figures
Speaker 2: that are standing and sitting in that presence of it,
Speaker 2: the change is coming for sure. And I think that
Speaker 2: representation and resources really matter a lot. So like for you,
Speaker 2: you've never voted before, you could have had the resources
Speaker 2: to vote, but the resources weren't enough to provide you
Speaker 2: with reason to be like, here's a reason why I'm
Speaker 2: actually going to vote, and they're I think that that's
Speaker 2: the same thing, especially like the community that we're in,
Speaker 2: is that things have to be set up properly, but
Speaker 2: they also have to be set up properly for you specifically.
Speaker 2: And I think a lot of times when it comes
Speaker 2: down to like voter registration, for me, it's like I've
Speaker 2: registered to vote, like I've voted several times. My journey
Speaker 2: compared to like somebody I've been classed with or I'm
Speaker 2: sitting next to be completely different because my reality is
Speaker 2: like the neighborhood I grew up with, like everybody went
Speaker 2: to go vote on the special day, everybody had like
Speaker 2: I voted sticker, Like that's my reality, and sometimes some
Speaker 2: people just don't. Like I even have people in my
Speaker 2: family that are like, they don't prioritize things the same way.
Speaker 2: But I think between having more resources, more role models,
Speaker 2: and more people that are actively like getting on platforms
Speaker 2: and speaking about it, it's a really really dope thing.
Speaker 2: And then the things that we're instilling in kids and
Speaker 2: we're instilling in the next generation is more so not
Speaker 2: like this is a dream that could possibly happen, is
Speaker 2: like this has actually happened. The statistics on it compared
Speaker 2: to like everybody else is lower, but it's still an opportunity,
Speaker 2: whereas like we I'm so used to Even when I
Speaker 2: was applying for colleges, my college advisors were like, don't
Speaker 2: apply for this college because you like there's nowhere you're
Speaker 2: going to get in. Don't apply for this like instead
Speaker 2: of maybe there's an opportunity, That opportunity of like slight
Speaker 2: possibility even is like less than one percent if it's there.
Speaker 2: I think that that is what allows people to really
Speaker 2: just be dedicated to stuff around us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I also think that, like one of all
Speaker 1: other reasons why I ended up voting or registering to
Speaker 1: vote was I actually had congressmen on the show, Okay,
Speaker 1: and he broke down like how he was able to
Speaker 1: win or win his first like electoral race because he
Speaker 1: was reaching out to the Brown community. It was like
Speaker 1: Latinos people that like the other competitors weren't even wasting
Speaker 1: their time. They were like not even wasting their time,
Speaker 1: and he just he like was able to articulate like
Speaker 1: what happens when you don't vote, yeah, and like the
Speaker 1: damage that can happen and what happens when you do.
Speaker 1: But he was very much able to articulate, like how
Speaker 1: the government is run when you sit silent, And I
Speaker 1: think there just really isn't enough education for those that
Speaker 1: are like nobody listens to us, Like that's so out
Speaker 1: of there. I'm trying to figure out how to put
Speaker 1: groceries on my table. But I feel like from the
Speaker 1: midllennials on up, they more care about, like what's the
Speaker 1: brand's mission and purpose and who do they support when
Speaker 1: they purchase. I'd be honest, I'm much like if I
Speaker 1: see what I like, I like, I buy, you know,
Speaker 1: mission or no mission, as long as you're not harring
Speaker 1: you know, sounds terrible, but this.
Speaker 2: Just that's that's your moral compass. And I think that
Speaker 2: there's like an opportunity cause right, like so somebody might
Speaker 2: be like, I don't buy any fast fashion. To not
Speaker 2: buy fast fashion is expensive?
Speaker 1: What's fast fashion? Like fashion?
Speaker 2: Ova? Like shean sh t MoU like any company that
Speaker 2: exploits workers in exchange to make it's cheaper.
Speaker 1: That's what they do.
Speaker 2: Or yeah, for sure, oh like to make clothing from
Speaker 2: fabric perspective, and like working you cut costs and like
Speaker 2: how much cost can you cut before it starts to
Speaker 2: be like lower quality or somebody else's livelihood, you know.
