 HBC Dudgers, welcome back. Our next guest is here with a very, very credible message of if you have a dream in HBC, you can do nothing but help you get there. So don't stop believing in it. She is 2017 Hampton University graduate, Khadija Doso, beautiful African name, not Doso, Doso. And she is the principal of Doso Beauty LLC. And the recent winner of $250,000 from a campaign from Virginia's own Pharrell Williams, investing in black and Latinx companies to make a difference here in society, and particularly in our community. So Khadija, it is an honor to have you on this. Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here. I'm super excited. This is obviously a big deal because it's a big amount. But for you, is it the realization of something you always visualize for you and your company because this is a dream you've had for a long time? Absolutely. Or is it kind of like, whoa, this is a surprise. I didn't expect this coming. So a little bit of both, right? Like so super excited because this is something that has been a dream since I was 10 years old. I've always known that I wanted to own an organic Goody Empire, just didn't really know how it was gonna happen or when it was gonna happen. Very, very surprised, but not surprised that we won the grand prize for the HBCU black ambition prize. Because I had a feeling, you know, that something was gonna change. Like 2021 has been an amazing year for Doso Beauty and like this was just like the icing on the cake. It's like, it's still the deal and let me know that like, hey, like this is the purpose that you're supposed to be walking in. And like you need to take this opportunity to go forth and prosper. So let's go back to the beginning, right? You said you visualize this for yourself at age 10. You obviously go on and attend Hampton, which isn't just college, but it's an elite competitive institution. Right. You grew up in Philly. How did you go from Philly to Hampton? And how did you set a course such that college was not an obstacle to your dream but an asset? Because a lot of people say, you know, I'm going to school and I know that's the right thing to do, but they feel like it's something that gets in the way of their dream. How did you kind of reverse engineer that prosperity? For sure. So even if we take it a step further, like I was born and raised in West Philly, as you mentioned, but my grandfather, he migrated from South Carolina to Philadelphia in order to be an entrepreneur, to be a masonry, right? And he did construction and built some of the most pivotal buildings all over the city. So I grew up around entrepreneurs. My uncle Marshall was actually a graduate of Hampton University as well too. And so obviously when I was a junior, he's like, listen, we got to go to an HBCU tour. We got to visit Hampton. That's my alma mater. And I stepped on campus and like literally one of my friends, he was a freshman at the time, but we're friends now. He's like, hey, are you a freshman here? And I was like, no, but I will be next year. And so I was just super excited to be there and to be to go from Philly where the crime rate was high and like I didn't see a whole lot of positivity as much in my community or college educated folks that were in my immediate circle. I was excited to see a sea of beautiful black people. That were trying to be successful and like that came from various different backgrounds and various different, you know, origins. I was excited to say, hey, like this is a great opportunity for me to learn. And so going to Hampton would have never stifled my ability to build docile beauty because like I said before, I didn't really know how I was going to start it, but I did know that I needed the formal education to understand how to build a business, right? Even after I graduated from Hampton, I didn't just say, hey, well, I'm going to start docile beauty. I said, no, like let me go into consulting so I can understand the foundations of the largest big four companies in the beauty industry, understand how they really navigate their systems, how does their operations happen? And I can duplicate that and modify and take bits and pieces from each of the different companies who are doing great things to create my own empire myself. So, you know, I'm super excited and grateful for Hampton because that formal education, that network and that confidence that it helped it just reinforcing and stealing me is what helped me to build the business, honestly. Let's talk about it a little bit. So, you know, obviously Hampton is one of our most esteemed HBCUs, but can you give us any particulars about how that network and how that academic training, specific examples of how that works for an entrepreneur? Because I think people associate college would come out and get a job, not come out and start one where you can create jobs. So how does that network and how does that infrastructure of training work to do something like that? Right, so number one, that network like allows you to have a larger network than, you know, that supports you, right? A lot of times people go to business school that are from, you know, PWIs and that's so amazing and awesome, right? But like, they go to B school to really see what their network is gonna be, right? Or how they can build their network with people that don't look like them. So going to a HBCU with people that look like me, with people that I knew that were in my corner and supporting me, and my dreams helped me to kind of give a bit more structure and guidance that I would have if I went to a PWI, right? I have my project where I said, you know, I was gonna build, you know, Dosa Beauty Organic Empire in my finance class, right? In my personal finance class. And so even