November 22, 2021 • 22 mins
Alquincia is an app developer, an entrepreneur, an infopreneur, and the founder of the first black virtual mall.
Alquincia talks about confronting imposter syndrome, making an assessment of yourself, the marketing classes and free educational resources she used to start her business, and all amenities offered in the black virtual mall.
Host: IG: @itstanyatime
Guest IG: @akanundrum
Black Virtual Mall IG: @theblackvirtualmall
Check out The Black Virual Mall: https://www.theblackvirtualmall.com/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Money Movers. Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily podcast,
determined to give you the keys to the Kingdom of
financial stability, wealth and abundance. Innovation and entrepreneurship go hand
(00:21):
in hand, but it can be just as simple as saying, Hey,
here's something that is needed. Here's something that people want.
Here's something that I can grow and build into something
of value and excellence, something that I love and many
others will. Sure it exists somewhere else, but I'm going
to create it here. For most of us, entrepreneurship seems
(00:43):
out of reach. Most of us don't know where to start,
much less how to find success and grow it into
something big. But there are people out there who are
dedicated to the idea of black and brown success through
entrepreneurship and wealth building, and our expert today is one
of those people. She is an app developer and entrepreneur
and infopreneur and the founder of the Black Virtual mall
(01:06):
A Quincy a Sella Wanni al Quincy. I, welcome to
the show. I'm so excited to have you here and
to tell your story. Thank you. I'm so absolutely honored
to be here. Thank you so very much for having
me can you start by telling us a little bit
about how you got into entrepreneurship and talk about your journey. Sure?
(01:26):
Thanks to be honest. Um, I had entrepreneur endeavors. I
thought about things, and since I was a kid like
most people, and quite honestly, I didn't consider myself a
business person per se. Um, math wasn't my strong suit,
and so I just felt that I was more of
a creative and I always thought that if I had
an idea, I would have to find someone to you know,
(01:48):
execute that idea. And a best friend of mine, Um,
after I left college graduated, she winds up purchasing a
fortune five hundred company a franchise, and so she ended
up needing help with that, and so I came on
actually just to kind of do some business to business
selves and I ended up having to manage it. And
(02:09):
when that happened, I had to jump in with bothie,
no formal training, nothing. So this being my best friend,
my daughter's got mother, I took to the task. I
love that I wind up she wind up trusting me,
and we took her store from number sixty one in California.
I'm not sorry, I'm sixty one stores in California. We
(02:29):
were technically forty three to number two out of twelve
hundred stores Nationwhy um, you end up being from number
two sixty five to number eleven. So that's out of
two years of working with her and her trusting me
and really getting the behind the scenes. And so I
started to trust myself a little bit more with my
(02:50):
ideas and I thought, Okay, I can do this, you know,
I can actually execute. And so I started that journey.
And what I wanted to do was make sure this
time around, I share the process. Oh I love that.
And you know what this really fascinating about that is
for a lot of women. You know, people have heard
this term of imposter syndrome, like I don't know if
(03:11):
I can do it. I'm not qualified. You know, Should
I go to school for this? How much do I
have to learn before I can really you know, make
this happen. But telling stories like yours really put a
roadmap down for Like you just went in and this
is the idea of like fake it till you make it.
You just did all the steps that you had to
do every day to move the needle to get to
the next level, and here you are, like, yeah, it's
(03:34):
your teestimony to so many women, and you know, in
terms of imposter syndrome, was be very honest with myself
about my swat, my strengths, my weaknesses, you know, opportunities,
and what was it would be afford to my business.
And so I immediately took an assessment of myself to say, Okay,
what do I do will and what do I not do? Well? Yeah,
(03:54):
at the time, of course, I'm completely broke, so I
cannot hire a tat to do these things. So I
decided let me try to fill in as many coals
as I could. Um. One of the things I did
was I did take marketing classes that you seel a
so I think that's gonna be, you know, something that
I really want to get my bearings around. And then
I found out that there was an app on iTunes,
(04:17):
uh called an apple called ituned University, and iTunes University
is an amazing platform. It will be ending in December.
But what they've done is they've curated prerecorded classes from
some of the top institutions Stanford, Berkeley, Cambridge, and you
just search for your subject and then you get to
(04:38):
listen to These are real college courses that were recorded
for free. I love that you're sharing like these tangible
tips because the Internet has is literally been such a
revolutionary gateway for education, and it's free and there's so
many different access points to where you can find all these,
you know, incredible resources to teach your self. So like
(05:01):
this is great, Thank you so much. Yeah, and definitely,
I mean, I know what it feels like to have
to buddle through we're going to Google, but then there's
no really betting process, so you don't know what is authentic,
you know, what it's real, what it's genuine. So I
tuned university for me, you know, I've been in college.
