UP LIFT US FOUNDERS – Tuna Casserole

what do you have us eating? So? Today we're making um, actually a meal that I still love. It's tuna cast role and it came back from when I was I had three kids by time I was twenty four, so I used to make this because it's good and it goes a long way. Yes, and it's affordable. I think this mail costs roughly five six bucks at the most. And it's got a white sauce, so it looks like it's gonna taste really good. Um, can you tell us

what are the ingredients? Yes? So the ingredients our egg noodles, Campbell's cream of Mushroom soup, a can of tuna, and cheddar cheese. Awesome. So did you come up with this yourself or did you google it? You know what, Honestly, I don't know. Mom made this when we were little too. Our mom used to make it when we were little. Okay, okay, okay, awesome, So why don't you start us off? Okay, So first I'm going to take the egg noodles and put them

in this pot. And just so you guys know that's listening, we pre cooked them a little bit so we will eat faster because it's only a thirty forty minute shoot, but on average the meal the noodles only took like

eight minutes to cook. Yeah, exactly. So you just um, you know, boil the noodles, drain the water, which it's already done here, so I'm just kind of heating it back up the pot, and then I'll take the tuna first, so tuna goes first, and then I'll take the tuna I'm getting in years so that can get heated at Usually it's just for a pack of egg noodles. It's just one can't larger can of tuna and mix that in. Man, that sounds a little crazy, but no, no, no, I

used to mix my tuna with mac and cheese. I don't know. Yeah, today in my house, my husband looks at me like I'm white. So I don't like dragging about it. But it actually it's really good. Yeah, you know what. My husband thanks the same thing actually about this meal. But I like it, k So, yeah, it looks like it's it looks like quality for budget, yeah exactly. And I've never had the couple of mushrooms soup or any of that, so I used for actually a lot

of things. Yeah. So yes, I have a little bit of Lowry's seasoning salt just to give it a little bit of flavor. You don't want it, you know, to be bland. You can add pepper if you want. I will add a little bit of that as well. So when was the last time you ate this dish? You know? It's funny because my uh my daughter who's twenty one, still ask for me to make it. Okay, So I made it maybe about a month ago, about a month ago. I don't make it very often now, but it is

requested from times to time. So so you said this, You made this when you were twenty four, you were your mom? Is this when you started your entrepreneurship because I know you you've been an entrepreneur for quite some time, both of you guys, we started an entrepreneurship a little bit, well, no, actually run around then. Maybe when I was right, Yeah, I think so, because I had chat I was about

twenty seven. Indoor play center time together. We've been partners forever, yes, yes, and I had and I had two little boys when we opened the first business, so it seemed like were you guys trying to fill a need? Then? You know, we've just always had the entrepreneurship bug, like we just

always came up with these great ideas. I think one day we were just talking and I had an idea of like, let's open an indoor play center, and she got excited by the idea, and you know what, our energy just kind of bounces off of each other to where we get excited and we just go for it. So one little spark of an idea, then all of a sudden we're like, oh, we can do this, we

can do that. And then next thing, you know, so how do you fund these ideas when you're like, Okay, I have this idea, let's go right yeah, well, tiny town we actually funded that with loans. We did, and thankfully we had like really good credit, so we were able to get a loan to open it and it didn't take a lot um. The cost wasn't too high to open it because we just had to rent a you know, an empty space. Yeah, rent an empty a

large empty space. It's like four square feet and we just filled it with fun things, jumpers, and because we had little kids and you know, we were always doing other things, we really kept the parents in mind. So we set it up to where the parents could sit relaxed, watch TV, drink coffee, and watch their kids play with nice Of course, the parents loved it, so you were definitely filling a need. Filling a need. Okay. So now

fast forward to uplift us Marketplace. What was going on at the time where you guys decided we're going to create this retail store and we're gonna support a hundred percent black owned businesses. Okay. So that was during them. It was during the pandemic. You know, we were all home and you know, everything was happening. It was a major movement at that time with George Floyd everything going on. Yeah, exactly, BLM, and we were trying to be really conscious about shopping black,

you know, and it had to be online. Um, and it was difficult. It was I'm sorry, Yeah, you can go at the same time. One day, I just like VEGGI out on TV because we were home doing the pandemic, and I watched like a ton of documentaries on Black