having that foundation and by building my first business plan, that was pivotal because that helped me to sit down and think about like, what is this business that I wanna build? I know I wanna do organic beauty, but like what is the financials gonna look like, right? How do I kind of wanna structure it? Is it B2B to B2C or is it just B2B or D2C, right? And so understanding that nomenclature as well too, in going to HBCU, being able to have access to my professors that are also entrepreneurs as well as professors, as well as who have worked in corporate America helped to give me a lot of perspective of like, hey, there is a guided place, right? You go to college and you get a job but you really can do whatever you want to do because you now have access to all of the tools and all of the resources that most people don't. You're out of school in 2017. Obviously you're in, you're fully immersed in your business. Can you talk about one of or some of the darkest moments in trying to build one and how you persevere through that? Absolutely. So I'll say after I graduated from Hampton, I went into management consulting at one of the big four firms. I had a terrible first project whereas though one of my actual managers was like, prejudice, right? Just flat out prejudice. And she gave me hell for lack of better terms. And so being fresh out of college and going and having that experience, I'm like, oh my gosh, like what is my purpose? I mean, I pledged Delta, like I was the president of the Northern Atlantic Pre-Alumniac Council super involved in school and so I go from that to like being at a job that's supposed to be a dream job. And I feel like I'm not doing well. I feel like I was in a really dark place. And so I ended up rolling off of that project which is a consulting term for those that know. And I was on the bench, which means that I was not assigned to a project for about four months. That was very, very difficult. In the midst of that, my grandmother who was the most important person and still is the most important person to me in my life passed away, right? And so I had to persevere and say, hey, like I could be in this funk. I could be in this state of depression for a long time, but you know what? Like one day I stayed up for three days straight with 72 hours, I'll never forget it. In February when I started the business, I said, you know what? Like I need to make my grandmother proud. I need to make myself proud and feel like I'm myself all over again. And so I was able to pull myself out the mud because the eagerness to build this empire, it literally just, it kept me awake for 72 hours. You bootstrap this business from the top and there's a lot of us who have done that, meaning that you've self-invested. You don't, you didn't at one point have a lot of investment. You didn't have advertising, you didn't have seed funding. You did this all with savings and stuff. So for those of us who have done it, kind of explain that process to folks of bootstrapping and what it teaches you about managing a business and building one from the ground up. For sure, yeah. I mean, like, honestly, I didn't have that much savings saved up, right? I just decided, I'm like, you know what? Cadizia, like, you know, you live in New York, like you pay extremely high rent. Like, you know, you have a network here, but you have a network back at Hampton. So what's the first thing that you can kind of do? And so I always tell people, go back to your business plan to say, all right, cool. How can I begin this business with the lowest cost product that I'm gonna make the most profit off of the most margin off of it? For me, the infat was make eyelashes, right? And so I would get the make eyelashes for a certain low cost and say, all right, I'm gonna market it well. I'm gonna have brand ambassadors that are people of some of my Nios and my friends that I know they're on campus. And I'm gonna say, all right, cool. We're gonna put our return on investment, right? We're gonna try to get our return on investment. Of course, when you first start a business, you know, you don't usually see return ROI within the first three years. It's usually a deficit. But bootstrapping without any help at all whatsoever, it teaches you to really be disciplined about your spending habits from a business perspective, but also from a personal perspective. How often are you ordering out, right? Versus like actually, you know, cooking, meal prepping, all of that and so on and so forth. Lifestyle, right? Sometimes people, you know, people that I started off working with, we had this amazing job. They're like, oh, I wanna get Equinox, you know, right? And I'm like, I don't got Equinox money, honey. Like, so, you know, like the paycheck says one thing, after taxes says a whole another thing. And then after I pay for my business expenses, that's completely different. And so even like choosing a healthy lifestyle and like making sure that you're being frugal about a lot of things, right? I chose to invest in myself and my business. I see that as in a full investment. So it will be times where as though I would pay for products before I paid my rent because I believed in myself that much, right? And you gotta have a certain type of tenacity and hunger about that, right? Again, no funding at all whatsoever within my first two years. It wasn't until actually the pandemic happened that, you know, I went $1,000 from the Facebook grant, right? They were supporting black home businesses and giving us like free ad credit. So that was the actual first time that I actually received funding from any person at all whatsoever. And this is last year in 2020. Started the business in 2018. And so, you know, it was difficult but I think