It was it was a very helpful tool because I
(05:21):
didn't have to do any of the guesswork about is
this legitimate is it not? You know, so the information
and it's compacted, you know, as most people know. A
semester sixteen hours, so I would wake up do an
hour you know, in my in my earbuds, you're listening
to the coursework. Sometimes they give you the PDF files
and everything. So an hour I wake up on lunch,
there's an hour that I do too. So I was
(05:43):
literally knocking back at college course in four days, you know, yeah,
so sixteen hours, right. But so I'm doing that and
I'm taking everything that I could get my hands on.
If I wanted to know about copyright, trademarkt I took
that entrepreneurship. I took that anything that I could get
my hands on, and so that helped out tremendously. And
(06:03):
what I decided to do was share that journey. So
when I went to create my LLC, I gave everyone
the information. Okay, I'm going here. When I went to
Wells far going to do my bank account, Okay, they're
gonna ask you for this form and this form and
this form. Okay. Paused right there because I want to
ask the question. And it wind up being my most
my first like viral me. It was the least little
(06:25):
meme ever, but it wind up going viral, and it
was the seventh steps to start my business. Wait a second,
I want to pause right there, so just so that
people can get their bearings. So you had started um
coming to actively manage a franchise with your friend, and
now you fast forward. You kind of had the you know,
school of hard knocks, self taught business education and you're
(06:48):
launching your own business. What was the business that you
were working on and then take us through um sort
of how you put this out to the world on
the Instagram at conundrum Yes, okay, so it's in London.
Was just my personal page. The business that I was
going to launch is called fits by Design What Fits
by Design um, And so the concept was to mirror UM,
(07:09):
say a no shop barbershop, we have boots, but there
would be fashion designers who recently graduated from fashion school,
and you will be able to come in and uh,
let them know what it is that you wanted, have
it professionally sketched. And then the other side of the
building was going to be fabrics, so you will be
able to meet with them, choose your fabrics, your buttons,
(07:30):
all your notions, and then have what you wanted. Me
I just self talk swer uh and going to work
and I'd make my outfits and they were like where
did you get that? And I'm like, I made it
and they were like, you have to make me one.
You have to make me one. And I'm self talk
So I was like, you really don't want me make it? Okay,
I'm gonna mess this up for you. So I thought like, wow,
(07:52):
here's a problem. I see it they would like to
create a freedom that I had, but they don't hand
it sewing. So I thought, what if I hear these
people together? And that's what the concept was for fits
and this is, you know, the genesis of entrepreneurship for
so many people. They're like, wait a second. If I
really like this, and other people are coming to me
saying they like this, maybe there's a bigger market. How
(08:14):
do I create a business around this and brilliant and
solve a problem for more and more people? Yes, and
now most recently you've developed the black virtual mall. Can
you tell us about that as well? Are sure? And
so from that I did um, I went. I've ventured
into app development because the idea for fits um in
two thousand and sixteen, I decided to pivot from a
(08:37):
brick and mortar concept to an app concept. So I
started that journey. And that journey, of course introduces you
into a lot in terms of tech and different just
just looking at things differently, your reach and what abs
and everything are able to do. So I had kind
of tinkered in a few little platforms. I created something
called Milling and minds met and it was a meeting
(08:57):
place for us to kind of get to the core
of relationship and ships. And I had created a marketplace
there um for a nationwide reached for black businesses, and
then as a conundrum grew. Uh. John Henry, someone who
I look up to a lot. He told me, you know,
I like fits, but I really think you should focus
on ECONYDRM. And I was like, what are you talking about, John, Like,
(09:19):
I've been doing this or trying to get this thing
launch forever. And I listened to him and I respected him,
and I respect him, so I took his advice and
I did. I started to really kind of brand ECONYNDRUM.
I was on it from twelve. I didn't even have
the domain until I didn't buy Economy dot com, so
it was never supposed to be a brand, and I did.
(09:39):
And when I did that, um, of course, I started
doing interviews and I was like, Okay, I got all
this stuff going on. I don't want to create a website.
So I created an app, a personal app for Econundrum,
a business community app, and so you keep going into
that and I have a business directory on that app.