Wall Street. And as I was watching those documentaries, one I was just so moved by seeing the images of Black Wall Street years ago and then just hearing the statistics now about Um, you know how long the black dollar circulates, which is only six hours, unfortunately, and that's compared to the white dollar, compared to any other community, any other white which circulates for thirty forty five days. So you know, that creates a huge, huge gap in

our communities in just everything that we have. Now. I was a little confused when that, Like I was doing some research and and you talk about the black dollars circulating. I guess my question comes in, like, if the black market has so much buying power, why is it circulating at such a small time frame. Well, that's not where we're spending our money. Yeah, we have the second highest

spending power in the United States. But when you look at the products in any major retailers or even small retailers, we only have three percent of the shelf space. So when you go, when you're spending your money nine times out of team, you're spending it on you know, products made by other people, which there's nothing wrong with that, but we found that, you know, it's just difficult to find the products that are made by us because they're

not on the shelf. Right, Yeah, so, but this also goes back to, you know, before George Floyd, you know, I think targets started to pick up black brands, but when they did, you saw the hate mail come through for them picking up a black brand. I know, after Black Lives Matter, brands started to become conscious. And I honestly think that the only reason why George Floyd had like such a positive impact was we were in a pandemic. There were no sports too to fluff us over right,

people literally had to face music. Because this has been going on for years. For years, black black people have asked for equal opportunities in retail and have been producing. It's not like these products don't exist. It's not like black entrepreneurs don't exist. It's not like our dollars don't exist, our buying power doesn't exist, and there's high quality black products out there to use, hair care, there's even toothpaste. That's absolutely It's definitely not from a lack of quality

or lack of availability. It's just being able to have the opportunity and and find it. Yeah, and it's well, I guess the problem area would be the lack of distribution. And that's where uplift us marketplace. You know, I'll tell you from experience. I was walking through the Fox Hills Mall. You know, I'm used to seeing your typical brands, your full lockers or champs, you know, whatever traditional stores we all grew up with, and I came across your store

and it was like we support you know. I think it was like over of your products in your store are black owned, and I was a hundred percent black owned and over eighty brands, and I stopped in my tracks as, oh my gosh, you know, and I remember, you know, when the Black Lives Matter movement, I did have the urge to say I want to shop black,

but shopping black wasn't as easy and accessible. You know, you have your one or two brands that got picked up by major retailers since you know, George Floyd and and honestly, for me, it's just really not authentic enough for me. I feel like we almost had to like literally die to get that distribution and to be to walk into your store. Of course, I was like, Okay, this is great that it has all these black products. So IM merely walked over to your you know, I

checked out the products. The products were amazing, everything you could imagine, from food to clothing too, bonnets to a whole bunch of different items. By the way, me and my daughter now have matching bonnets, and uh and uh. What I thought was I wanted to ask the person that worked there. I just had to know because of what happened with Target. And I'm not trying to sing out Target or any major retailer, but I felt like their obligation to support us was more out of obligation.

And I had to know if uplift us marketplace was black owned, because you do see that a lot. Yes,

you know, try and represent right exactly. Yeah, And that's what we were finding also finding because in our mission, once our consciousness was raised and we were trying to seek out black products, some things weren't and we were like, oh my gosh, I bought this thinking you know, that party and it wasn't and then of course shooting fees and everything, and that's where the idea came from, like, you know what, we need a space that we can

go to r Yeah. And it's so funny because when she had the idea, I immediately thought like, um, I thought of the space. I was thinking, I wanted to be beautiful, like I wanted to be just like that

farmhouse look, just something that people wouldn't expect. And it's so funny because when we started telling people like, oh, we're opening a store that sells, you know, all black owned products, and everyone's reaction was, oh, you're opening the swat meat, right, that's what they were picturing, right exactly, And no, we wanted to raise the bar like you know, it's going to be a space where it's absolutely beautiful and when you walk in, your surprised and um, you're

proud experience. Yeah, exactly, the shop there, but kind of going back to what you said, and you could definitely service. While we're discussing this feel hungry. That's I agree with you in the sense where people thought, okay, swap meat, because I think maybe a part of the reason why I even asked if it was black owned or what have you could have been the fact that it was such a nice store to walk into. It was like, okay, is this really and that's I guess that's kind of bad,

