We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tohan Omorodion a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Tohan, thanks for joining us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

I love entrepreneurship, it breeds innovation, and drives purpose. I love imagining things and bringing them to life. Texas C.A.S.T Academy was no different. It was just an idea that crossed my mind in my past time after noticing how well I relay instructions to kids and how fast they assimilate these instructions. Most of my business ideas start off as a hobby, and in this case, teaching runway classes was my past time hobby. being involved in various parts the fashion industry as a model, designer and event host over years gave me the insight and knowledge I needed to effectively groom others who would like to enter the industry or improve their skill in the modeling world.

I have a knack for anything kids related, I’m a kids fashion designer, I coached, kids as a hobby so I figured why not niche? Fashion Runway Modeling for kids specifically.
I then hosted my very first solo couture show in 2021 and in preparation for the show I offered free runway lessons, no experience was needed. I needed to show that any child can be groomed to do this. I love working with kids because they are very teachable with flexible apprehension. I find them extremely easy and so much fun to work with.
Needless to say, the show turned out to be an amazing success and right there was where my first academy clientele base was formed.

Once the show was over, I got a ton of requests from parents requesting that their child continued learning with me. They did not only see growth in their ability to walk on the runway successfully, but they saw increased confidence, improved social skills, improved posture, improved leadership skills and actually improved academics over the short time they trained with me.

Just a mustard seed of an idea plus a lot of courage and support from positive people around me suddenly made this venture worthy of a business plan. I am an MBA so my brain automatically went validate your clientele, create a plan, license and incorporate. These next steps were very crucial in establishing the company legitimately and gaining credibility both in my local community and nationally.

In entrepreneurship, and business overall, you have to be willing to invest in the future of the idea. This was my next step and a lot of us struggle with this step. Sometimes things seem so rosy to the onlooker who has little insight to what goes on behind the scenes. I had to invest a lot of my time, money, and effort and I still do. I had to re-evaluate my plans to make sure that they alight with industry standard at the very least.

I work with children including tweens and teens and haven been a child once myself I remember how my parents did their best to endure that i excelled academically. I also understand that this industry can be sometimes overwhelming, inconsistent and very often extravagant which can cause a lot of distractions. So I made a rule that all Texas C.A.S.T Academy Students must excel academically. As a result TCA (Texas C.A.S.T Academy) requires all student to have a minimum academic grade of B, to stay enrolled in our classes.

This has lead to astronomically high academic confidence and performance in our kids and parents are loving it.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I am not the best at talking about myself because I always never know how to start, I am a very behind the scenes type of person but when asked I always say I am the girl next door (Tohan Omorodion), a Finance MBA turned fashion designer, and an entrepreneur, I enjoy anything finance and business administration related, and I design fashion apparel and teach in the fashion industry as a hobby which sort of makes my job so much more fun.

Texas C.A.S.T Academy (TCA) is my latest endeavor and has brought on so much joy. In this endeavor I am so proud of my students and their growth and accomplishments within this academy.

I have a good number of TCA star students including Annie Nguyen, a 7 year old who was just recently nominated and won an award for Model of the Year at the IMTA in New York City just about a week ago.
We also have Aubrey Madonio, another 7 year old TCA star student who have shown some of the most amazing levels of growth I have ever seen within the academy and now considered to be a professional model. She will be featuring at New York fashion week along side other very proud TCA Star students like Zaidee Villanueva, Alexis McIntosh, Lety Paiz and more. About 11 of our students will also feature at Disney Swan and Dolphins fashion event coming up in December 2022 Featuring Tohan Bibianè and hosted by Child Model Magazine. The TCA family is very happy about this endeavor and are committed to its continued success.

Texas C.A.S.T Academy’s establishment is taking the city of Houston by storm and these amazing kid models along side TCA’s reputation for award winning techniques and academic excellence has put TCA on the map nationally.

Texas C.A.S.T academy is very active on instagram @TCA_Houston where it displays a lot if its activities, and it is the best place to to interact with the academy and its students. TCA has amazing following and fans both locally and internationally and they encourage its success.

Texas C.A.S.T Academy (TCA) is known for its runway, and editorial classes but also offers additional classes like film and sewing, and can be reached at:
www.texascastacademy.com
Instagram : @TCA_Houston
Phone: 713-823-2951

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Honesty! Consistency! Passion! I’ll say it again, honesty, consistency with a sprinkle of visible passion. In business I have noticed that people can smell dishonesty from a mile away. Its very important to treat you clients as you would want to be treated and have transparency with them as relates to what you are offering. Passion is another intangible trait that manifests physically, people can tell when you love what you do. it creates an aura of happiness and people want to be around that.

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

Fostering brand loyalty cannot be forced but it can be encouraged by doing the right thing. I’ve had people who I’ve done everything, and gone above and beyond for but yet stab me in the back publicly. As a matter of fact that happened very recently. However, it is a very tiny minority of people who tend to act that way and theres nothing you can do about them. But for the vast majority, I have realized that having consistency in our services, genuinely caring about their growth, and amazing customer service fosters loyalty from from our clients.
Social media, primarily instagram, has also helped us immensely, by building a community of loyal clients and fanbase. TCA tends to get involved in client successes even sometimes when it has nothing to do with us we commend their successes in life just because we care. We post beautiful pictures of our models, make reels, tributes, give awards, points, shoutouts etc. we acknowledge our clients every moment we can. This has helped immensely with maintaining loyal fans and loyalty in our client base.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.texascastacademy.com
• Instagram: @TCA_Houston
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/texascastacademy

Image Credits
Tohan Bibaianè HKRunway Serenity Fine Art Photography