Interview with Roza Adam: Founder of Shukor Bella. Shukor Bella is an Ethiopian inspired hair & skin care line developed to cut chemicals and harsh styling techniques out of grooming regimes. This is a podcast series hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. The series interviews female and female-identified entrepreneurs, founders, business owners, and gurus across all industries to investigate women (and women identified individuals) in business today. This series is designed to further the conversation of the changing climate of female (and female-identified individuals) in entrepreneurial roles worldwide.
TRANSCRIPTION
*Please note, this is an automated transcription please excuse any typos or errors
[00:00:07] Hi, my name is Patricia Kathleen, and this podcast series will contain interviews I conduct with female and female identified entrepreneurs, founders, co-founders, business owners and industry gurus. These podcasts speak with women and women, identified individuals across all industries in order to shed light for those just getting into the entrepreneurial game, as well as those deeply embedded within it histories, current companies and lessons learned are explored in the conversations I have with these insightful and talented powerhouses. The series is designed to investigate a female and female identified perspective in what has largely been a male dominated industry in the USA to date. I look forward to contributing to the national dialog about the long overdue change of women in American business arenas and in particular, entrepreneurial roles. You can contact me via my media company website Wild Dot Agency. That's w i l e dot c or my personal website. Patricia, Kathleen, dot com. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation.
[00:01:30] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. This is Patricia and I am over the moon today to be sitting down with Roza Adam. She is the founder of Shakoor Bella and I'm going to let her drop in and explain what she Bella is all about. But welcome, Roza.
[00:01:47] Yes, hello everyone. Thanks so she could have. Bella is a Ethiopian inspired hair and skin care line. I launched it right here in San Diego last August.
[00:01:58] So in twenty eighteen we I basically was my mom taught me about a Ethiopian button that we used to back home, and it's been used for centuries.
[00:02:10] And I decided to play with it in the kitchen and add some other ingredients with it because the main issue was smell. And I decided that, you know, I think I can bottle this up and kind of sell it to the world because it's so it's amazing butter.
[00:02:25] Absolutely. And on your website, it talks about like skin and hair. So it sounds like it's incredibly healthy for you.
[00:02:32] Yes. So have my mom. If she explains that she says that it heals everything. But I told her, like, I can't put those claims on, like she says that it's good for your eyes. It's good for certain stuff that I make. Mom, those are medical terms I can't see. Right. But ideally, it's for your hair and for your skin. They put the butter on their hair and I'm not sure what you call it, but it's like both of those hot Sonus. But like that come naturally. Not like a hot spring. Yes. So they basically would put the butter on their hair and sit at the hot spring and allow the butter to melt down from their hair on their skin, and then they would wash it better off.
[00:03:13] But still, like, leave a lasting effect for about a week.
[00:03:16] Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't doubt it. I wouldn't doubt it. Helping all sorts of ailments. It's it's like there are so many things in nature.
[00:03:23] Olive oil, you know, you can use your skin, your hair, you can eat it all. I think anything that you can kind of consume in all different ways is probably healing for everything. Really quickly, the website that we're going to be talking about today is w w w dot. And let me spell it. It's S.H. u k o r b e l l a dot com and it's Shakoor. Bella is the name of the company and a quick roadmap of what we're going to talk about today.
[00:03:49] I'm going to ask Roza a little bit about her academic and professional history following any academics, and then we'll dove deeper into what she called Bella is all about and who it's for, who it's targeted for and what stage it's in when it was launched. And any other particulars about the company as it stands right now.
[00:04:11] Then we'll go straight into goals for the next three years regarding scaling and other things like product implementation and things like that. And we will wrap up the interview with advice that Roza has for entrepreneurs out there who are in the same boat a little ahead, a little behind or in any different area. Just wanted to hear her story. So can you tell us a little bit about your academic history and your professional life, like following the academics prior to Chicago?
[00:04:39] So prior to Shukrallah, I was in the food and beverage industry. I was a bartender, which was very, very interesting every day. Yeah, it's very interesting. After that, I decided to go to school a little bit later in life. I attended City College and then ended up transferring to San Diego State and graduating with a business degree that was in two thousand and sixteen. I decided to actually jump right into my career and I started working at a skilled nursing facility as an assistant and a corporate life just just was in Pawnee. So I decided to go back to food and beverage and decided to start my own business and working in food and beverage, it allows you that flexibility of having your own business and working late nights and having the daytime to other business businesses.