but you know it's it's it's reality. It's reality exactly, and we want to change that whole because also, and this is just to be quite honest, sometimes um, even talking to people about trying to shop black, I would people say I tried to support a black business and I got attitude. I didn't have good customer service. We want to change that perception that it's not right. Black entrepreneurs out here working hard, creating quality products and we'll

give you the service. So we figured, you know what, we'll be that standard. We'll make a place where we know we're gonna be. Yeah, it was. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful experience. The customer service was above par. Now as we get into this meeting, I have to have to sample. You're eating more, all right, let's see here we go. Mm hmmmmm. It's pretty tasty, right, very tasty. Mm hmm. I'm gonna going for a second bite. And this is an easy Is this your first time having

This is my very first time having to astroom. So what about a twenty minute meal? Yeah, really quick. You can't put it in the event if you want, but still task. I got see why your daughters still asked for It's affordable. We all you college students out there. It's a good alternative to Ramen versus us tweaking Ramen all the time. So when you were creating uplift marketplace, UM, I'm pretty sure you guys had some hard milestones, Toad or some challenges. Can you share with us what some

of those challenges were. UM? I think probably the startup costs was probably the first challenge. Um. We ended up funding everything ourselves. We got help, We got some help from some family and friends. UM, but just trying to I would think it the funds to start the business would be on the business side of it hard this thing because you know, we were a business coming out

of nowhere, so loans and everything. They're like, yeah, but you're in business with yourselves, especially during people the pandemic, Like you're opening a business during the pandemic, and when you were hit with those hurdles, no part of you was like, maybe we should wait till the world opens up. You know what. We laugh at ourselves all the time. We're just not geared that way. Once we have an idea and we think it's good, we go and we

go hard. So you started ironically, I would have thought that you would have started e commerce, but you wouldn't directly into retail. Yes, during a pandemic, I have to stress that journey. You're like, hey, guys, I know it's gonna cost you a lot of money. We're gonna invest our personal dollars, husband and you know, husbands and children.

We're gonna invest our personal into a retail store to support black old businesses in the at all of a pandemic when people are locked in their house, right, I want to I just want to know the thought process. We felt like everyone was hungry for the same thing because, like you said before, sports was going on, and everyone's attention was on what was happening in the United States when it came to you know, the black lives and

just everything that was going on. So we felt like this is the time it, you know, despite the pandemic everything else, everyone's awareness is heightened right now and we had to jump on that. Um also launching e commerce first. It's like that was part of our hurdle at first. It's finding everything online, not seeing the quality, feeling it, Yeah, exactly. So we wanted them to see it and fill it. And honestly, we were thinking a lot smaller when we

had the idea. We were thinking of maybe we'd have fifteen companies in the store. How do you find these companies? Right? So we start we kind of just put the word out there. We were looking on Instagram. We reached out to a few companies that looked like they had like really good products, something unique, you know, right, We set up meetings, met with them, and we're spread. Next thing, you know, we had sixty We had hundreds of companies contact us to get into the store. That shows how

big the demand was. Exactly hundreds you said, hundreds of companies reach out to hundreds and still they d right now. Yeah, yeah, so that's that is part of what sparked us. And then seeing them come in and these people they didn't know us from a cannidy and build the space, but they believed in the idea too, and they were willing to put their products there. When we were like this is and it felt good, It felt right. You know, once we start filling everyone's energy to our next thing.

You know, we had sixty brands that we narrowed it down to to start with. And when I say our grand opening, it was phenomenal. There were it was. It opened at what twelve, It went from twelve to fives, It was supposed to go from twelve to five. We had a line wrapped around the corner and the entire day it was overwhelming. So the demand was for surely there was there. And it's crazy because you feel now hearing this, you feel like, I, for lack of better word,

