Ep. 14: Striking Out (Part 3)

Welcome back to another episode of Black Girl Fly. I'm your girl Tenisha Nicole. And I'm Tashaunda Dixon. And today we're doing a continuation of a continuation of a continuation of part three of this series called striking out where we're talking about the things that we've learned in our business ventures and our side hustles. And really how we're going to apply that going forward in our future ventures. We have a couple more things to talk about as far as changes done, but ultimately, we want to really get to where we're going, and what we've learned from things we've experienced. Yeah, yeah, we had a lot of injuries. We did not hit on all of them. And the last one, we skipped a couple. We skipped a couple and I don't think we're gonna have time to hit on all of them even in this episode, but When we wrapped up talking about the last one, you were talking about the nail salon you started, you have any other ventures after that?

So I would say I've had a couple, but the one that sticks out to me the most was we opened an escape room. Yes. was something that we did together again, I would say this week, mom when mom's sick? Yeah, we did. Yeah. Do we started when she was sick? had to be Yeah, she knew she was sick. That's how we came up with the cure. Oh, yeah, you're right. You're right. So why we did this. And I think that the theme that I'm seeing here is that what we do and the things that we are most passionate about, all came out because we really had this purpose that we were trying to fulfill or or this desire to, to give something to the world. And so with the escape room, it was actually something my mom brought us together. It was Tunisia, myself, my older sister, and my mom. And my mom was like, Hey, you know, I'm sick. I know I'm not gonna live For a very long time, but I want us to leave something together. And she was like, we're gonna make it happen. Mm hmm. And it will always say do something you do. It's unless you me. But I knew she was serious about this one. Yeah, yeah. And so at the time escape rooms had really just turned up. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I feel like this was my idea. I don't know. I don't think it was because I don't think it was mom's idea to do an escape room. Oh, remember, you went to visit us? And we went to an escape room? Yeah. Yes. So yeah. So to me, she actually came from DC, and we were in Texas at the time. And we were trying to do a family thing. So I think it was all of us plus my sister's husband. Yeah. And we all went escape room. And it was a very, very simple, yes, but it was fun. So they they had this it was in Fort Worth, I believe. And they had this it was in an office building. And it was just One room where they kind of just, if you have been to an escape room, they some can be very elaborate, but this one was, but it was still fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was a two person operator. I remember that it was people, we actually looked him up afterwards. And they were like, two people who just got started and made it happen. And we walked out of that room, and we all looked at each other. And instead of talking about how much fun we had, we looked around and we said, we can do this. And but that is our mentality, though. Like, honestly, if you just hang out with us, we are more than likely talking about real estate, about business taking over the world over the world some way to make money like this, baby. Yo, no, so especially any of my friends will tell you john is always serious. She's always talking about this. When I was younger, actually, people used to always say to me, you don't matter have fun. And I will take that to heart. Like I was like, You're right. I don't know. But then I realized that this is fun. me right? Like no I do and it took me so just I know swerving here but it took me a long time to get comfortable with this is who I am. Yeah and but I will tell you when I am doing this I am exhausted at the end of the day but I'm like that was good yeah go back at it yesterday yeah like in my story is very similar. I really thought there was something wrong with me and you know unfortunately I use other measures to cope with it like I would just drink a lot of alcohol because I didn't like the people I was hanging out with and in order for me to enjoy and therefore was wack. Yes I'm like this is not what I like doing. No, we used to go to clubs, and I was like so we're gonna get dressed up for an hour and a half, two hours and we go to the club the club is packed, people are spilling drinks on you this way into you. You are wet and sticky. Yes. And then I never liked the the feeling of waking up after drinking a lot. I thought that hydrated and pyre, and I'm like, so that was fun. Yeah, I would wonder play again. Yeah, I want to go back and do that again. Yeah, so I mean, definitely, I feel like it had isolated us when we were younger, but I don't know since we've been back together. We feed the fire dude. Terrible. I feel bad for anyone who has to hang around. Yeah, this is no my my boyfriend. He's like, there you go again. Right? But go Yo, we just get on a whiteboard. And we are unstoppable. Okay, my kids like can we use the whiteboard now? We're planning to take over the world. One second. Right. Please, please give us a minute. What are we talking about today? But no, no. So so it was really about starting xscape room and it all came down just us looking at people and and i think that that's something important to talk about because so many people look at people and sell Go, oh, they already doing it, I can't do it. But there is so much space there like 8 trillion. How many people in the world? It's a lot of people in the world. And to that point, we just met a guy yesterday. And he was so elegant. He was a great speaker. He had a great message. And we looked around, like, why have we heard from you? And he was like, well, I live in New York, and we're like, okay. But I mean, I'm saying it to say is that there's so many people who can find an audience. Yes, yeah. And business is just about serving enough people to meet your business need, you know, the best analogy or whatever you want to call it that I've heard is like, someone told me goes to the grocery store. I said, Okay, so they say go to the water. I Oh, okay. Have y'all been to the water? There are thousands of different brands of water and guess what is hot water. Thankfully, got most Pull aisles because some of it is flavored. If you just go to the non waiver is the favorite water in a separate aisle? Yeah, it is in the pop in juice. Okay, like the water has its own unflavored water has its own aisle, but I'm like they're like look at how many different types of water makers. You can do whatever it is you want to do. There is room for you. Okay, I think you can also say that thing to the shampoo. Yes. Yes, dog food is we're talking