So it just was a logical step. After I get
(10:00):
the Black Business Expo in the virtual environment, which I
had vendors there, so it's always been that creating this
marketplace concept, and then I did came up with the
Black Virtual Mall. This will be the first ever of
its kind, so lacking interface looks more like the SIMS,
so it's not like a typical directory or just a
(10:22):
website with products. When you come, it has a custom
designed mall that I've been asking for input from everybody
to help me design it. And then there's animation so
people don't walk around. You get into the lobby, it's
the same setup and so there will be chaos and
those are for the you know, newer entry artists in
type businesses stores and premium stores. And when you interface
(10:47):
with the store, the user that the customer, I mean
the store owner has a welcome be hell if they
choose to welcome you to their store, so they can say, hey,
welcome to Money Moves. This is our stores is going
about it. And then when you click and you interact,
you interact it directly with their website, so there is
(11:08):
they don't cut off their own web traffic by being
in the personal mall. We don't handle any of their
point of sale. Everything goes directly through them, so there's
no transaction fees, there's no involved money. Um, if you
make a million dollars, you're gonna still a hundred. So okay,
this is incredible to me because I think, you know,
I'm really passionate about looking at how you know, our
(11:30):
world is changing with cryptocurrencies, with these you know, the
metaverse sort of you were creating sort of a black
virtual metaverse of its own where we're gonna be able
to virtually walk in interact with stores. And this is
a long time coming. Let's talk a bit about the
pivot because I think for any entrepreneur, and you've mentioned
it a couple of times today, you have actually been
able to pivot your business numerous times and reiterate it
(11:53):
to land here. And what I think is super fascinating
about this is you're already thinking, you know, five and
ten years from now into these ver rule and digital world. Yea,
how important has it been for you to be able
to take advice and see your business change throughout you know,
the past couple of years that it's been absolutely instrumental
(12:14):
because you hear this concept a lot. My business is
my baby, and we're so emotionally attached to our businesses
and if it's not working, we kind of take that
as a personal failure, and so we actually kind of
hold onto things sometimes longer. Um. I've learned that there
are three different types of entrepreneurs. There's the entrepreneur who
(12:37):
sees something in real time with you and then they
just rushed to solve the problem. There's the one who
sees it ahead of time before everyone else sees, and
then they jump on it. We kind of look at
them like they're crazy at first. Absolutely the entrepreneur who
creates the demand and the problem and then gives you
the solution. And so knowing that sometimes, um, your business
(13:00):
may not work because of timing. Timing is actually timing
the most critical component to why a startup fields or succeed.
If you're too early, absolutely you can't sustain your business
until the market catches up with the need. You're out.
If you're too late, you're out. So fits by design
is a concept. It still is a great concept. It's
(13:22):
not even a business is a business model because you
can do this for several different industries. But I looked
around at the landscape and I knew, okay, one I
need to change this from retail to digital a larger reach.
And then I understood the people that I was servicing
because of Instagram, a lot of the designers and nail texts,
(13:43):
because I stretched it to cosmtology, they had an abundance
of customers and an abundance of acts. And I knew, Okay,
when a recession comes around, if you're paying forty dollars
for a platform, a lot of women are not going
to utilize those two hundred dollar face beats. That money
is gonna go down. That I'm charging ten dollars a month,
(14:03):
So I knew that they would come around. So I said, okay,
if I've been sustained this business until it comes and
then you have something like covid, and I said, okay,
now I have to brand it because the interface of
coming in your home, so you have to pay attention.
And then you have to be okay with saying I'm
gonna put a pause here and focus on something else.
(14:26):
Whow you know, until the market catches up and you
don't have to kill it completely. But it is okay
to shelve fit, but it is okay to shout things.
It is okay to change. And what I love here
is like you're you are you have. You've already mentioned
people that are let's just say, more experienced in you
that you're using as mentors and you're listening to them,
you know. So these are some of the key tips
(14:46):
that I think you know come through and interviews like this,
and I'm so grateful for you to sharing those things
because they're small nuances, but they really go far and
helping you grow and scale a business. Um, I have
another question for you. Talk a little bit more about
the Black Virtual Mall and how vendors can get involved
with it. There are so many entrepreneurs and small businesses,
(15:06):
medium sized businesses that tune into the Money Means podcast.
How can they get involved with the Black Virtual Mall.
That's okay, awesome, So of course the Black Virtual Mall
dot com. That's where you say it again and say
it again. So that's pretty simple. And one of the
things that I'm doing differently too that I think is
going to be very beneficial is a lot of people
(15:26):
ask about traffic, so I said, okay, you know, we
we do what we do, pay and look at it
for traffic. But the mall has two components too that
are very interesting. One is the movie theater and in
the movie theater, we will have two tracks, So there's
education and there's entertainment. In the entertainment sector, black indie
artists to showcase their work, poets, comedians to book it out.
(15:50):
But on the educational track we will be providing like
I have workshops that I do charge for. Those will
be free for all of the users to come. There's
no loggingry fired or anything, and you'll be able to
consume that content. So some people who may not find
because it's limited space, they may not find their way
in and they want to promote their business. I'm not
(16:12):
gonna wait, sorry, but let me just say you said, um,
it's the Black Virtual Mall has limited space for vendors
or yeah, for stores because I have to maximize visibility
for my store owners, got it, And I don't want
people to get fatigue scrolling through a thousand stores. That's
actually of the bonus for customers because I understand shopping fatigue.
