Page 28

17 May

Written By Debo Sogunro

JAMELIA DONALDSON

With Phadria Prendergast

Founder of TreasureTress, Co-founder of The Teen Experience and a voice for the community, Jamelia and I caught up one day before her birthday and what would have also been her wedding day as she talked about life pre-TreasureTress and how her business provided a solution to a problem. As someone who didn’t have much help available to her when she originally wanted to launch her business, Jamelia feels strongly about providing access, guidance and advice to women wanting to go into business, especially within the beauty industry.

Share your journey with TreasureTress, how did it all start? What sparked your interest? How did you determine the gap in the market?

So pretty much my whole entire life, I’ve been obsessed with hair. Literally at about age 4, I taught myself how to braid and then from there, I started experimenting with everyone’s hair, including my mum's hair. In primary school, I used to do hair - by the time I got to secondary school, I was getting paid on my lunch break. It was a genuine passion of mine. I can genuinely say that from a child, I was obsessed with hair - it was kind of innate. I come from a Caribbean family. My mum is an educator so she thought “yes it’s great that you can do hair but maybe you should be a lawyer or something” and I remember thinking “ummm okay”. Thankfully I enjoy learning. I performed quite well in school so I said okay, I’m just going to let this hair thing go. I was also really passionate about dance but I told myself it was okay and that I would focus on my school work - up until university. I applied for law. I was meant to do a law degree. It was my idea that I was going to qualify as a lawyer and then live anywhere I wanted. Unfortunately I didn’t make the grades I needed to study law. I was only 2 marks away. I was gutted. I thought it was the end of the world. Then my mum told me that I could go to another university and still study law or I could stay where I was and study a different degree. I had my heart set on Aston University, and decided to do a different degree. The degree that was available was combined honours business and international relations. I liked travelling so it sounded like something I could do. I didn’t think of owning my own business, it was just the course that was available. Retrospectively, I can see that I have always been entrepreneurial. I mean, I used to get paid to do hair in school, that’s a business without being a business so I think I’ve always been quite savvy when it comes to making money. So that’s what I studied and during my gap year, my friends were going for the Big Four companies, the financial services industry.

“Birchbox had just started and glossy box had just started. When I looked at the UK, there weren’t really any.”

One of my closest friends and I decided that we were going to go to New York. We wanted to get internships doing literally anything just so we could live there. I got an internship in fashion PR. She got an internship working for a theatre production company. It was one of the highlights of my life. One of my best friends had just moved out there as well so it was like, 3 friends running around the city. It was great. Coincidentally I got introduced to BJ Coleman who was Kimora Lee Simmon’s personal assistant and he was looking for someone to be his. I had the interview with him, we got along so I was splitting my time between fashion PR and entertainment PR but by the end of the year, I decided PR was not for me, she laughs. I can be really social but I need time to recharge and I feel like PR on a whole demands a lot socially and I can’t commit to that. It wasn’t for me but I liked what I could create. I loved the level of creativity it required to close brand deals. I loved pitching to brands. When I got back to London, I applied for an internship at a financial firm and I didn’t know anything about them but I studied religiously before the interview. I did really well in the interview and internship, so much so that they asked me to stay for an additional month and they asked me to come back as a graduate. So I graduated and went back. By year 2 of the graduate scheme, but it wasn’t the kind of life that I wanted to live. I respected the company but I thought, if this is what I’m working towards then I’m at the wrong company. That made me think back to New York and what was upcoming, engaging, interesting and then I remembered it was a time that subscription boxes were on the rise. Birchbox had just started and glossy box had just started. When I looked at the UK, there weren’t really any. There were a few that rose to the surface but then disappeared after a few months. I thought, “that’s interesting and there must be a reason for it. I still wanted to do it because I think ethnic women deserve to have a subscription box just for them. I began directing people from my Instagram page inviting them to register if they were interested. That’s where I got my first database of subscribers and how I attracted the first brands that we worked with. For as long as I could remember, I was waking up at 5am and working on the business until 1am and also going to work from 7am and not finishing until 7pm. I realised I couldn’t do both. When I ended up leaving my job, my mum's face - I could describe it as shock horror. From then, I was on a ridiculous hunt for more knowledge from mentors and listening to every podcast possible. Reading every book possible. I needed to figure it out. Of course, it wasn’t a blueprint but in the UK, there wasn’t anyone I could call or email to ask for help. When it came to the type of business model I wasn’t sure what to do. That was year 1. I had a lot of time, not a lot of money but I was keen on more knowledge. By year 2, I was starting to get the hang of things. I had set up a routine and built relationships.

