Leave Your 9-to-5 Behind and Transition Into Entrepreneurship

0:00I really didn't want to tell anybody what I was doing because what if it sucked or what if they thought it was stupid or what if I grew bored with it in a month you know. And once I got to my first class, I saw that there were people who were raising money. And so my competitive spirit really got activated. Hi, I'm Shuang Esther Shan, and welcome to Shopify Masters, your companion for starting and building a business. Do you have a side business you've been growing? Are you wondering if it's ever going to take off? Well, Sinead Jones is proof that you can work your nine to five and scale your dream business all at the same time.

0:40Sinead is the founder of Flyest Tees, a hip hop inspired tea company focused on herbal properties and music. Sinead joins me now to share how she transitioned into a full time entrepreneur and how she's built a unique brand within a competitive market. Sinead, welcome to the show. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me. Sinead, so happy to have you here because I know a lot of our listeners can relate to your story. You actually had a full-time corporate job and you were preparing to launch Flyest Tease. Tell us the first steps you took to launch the business. If you're like me and you knew absolutely nothing, then one of the first things that I had to do was take a business accelerator.

1:26And I don't know how popular those are now, but I feel like when I decided to start my business seven years ago, they were everywhere. And there were so many different types that you could take, you know, ones for women, ones for first time business owners, ones for just this industry or this niche. And so I found one that was for black business owners who knew nothing about business. So it was like, perfect. I'm black. I know nothing. And so it really helped me because it took me from ideation to a minimum viable product. But it also showed me like, you know, things about starting up a LLC and like the minute details that you need.

2:05But when you're starting your business, all you're thinking about is the product and all you're thinking about is the end success. And so the accelerator really helped me to be able to keep that big goal in mind, but also making sure that I set myself up for success along the way, starting from the very beginning. Yeah. And I feel like a lot of the times people might feel like, oh, I don't know enough or I don't have the business knowledge and therefore I shouldn't start a business. You actually view the lack of knowledge as an advantage as well. Talk to us more about that. Of course, not knowing can be a really good thing.

2:43It's a very scary thing. But looking back on my journey as a business owner, I can say that not knowing made me a lot more creative. It made me take a lot more risks that at the time I didn't see as risks.

2:59Some professional probably would have been like, you did what? But I was just going with the flow. You know, I was just trying new things and testing different things and really not being afraid to fail because I had I didn't have anything to, you know, to have lost yet. So it made me a lot more courageous and it made me a lot more creative. And I think that if you are someone who you don't know much about business or you really only know about what you want to do, like, let's say you want to make candles or something. and, you know, fragrance is just the thing that you're really strong at, you know, use that to your advantage and just kind of don't be afraid to fumble around with the other stuff.

3:40Not knowing is not a bad thing. Sometimes people don't do because they know too much and you can flip that on its head and make it really work for you.

3:54Yeah, I feel like not knowing also gives you that optimism to keep going forward. Oh, yes. And to your point, be more creative. And of course, you worked your full-time job while you were building up Flyest. What were some of the ways you'd manage your time, balance both responsibilities, try to get a sense of balance, at least in your life? I feel like right now we're in a time where so many people are prioritizing rest and they're prioritizing self-care. And, you know, I'd be lying if I told you that I followed that advice. I'd be lying if I told you that I slept like I'm supposed to or I told you that I made every doctor's appointment when I'm supposed to.

4:38There's a lot of things that I missed out on. There's a lot of things that I sacrificed for my business. And sometimes it feels like it was worth it and sometimes it doesn't, I'll be honest. But one of the biggest things that I did to manage my time was to just get more disciplined about finding a productivity method that really worked for me. I currently do a lot of time blocking and I use the Pomodoro technique often. Those two really helped me stay on track and stay on task. And when I had a day job, I kind of implemented the same philosophy. Maybe I should whisper this part and say, I stole time on my job.

5:17I would be working on my business while I was at work, especially if there was a low period of time. But don't get fired if you take my advice. You know, do that at your own whim. That's your risk. But it really came to be that I just had to decide that I wanted to make my business work And then I was willing to maximize every minute, every hour that I had to make it work for me. And so far, I'm happy with it. I don't regret the things that I did. I had a job. There was an opportunity for me to do like a, not necessarily like a pop-up, but there was like an educational series at the Capital One in Virginia, which wasn't far from me.

6:01And I just kind of told my supervisor, I was like, Latonya, there's this thing for my business on Tuesday morning and I have to go. Like, I can't miss this opportunity. And I don't know if she was sympathetic or if she was just, you know, so far up in the job that she didn't really care. You know, some people are unfireable. And she was like, that's fine. You know, I'll see you when you get back. You know, so I'm not saying that you should always be honest with your job about what you're doing, because some jobs don't like when you have a side hustle. You know, you'll know that based on your day-to-day work experience there.