(16:33):
I'm like, I don't know where to go, there's too
many products. So that's great, that's great for both vendors
and customers. Yeah, it'll be limited, so on the kiosk
will only be forty on the floor there'll only be
thirty stores on the floor. There only be twenty on
the premium stores. So I want them to have high
visibility and high traffic. So we're not doing ads either.
(16:53):
We're fatigued on ads all of us, right, Like every
time we have a platform, they just bombard us. So
the way to advertise is if you have a product
or service, you give me fifteen minutes to two hours
of content that's teaching my customers, and then give me,
give me an example, give me an example of a business,
(17:15):
and like what they might do. Because I love this.
This is this is like marketing one and one. This
is unless we're giving away the secret sauce. So say
you're a tax professional and you say, okay, I'm gonna
give you guys some business tax information, you know, some fundamentals,
and you give us fifteen minutes to two hours of
teaching us about taxes or whatever it is that you
(17:36):
want to teach us. At the end of that, you're
completely free to tell us how to reach you, how
to content. So it's like an infomercial, just more info
than mercial. So you give us this amazing content, right,
my customers didn't get to consume that they get to
know you, like you, trust you, and then they can
(17:57):
partake and find in your business. And so it's free.
You don't have to pay to have that video place.
We're doing restaprocity, so you give me great content, you
get feature placement on there. So that's one way. We're
also really really actively looking for restaurants. We need black
owned restaurants because we have a food court. So at
(18:20):
the food court, it's restaurants that are all associated with
the door dash Uber Eats. You have to be on
a delivery platform. So it's the whole date night. Huh,
this is the whole date night. I can go eat,
have some smart information. I love that. I want you
to be able to come in, go to the food
(18:40):
court or to your food at home. Your food is
being delivered, then you are either you know, consuming the
information or your rowsing and now your food is there
with you. And so you're at them all and customers
can actually create chat rooms and chat with each other,
so you can beat someone at the mall and aage
and now is my video screen on? Am I wearing
(19:02):
my bonnet? Or am I like dressed up here? No,
you can do. You're at home, so you are completely
comfortable and you're able to do yeah, and there is
a private lounge. So one of the things that I
really like that I think for us as entrepreneurs, especially
small business owners, we never get to take advantage of
a focus group. So I would like for the owners
(19:23):
to also showcase their products in the movie theater and
then you can go into the private lounge and it's
a fifty fifty person zoom set up and you can say, hey,
you guys, here's my product. If you could meet me,
I'd love your input and your feedback in the private lounge,
and then you can have a focus group. Oh this
(19:44):
is excellent, excellent, I really really love this. Um Okay,
so tell us again, how do the small business owners
or even those wanting to get onto the platform reach
out to you? And what are the initial steps to
how they can sort of create and your rate the
information that you think drives the most sales and success
(20:05):
two questions, so they can definitely apply. Like I said
that the blackbird to a mall. When it comes to
the content, I really just want you to whatever your
subject matter, what you teach, if you already have that
a lot of people do, just submit that content and
There'll be a spot at the mall to submit content.
So if you want to submit content for the movie theater,
(20:25):
there'll be a form there for you to submit that.
I'm trying to make everything as easy and as seamless
as possible, so they'll just create that, you know, submit
the content where we view the content, and I'm very
open to giving feedback, so if you're denied, I will
let you know. That's how people learn what we're looking for. Yeah, definitely, Quincia.
(20:45):
Your story is incredible and I thank you so much
for being able to educate and provide knowledge to so
many people who are trying to build businesses and take
their lives to the next step in terms of entrepreneurship
and business ownership. Can you tell us again where they
can find you on social media? Tell us where they
can sign up for the Black Virtual Mall, and we'd
(21:08):
love to speak with you again, but just take us
out on where to find you. Econsum dot com see
constiuscency e you have dot com, there's an app in
the app store, econosum dot com. There's my Instagram, econodrum,
and of course econosum dot com or econogum so that's
because you'll find everything you need in that one website. Chrissie,
(21:29):
thank you so much for joining us once again. It
has been a delight in a pleasure. You guys know
where to find her a conundrum dot com or on
social media. Thank you so much. And Money Movers stay tuned.
Thank you so much for tuning in Money Moves audience.
If you want more or a recap of this episode,
please go to Bank Greenwood dot com and check out
the Money Moves podcast blogs. Stay tuned tomorrow and every
(21:53):
day this week. From very special Money Versus Moves, Well,
this does sound really tricky and interesting because I'm very
couples the mother Sun site or from our expert I was.
I was like, wait, you know I don't have funny,
I'm broke right. Oftentimes we look at success as having
a monetary number. You know you're successful if you've got
(22:14):
blaming or this, that and the other. Yes, And I
guess you won't want to miss Team USA's own Olympian
Rye Benjamin a Silver from the WHOA. How heavy is it?