at the end of the day, it was so rewarding because it made me more intentional about the products that I was purchasing. Knowing that like, hey, if this is my last $1,000 that I had to give for the next two months into this business, I'm gonna make it last, right? I'm gonna make sure that I'm investing it correctly and say, all right, cool. What's my breakdown of like what I'm investing in as far as the products are concerned, as far as marketing is concerned, I need a website, I need to pay a web designer. I also need a graphic designer. So, buzzening is super key when it comes to building a business in your, when you're bootstrapping or even if you have an initial investment because nobody's gonna invest in you unless you have a flushed out plan. Mm-hmm. How many years did you have to skip Hampton Homecoming? Savin' up. Honey. I went to the first one. I went to the first one because that was right before I started the business but the second one I was like, listen, catch on a couple of years. I ain't gonna make it. I've had to catch on a couple of years. I'm gonna go to something real local or say, listen, I ain't got time. I can't keep it at play right now. It's discipline. It's discipline. Was the grant from Pharrell the decombinating moment or was it part of a series for you? Like, have you had uphill moments and this was just the highest peak of them? Or was this the big peak and the only peak for you? This was a big peak for me, right? Definitely life-changing but I had several peaks before then, right? So we received a lot of press and what I really focused on when I encouraged people who are in the e-commerce world is to really understand, become very well versed in search engine optimization at SEO, right? So I have been bootstrapping with my web designer about SEO from the beginning, right? Even before Google was really, you know, as advanced and well thought out as it is now. And so I had already been able to garner press through my publicist and one of our most like important and super amazing articles that we have is from a really large and well-known publication called Madam Noir. It's a really big, well-known beauty publication. And so if you search on Google black-owned braiding hair, if you search hyperallergenic braiding hair, Dosa Beauty will be the first person to pop up, the first business to pop up in that article. Have received tens of thousands of views in direct link clicks through that one article, right? And so that was a moment that I said, wow, like I'm seeing all this website traffic. I'm still, although we get a lot of website traffic, I still have my Wix notifications on. So every time somebody comes to the website, I'm still looking like, where are they coming from? Okay, cool. Let's do those analytics and understand what's going on. How long are they staying on the website? And so that was one of the first peak moments. We also were reached out directly to by British Vogue, by British GQ and we've been featured there. And I mean, the cherry on top was really just a black ambition and really speaking to Pharrell directly in him being sincere and really saying like, hey, you were hand chosen, right? There were thousands of applicants, but like we chose you because we believe in you. That was a lot of reassurance that I felt like I needed to say, hey, I know I'm it. I know that this business is it. And my customers tell me that it's life changing, right? On a daily basis. You've changed my life. I haven't worn braiding hair or my hair and braids in 10, 15 years. Hey, I've decided to go natural because I can now wear braids, right? And their confidence has changed. They're saying like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. I have a lot of male customers who use my bare products. And I'm like, wow, like I never knew how to take care of my beard. I wasn't taught how to take care of my beard, right? I need good skincare. Your shea butter, I have eczema. It's changed my life, right? Like I have diabetes. I have diabetic customers who utilize the shea butter on their feet because of the neuropathy, right? And it helps them. So I knew for a fact that my products were changing people's eyes when my customers were telling me. When Pharrell came back and said, hey, like we see what you see and what everybody else sees. That was just saying, all right, cool. We got to do this thing full time. We have to go full throttle and we got to really make sure that we're making a global impact in which we already are. Because our products are shipped around the world, sold around the world. So we're working on some really dope projects and trying to garner and create jobs in Ivory Coast, which is where my father is from. That's where that funny name comes from. And so, dealing directly with goods there, right? And like getting people jobs there and helping out with their ecosystem and all of their new eco-friendly initiatives and everything like that. That's what this is about. And this was already in the cars before I even had the idea of building Dosa Beauty. And that's the beautiful thing about it. You talked about, you know, kind of your day gig that you've worked since, you know, prior to going full time. Talk about that process of managing a nine to five or sometimes a nine to seven or nine to nine. And then dedicating all your free time to building something. How did you press through that? And how would you advise young people coming behind you to do the same thing? So I was very intentional about going into consulting because I knew that I can go into multiple different industries and learn a lot of key components and key skills that I needed, right? And so for me, consulting meant like that I could work with those top tier beauty