Speaker 2: And that's the conversation that you have, is that if
Speaker 2: you're like I no longer support any of these brands,
Speaker 2: you have to have the money to pay for that,
Speaker 2: or you need to find some opportunity. And I think
Speaker 2: that there's a given take, just like a business being sustainable,
Speaker 2: Like we have products that are sustainable, but the whole
Speaker 2: business to be a completely sustainable business requires a lot
Speaker 2: of effort for that specifically that that might not be
Speaker 2: It's like a give and take. My prices may be
Speaker 2: higher if I were to like source packaging from somewhere
Speaker 2: else to be like completely sustainable and biodegradable as opposed
Speaker 2: to like this is like packaging, maybe we are focused
Speaker 2: on tissue paper that gets thrown out. We don't really
Speaker 2: care as much on that. It's a give and take.
Speaker 2: And I think a lot of times with apparel, the
Speaker 2: reality is you wear clothes every day, so people aren't
Speaker 2: being like, oh, I don't support this and all that,
Speaker 2: Like go to the liquor store, get a T shirt
Speaker 2: and all that, like you spill on it, what are're
Speaker 2: gonna do? Oh, now I have to go buy like
Speaker 2: a high end brand, it's very difficult to get like
Speaker 2: in the weeds. And I think that we are so
Speaker 2: like very big on like I want a company with
Speaker 2: the mission on it. But I think that having a
Speaker 2: brand with the beliefs of it and understanding that if
Speaker 2: you are purchasing like cargo pants for my brand, aside
Speaker 2: from a bag that says protect black women, you know
Speaker 2: that the same effect is still happening within our brand
Speaker 2: is because our contribution aside from being like we donate
Speaker 2: x amount from the sales of bags, it's like our
Speaker 2: brand is focused and mission driven for this it makes
Speaker 2: it better. And there are some people that purchase the
Speaker 2: brand not because we're black owned, but they like the messaging.
Speaker 2: Everybody's intention is different, and I think that when you
Speaker 2: understand your intention behind it, and like, I don't shame
Speaker 2: people because I don't know the full extremity on what
Speaker 2: it is. Like some people they might be like I
Speaker 2: wear three dollars tea every single day. There's my one outfit.
Speaker 2: I don't have anything else in the budget for that.
Speaker 2: People have kids all my money goes to my kids.
Speaker 2: You don't know what people are going through, but I
Speaker 2: think that when you know what your moral compass is,
Speaker 2: and I think that not everything needs to be like
Speaker 2: a moral and ethical decision, but like where you decide
Speaker 2: to put that, Like maybe my moral compass, for like
Speaker 2: my tithing goes here, and maybe it goes to that.
Speaker 2: But not everything needs to be like a dissertation or
Speaker 2: like a deep dive in it. And I think that
Speaker 2: we make things a lot more than it actually is.
Speaker 2: But it's interesting. It is interesting why.
Speaker 1: People that when it comes to sit people can purchase
Speaker 1: your clothing and your bags online, Yes, and where else.
Speaker 2: We're currently only online. So the goal right now is
Speaker 2: to be into different retailers.
Speaker 1: Yes, and prior to us recording, you said you wanted
Speaker 1: to be in specifically two retailers.
Speaker 2: Yes, go ahead. So I want to be in Sacks, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's,
Speaker 2: places that I like to shop and everything, and I
Speaker 2: also want to be in local boutiques. I think that
Speaker 2: being in boutiques is really cool because we know some
Speaker 2: of the boutique owners and being in those spaces that
Speaker 2: you shop is really cool and it's part of the community.
Speaker 2: That helped build us around.
Speaker 1: Yes, your price point on your bags and your clothing is.
Speaker 2: It's on average, a canvas tote bag is forty dollars.
Speaker 2: The handbags are between one fifty to one ninety five
Speaker 2: depending on the material in the size of it.
Speaker 1: And you have a cool hard wallet.
Speaker 2: Yeah we do. We've got the Charlotte card holder.
Speaker 1: I feel like, what was the price point on them.
Speaker 2: That was forty?
Speaker 1: It was?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Was it? Yeah? What was it?
Speaker 1: Why do I feel like it was a lot more?
Speaker 2: That's good? Yeah it's forty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, But you want to be in but you
Speaker 1: don't want to Why would you not consider, like because
Speaker 1: those price points you could be in like a Tarja Yeah,
Speaker 1: tarje I was. I would say Walmart, but I don't
Speaker 1: know if any you know Walmart accounts. But why would
Speaker 1: you be opposed to going inside a Target?