[00:05:42] So it was a lot of customer relations that happened in the food and beverage industry. I think it's like pretty close to the route of marketing and business techniques and things like that. It's all very much so built in that industry. I've never heard a pitch like the one hand, you know, food and beverage.
[00:06:02] It's got a lot and it's every interaction on every level.
[00:06:06] It's the corporate all the way down to customer, to waiter, bartender, whomever. It's just constant human client guest relationship conversation really crystallizes. I feel like people who talk about companies, young companies who say, you know, we're going to test users. And I always think, why do you need to why don't you just go to a coffee shop?
[00:06:27] Adopted people? And I feel like that's what.
[00:06:29] The beverage does exactly you know, they're getting the immediate feedback and things like that, do you feel like that that kind of played into helping you become an entrepreneur? Just that that ability to kind of relate and constantly communicate with people in the food and beverage industry?
[00:06:44] I think it has. I consider myself very kind of closed off. But people always tell me that I know you're great in social anxiety that I know.
[00:06:55] And I think it's the from being in food and beverage and having to just interact, like even when you're having a good day or bad day, you're you got to look like you're having a good day. So just having that. That personality has helped me, but usually, like in social scenes, I get very like anxious and nervous and then like even just sitting down and just having casual conversation makes me nervous sometimes. But, yeah, I think really being in food and beverage has helped me to kind of be able to sometimes even approach people like and just talk to them about my product, like something I would if I wasn't in food and beverage prior, I would not be able to probably do.
[00:07:35] Yeah. So let's get into it. Your mom was kind of the impetus for introducing you to it. How did you first launch she corbel? What gave you the idea? Did you get any seed money? Was it bootstrap? How did it all come to be.
[00:07:50] So how at first I could start I guess with a big chop.
[00:07:55] So I probably should explain with the big chop is it's it's a time when you basically cut off all your damaged hair, chemically, chemically processed hair and you start all over. A lot of women are. It's a very big trend right now to kind of go natural and to wear your natural hair and to kind of shy people are shying away from chemicals and treatments are hair styles that like pull your insides are damaging to your hair, like especially like weeds.
[00:08:27] And like now they have the lace front where you're putting a glue like actual glue to your scalp. So I'm sorry.
[00:08:36] Oh, no, that's all I know. You're kind of going to you said let's start off with the big shot, but then we're getting into the history of how you history. There we go. And things like that. I do this all the time now. That's great. I love the back story. So the big chop gets into guessing what brought it.
[00:08:51] Yes, I couldn't. So I after the big chop, I didn't know, like I couldn't find any products in the market that, like, really worked for my hair texture. So my mom suggested, OK, we have this butter that we use back home, you know, do you want me to make you some? And I'm like, uh, kind of skeptical about it.
[00:09:08] And I was like, let's let's just let's try it. So she makes the butter for me. She for warns me that it has like a very vicious smell. But there are so many benefits too. And I'm just like, OK, let's go for it. Yeah. And I put the butter in my hair and it literally instantly the texture just changed. And then like as the butter was melting on my face, like my skin texture, like the next day when I wash my face was so clear and very bright and I was just like, OK, this is amazing. I was like it smelled bad and like it kind of got everywhere because it was dripping and it was really oily, but just the benefits of it.
[00:09:47] So then that's like at that time I was like I was in business school. So I started then and I called it artesian coils at that time. So artesian being handcrafted and in coils being pearls. So like handcrafted curls. Nice. And I didn't really do nothing with it. That was more like a research and development that was in 2014 and I was just basically just playing with it.
[00:10:13] I would make little samples, bring it to my job, but I wasn't really quite serious about it. Then after that, I graduated from school and then decided to try corporate went back and and that's when I decided, OK, let's launch with Bella. So that was in two thousand and four sixteen when I did.
[00:10:35] Not 16, 12 and 18 that I decided to get serious and lunch with Bella, where did the name come from?
[00:10:43] Oh, so the name so the name actually is kind of two parts, an ex-boyfriend used to call me Bella and then SharkWater are used to call me Shuker and Bella, but at separate times.
[00:10:58] So Chicot in our country, like means beautiful or like like a husband or boyfriend would tell his mate, like, hey, Shakuri are a shocker. And it's like, hey, sweetheart, basically. And then Bella is like meaning the same thing, like beautiful.
[00:11:13] And where is your mom from? Again, we talked about the town that she which she used the butter where it was. So she's from Ethiopia, but she's from tikrai so. OK, just getting everything straight. So the name came from two different very sweet nicknames. Yeah.
[00:11:29] Nice like beautiful. Beautiful kind of. That's how you kind of look at it like two two ways of saying beautiful. Yeah.