6:34But for me, I think I made it pretty clear that I was serious about making something of myself and that I was serious about making something of my business. And they'd ask me, what are you doing after work? I'm going to work on my business. I can't do happy hour. What are you doing this weekend? Or what did you do this weekend? I'll tell them I had a pop-up or something like that. You know, I never lied about it because I wanted them to know I'm doing something very serious. This is a means to an end. And I'll do my best while I'm here. But that's definitely my focus. And I just maximized every minute that I had, every single one.

7:07And it also helps that I didn't have any children or a husband. Being single doesn't always suck. So we can share that tidbit for the single people. I love it. I mean, I think maximizing your own time is so important. And I do think you being transparent and honest and also understanding what kind of dynamics you had at work helped, because you can see that people can be understanding and supportive and therefore you felt comfortable in doing so. Yeah, it reminds me a lot of when I was in a corporate job prior to this and I was trying to get into more creative field. I was like listening to music and putting together set lists.

7:52So yeah, it's like how you manage your day and how you work towards your goals. Yes. Yeah. The other side of managing and building up flyers was not just looking after your time. It was also looking at funding and understanding what kind of financial investment you needed for the business. And you actually went about this in a very smart way. So talk to us about seeking funding for your business initially. Sure. So my business is mostly bootstrapped, honestly. I started my business with$715, which I didn't even plan really to do. As a part of my business accelerator, they wanted to teach us about crowdsourcing.

8:35And I kind of ignored it. I was still so shy and I didn't want to ask anybody for money. I really didn't want to tell anybody what I was doing because what if it sucked or what if they thought it was stupid? Or what if I grew bored with it in a month, you know? And once I got to my first class, I saw that there were people who were raising money. And so my competitive spirit really got activated. I was like, hold on, if they're raising money and people are keeping track of this, then I need to be down. My name needs to be on that list job.

9:12they need to know that I raised something they were not gonna my name wasn't going to not be on the list and so I started to tell family and friends and literally everyone donated I could not believe it I was so impressed um I only asked for 300 which was the cost to cover the the class that I was taking. And I ended up getting more than that, of course. I didn't come from necessarily an affluent group of people. So the sacrifices and the money that they did gave showed me that they cared about me. And or at least they were too afraid to tell me no, which works in my favor sometimes. Sometimes you got to bully your way in, you know.

9:54And after that, you know, it really just became about looking for grants and basically applying at every turn, you know, practicing my pitch, learning how to edit videos and learning how to take video of myself at my warehouse and use it for B-roll and just getting comfortable being on camera because a significant amount of grant applications require you to get on camera and talk about yourself and talk about your business. And as a writer, I would much rather just submit an essay. You need 5 ,000 words. You can get that in an hour. But getting on camera as an introvert, I was a little scared, but I had to break out of that and realize, you know, you have to stay focused on your goal.

10:34You really have to decide what you want for your business and what I want was the money. And one of the affirmations that I say to myself all the time is I'm focused on the outcomes I desire. And so instead of getting into my head about what might not happen or the worst thing that could happen, I have to focus on what I do want to have happen. And having that mantra and staying focused on my finance goals really helped me to continue to apply for grants, even when you're getting rejected, which happens a whole lot. But sometimes all you need is a couple of yeses and they kind of keep you motivated.

11:08So that's mostly how I have funded Flyish. You know, we don't have any debt. I've never really tried to get any sort of venture capital or anything like that. The business really runs really well. And And being debt-free is a philosophy that I use in my personal life. So I know that in order to grow the business a lot more, I'll possibly have to change that. But I'm flexible and also willing to cross that bridge when I get there. Yeah. And your mantra about focusing on the outcome, I think it's so important because oftentimes when you're focused on each of the steps or the process, you get intimidated or bogged down by how much you have to do.

11:49and when you're looking at the outcome, sometimes it forces you to be creative and take a path that you've never imagined. Yeah, and one of the most important, I guess, paths you've taken was actually completing a course on understanding about herbs and also all the botanics. Talk to us about how important that class was to you. It was essential to my business because, first of all, I was kind foolish enough to think that I would just be able to make a website and put tea on there and then people would buy it. Like that's literally not going to happen. You got to have some zing and you have to have some marketing.

12:30Like you have to have something behind it. Like there's a million and one websites in the world. Like how are they going to find mine if I'm not, if there's nothing behind it? And so one of the things that I really wanted to have behind it was authority and knowledge. And like I said before, when I tell people that I knew nothing, I really mean it. I knew nothing. I knew that I wanted to do it and that's it. And so I looked online. I didn't even know that there were herbal apprenticeships. I didn't even know that was a thing. I just Googled how to learn about herbs and all these different schools came up.