It's extremely heavy? Like honestly, Money Moves is an i
heeart radio podcast powered by Greenwood executive produced by Sunwise
(22:38):
Media Inc. For more podcast on iHeart Radio, visit the
i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts from.
Hey, Money Movers. Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily podcast,
determined to give you the keys to the Kingdom of
financial stability, wealth and abundance. Innovation and entrepreneurship go hand
(00:21):
in hand, but it can be just as simple as saying, Hey,
here's something that is needed. Here's something that people want.
Here's something that I can grow and build into something
of value and excellence, something that I love and many
others will. Sure it exists somewhere else, but I'm going
to create it here. For most of us, entrepreneurship seems
(00:43):
out of reach. Most of us don't know where to start,
much less how to find success and grow it into
something big. But there are people out there who are
dedicated to the idea of black and brown success through
entrepreneurship and wealth building, and our expert today is one
of those people. She is an app developer and entrepreneur
and infopreneur and the founder of the Black Virtual mall
(01:06):
A Quincy a Sella Wanni al Quincy. I, welcome to
the show. I'm so excited to have you here and
to tell your story. Thank you. I'm so absolutely honored
to be here. Thank you so very much for having
me can you start by telling us a little bit
about how you got into entrepreneurship and talk about your journey. Sure?
(01:26):
Thanks to be honest. Um, I had entrepreneur endeavors. I
thought about things, and since I was a kid like
most people, and quite honestly, I didn't consider myself a
business person per se. Um, math wasn't my strong suit,
and so I just felt that I was more of
a creative and I always thought that if I had
an idea, I would have to find someone to you know,
(01:48):
execute that idea. And a best friend of mine, Um,
after I left college graduated, she winds up purchasing a
fortune five hundred company a franchise, and so she ended
up needing help with that, and so I came on
actually just to kind of do some business to business
selves and I ended up having to manage it. And
(02:09):
when that happened, I had to jump in with bothie,
no formal training, nothing. So this being my best friend,
my daughter's got mother, I took to the task. I
love that I wind up she wind up trusting me,
and we took her store from number sixty one in California.
I'm not sorry, I'm sixty one stores in California. We
(02:29):
were technically forty three to number two out of twelve
hundred stores Nationwhy um, you end up being from number
two sixty five to number eleven. So that's out of
two years of working with her and her trusting me
and really getting the behind the scenes. And so I
started to trust myself a little bit more with my
(02:50):
ideas and I thought, Okay, I can do this, you know,
I can actually execute. And so I started that journey.
And what I wanted to do was make sure this
time around, I share the process. Oh I love that.
And you know what this really fascinating about that is
for a lot of women. You know, people have heard
this term of imposter syndrome, like I don't know if
(03:11):
I can do it. I'm not qualified. You know, Should
I go to school for this? How much do I
have to learn before I can really you know, make
this happen. But telling stories like yours really put a
roadmap down for Like you just went in and this
is the idea of like fake it till you make it.
You just did all the steps that you had to
do every day to move the needle to get to
the next level, and here you are, like, yeah, it's
(03:34):
your teestimony to so many women, and you know, in
terms of imposter syndrome, was be very honest with myself
about my swat, my strengths, my weaknesses, you know, opportunities,
and what was it would be afford to my business.
And so I immediately took an assessment of myself to say, Okay,
what do I do will and what do I not do? Well? Yeah,
(03:54):
at the time, of course, I'm completely broke, so I
cannot hire a tat to do these things. So I
decided let me try to fill in as many coals
as I could. Um. One of the things I did
was I did take marketing classes that you seel a
so I think that's gonna be, you know, something that
I really want to get my bearings around. And then
I found out that there was an app on iTunes,
(04:17):
uh called an apple called ituned University, and iTunes University
is an amazing platform. It will be ending in December.
But what they've done is they've curated prerecorded classes from
some of the top institutions Stanford, Berkeley, Cambridge, and you
just search for your subject and then you get to
(04:38):
listen to These are real college courses that were recorded
for free. I love that you're sharing like these tangible
tips because the Internet has is literally been such a
revolutionary gateway for education, and it's free and there's so
many different access points to where you can find all these,
you know, incredible resources to teach your self. So like
(05:01):
this is great, Thank you so much. Yeah, and definitely,
I mean, I know what it feels like to have
to buddle through we're going to Google, but then there's
no really betting process, so you don't know what is authentic,
you know, what it's real, what it's genuine. So I
tuned university for me, you know, I've been in college.