I find the different boxes really interesting! Talk me through this, how does it work?

Each month, subscribers pay £20. You don’t know what’s in your box until it arrives. It’s kind of like Christmas because you don’t know what gifts you’re going to get. It’s a chance to try new products that you maybe wouldn’t have gone for before. For brands, it’s a great opportunity to launch products to a niche community. For us, it’s more about sisterhood. It’s about bringing women together - in particular black women. I love them connecting with others and then building their own relationship. I love sharing my own experience in business because like I said, when I started, I was looking everywhere for advice and never really did I really receive any advice. TreasureTress is very much a community focused brand. The products are just a really nice bonus. When we are all together, it’s about personal development, sisterhood, friendship.

When I was doing my research, I read something I found very interesting which was that you believe no one is able to do anything alone. So, what would say to those who believe they do have to do it all alone?

To someone that thinks they can do it alone, I say good luck and why? I think entrepreneurship is very attractive. People make it look very seductive online - I try to not do that because I know how hard it is. When you understand what comes with business, you probably wouldn’t even want to get involved she laughs. So I don’t try to discourage women from doing it but if you’re going to do it, know what you’re getting yourself into. Do it because you're solving a problem and you couldn’t find another way to solve that problem. One thing that frustrates me is when I see women set up the same business as another that is already running. Why do that? Why not reach out to her and see what you can both do together to build something more powerful. If you reached out to her and you got rejected, fairplay but if you didn’t, do you know how hard this is to do alone?

You are also co-founder of The Teen Experience. Tell us more! I know it focuses on the next generation, so I already love it!

When TreasureTress launched, it was for little girls. I thought my nieces would have resources to look after their hair but also have role models and peers that looked like them. I remember growing up and only wanting straight hair and I thought it was the epiphany of beauty and I didn’t want my nieces growing up thinking the same thing. Then, when I started attending events, I noticed there were events that I could also attend as a young twenty something woman to early thirties. When I was growing up, I had youth clubs and brownies and so on but in this age group, there isn’t really much you can do with your peers or even just meet others that look like you. So I thought, let me start something for teens and call it the Teen Experience and I’m going to reach out to different women of influence to help me run this workshop. That’s how I met Simone. She didn’t just want to speak, she really wanted to help and that’s what we have been doing together for the past 3 years. Of course, it gets difficult because I have TreasureTress and similarly, she’s growing a lot in her career as well. However, consistently for the last 3 years, we have put on workshops at the very least, within the summer holidays for the girls to attend. Everything from skincare to makeup. At the moment. We are working on our digital workshops because we can’t do the physical ones we usually do. The girls are doing really well, some have been with us from the very beginning. Another has launched her own business recently which I am so proud of. They’re incredible. Some are studying cosmetic science, others are freelancers, others are exploring various different creative outlets, it’s been very rewarding.

With all that has happened, I suppose it’s business as usual for you?

We deliver to over 26 countries and that was pre COVID-19 but it’s been insane. It’s gotten to the point where we had to limit our subscriptions and build a waitlist. In about 3 days, we have over 1000 women join the waitlist so demand has gone through the roof - which is amazing but for me, it’s still important that we don’t compromise the service we provide. We probably could accept those 1000 women but we wouldn't be at a standard that I would be happy with. So COVID-19 has been beneficial for us but logistics wise, we can’t do it the same way of course. Boxes cannot be packed the same way, we need to practise social distancing and everyone needs to be separated. For the team at the office, everyone is working from home

What is your favourite product on TreasureTress.co.uk?

I don’t even know if I can answer that, I am one of those people that pick and mix. I can say what type of product I can’t live without, which is a deep conditioner. I deep-condition every single week without fail. That’s my ‘me’ time.

Debo Sogunro