STUDENT ENTREPRENEURS INSPiRE PEERS TO SHOP SMALL

Madeleine Harris explores the businesses and journeys of female entrepreneurs at the College of William and Mary. Continue reading to learn about their goals to positively impact the community, as well as the difficulties of starting and running a business as a student. Perhaps you’ll be inspired to buy local the next time you’re looking for the perfect gift.

People often prioritise ease over impact, economy over quality, and short-term solutions over large-scale answers, brushing aside small businesses. This has been especially true in the age of COVID-19. Fortunately, the College of William and Mary is home to a wide array of thriving businesses led by diverse student entrepreneurs — many of whom embarked on their entrepreneurial journeys during the pandemic. Historically, entrepreneurship has been a male-dominated field, but recently, more and more women have been joining the movement. Below are a few examples of female entrepreneurship at the College.

Bryonna Elliott ’22 sells hair and skin-care products through her business Cloud Eleven Hair (Instagram: @cloudelevenhair). The business seeks to address a need in society that Elliott noticed — the need for educating Black women about how best to care for their natural hair, rather than chemically altering and harming it. 

“I created Cloud Eleven because I wanted African-American women and people with naturally curly hair, who many times couldn’t find what they were looking for on the wide-scale market, to not only be happy with (and in a comfortable, blissful place with) their hair, but I wanted them to be knowledgeable about why certain things are better for their hair than others,” Elliott said. 

Elliott came up with her business’s name when she was about 14 — if Cloud Nine is bliss, then Cloud Ten should be education, and Cloud Eleven a combination of the two.

According to Elliott, natural Black hair is often difficult to manage without proper education. Like many other Black girls, growing up, Elliott’s mother used a relaxer in her hair to chemically change its makeup in order to make it easier to straighten. When Elliott was about 12, she decided she wanted to stop putting chemicals in her hair, go natural, and accept her hair in its natural state. Elliott switched to a host of new products designed for curly hair, but they still contained harsh, damaging chemicals.

“These products that I thought were better for my hair really were harming it even more,” Elliott said. “And so I saw a lot of breakage in my hair. So I decided to just go back to the basics of three ingredients that I know for sure worked well for naturally curly hair — shea butter, coconut butter, and olive oil.”

It was around this time that she first became aware of the general lack of knowledge and education about Black natural hair. This observation served as an inspiration for Elliott.

“I took that as a challenge to not only educate myself, but make sure that my sister could grow up knowing all that she could about her hair, make sure that my little cousins could grow up knowing all they could about their hair, because many people don’t make it their business to teach it to you,” Elliott remarked.

Elliott pointed to Black celebrities like Halle Berry and Monique Coleman who have shared their struggles with having natural Black hair in the white-dominated film industry — often due to a lack of training on Black hair in cosmetology school for hair stylists. Black hair is diverse, and Elliott explained that as a child, accepting the reality that you don’t look like others around you, or even those who love you the most, is one of the hardest things young Black girls face.

Elliott began her business in 2016 only selling hair products. About a year later, she noticed that customers were buying multiple jars of her product at once, and they explained they were using it to moisturise their skin in addition to their hair. After researching her ingredients, Elliott discovered that her product is safe for skin as well, and she soon began marketing her products for both hair and skin-care.

To this day, Elliot’s central mission revolves around helping Black women embrace their natural hair and providing them with the knowledge to ensure their hair is as healthy as possible.

“I wanted to make it my mission to be a cushion of support and a source of knowledge and education for young girls, like my sister was at the time, like my little cousins were, but then also people who were my age and older who hadn’t had the foundational instruction and support during their formative years of what it means to love yourself in your hair as a Black woman, and that was really the driving force of starting an educationally-based business,” Elliott remarked. “I experienced it firsthand, the lack of information education that exists on the topic of Black hair, so I wanted to be a resource for people like me in that arena.”

Lemai Vo ’21, owner of Lemaiknits (Instagram: @lemaiknits) is a self-taught knitter and crocheter who creates sustainable and colourful knitted clothing. While most of her work involves sweaters in eye-popping colours and varying designs, she also creates scarves, beanies, crop tops, produce bags, and more. Vo works to make each piece original which involves creating designs that reflect her experiences in the world and the nature around her. 

“A lot of my things aren’t really symmetrical, or inline, or perfect, because I don’t like how that represents me,” Vo said. “I know I’m imperfect, so I like to make art that’s imperfect in this sense.”

Vo added that sweaters from fast fashion companies cost less because they often are either mass-produced in environmentally unfriendly factories or produced in sweatshops (frequently with the aid of unethical labour and unsafe working conditions). Vo prides herself on her use of either ethically sourced or secondhand material. Sustainability is of the utmost importance for her brand — about 80 per cent of her tools are secondhand, and she tries to use every strand of her yarn. She even has made sweaters from yarn scraps from other projects.  

“I really want to be part of the solution to solving some of our environmental problems,” Vo said. 