It was it was a very helpful tool because I
(05:21):
didn't have to do any of the guesswork about is
this legitimate is it not? You know, so the information
and it's compacted, you know, as most people know. A
semester sixteen hours, so I would wake up do an
hour you know, in my in my earbuds, you're listening
to the coursework. Sometimes they give you the PDF files
and everything. So an hour I wake up on lunch,
there's an hour that I do too. So I was
(05:43):
literally knocking back at college course in four days, you know, yeah,
so sixteen hours, right. But so I'm doing that and
I'm taking everything that I could get my hands on.
If I wanted to know about copyright, trademarkt I took
that entrepreneurship. I took that anything that I could get
my hands on, and so that helped out tremendously. And
(06:03):
what I decided to do was share that journey. So
when I went to create my LLC, I gave everyone
the information. Okay, I'm going here. When I went to
Wells far going to do my bank account, Okay, they're
gonna ask you for this form and this form and
this form. Okay. Paused right there because I want to
ask the question. And it wind up being my most
my first like viral me. It was the least little
(06:25):
meme ever, but it wind up going viral, and it
was the seventh steps to start my business. Wait a second,
I want to pause right there, so just so that
people can get their bearings. So you had started um
coming to actively manage a franchise with your friend, and
now you fast forward. You kind of had the you know,
school of hard knocks, self taught business education and you're
(06:48):
launching your own business. What was the business that you
were working on and then take us through um sort
of how you put this out to the world on
the Instagram at conundrum Yes, okay, so it's in London.
Was just my personal page. The business that I was
going to launch is called fits by Design What Fits
by Design um, And so the concept was to mirror UM,
(07:09):
say a no shop barbershop, we have boots, but there
would be fashion designers who recently graduated from fashion school,
and you will be able to come in and uh,
let them know what it is that you wanted, have
it professionally sketched. And then the other side of the
building was going to be fabrics, so you will be
able to meet with them, choose your fabrics, your buttons,
(07:30):
all your notions, and then have what you wanted. Me
I just self talk swer uh and going to work
and I'd make my outfits and they were like where
did you get that? And I'm like, I made it
and they were like, you have to make me one.
You have to make me one. And I'm self talk
So I was like, you really don't want me make it? Okay,
I'm gonna mess this up for you. So I thought like, wow,
(07:52):
here's a problem. I see it they would like to
create a freedom that I had, but they don't hand
it sewing. So I thought, what if I hear these
people together? And that's what the concept was for fits
and this is, you know, the genesis of entrepreneurship for
so many people. They're like, wait a second. If I
really like this, and other people are coming to me
saying they like this, maybe there's a bigger market. How
(08:14):
do I create a business around this and brilliant and
solve a problem for more and more people? Yes, and
now most recently you've developed the black virtual mall. Can
you tell us about that as well? Are sure? And
so from that I did um, I went. I've ventured
into app development because the idea for fits um in
two thousand and sixteen, I decided to pivot from a
(08:37):
brick and mortar concept to an app concept. So I
started that journey. And that journey, of course introduces you
into a lot in terms of tech and different just
just looking at things differently, your reach and what abs
and everything are able to do. So I had kind
of tinkered in a few little platforms. I created something
called Milling and minds met and it was a meeting
(08:57):
place for us to kind of get to the core
of relationship and ships. And I had created a marketplace
there um for a nationwide reached for black businesses, and
then as a conundrum grew. Uh. John Henry, someone who
I look up to a lot. He told me, you know,
I like fits, but I really think you should focus
on ECONYDRM. And I was like, what are you talking about, John, Like,
(09:19):
I've been doing this or trying to get this thing
launch forever. And I listened to him and I respected him,
and I respect him, so I took his advice and
I did. I started to really kind of brand ECONYNDRUM.
I was on it from twelve. I didn't even have
the domain until I didn't buy Economy dot com, so
it was never supposed to be a brand, and I did.
(09:39):
And when I did that, um, of course, I started
doing interviews and I was like, Okay, I got all
this stuff going on. I don't want to create a website.
So I created an app, a personal app for Econundrum,
a business community app, and so you keep going into
that and I have a business directory on that app.