projects. And so utilizing my day job, I think it was really important. It still is important for me to take what I need from there to utilize for my business. I've always said that I wanted to make sure that like I was being intentional about understanding how to run a business, right? How do some of the beauty clients run the business? But hey, I've also been on supply chain companies and projects, whereas I'm learning about SKUs and about, you know, all of those different barcodes and all of that, those things and being in the consumer goods industry for my business, I need that knowledge, right? I didn't know what a GS1 barcode was until I had that project. And so being intentional about learning key skills during your day job is extremely important. And I think that sometimes people get in the weeds of like I'm not doing exactly what it is that I wanna do at my day job. So it's kind of off or not, right? And they get very discouraged, but I've had a rough time, no lie, during my day job, right? I hadn't been on a beauty project since 2019 and I run a be a successful e-commerce beauty business. But that hasn't deterred me from saying, hey, I'm still gonna take what I need from them in every other different aspects and utilize it towards my business. So I would just encourage people to stay encouraged, right? And make sure that you're being very intentional about where you place your time at, the things that you're taking from each different experience at your day job or even, you know, with your friends, right? And in your leisure time, what are you doing in your leisure time to help propel you and your business? You win this big grant, the expectation is, okay, big deluxe apartment in the sky in Manhattan somewhere. You actually go back home to Philly from New York. You're taking some time away. What is the motivation behind, it would seem to be kind of scaling back from it, when you get such a huge bump in the life of the company. Right, so was extremely intentional for a few reasons to come back to Philly. Number one, because of space, I was tired of living in a shoebox. I was living around, you know, 30 boxes, very large boxes of braiding hair in my two bedroom apartment, had a nice little office in there, but it just wasn't, I needed space. And so I knew that New York wasn't gonna be a place that I could like, you know, have a space and look for an affordable warehouse and also expand. But I needed to come back home to get rejuvenation and like get back to my roots, you know? Like there's a sense of like grit about being here. And I mean, there's grit about New York, which is what I love. And I think I've done what I needed to do in New York, but coming back home shows me like, hey, like the people need to see that you can come from West Philly, from an impoverished neighborhood, the hood, right? You know, go to college, get a great job and then come back and still be extremely successful. They needed to physically see me here and in their space and to speak to them and to connect with them in order to be motivated because I was fortunate enough to have mentors to see that I can make it out. Some people don't have that luxury. And so like I have to put on for my city, I have to, you know, be an example, right? I don't need to be fully immersed into all of the negative things that are happening. You know what I'm saying? In the city, I mean, the crime rate is high and all the other stuff, but like they need to see that there's hope, right? And I'm the change that they needed to see. Plug the website and before we get out of here, let people know the one piece of advice, particularly college students, particularly HBCU students, what's the biggest piece of advice that they could take from you that would get them on the path of success? But first, let us know where we can shop and then get into the advice for the young people. Okay. So you can shop with DOSO Beauty on www.dossobeauty.com, DOSOBeauty.com. We also are available currently on Walmart.com as well as Amazon.com and soon come, DOSOBeauty.com. So a few different plugs there. You can find literally Google DOSO Beauty again, D-O-S-S-O, beauty.com or DOSO Beauty in general, you can find us there. I can't give one piece of advice, but I can give two, right? The first is that your network is your net worth. So while you're at your HBCU, understand that your board of directors and your initial investors and your initial supporters, you're garnering that community there. Be very intentional about your circle and who you surround yourself with because they will help to propel you and you will help to propel them to be successful in your own right, right? You gotta remember that when you're building a business, you need a good board of directors or a trusted community. And there's a lot of other people that might not have your best intentions, but your crew at your HBCU and at your college, it's going to be necessary, right? The second piece of advice is make sure that like you are creating a business plan initially, right? But know that it is going to forever evolve. As you evolve as a person, as your business evolves and grows, your business plan should continue to evolve and you should change your goals and trajectories, right? Like I didn't know that I was going to 13.5x my business revenue in the first quarter of 2021. That's mind blowing, right? Like I didn't know that was going to happen. So that changes the trajectory of my business and how it was growing and how it was scaling. I didn't know I was going to win $250,000 from Feroa Williams, right? But now I have to change and modify my business plan. So as you grow, continue to grow your business plan, but also continue to elevate your mindset too.