We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Bradford Roberts. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Bradford below.

Bradford, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

I remember, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, I had just lost my job in November and I didn’t have that much money saved. However, besides searching for a new job, I had to figure out how I’d survive with the money that I saved. Unfortunately, a lot of things went wrong at the time – including finding a job. By that time, I moved out of my apartment and back into my Family house in Flatbush, Brooklyn. It was 5 of us living in the house at the time – including my mother, my aunt, my grandmother, and eventually my aunt’s new husband.

Although I did not have much saved in my bank account besides my emergency funds, I did have plenty in my 401K retirement savings. At the cost of penalization and a large tax, I decided not only was I going to withdraw my 401K savings but I was going to invest much of that money into stocks, crypto, and REITS. I was advised to pursue another school degree as well and when I found more opportunities from the tuition I received – I invested even more money. I lacked much knowledge about investing while I was growing up but I grew to have a stronger interest in later years.

Though my stock/crypto knowledge was limited, I understood that I could find people whose knowledge wasn’t. As someone who prides himself in the ability to judge fairly well, I took the risk with my money and my time knowing that I’d soon climb out of the hole that I had once fallen into. Thanks to overcoming some obstacles at the time, I’ve been able to get back into a job position I’m most satisfied with, all while maintaining an investment portfolio that has since nearly tripled. This was a risk taken to hopefully raise enough capital to create and operate my business ventures all while supporting my family.

Bradford, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

As a Graphic Designer with 16 years of experience – in roles everywhere from an Intern to Creative Director I’ve been fortunate to be a part of many creative spaces. This includes industries such as entertainment and fashion. I’ve always had an interest in Art and Design when I was younger and the interest never really veered off. The problem was, I was interested in almost everything! Sports, Music, Movies, books etc. Figuring out which one of my talents and interests to focus on was tough until I realized how much of a great problem that is to have.

Previous to graduating college I had opportunities to work/design for start-up companies and reputable brands due to my network and being naturally driven. By the time I graduated in 2013, I’d established myself as an experienced Graphic Designer already. With social media booming, I went on to become a micro-influencer through a design, photography, and lifestyle niche that complemented my work offline. Many lessons are still being learned through the social media experience but it has helped to catapult me into blogs, vlogs, and online magazines such as Driven Society and FamousBirthdays.com.

Besides my current design position at the menswear brand Charles Tyrwhitt, I plan to continue to utilize my design ability and direction to create more businesses such as my Home Investment company, Noble Residences. Currently standing as an investment cycle for my real estate investment trusts – I have plans on branding Noble Residence unlike most home investment companies and developing it into a well-branded behemoth while bringing new engaging methods for tenants to benefit from. Whether opportunities to lower rent or add new modern features to a home at no cost, I believe using a network of tenants on our platform would benefit renters by making them feel more at home and comfortable with their neighbors.

I have many unique ideas, and as much as I enjoy my designer label, it’s my goal to graduate from Designer to Inventor.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Since losing my job several months before COVID-19 ran rampant, I decided to use 1 of those months to take a moment’s break before job hunting again – while knowing that I have never taken much of a break since I started working at the age of 18 (2004). During the January of 2020, I got into the routine of searching for jobs and pursuing freelance gigs to keep me afloat, not expecting the Coronavirus disease to strike the U.S. about a month after. While I didn’t understand the severity at first, it became apparent how impactful this outbreak was during my job hunt. Finding a job at this time felt like a job itself. However, not too long into the pandemic, my family received some unfortunate news – My grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

Moving back to the house and having the 4 of us (Mom, Aunt, Grandmother, and myself) in there seemed like it would be beneficial but it didn’t go as smoothly as we would have liked. One thing they don’t warn you about is the conflict between family in the home of someone living with Alzheimer’s. As the only one without a job at the time, I experienced much of the face-to-face time with my grandmother and had to learn how to caretake. This was something I was severely unprepared for. Fortunately, with my mother working from home she took on the majority of the responsibility during the day, and my Aunt who worked as a Nurse – took over during the night.