I feel like there's chains. There's still those barrier of chains that's wrapped around black and brown folks. Because here you open a store, over a hundred brands are reaching out like please give me the distribution, and then you have customers, please sell me the product. And then you look at our buying power, which is what one point seven billion you said, are on one point seven billion dollar buying power, and yet only three of our products

are in the market available to us. And you guys had to literally look on the rocks and softly you spread the word, but the word spread all on its own. The great thing about is because we have all of these businesses within our business, they're all spreading the word about so it's a great collaboration and we see it going very far. Because I had so much pride and like love and I can't even described the motion when I saw your store, I said, oh, you know, I

was with my daughter. I feel like I had been locked out of a room with the steak and the inside and I had been starving and here it's like yo, just a glass wall between us and the door opened, and it was it was a sense of pride, you know, And that's what we want to give. Want the businesses to be proud to have their stuff there, and we want every customer to feel proud when they come in. And you know, we have all nationalities coming in shopping and all of them are feeling that same pride and

export you're excited. I don't. I don't think I even looked at the price that I said, is it You just feel like this is a mission based price? Yeah, you know, Yeah, you're shopping with purpose, you know. And because the products are, like I said, they're high quality practice therefore everyone they're made by black people, but they're for every everyone. Yeah, and and really our price points are really good. I would say, no, one's really jacking

their prices up or we're not their good prices. And they're all small businesses on top of black owned businesses, so it is a purpose every sell. I mean, we're excited every sell is making a difference. So what would you say? And I hate the point like focus on pain points, but I know as an entrepreneur, it's like, we walk up, we see this beautiful store location, we see sisters that actually get along, which shout out to my sister because you know, she barely enswers my phone

calls right now. But we have sisters, you know, and everything looks great from the outside. But I kind of want to unpackaged some kind of the weeds to how you boom to flowers sort of say, um, as far as our journey open, Yeah, well, I will say again, because we're working mothers. That is hard trying to find that balance to put in enough time to make the business successful and enough time doing all the mother things, white things, everything that you need to do. It's it's

a constant struggle. It is. I don't know when that will go away. But we're in the middle of that field, right man. I have a question as a mom, I have two questions. Okay, do you where do you? I would say, lose your balance? Like I know, for me, like cooking has like I don't even remember the last time I cooked. My husband has became the chef, like he's cooking. He's cooking things that I'm like, oh, the

housemas like you became a chef, you know. So it is that, like I'm sure something has to give right where the sacrifice does. That's definitely been one of the sacrifices for me. Think goods. My husband enjoys cooking and cooks, but I mean I'm so exhausted by time. I mean, if he asked, what's for dinner? I try to play it like you're like, I'm great at ordering. But yes, that's definitely one of the things that that I just don't do like I used to. And my day is

just alone. I'm going to be it later because that's my time when the kids are sleep to say, okay, let me work on this, let me work on that. And I would say for me, thankfully, during the pandemic, while we were home, I taught my boys who are

fourteen and eighteen, how to cook. So we kind of that that has been They have been so helpful with this because like, if I come home exhausted, I say, you know, I'll buy something for one of them to cook, which is great, But I would say the biggest struggle struggle comes in where when I'm exhausted and my fourteen year old and he's help with his homework and I am tired, you know, and before I would have the

energy for that, but you know, they're understanding. I just feel bad that sometimes I just don't have the energy. It's like, if you're giving all your energy at one point to the business, then you feel bad at home. If if you shift that, now you're giving most of your energy at home, you're like, oh, the business will be doing better if I did. So it's really just trying to find that balance being easy on ourselves and

for me. All my kids are you know, pretty much old enough to understand, so communicating with them, Let's say, you know, I'm here if you need me, if something is important that this is also something working. Has the business hit the all the milestones you imagine, didn't exceed it or didn't miss a couple we're still working at Yeah,

like we're really trying to build our online business. We just launched that February first, So that's been a lot of work because that's what does marketplace dot com exactly dot com amazing products, online, fast shipping. Um, So trying to grow that part of it has been a challenge.