about black haircare products. There's never enough. So so in that though, we looked at that escape room, and we were like, We can do it. And so we did it. We did it. We did it and we bootstrapped the heck out of it. We did it. And if I had to say, what was the thing that would have taken us over? And so let me back into this first. First I have to say we were profitable. Mm hmm. So we actually started off in an office space. And essentially, the office came to us and said, We didn't know you guys would be this busy. Yes. We didn't know that so many people will be coming in and out. We're gonna let you get out of your lease. That's what they said to us. And from that, we were like, darn, we've only been in business. I think it was like four to five months. It's time maybe three to four months. Yeah. And we were like, let's see what we should do. Yeah, we so we started looking at real estate to find a new location. And we found this building that was 3500 square feet. It was huge, huge commercial space. Like a good commercial space that was right in like the heart of Arlington, Texas. And we were like, yeah, I think it was seven $7,000 Yeah, it was. Yeah. And we were like, we're gonna do it. Yeah. In our rent at the previous spot was less than half of that it was way less than half Yeah, I want to say it was like 1000. And something. Yeah, it was something that we were comfortable covering. Yeah. Our business didn't make money. Yep. Yep. But we built up a lot of traffic. We use different marketing thing like Groupon. And it was, I would have to say, I thought it was pretty successful. Given we we invested maybe a few thousand dollars. Yeah, we it was MVP, like, minimum viable product we put very little into but ultimately, and looking at it now, I realized that I've all the business that I had done up to that that to me, could have been more successful. If we would have taken funding. Yeah, we would have put the dollars behind it. Yes. And we could have with just that. I think it was about a year of being in business. We were paying our rent plus, paying employees employees. Yeah. And really running the business if we wouldn't put finance behind it and actually went And invested, that business will probably still be here today. Yeah. But ultimately, it was relationship issues, I would say, yeah, we went in it as a business partnership with four of us. Yeah. And it was we couldn't get over the hurdles of working together. Yeah. It was tough. It was really, really tough. It was really tough. And so yeah, I mean, I certainly learned a lot from that business. I was virtual for literally that whole time. I lived in DC at the time and I would come and visit but I would also manage the website and do some social media stuff. So that was kind of my lane, but they were definitely doing the day to day operations. No, and I just remember like I would be out on the weekend at brunch or whatever. I would be getting text messages and calls about the business and I was like, actually forgot that terrible that operates on the weekends, right. I was tired time by the way. Yes, yes, but I definitely felt a level removed from But I was still part of those conversations. And I was one of the people out. I may have been the only person who was adamant about putting more money into it. Yeah. But we weren't all there at that place. So we didn't pursue it. Yeah. But ultimately, though, it was a great experience. And yeah, I think things that we did well, and that was we chose a business that was in it a time. Yeah, yeah. timing. Yeah, the timing was awesome. Marketing. We decided to go with a location that was optimal. We weren't skimping. I would tell you what the nail salon I could have chosen a better, a better location to do that business. But we learned that we had to be in the right space to really get the business going. Yeah, the marketing was probably the best marketing I've ever experienced. And in business, yeah. It was really kind of built in like we took full advantage of it. We did well not only that, but we did tagging of Instagram, Facebook and and really promote getting our clients To promote our business as well. Yeah. And we have happy customers who would share it. Yeah. Yeah. It was. It was good. Yeah, we were actually able to I did want to say it's just as weird thing too. So my mom's going through her cancer battle. And we were able to dedicate a room to cancer. And to that, so we did a little bit of learning in one of those rooms. And we just we band together and we had a mission. Yeah. And we executed. Yeah, we did. We did. So I learned a lot from that experience. I'm on all fronts of this. Yeah. And it perhaps validated for me, like partnerships are difficult. They are they are difficult. Yeah. But I think if you, you know, if you can band with the right partners, and also know yourself in Right, yeah. So so I would, I would say that one of the things in all of this is that now I'm truly focused on what are my strengths. Is there a way that I get around doing something that isn't strong versus trying to grow in an area that I'm not strong? Yeah. So contracting things out a man. Yeah, she is rubbed off on me as you can tell. And really just starting. So I would say that I learned that from mystery and intrigue, even if everything isn't fleshed out, it's not gonna hurt now, just start. Yeah, yeah, we definitely did that. We definitely did that. And it is worth talking about these punches. Like, dang, are we doing? Are we taking this stuff into consideration right now, as we are embarking on a new venture? And so I would just challenge us both to think about those where you listen to this episode and make sure that we are tackling these things that we've learned and incorporating them into our new venture. Yeah, yeah, no, definitely. And that's what it's funny because that's what I was thinking about as well, as I'm speaking is, we've learned so many things and all of these, although people may They say, Oh, they failed or they didn't work. Some were profitable. Some we had huge headaches, and we learned a lot. We learned about ourselves, we learned about business, we learned about what's important to run a business. And these all make us all these experiences shape us to get to that point where we can go again, I know a few episodes back, I talked about Michael Jordan's quote about how he failed so many times, but he is still considered to be one of the greatest, right? And so in order to be great in order to keep growing in order to continue. As long as you have breath in your body, you have an opportunity. So take it, yeah, going take it. I love it. We don't hurt that bad. You heard all these things we've done. And that was just we couldn't cover everything. But I think those are some of the key things that that brought us to today. Definitely, definitely. So until next time, y'all. I'm Tenisha Nicole and Tashaunda Dixon and we are Black Girl Fly.