In January 2021, Mayada Hassan ’22 launched her chocolate-covered sweets business Made by Mayada (Instagram: @madebymayada). Her first sale was to one of her former residents from when she was a resident assistant. The girl messaged Hassan saying she wanted to buy some treats for her girlfriend. Knowing that her former resident not only was doing well and in a great relationship, but also that she wanted to support her business, put a smile on Hassan’s face. 

“It was really incredible because the last time I had spoken to this girl she was telling me about how she was going through such a hard time in her life, and now she’s messaging me wanting to order a sweet gift for her girlfriend of almost a year,” Hassan said.

As a student entrepreneur, Hassan must balance not only her academics and social life but also her business, further complicating her time management. However, for Hassan, running a business is well worth the time commitment, due in part to how she sees her business positively impacting others in the Williamsburg community. Creating products that people love is her mission.

 “I was dreaming about strawberries last night, I kid you not,” Hassan said. “I was thinking about it when I slept because I want it to be more than just good — I want it to be great, and I want people to be satisfied with what I sell them.”

 Hassan added that as a Black female local business owner, purchasing from her is much more impactful than purchasing from big companies, and she greatly appreciates the support she has received from the community.

 “It costs $0.00 to support small businesses,” Hassan said. “A follow, a like, a share, a repost, a word of mouth like, ‘Hey, have you heard of Made by Mayada?’ All of those things are supporting a small business.” 

Trinity Bea ’22, owner of baking business Treats By Trin (Instagram: @_treatsbytrin), made her first sale when she was in the sixth grade. Bea was known for bringing her signature mini cupcakes to class on random days, and one day, her teacher asked her to make 108 cupcakes for her baby shower. Bea casually accepted, at the time not realising the magnitude of the endeavour she had agreed to undertake. However, Bea greatly enjoyed the challenge of decorating the 108 cupcakes in the luau theme requested. 

 “The person that ordered that batch was the person whose cake I made this past weekend, actually,” Bea said. “So, you know, 11 years later, she’s still ordering.”

 Despite all this baking, Bea cannot even taste most of her own food — three years ago, she was diagnosed with celiac disease. Her four siblings serve as her taste-testing team to evaluate new recipes. Bea prides herself on culinary excellence, typically making three batches for each order — the first batch using an online recipe, the second using what she thinks the recipe should be, and the third batch a hybrid of what her siblings liked from the previous two batches. Bea can make gluten-free, dairy-free, and nut-free desserts, but unfortunately, many allergy-friendly ingredients are much more expensive than regular ingredients. However, Bea hopes to make both regular and allergy-free treats as affordable as possible; this affordability is one of her businesses’ central missions. Bea’s cakes, cupcakes, brownies, cookies, and potentially, other treats as well, can be ordered and delivered in Williamsburg.

Celeste Phillips ’24 sells crochet plushes — platypi, lady bugs, chameleons, frogs, jellyfish, starfish, crabs, parakeets, bats, cows — you name it. The first item she ever designed, a very large chameleon, served as the inspiration for the name of her business — The Crochet Chameleon (Instagram: @the_crochet_chameleon). 

Phillips carefully created the chameleon referencing books with photographs of chameleons in order for the stuffed animal to look as realistic as possible.
“It took me a while to get it done, but once I did, I was really proud of it,” Phillips said. “And I just kind of like stepped back for a bit and admired it until I could think of something to make for another project.”

Phillips began selling her crochet creatures at a craft show in high school and loved watching people interact with her work and appreciate the items she made. The Crochet Chameleon is a seasonal business for now, with the Etsy store reopening for sales in May. Phillips currently is taking custom orders and item reservations, which will allow animals that have found buyers to be shipped at a later date. 

Love of crocheting at the end of the day is Phillips’ motivation: “Whenever I crochet something, it’s more for the fun of it,” Phillips said. “I just kind of enjoy it.” 

Freshman Bayleigh Albert ’24 recently started her business called BayCoast Charms (Instagram: @baycoastcharms) where she sells scrunchies, masks, key chains, and jewelry. The positive feedback Albert has received from customers has inspired her — she loves being able to learn how her products affect people. One of her customers bought a lemon keychain and explained that her grandmother, who recently passed away, used to wear a shirt with lemons on it, so the keychain reminded her of her grandmother.

“Something that maybe doesn’t have any significant value to me, for somebody else can really just help them through a hard time, or give them confidence, or just that feeling that they’re not alone, which I think is extremely special,” Albert observed. “And what’s so amazing about having a small business is you get to experience occasions like that one where you really made an impact on somebody else.”

Albert puts a lot of attention to detail and thought into each item she makes, an aspect often overlooked when people view pricing of items from small businesses — customers are paying both for the material and the time it takes for hand-crafted items to be made. For Albert, starting her own small business has been incredibly rewarding.

“If anyone has like a sort of talent, per se, and they’re considering selling, I say go for it, because there’s really no worst case scenario to it, besides that it just didn’t work, and that’s okay,” Albert said. “I feel like a lot of things in life require a leap of faith, so, you know, why not take that one?”