So it just was a logical step. After I get
(10:00):
the Black Business Expo in the virtual environment, which I
had vendors there, so it's always been that creating this
marketplace concept, and then I did came up with the
Black Virtual Mall. This will be the first ever of
its kind, so lacking interface looks more like the SIMS,
so it's not like a typical directory or just a
(10:22):
website with products. When you come, it has a custom
designed mall that I've been asking for input from everybody
to help me design it. And then there's animation so
people don't walk around. You get into the lobby, it's
the same setup and so there will be chaos and
those are for the you know, newer entry artists in
type businesses stores and premium stores. And when you interface
(10:47):
with the store, the user that the customer, I mean
the store owner has a welcome be hell if they
choose to welcome you to their store, so they can say, hey,
welcome to Money Moves. This is our stores is going
about it. And then when you click and you interact,
you interact it directly with their website, so there is
(11:08):
they don't cut off their own web traffic by being
in the personal mall. We don't handle any of their
point of sale. Everything goes directly through them, so there's
no transaction fees, there's no involved money. Um, if you
make a million dollars, you're gonna still a hundred. So okay,
this is incredible to me because I think, you know,
I'm really passionate about looking at how you know, our
(11:30):
world is changing with cryptocurrencies, with these you know, the
metaverse sort of you were creating sort of a black
virtual metaverse of its own where we're gonna be able
to virtually walk in interact with stores. And this is
a long time coming. Let's talk a bit about the
pivot because I think for any entrepreneur, and you've mentioned
it a couple of times today, you have actually been
able to pivot your business numerous times and reiterate it
(11:53):
to land here. And what I think is super fascinating
about this is you're already thinking, you know, five and
ten years from now into these ver rule and digital world. Yea,
how important has it been for you to be able
to take advice and see your business change throughout you know,
the past couple of years that it's been absolutely instrumental
(12:14):
because you hear this concept a lot. My business is
my baby, and we're so emotionally attached to our businesses
and if it's not working, we kind of take that
as a personal failure, and so we actually kind of
hold onto things sometimes longer. Um. I've learned that there
are three different types of entrepreneurs. There's the entrepreneur who
(12:37):
sees something in real time with you and then they
just rushed to solve the problem. There's the one who
sees it ahead of time before everyone else sees, and
then they jump on it. We kind of look at
them like they're crazy at first. Absolutely the entrepreneur who
creates the demand and the problem and then gives you
the solution. And so knowing that sometimes, um, your business
(13:00):
may not work because of timing. Timing is actually timing
the most critical component to why a startup fields or succeed.
If you're too early, absolutely you can't sustain your business
until the market catches up with the need. You're out.
If you're too late, you're out. So fits by design
is a concept. It still is a great concept. It's
(13:22):
not even a business is a business model because you
can do this for several different industries. But I looked
around at the landscape and I knew, okay, one I
need to change this from retail to digital a larger reach.
And then I understood the people that I was servicing
because of Instagram, a lot of the designers and nail texts,
(13:43):
because I stretched it to cosmtology, they had an abundance
of customers and an abundance of acts. And I knew, Okay,
when a recession comes around, if you're paying forty dollars
for a platform, a lot of women are not going
to utilize those two hundred dollar face beats. That money
is gonna go down. That I'm charging ten dollars a month,
(14:03):
So I knew that they would come around. So I said, okay,
if I've been sustained this business until it comes and
then you have something like covid, and I said, okay,
now I have to brand it because the interface of
coming in your home, so you have to pay attention.
And then you have to be okay with saying I'm
gonna put a pause here and focus on something else.
(14:26):
Whow you know, until the market catches up and you
don't have to kill it completely. But it is okay
to shelve fit, but it is okay to shout things.
It is okay to change. And what I love here
is like you're you are you have. You've already mentioned
people that are let's just say, more experienced in you
that you're using as mentors and you're listening to them,
you know. So these are some of the key tips
(14:46):
that I think you know come through and interviews like this,
and I'm so grateful for you to sharing those things
because they're small nuances, but they really go far and
helping you grow and scale a business. Um, I have
another question for you. Talk a little bit more about
the Black Virtual Mall and how vendors can get involved
with it. There are so many entrepreneurs and small businesses,
(15:06):
medium sized businesses that tune into the Money Means podcast.
How can they get involved with the Black Virtual Mall.
That's okay, awesome, So of course the Black Virtual Mall
dot com. That's where you say it again and say
it again. So that's pretty simple. And one of the
things that I'm doing differently too that I think is
going to be very beneficial is a lot of people
(15:26):
ask about traffic, so I said, okay, you know, we
we do what we do, pay and look at it
for traffic. But the mall has two components too that
are very interesting. One is the movie theater and in
the movie theater, we will have two tracks, So there's
education and there's entertainment. In the entertainment sector, black indie
artists to showcase their work, poets, comedians to book it out.
(15:50):
But on the educational track we will be providing like
I have workshops that I do charge for. Those will
be free for all of the users to come. There's
no loggingry fired or anything, and you'll be able to
consume that content. So some people who may not find
because it's limited space, they may not find their way
in and they want to promote their business. I'm not
(16:12):
gonna wait, sorry, but let me just say you said, um,
it's the Black Virtual Mall has limited space for vendors
or yeah, for stores because I have to maximize visibility
for my store owners, got it, And I don't want
people to get fatigue scrolling through a thousand stores. That's
actually of the bonus for customers because I understand shopping fatigue.
(16:33):
I'm like, I don't know where to go, there's too
many products. So that's great, that's great for both vendors
and customers. Yeah, it'll be limited, so on the kiosk
will only be forty on the floor there'll only be
thirty stores on the floor. There only be twenty on
the premium stores. So I want them to have high
visibility and high traffic. So we're not doing ads either.