Speaker 2: I'm not opposed to it. I think that there's a
Speaker 2: way to curate it right where if you look at
Speaker 2: a company like north Face. North Face has the Purple
Speaker 2: label and that's their lux line that's only in designated locations,
Speaker 2: but they also are in places like TJ Max and
Speaker 2: Marshals there.
Speaker 1: Like how guessed by Marciano is like, guess, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: different branches in each one that comes out. Would you
Speaker 1: be opposed to that?
Speaker 2: No, I'm not against it, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: So and then where do you see yourself in like
Speaker 1: a couple of years.
Speaker 2: I see it. I see SISS as a big brand
Speaker 2: that houses everything where either we have ownership or we
Speaker 2: work with direct companies in things that we don't specialize in. Right,
Speaker 2: so for a media company, we're not a media outlet,
Speaker 2: but it would be really cool if we work with
Speaker 2: a black owned media company to.
Speaker 1: Like us exactly.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, what we wouldn't take the ownership of that,
Speaker 2: but we know that it's like, okay, if we want
Speaker 2: to have a show and an audience of people, we
Speaker 2: can now be a supporter of your show. If people
Speaker 2: wear clothes, like we could make the clothes for this show,
Speaker 2: and that would be like something that would be part
Speaker 2: of it we can make and be big with. Now
Speaker 2: the people that come in, they have an awareness for programming.
Speaker 2: We have hosted events, but there are other companies we
Speaker 2: work with to be part of it. So being an
Speaker 2: entity that's like ancillary and supports other businesses is really
Speaker 2: the goal and to sit in these big retailers. We
Speaker 2: do want to have our own brick and mortar store,
Speaker 2: but I do want it to be like this is
Speaker 2: a luxury upscale business. Those are like heavy hitters and
Speaker 2: like Sacks and Norsetrum that are sitting there. We are
Speaker 2: also in an everyday accessible company like a Target. I
Speaker 2: want to have those and like curate it tastefully to
Speaker 2: be able to be.
Speaker 1: Like all in all, how hard is it to get
Speaker 1: in a Sax and a Norseum? Tell, have you made
Speaker 1: the calls? What does it take to get in there?
Speaker 2: It takes a lot. I think that when you're looking
Speaker 2: at companies nowadays, people are very digital. So you can
Speaker 2: be on a website like Macy's. Macy's will have a
Speaker 2: program where you can sell and never be in their
Speaker 2: physical store. You could be on like Macy's dot com.
Speaker 1: That's awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good opportunity. But the curation piece of
Speaker 2: where it sits on the floor if you were in
Speaker 2: store is also different. So on Macy's dot com. When
Speaker 2: you see all of the listings on Macy's, Macy's has
Speaker 2: like tens of thousands of items online. Where's your brand
Speaker 2: going to be? And if somebody is just like, let
Speaker 2: me just see what I can get from Macy's and
Speaker 2: I go to handbags. How many companies do you know
Speaker 2: make handbags? So I think that the curation piece on
Speaker 2: it is like more intentional to be in store, which
Speaker 2: is what we thrive for.
Speaker 1: You're so good at online. And like even when I
Speaker 1: shop at Macy's, which I rarely do now because the
Speaker 1: a riodte takes all my money, but I usually will
Speaker 1: type in like if I type in shoes, I'll be
Speaker 1: like Booty's and then it'll be like price point this
Speaker 1: dollar amount to this dollar amount. So I do like
Speaker 1: that about Macys. So like if I were to if
Speaker 1: Seyss was in macy I would just be like handbags
Speaker 1: this price point, yeah, you know, and then obviously I
Speaker 1: always go over that budget because sometimes the nicer bags
Speaker 1: or more or whatever. But I do think that, like
Speaker 1: if everything's going online, because I can't even remember the
Speaker 1: last time I like walked into Macy's. Yeah whatever, what's wrong.
Speaker 1: I do for the shoes, you know, because she's yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, every girl's addiction. But for the most part, yeah,
Speaker 1: like I would so if you had an opportunity be
Speaker 1: on Macy's. Would you be like, Eh, No.
Speaker 2: I'm open to it. I think that we're not too
Speaker 2: good for any opportunity. I think it just needs to
Speaker 2: make sense as an opportunity for the business.