Um the marketing, you know, things like that. So we haven't hit because we don't have the funds to hire someone to do our marketing and hire build our website to I mean, have you reached out to some of our influencer friends out there are black and brown not we need to some of them? Please do yes them because that does help we do need. Course, you look at fashion Nova and they Fashionova actually where we tape

for all you listeners in the Panorama City Mall. Fashion Nova, the young man that owns it, who just bought like the most expensive home in l A. His founding store

is actually here in Panama City mall. And so ownership of the mall always jokes with me about when Fashionova, when he couldn't even pay his bills and when he had to lie about his sales, and they used he would always tell them like one day I'm to be big and they would all laugh because he was always struggling, and he struggled for over ten years before he's now obviously a kazillionaire. Um, but a lot of people don't

realize that struggle behind Fashion Nova. But it was the digital platform and it was social media, social media air forces that stepped up and really helped his brands all. Definitely the struggle we're still in. I mean, it's doing great obviously, and it's growing. Everyday. New people were finding out about us, but we're definitely not yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's the awareness that's kind of where well, that's what we're doing this show, right, Absolutely, yes, thank you so

much so. Kim Kardashian recently issue to Stay bron I don't know if you guys have seen it online where she was like women, my advice as you go out there and work. I was torn because I get what she was saying, but I hate to say it, but the messenger was kind of it was a little hard. And then you know, I think Trevor Noah had issued a statement saying, you know, not everyone, you know, some

of success is a little bit of luck. You know, when I look at businesses, I look at you know, all these elements that could contribute to it, the tipping point you say, in your Guys case, you know, there was a definite need that George Floyd's situation happened. The kneed came up, the kneed kept coming up. The need has been coming up for a while. But luckily because of a pandemic. You know, again, a whole marriage of forces,

you know, allowed it to be successful. But then you have people like say Kim Kardashian, that's like, women go out there and work. What is your what was your stance when you saw that? Yeah, I felt like, like you said, the messenger, you know, you know, maybe she had good intentions when she was saying that, but I mean, not everyone is in the position to do that. There's

so many women that are working hard. They're working so hard, and they just you know, they're not making nearly as much money as someone else that's not working as hard, you know, and that I mean I was in that those shoes for a long time, working hard. I mean, I am hard working, and you're doubling of my soul. And it's just like if you don't have you know,

some of those those things handed to you. Yeah, I felt I felt like for her it was just like you were born into wealth, you know, your your playmates were like Paris Hilton, you know, and added to that like no disrespect to her, but you know she did have this the video that came out that also helped her correct and granted. I will never take anything awa from the Kardashians and the generals. They worked hard hard.

But to say the message to other women is to work hard is like we didn't have Senu waiting that we're not working hard already and we are what I mean, imagine how many stories we would have if we could say, oh dad, can I have a million dollars? Or are resources? We had all these celebrity friends that can't help. Not everyone has the same resources no matter how hard they work.

I mean, what advice do you give to women like yourselves that came from eating while broke days, that are moms that are juggling mom, wife and food, you know, putting food on the table and aspiring for their dreams? Like, what advice do you give a woman? My advice would be um to be easy on yourself because there's work hard, have your dreams, but there's gonna be times when you

feel there's gonna be times when you're too tired. There's gonna be certain times and a lot of times as women, I think we hold ourselves to such a standard week. We're really hard on ourselves that it can get us down. I would say, be easy on yourself and go through the journey because that's where you learn so much, and that's where you grow so much, and there's so many gyms in that. It's just enjoy the journey and be easy on yourself for all the way right. And self care,

you know, self care is so important. You know sometimes we grind and grind, but it's like we're not taking care of our mental and you know, taking time for ourselves, you burn out and then you know, when you say self care, it kind of reminds me of like self love and I when I describe self love to feed other people. It took me almost thirty years, thirty three, thirty five years to figure out what self love was. I used to think it was just buying yourself some movies,

going to going on a date with yourself. Oh that's self love. But really self love isn't really that. So I'm curious when you say self care, what does self care really look like I would say, well, first of all, you have to have self love to not feel guilty about self care. You know, like to where you know if you need to say no, say no. If you know, if you don't have the capacity when you know to do something it's too much for you, it's okay to say now and to take a break. And that's what

I mean. M'd be easier. I just can't do everything and everything. And funny story is who taught me to look at myself is my daughter. When she was about I want to say, maybe eight years old. We were driving in the car and I mean, I'm from the time I had my oldest daughter. I was mom mode, mom mode and my entire day consisted of that. And we were driving one in I'm like, what do you guys want to do today? And she says what do

you like to do? And I mean I literally sat there driving silent, like I don't know, I hat write about me and so long. And that was really a changing point in my life where I started to think about what I like to do and what makes me happy. Other obviously being a mom made me happy, but their stuff outside of that too. So yeah, now I as a mom. Sometimes I'll have an opportunity, financial opportunity, and I was say, man, I can't turn down that dollar.