13:01And there was a great school I found. It was in Brooklyn, New York. And the only reason why I didn't take that class was because I couldn't think of a lie good enough to tell my supervisor about why I would need Wednesdays off because I'd have to get on the train in D.C. It's three hours there, three hours back. So that was going to take up my entire day. Plus the class was like six or seven until 10 o 'clock at night. So I just was like, this is so frustrating. But I Googled the same thing again and just put Maryland. Go figure. I live in Maryland. So I just I found the perfect class for me. And it was literally like 30 minutes away.

13:40and it really helped me because it gave me a lot of the confidence that I needed to really keep going on with my business.

13:53You know, I think that if I didn't have that expertise and I didn't find that love of plants, I probably would have failed or bailed on this a long time ago. And so it's important that you not just find out the things that you want to do with your business, but that you also find other things that pique your interest as well. You know, you might find that you really like making social content, you know, your business might be selling something else, but you might be really good at that. Or maybe you're good at podcasting and you can make a podcast about your products or your services. You know, don't be afraid to try, put your hands in every little thing and find something that you really love as well.

14:32In addition to the product or the business itself, because that goes a long way. Yeah. And also the course was just so fundamental because I feel like it gave you the beginnings of understanding what kind of raw ingredients you wanted to have in your tea. And it kind of put you on this journey to create a supply chain for yourself. So how did you go about finding the suppliers and partners that would eventually be these business partners for your raw ingredients? I think that one of the biggest things about being a small business owner, and it can be a big challenge, is working with domestic businesses because the price point is always just that much higher.

15:21And I guess I kind of, before I started my business, I had been challenging myself to shop local and to shop small. And I just really kind of fed into that. And so joining the herbal apprenticeship introduced me to a whole new world of other small businesses that and people just like myself who were just doing the things that they love. And they just so happen to have a climate where they can grow a lot of mint. Yeah. And that's what they wanted to do. And so I got excited about the prospect of working with other members of my class, other people that the teacher of my apprenticeship showed me.

15:59My mentors had a lot of people that they knew who had been working with co-ops and things like that for years. And so it was easy to make this network because I was willing to put myself out there and say, hey, this is what I'm trying to do. Can you help me do that? And I think that is, like you mentioned earlier, just that transparency. You know, I'm quick to tell people I don't know, but I'd like to find out. What do you know about this? Can you help me? And what you'll find is that people are eager to feel useful, but they really are. And a good disposition, a positive disposition, openness, and not being afraid to be true and authentic in yourself can actually carry you a long way.

16:40So all of those relationships themselves have been built on me just saying, hey, I am a new business owner and I want to make tea and I want to combine it with hip hop and I want to teach people who don't know about plants all about it. Can you help me with that? And sometimes it requires an explanation, which helps you work on your pitch. But sometimes people are just like, I think that's a really cool idea. I'd like to be a part of it. I mean, it's not like I'm not paying. so they're definitely a little more open to supporting and so it's just been it's just been that it's been a slow grind you know I don't have as many products as maybe as my competitors do but that's fine by me because I'm able to maintain freshness I'm able to maintain my commitment to supporting business owners like myself and that's what's most important to me right now.

17:31And also, I feel like by you having this interest in understanding herbs, working with local suppliers, this is also a great way that have helped Flyest to differentiate itself as well. Talk to us a little bit about highlighting the ingredients and also weaving through some of the education in your content as well. Sure. I think that when it comes to the education piece, I've had to do a lot more than I had expected. You know, I thought I'd have to tell people about like brew times. But now I'm realizing that like I had to teach people about the benefits of drinking loose tea as opposed to bagged tea, which is a lot more than I even knew.

18:15You know, I knew that loose leaf tea tasted better and I knew there was more fragrant, but it took a lot of research myself to learn that those tea bags themselves sometimes contain microplastics and that the teas that they get themselves really aren't the best quality. You know, they're what's at the what's left over oftentimes in those tea bags. And so then I had to come up with even more creative ways to explain that. So I started teaching people about the benefits of loose leaf tea, comparing it to weed. You know, I'm like, well, you know, the stuff that you can get at the grocery store, like that would be shake.

18:50Like that's the stuff you don't want, you know, but what you want is right. You want the good buds and stuff. That's the equivalent of loose leaf or, you know, talking to like the beauty gurus and telling them, you know, they have this concept of swept hair. You know, when you wear wigs and weave, you know, swept hair is the hair that's on the floor. It's not the good stuff. It's what's been combed out and left down. So, you know, these sorts of parallels and comparisons that I don't wear wigs or weave. I have dreadlocks, you know, but it's about ingratiating myself into different cultures, different aspects of culture.