Speaker 1: And then but how are you how do you get
Speaker 1: into the stores? Like who are you calling? Or or
Speaker 1: have you made the calls?
Speaker 2: We've We've made calls and we're in conversations with different companies.
Speaker 2: But there will either be like a buyer for the
Speaker 2: specific department. So Seise could be a brand inside a
Speaker 2: place like a Macy's, but it might be Sis's handbags,
Speaker 2: not the apparel. And it depends on like your or
Speaker 2: strength as a business. And it also depends on like
Speaker 2: a buying calendar. If we have right now, it's fall.
Speaker 2: If we're selling a whole bunch of like tank tops
Speaker 2: and stuff right now, people in New York are probably
Speaker 2: not going to buy tank tops. So from a buying perspective,
Speaker 2: listing it online as opposed to in store two different beasts.
Speaker 2: So it just depends on how we're going to be.
Speaker 2: But I think that accessibility should be open to everybody.
Speaker 2: You go online and you purchase stuff online. I buy
Speaker 2: all my stuff online, or I like occasionally go to
Speaker 2: the mall. My mom doesn't believe in buying anything online.
Speaker 2: She has to see she is, but she's part of
Speaker 2: like the clientele that purchases from me, and like her
Speaker 2: friends would purchase from it, and they have to feel
Speaker 2: the items. No matter how sell them, you got to
Speaker 2: be in person. Will either do like pop ups or
Speaker 2: be in a store or like I'll have to bring
Speaker 2: it to people. Like there's just certain things that I
Speaker 2: think that we lose and I don't feel as if
Speaker 2: a brand were too big to do those things right.
Speaker 2: Like my mom is spending the same amount of money
Speaker 2: that somebody else would spend on something, but she's like
Speaker 2: a loyal customer. She does not know of new brands
Speaker 2: that come out like on a consistent basis, because she
Speaker 2: sticks with her consistent businesses.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, she's like me and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I want that for people where it's like
Speaker 2: I want some people that have a whole bunch of brands.
Speaker 2: I want people that want like a culmination of black
Speaker 2: owned businesses. I want people that just want handbags. I
Speaker 2: want it all, and we're not too big to be
Speaker 2: in anything like that. I just think that there are
Speaker 2: certain aspirations that we have. I think that even if
Speaker 2: we're not in stores, the business will be successful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it will. It is successful, and it's a beautiful brand.
Speaker 1: I particularly want to go and get the car Ballet.
Speaker 1: For some straight reason, I thought it was more and
Speaker 1: I don't know why. Maybe I was like doing too
Speaker 1: many things at the same time. Yeah, because I do
Speaker 1: that sometimes, I'm sure. Because John was like, you have
Speaker 1: to you have to get to Blake. You have to
Speaker 1: get this guy Blake. I was like, all right, John,
Speaker 1: it's not why I'm calling, but okay, send me his info.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, yeah, we should definitely get
Speaker 1: I looked at your stuff, that's right. I remember I
Speaker 1: was in Beverly hos And I was looking at your
Speaker 1: stuff and I said, oh, his stuff is pretty amazing.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: But that's a high recommendation. It was a very high recommendation.
Speaker 1: He was like, you got to hear his story. He
Speaker 1: worked very hard and this is a John from Hustle
Speaker 1: to create what's his coffee? Coffee Don Mundo shout out
Speaker 1: to coffee Don Mundo. All right, tell all our listeners
Speaker 1: where we can keep up with everything Seise related.
Speaker 2: Yes, you can check us out at Seise dot Store,
Speaker 2: CI s E, Dot S, t O r E. We're
Speaker 2: on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, We're on everything.
Speaker 1: Yes, And if some brands or particular brands, since you
Speaker 1: are very intentional with the black footprint, if some organizations
Speaker 1: wanted to reach out to partner or to do business
Speaker 1: with you, because it seems like SEIS is very open
Speaker 1: to that, how would they get a hold of.
Speaker 2: You as a DM And like our emails are connected
Speaker 2: to everything as well, So.
Speaker 1: Okay, perfect, Thank you so much for sharing and affordable,
Speaker 1: very healthy, and I will give you this like most
Speaker 1: of my jar is actually eight look at that. It's
Speaker 1: really good. Shares to this dish. I absolutely love it.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, y'all. Peace out for more eating while
Speaker 1: broke from iHeartRadio and The Black Effect, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.