[00:11:35] That's fantastic. So you decided to launch it as Shuker better and you.
[00:11:41] This is in twenty eighteen so you've made some very serious headway. What was the first thing that you did like you. Did you look at manufacturing, did you bootstrap it and try to build and package it yourself.
[00:11:51] I did everything myself. So from picketing for picking the packaging to the labels to designing, to creating the actual platform that I even launched. That's our launch date was on August 18th. And I did not know, like like how do I come out with a product? Like how do I let people know about it? So I basically developed a whole expo within four months where it went pretty well. We had over two hundred and fifty attendees. We had team vendors.
[00:12:23] We had to talk to you how to do that. Was that just easier since August? That's my sanity, is to Google, you know, that kind of an event to come up with 50 people that you need to work with you?
[00:12:37] Oh, I'm doing it again this year. It's it's a lot of work I plan on next year. I need a team like I can. Yeah, it's just me right now and another person that helps me out. But putting together the event, making sure that and it was free to the public. So I didn't charge the public, but I charge for vendor fees. So making sure that all my vendor fees covered my cost for my venue. Yeah. And making sure that just we had enough entertainment. So I had entertainment from one to six. So like getting the entertainment, getting the volunteers aligned, it was just it was a big process. And then especially for me not being an event planner, it sounded really like I'll just host an event. And I'm the title sponsor, which was me for my own event.
[00:13:24] And it was we called it So Cowes Natural Hair and Health Expo. So we incorporate hair and health and that's that's yeah. That.
[00:13:34] Did you did it propel you into the industry? Did, did you take you from kind of anonymity to people recognize.
[00:13:41] Yeah. Yeah. So I want to see about 80 percent of my return clients are from the expo, from that actual expo.
[00:13:49] So I paid off. Yeah, I saw it.
[00:13:52] It was tons of work. But for my product, if I can get people to actually try it, I typically make a sell. So that's something that I learned from the expo too. That, like, selling online is cool, but I need people to actually physically, like, try it.
[00:14:08] And that's like how I convince them. So that's why I lately have been trying to get into more actual events and different like festivals that are happening locally. So I can kind of communicate directly with my target audience.
[00:14:23] So you did you take any funding for your seed, funding for your initial push of product? So just bootstrap.
[00:14:30] Yeah, that's awesome. That's fantastic.
[00:14:32] It's really rare when you've got a product, it's pushing it. It's amazing.
[00:14:37] Do you feel like you've garnered schools or I mean, Sario skills at business school to help you along with this? Or was it just by, like the skin of your teeth?
[00:14:46] I want to say going to state San Diego State has a pretty good business program. I want to say a lot of it came from that. But my mom did say when I was young that I was like really into reselling stuff.
[00:14:59] So that's a little bit of both.
[00:15:01] Yeah. But I always knew that I just like with my personality that I kind of like always wanted to be like my own boss. Right. So that was ideally the thing. But I think the business school really helped me with figuring out that, like, OK, I have these set of skills that they're teaching me. I can go work for a business and apply to skills, or I can really try to apply these skills to my own business.
[00:15:24] And then I say in five years, if it doesn't work, then I'll join corporate America.
[00:15:29] Yeah. Walk back to corporate. I go join. Yeah. I don't think that they're going to have the pleasure of your company any time soon.
[00:15:37] And what are your goals for the next three years? What do you picture, how do you picture the next four years. Are you going to scale when are you considering different and also within those goals, are you in stores?
[00:15:49] If so, like how many? And you talked about online sales and how is that all kind of giving up for you right now?
[00:15:55] So right now, within the next three years, we do definitely plan on selling the business within twenty twenty. We are planning on building a sales rep team. Ideally, our sales rep team are going to be so the sales rep, the program that it's going to be called fair one, it's going to be for women who are formerly incarcerated. And we basically are going to have like an Avon pay structure. So they'll be like their own boss and they'll be able to become sales reps and kind of build a career. We sure could, Bella.
[00:16:31] Is it the same as the lift up program that's on your list? Steps to fair one. To fair one? There's actually something that already has at me.
[00:16:41] Yeah, I started to grow some really wrong.
[00:16:45] I really love this particular program.
[00:16:48] And I was wondering how you became inspired to do it, because it's the first that I've heard in the startup community. I know of a lot of other really established corporate companies that are doing work with incarcerated individuals. But you are the first person that I've spoken to as a very young entrepreneur and as a startup that is directly attaching itself to this kind of giving back mentality. So can you kind of elaborate on that? What inspired you to do it? Why did you pick the incarcerated individuals as your population?