19:25I just thought I'd be a business owner. But in some ways I have to become an activist and educator, which is totally fine. I'm OK with it, you know, but you want to say the right thing the right way. And I'm not always really good at that part. But you just learn that there's so much more to it than just what you thought it would be, you know. And part of that might come with being who I am and how I look and the messaging behind my product. And some of it is just that there's like not many other people out there that people feel comfortable asking. So since I'm here on TikTok, it's like, well, let's just leave this comment and see if she says something.

20:04And I'm desperate to feed the algorithm. them. So then I reply, you know, it's just like, it's one big circle. I think it's perfect. I think it's a realistic picture of how running a business is, right? You have to wear a lot of different hats and through the process, you have to educate yourself on so many new things that you didn't ever imagine. But yeah, I truly appreciate your advice and also the journey you've taken. we are just going to take a moment to thank our listeners for tuning into the show wherever you're listening now go and follow or subscribe to shopify masters and be sure to share this episode with a friend or fellow founder you can also share your feedback by writing a review and let us know your thoughts thank you so much i mean we have to talk about the intersection of hip-hop and tease and how you've beautifully woven the two together.

21:06Talk to us why it was so important to have this element within Flyus and have it be a part of the brand identity. So earlier I mentioned how I was silly enough to think that I would just make a website and people would come to it. I learned that I needed some sort of marketing component, something that was going to make it different. And I guess I could have gone like the crystals and incense in real vibey type of way, but that would have been fake. That's not me. I don't know anything about crystals. Incense makes my eyes water. I'm just not that person, even though I know that's a part of the tea culture for some folks.

21:48It wasn't authentic for me, but if there was one thing that I knew about, it was hip hop, hip hop culture. My family is Jamaican and British. I'm the first born American. And in many ways, it's hip hop that taught me how to be American. And I know that that might seem brash, but that's what it is to be American. You're a little brash. You are you can be entrepreneurial and you have this optimism and hope, you know, no matter what you get it out of the mud, as they say, you're willing to work and hustle. You know, these are things that you find oftentimes in hip hop that are very much so a part of American culture.

22:28And hip hop just made me feel comfortable and it made me feel like I could do a lot of things. It made me feel like I could do anything I wanted to do. And so I figured if hip hop could be used in all these other ways to sell so many other different things and be the driving force behind a lot of people's purchases, whether that be Sprite or that be Kia Souls or it be sneakers or, Or, you know, streetwear. Streetwear's had a significant hip-hop influence, though some of it you could say is more rock. But there's another story for another day. But I would say that I felt like, well, why not tea?

23:09There are some folks who in the coffee industry have used hip-hop. And, you know, and it's certainly like a lot more of a linear parallel there, right? The hustle and bustle of hip hop and the hustle and grind behind coffee, you know, it seems a little more unilateral than with tea. But there is this aspect of hip hop, these pillars of hip hop that encourage you to focus on yourself and to better yourself. It's not something you hear really on mainstream hip hop today, but a lot of underground music talks about fellowship and it talks about community. And what better way to do that than with tea?

23:44What better way to do that than in nature, you know, whether it be having a family cookout or we revolutionize or move to a new way of celebrating familial bonds with hikes and Black Girls Run and Outdoor Afro and all these other entities that are encouraging Black folks to move from the home and from the communities that they might feel safe in into ones where we haven't always been welcomed. And I think that when it comes to plant medicine, there's a lot of work that can be done to amplify and further celebrate the contributions of Black herbalists here stateside, but also all over the world.

24:22You know, I feel like there are valuable herbal remedies that we could share from all throughout the Caribbean and all over the continent of Africa. But at the same time, right, we want to do the work to make sure that it's not whitewashed like in many ways traditional Chinese medicine has been or Ayurveda. Because, you know, it's unfortunate that the people who are responsible for these remedies, you know, don't get the credit. They don't get the spotlight. And I think that I can do my part to celebrate and share those remedies from Black and brown people while also kind of keeping it current and keeping it fresh with hip hop.

25:03I mean, I think a lot of people might find understanding herbalists and traditions and ingredients really tough. And you're kind of opening this door through a medium that is approachable on its own. And I think what's so unique is how you also went through the process of determining this link and also finding the branding for Flyest. So we got to talk about that and how all the different exercises you've taken to end up with the branding that you've had right now. So I tell people that the branding, like logo and packaging, all this stuff, the trademarks, the copyrights, all this stuff, you know, that's the most expensive thing I've ever done.