I’ve only ever known how to hustle, how to work hard and earn money through my ideas and talents. So this was a complete shift – one that taught me to slow down and be a bit more compassionate but still it was an addition to my already increasing stress. I suffered anxiety/panic attacks throughout the many episodes during my grandmother’s worsening condition while I played peacemaker between the siblings in the house. Having strong ambitions in this atmosphere was stifling but I always placed family first as I wouldn’t have my ambition if it wasn’t for them. At this time, I have already returned to school to continue pursuing my Communications Design degree. With the opportunities and a network of professors, including my high grades, It was this time that helped me see the light – but of course, nothing is so perfect. During my evening animation course, I received a worrying voicemail from my uncle in which he depicted strange signs from a call with my mother and eventually a loss of communication. I excused myself from class in a rush home and when I came to, I entered my mother’s basement room to experience my mom in a state of confusion I had never seen before all while staring at a mess across her room. While asking questions, and trying to understand the situation she seemed more present but she gave a bit of an attitude, making me believe that she just had an argument and threw a fit – so I left the room frustrated. After a few moments of thought in my room and my intuition, I felt the need to go back to comfort her and make sure I didn’t miss any signs, not knowing what was later revealed that night, was my mother’s first time experiencing a stroke.

I remember leaving school one of those nights that followed, listening to one of my favorite rap artists Nipsey Hussle – I admit a lot of self-affirmation happened that night, a lot of praying, some beating of the chest, plenty of swearing and talking about getting back on my feet and surpassing what I have already achieved before these unfortunate events. I made a vow to myself that I’d do my best to help put my family and friends in better, healthier positions, and with that, I will achieve the same for myself. Not that long after, I landed my first job in over 3 years of unemployment here in New York in the Marketing department of a Menswear brand, at the same time earning a freelance position with an Oakland Advertising Agency, my Stock/Crypto portfolio started to climb and my motivation came back. I’ve now arrived back to my original entrepreneurial goals and more. Life is not perfect in any way, but through everything we’ve endured, we made it work, though I still have a long way to go.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

When it comes to social media, I’ve had a strong focus on building an audience since my days on Myspace. I’ve only looked at social media as a business platform for my goals where I’d conveniently communicate with friends, family and supporters. In every post, I’ve been very meticulous with the choices of color, perspective, and style. I managed several Instagram profiles and the one that performed the best was a page I dedicated to a vinyl figurine project that I conducted. Using Kickstarter as the platform to fund the project and sell my pieces, I took to Instagram to market this project’s behind-the-scenes. The goal was obvious; in order for me to succeed on social media, I’d have to be social. I took to the many hashtags that best represented my niche and I began striking up conversations and engaging with Instagram users who appreciated my art. When I couldn’t do it, I hired someone else for that role and at one point, a company that did the same.

I soon attained over 20K followers over the time frame, but, I was having difficulty managing several Instagram pages at once, so I decided to combine my Personal page with my project page to reduce the amount of work and to keep the creatives cohesive, and all in one place. That did present a problem eventually, which was the majority of the audience wasn’t there to support that kind of change. This was to be expected, and the new road that I decided to take – which was, to mix my content with lifestyle imagery and artwork that I have created – allowed the people who followed the page for the art opposed to the artist to separate themselves.

My advice for those just starting to build their social media presence is to determine your niche, cater to that audience with quality content specific to them, and build slowly. Be as social as possible; comment, like, share, and collaborate when it seems right. This will help in the long term with the many algorithms. Building slow allows you to form a bond with your core audience – that’s when faces become familiar, advice is shared, and true support is forged.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://bradfordroberts.myportfolio.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kid_pluto/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheOfficialKidPluto
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradford-roberts-2b633138/
• Twitter: https://x.com/KidPluto
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@kidplutoX
• Other: Email: [email protected]
  Threads: @Kid_Pluto

Image Credits

Joel Encarnacion; Charles Tyrwhitt