I don't know when another dollar's comment, especially as entrepreneur, I don't know if I can afford to turn it down. But then I'm like, maybe putting too much on my plate?

When do you know to turn down the checks? Well, I say, following your spirit, you know, And sometimes that takes a lot of work to know how to listen to that, How to follow your spirit when something doesn't feel right, When something's nagging at you, no matter how good it looks, but something your spirit just doesn't feel right, you have to listen to it. Otherwise you'll find out

later that you should have no matter how. And I also say to that, like when the opportunities for you, it's for you, and it's going to be there if you have to. You know, I can't do it today, I have do it next week, or I can't do it at all. When something's yours and it's your path, it's going to be there. Yeah, it's smooth and it feels right. Yeah, okay, okay, yeah, I like that. I like that. I like that. So what are some of

the milestones you'd like to see happen for Uplift Marketplace. Oh, we'd like to see UM awareness across the United States, for one, you know. That's why another reason why we launched our online store, because we want our products available to everyone, you know, someone in New York or you know, Atlanta or Houston wherever, to be able to purchase our products and to be I guess kind of a household name,

like I know I've left us marketplace, you know. And of course we would eventually UM like to open stores and other locations because each store that we open, we can provide that many more small businesses and black owned businesses opportunity, you know, So to do that all across the United States whenever possible. I like that. Now, as you guys grow, have you have you been reached out to by other entrepreneurs of other ethnicity saying please, I

would love to still be in your store. I have a product that maybe caters to black, but I'm not black owned. No, not really. I think most people get it. They get the mission and it's it's not a knock too. It's just in and I don't want to speak for you guys, but the mission is to provide opportunity and

access correct and distribution. Um, it's not to omit or to what it was the correct We're not repressed, right, It's just I just want to necessarily other you know, even though black topic, we just want to highlight them. You know, it's not that and like we said, their products for everyone. So there may be people that come to our store that um that may not like the idea.

They come and they leave really quickly. Other nationals really but yeah, or even some will come in question by the time and they have a conversation with us and ask us like, oh, you know, what's going on here, And once we explain what we're doing, they love it. They appreciate it. You know, most of them, they get it. Have you had any negative feedback online? We've gotten a couple of comments before that you know, we're again we're excluding people and it's it's they're more about diversity and

that type of thing. And you know, that's okay. There's always going to be those people because some people just don't get it. They're coming from a place of opportunity, so they don't understand us trying to create that opportunity for ourselves. Do you point them back to the name of the store, Yes, have you know, gone back and forth, but you know, some people just want to get Yeah, when you guys were coming up with the name, I'm sure a bunch of names came around. How did you

guys land on uplift us? I think the word came to me first word of lift, and and then we played with the marketplace. I think when we set up lift where like, that's it? Like, because that's what we're doing and I don't even know. Yeah, we were just bouncing things off. I was like, oh, I like that, and then we have to kind of find a symbol that went along with it, um and the hands just uplifting. It just it just hit We just knew that was it. This feels right, okay. And then when you guys got

into retail. For anyone that doesn't know brick and mortar, what does that process look like? Do you have to prove a lot of stuff to be able to say, let me sign that least or do you have a lot of g yes to where? Yeah? Halfway through I called her, I said, what have we gotten ourselves into? Yeah? We're like can we do this? I mean things that we had never done before. Between plans and the stuff you had to submit, it was the permit, the design to have permits to buy retail space. Well in the

there's a lot of requirements that you have hit and insurances. Right, all that was insurance crazy. I'm not gonna li when people insts. I'm like, oh, who can fraud? Let me create this paper money right if we're done in the store and contractors and all that, because like my husband is a very handy, he does all that kind of stuff. So we're thinking, oh, we'll get the space and my

husband will go and do everything. And they're like, oh, no, you need a contractor with all this millions of dollars of insurance and stuff, and that of course changes the budget drastically, and then just everything to go. Yeah, it was over. We were looking at each other like st and no. Part of me was like run for the hills, Run for the hills, or did you already have the money invested? And was like okay, point and we just kept saying no, yeah because you know what I told

myself because as a whole, it just felt overwhelming. And then I told myself, look, there's so many other stories in this small if they can do it, we can do it. I love it. And we have that conversation. We said, okay, let's because they sent you this email with like, yeah, it was like its incredible after we had signed the least after we signed the LEAE and then you gave him a check. Yes when my god.