(16:53):
We're fatigued on ads all of us, right, Like every
time we have a platform, they just bombard us. So
the way to advertise is if you have a product
or service, you give me fifteen minutes to two hours
of content that's teaching my customers, and then give me,
give me an example, give me an example of a business,
(17:15):
and like what they might do. Because I love this.
This is this is like marketing one and one. This
is unless we're giving away the secret sauce. So say
you're a tax professional and you say, okay, I'm gonna
give you guys some business tax information, you know, some fundamentals,
and you give us fifteen minutes to two hours of
teaching us about taxes or whatever it is that you
(17:36):
want to teach us. At the end of that, you're
completely free to tell us how to reach you, how
to content. So it's like an infomercial, just more info
than mercial. So you give us this amazing content, right,
my customers didn't get to consume that they get to
know you, like you, trust you, and then they can
(17:57):
partake and find in your business. And so it's free.
You don't have to pay to have that video place.
We're doing restaprocity, so you give me great content, you
get feature placement on there. So that's one way. We're
also really really actively looking for restaurants. We need black
owned restaurants because we have a food court. So at
(18:20):
the food court, it's restaurants that are all associated with
the door dash Uber Eats. You have to be on
a delivery platform. So it's the whole date night. Huh,
this is the whole date night. I can go eat,
have some smart information. I love that. I want you
to be able to come in, go to the food
(18:40):
court or to your food at home. Your food is
being delivered, then you are either you know, consuming the
information or your rowsing and now your food is there
with you. And so you're at them all and customers
can actually create chat rooms and chat with each other,
so you can beat someone at the mall and aage
and now is my video screen on? Am I wearing
(19:02):
my bonnet? Or am I like dressed up here? No,
you can do. You're at home, so you are completely
comfortable and you're able to do yeah, and there is
a private lounge. So one of the things that I
really like that I think for us as entrepreneurs, especially
small business owners, we never get to take advantage of
a focus group. So I would like for the owners
(19:23):
to also showcase their products in the movie theater and
then you can go into the private lounge and it's
a fifty fifty person zoom set up and you can say, hey,
you guys, here's my product. If you could meet me,
I'd love your input and your feedback in the private lounge,
and then you can have a focus group. Oh this
(19:44):
is excellent, excellent, I really really love this. Um Okay,
so tell us again, how do the small business owners
or even those wanting to get onto the platform reach
out to you? And what are the initial steps to
how they can sort of create and your rate the
information that you think drives the most sales and success
(20:05):
two questions, so they can definitely apply. Like I said
that the blackbird to a mall. When it comes to
the content, I really just want you to whatever your
subject matter, what you teach, if you already have that
a lot of people do, just submit that content and
There'll be a spot at the mall to submit content.
So if you want to submit content for the movie theater,
(20:25):
there'll be a form there for you to submit that.
I'm trying to make everything as easy and as seamless
as possible, so they'll just create that, you know, submit
the content where we view the content, and I'm very
open to giving feedback, so if you're denied, I will
let you know. That's how people learn what we're looking for. Yeah, definitely, Quincia.
(20:45):
Your story is incredible and I thank you so much
for being able to educate and provide knowledge to so
many people who are trying to build businesses and take
their lives to the next step in terms of entrepreneurship
and business ownership. Can you tell us again where they
can find you on social media? Tell us where they
can sign up for the Black Virtual Mall, and we'd
(21:08):
love to speak with you again, but just take us
out on where to find you. Econsum dot com see
constiuscency e you have dot com, there's an app in
the app store, econosum dot com. There's my Instagram, econodrum,
and of course econosum dot com or econogum so that's
because you'll find everything you need in that one website. Chrissie,
(21:29):
thank you so much for joining us once again. It
has been a delight in a pleasure. You guys know
where to find her a conundrum dot com or on
social media. Thank you so much. And Money Movers stay tuned.
Thank you so much for tuning in Money Moves audience.
If you want more or a recap of this episode,
please go to Bank Greenwood dot com and check out
the Money Moves podcast blogs. Stay tuned tomorrow and every
(21:53):
day this week. From very special Money Versus Moves, Well,
this does sound really tricky and interesting because I'm very
couples the mother Sun site or from our expert I was.
I was like, wait, you know I don't have funny,
I'm broke right. Oftentimes we look at success as having
a monetary number. You know you're successful if you've got
(22:14):
blaming or this, that and the other. Yes, And I
guess you won't want to miss Team USA's own Olympian
Rye Benjamin a Silver from the WHOA. How heavy is it?
It's extremely heavy? Like honestly, Money Moves is an i
heeart radio podcast powered by Greenwood executive produced by Sunwise
(22:38):
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