[00:17:18] Yeah, so with the women that are formerly incarcerated, I myself was incarcerated for about six years and for me, getting out of jail, coming home.
[00:17:30] So they give you two hundred dollars. They don't really set you up for success. And then they give you this list of like potential employers who hire felons and you go and you fill out all these census applications that they literally put you in a pile of like not high.
[00:17:48] You're not going to get hired. And of course, they can't let you know that the reason that they're not hiring you is because you have a felony. So it's kind of like, you know, I don't have a job again. And then for me, after graduating, I kind of I really did assume, like, OK, I'm going to graduate and I'm going to get good grades and I'm going to do internships and like, I'm going to be able to get whatever job that I want because I paid for my my punishment and like, yeah, I'm rehabilitated now. So I get to, like, live life. And it wasn't that way. I can't even imagine how many applications I felt, how I felt that I was qualified for these positions. And I just wasn't given the opportunity to even test the waters. And I feel like given a chance like these women, most people go back to prison because they don't have the opportunity to make ends meet. Right. So if you're not able to provide for your family, you got to I'm guessing you got to. But the best choice is to hey, let me do something that I know is illegal, but at least I can feed my children. Yeah. So I feel like just giving these women a chance, giving them the skill sets to get out to even just an opportunity like that's like all I ever wanted was like and then lift up.
[00:19:07] That was the original name was because it wasn't like a hand out. I didn't want to like I want to us to be able to lift each other up. Yeah. So like when I got out, luckily I had like a very strong support system. My family has I have a small family, but I've been amazing and very supportive. But everyone doesn't have that. Yeah. So I wasn't I didn't have to work for a little while. I know people get out like they need to be working right away. Right. So that was really the inspiration to me.
[00:19:34] And then you said you meant you structured it around the Avon pay structure, which I love. I think that's a really fantastic business model. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that for people in the audience that don't know what that is?
[00:19:46] So for what, Avon, you're basically your own boss. You make your own hours. There's no commitment. You you make the purchases, you go and you sell the product and you give me the your sheet of inventory and I supply the product for you. So they don't have an overhead. They're not sitting there storing products at their house. They'll have an outline of exactly kind of what to say, how to pitch products. And then it's as far as pay structure. The more that they sell, the more that they want to get into it, the more that they're able to make. And again, the biggest thing is that they don't have to put like a big down payment on products or anything like that. I think with Mary Kay, you got to pay like three or four hundred dollars for their initial package. Yeah, Avon, it's like thirty bucks. It's just a few things like really printed material and stuff like that.
[00:20:36] Yeah, absolutely. It's a really accessible yeah. I like that model a lot because of that as opposed to some of. The other, like independent sales companies. So you are getting ready to put this fair one into play soon, that's exciting. That's going to be a I think it's really going to give a different note or an additional note to what is already like a really cool sounding company.
[00:21:02] So with I guess a lot of times when I talk to companies that have manufacturing, I'm wondering if you looked forward when you look at scaling and things like that, like these are champagne problems, but let's just go there. So what if you have an onslaught of sales and things like that? Have you played around with the idea of how you're going to meet that manufacturing need or is that something that you'll base later on?
[00:21:28] No. So I've actually even now I've already started talking to some local manufacturers that kind of like are keyed in on holistic practices. Ideally, I would like to in-house manufacture, but if it gets to too big of a scale, I think it would be just idea to outsource my manufacturing.
[00:21:49] But then another option is kind of getting a small little space out here and kind of maybe getting some equipment and just building a little factory for myself because the process is not like a crazy like I'm not making ice cream already. So it's all natural. So I there's two routes I can outsource so I can build my own.
[00:22:14] Yeah.
[00:22:14] Well I mean then when you're kind of playing around with all of your options and things like that at this stage, which is it's actually kind of fun and cool to, to do.
[00:22:24] Do you have mentors that you kind of reach into that advise you as to what areas, you know, at very least the pitfalls or peaks that could be associated with either area? Like do you have do lean on anybody? Is anyone showing you the ropes?
[00:22:37] So not not really.
[00:22:39] But I did get a mentor here, too, since joining the Connect all program, they they gave us a mentor right in the beginning, which was super awesome. I did need but I guess for me is that I don't know how to ask for someone to be my mentor. I don't know how that relationship started. OK, can you advise me on to certain stuff. Right. Sure. Again, I kind of like a I will just go learn information myself type. Yeah. And then I got to kind of get out of that too. Like I instead of asking for help, I just was like, oh you know what, let me just learn to hone.