So we told each other, Okay, you know, at our breaking point where we're probably both ready ban tears, and we said, let's break it up in pieces. Yeah exactly, step by this small piece and we're just gonna eat away at it and get it. Ignore everything else handle this because I like you, look at it at a hole. It was too overwhelming. You know, it's like, forget to check. And during all of this, none of you guys broke out in a sister fight. But you know, it's so

hard to believe that there was no sister fight. It is. It's our personalities and it just happens to just Mesh. I'm super easy going. She's easy going to but I'm like super easy going and I'm easy one for the most part. When I really care about something, I really care if she does okay, yeah, and you know, yeah, we call her. We call her shook. Some fun Okay, that's when I really care. And I have another question. So there's this brand's helfare have you heard about it?

So what are the chances of you guys, because now you've been in the market place and they're always in high demand. Correct, Like you can't even get your hands on their back. I feel like they need to like work with you. I would let just because you was there before. Right, we have we've talked about having Telfare in the store. We had we would love it. But I can say we do have a purse brand in

our store. It's called it's called Susu High Quality. Like I feel like this purse brand should be on the lines of Telfare and it's just it's okay, I love it. I love it. I fell in love with this person. I was like, we have to get these purses in here. There's no reason why these are these are high quality, high end person but people just you know, I want to carry a purse that everyone knows about. Yeah, but there was they started off that lay pretty car first.

I think Beyonce is the one that launched them into Yeah, and that's what it's all about. But you know what, it's what I love about uplift us is you're gonna uplift some brands that are going to be the next Telfares are, you know, and I get to we get to talk about do you remember when such a was Susu what was it Susan? When her person was in here, you know, we were the first want to give her a distribution? You know? That is our goal. It just makes us so happy one so we just want to

see everyone wine, everyone win. It's it's really not even about us. It's just like we want to see these brands win and and launch and going into greatness. And a lot of it is, you know, mindset to with our people were very brand you know oriented, I guess, and we have to get away from that a little bit because there are some great quality products and things that aren't necessarily named brand that you would know all

the time. But to feel proud carrying that person knowing it's black owned inter Beautif and not to say you can't still have brandow you know, brand name versus, but switch it out. So now, if when this episode drops, I'm sure there are gonna be a plethora of entrepreneurs that aren't in your retail space that are going to be like I want in. What does the process look like for them to get in? Well, so what we do is we get a lot of emails. UM, they'll

email us. They can go to our email, our website and email us, and we just kind of go through the emails. We tried too, and I apologize to anyone who didn't get a response from us, but it's very

overwhelming to respond to everyone. But UM, we kind of will go through the emails and kind of make note of either something we don't have, if it looks if it's unique, super high quality, UM will make a separate list and once we have space for that product or a need for it, UM, we'll just reach out to them, you know, see if they're still interested. And then the

paperwork requirements and everything. Now does the brand have to be a certain financial level to get in, Like, you know, we really want to provide the opportunity for just as if you have a good quality product and we'll we'll look at it, we'll test it and all that stuff to give our then we have space for it. They could have just launched it and if it's phenomenal. A lot of our businesses launched during the pandemic. Yeah, they're well. Thank you both for coming by and feeding us. We

didn't really do a lot of eating. I will have to reheat this um and thank you for sharing so much insight on the black dollar and how to circulate it and how you guys are helping circulate the black dollar. Thank you. Than coming into our store to begin with

is a great opportunity. Thank you so much. They're going to change so many people's lives by taking the chances you guys took in acting upon them, like right when that impulse hit and somehow you have to teach a lesson on how sisters get a long on the next episode of a Man Class on the House since just get along. Thank you guys. Thank you to all our listeners. Check out Eating Wall Broke wherever you get your podcast, Spotify, Apple, Eating While Broke dot com. You can even watch our

live videos on YouTube. For more Eating Wall Broke from I Heart Radio and The Black Effect, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple poc Ask, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows in While Brooke Brooke, Brooke