[00:23:13] I know. Let's let me just throw my entire xpo. I mean, yeah, that's a lot of work to not ask for help. I like it.
[00:23:20] I mean, it's amazing. It's it means, you know, it's you've got the stuff to make it sale. But it is interesting. I mean, you are a powerhouse. Do you have any other partners or is it just you.
[00:23:33] So I have a partner. Her name is Chili and Johnson. She's been with me from the beginning. As far as the beginning of the expo, we are currently moving towards kind of maybe legalizing her as a actual partner partner.
[00:23:52] So, yeah, we're working that out right now. She's been a. Like such a blessing about a month ago, I was kind of like really sick, so I have a condition. It's very rare. Bouchet syndrome, so lucky.
[00:24:06] And I was really sick. And she just took initiative to, like, make fliers, go visit local salons and barbershops and just kind of talk to the community about the event. And I kind of showed me, like, you know what, I could I could actually see being, like, my legit partner. Yeah. But right now it's just a small prop and it's just me. Do you.
[00:24:28] So who are where is your stuff? It's it's available online. And then do you have it placed in boutique stores or hair salons or anywhere else.
[00:24:36] So I have it in one barbershop, freshly faded. And that's the only barbershop that I've worked in. So I have again this anxiety thing. And that's what Alex, the director here at the program, has been trying to get me to come over, is just go into the salons and talk to them.
[00:24:55] And I'm like, I know, but I just want to increase my online safety and I just do it.
[00:25:02] And so the goal is before the end of the program that I told myself that I want to get into 20 salons, barbershops or spoors in San Diego.
[00:25:13] You got that?
[00:25:14] No problem. Absolutely. It's an amazing product. And, you know, you're capable of I think that once you break down the phobia of sales, you'll think it's ridiculous. Yeah, that's exactly what you've done so much harder and all of your history.
[00:25:27] It's it's amazing, though, that we do that to ourselves as human beings, because I can think of a couple of small tasks in my life that I avoid, like the plague.
[00:25:35] And I'm capable of building an entire industry instead of doing those things, you know, so we ascribe power to the smallest thing. Is it is. It is.
[00:25:44] Yeah, it's amazing.
[00:25:46] So if you ran into a woman or a female identified individual who had had kind of this interesting background of business school and some trouble in her life, and she was just saying to herself, I don't like corporate. I'm going, I've got this idea for a startup. What are the top three pieces of advice that you would give her right now?
[00:26:10] That's a very good one. So top three advice, I would say is.
[00:26:16] Do it now, whatever it is that you're postponing or whatever it is that you're trying to make super perfect or just do it, just do whatever it is, go forward and just do it, because I have that thing of waiting and trying to make everything perfectly. And I know certain stuff. You just got to do it and see the outcome and then you're able to change and make whatever adjustments that you need to.
[00:26:42] I would say reaching out for help for number two is definitely very, very important to reach out for help when you need it, because everything you can't wear every hat. It's nice to feel like you have a sense of control of what's going on and maybe having a little bit of information. So you're kind of like not blind sided about what might be going on, but just like you don't have to be an expert in every area. Right. Let's see.
[00:27:13] Number three. I would say it's.
[00:27:20] Enjoy the process, like stop stressing sometimes throughout the day, like I kind of stress I'm not having enough time or like not feeling like I I did enough today and kind of beating myself up and like, oh, God, it's almost nighttime. I should I should have done already like X Y and the just enjoying the process of getting to whatever you believe success is just having fun in it.
[00:27:44] Yeah. I love that. That's really great. So you have do it now reaching out for help when you need it and enjoy the process. Those are three key pieces to live by. I think for every entrepreneur you heard it here was Adam has you covered. Thank you.
[00:28:01] So we've reached the end of the podcast.
[00:28:04] And I just wanted to say I know that everyone is busy, but I feel like entrepreneurs take busy to another definition level.
[00:28:11] And I want to thank you so much for sharing your story and your company and your time with me.
[00:28:16] For the past half an hour, it's been brief. I could have kept you here for six hours.
[00:28:20] I feel like I've given you that gift of five and a half hours back.
[00:28:24] But thank you so much for giving me your time today. I really appreciate it. And for everyone listening one more time, it's Shakoor Bella. The website is w w w h u k o r b e l l a dot com. You should jump on, buy some. It sounds. I'm going to sound fantastic. Awesome. Thank you so much.
[00:28:44] And for everyone listening, thanks for giving me your ear. And until next time remember to always bet on yourself. Slaínte.
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