We recently connected with Aminat Odunewu-Seese and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Aminat, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.
Muslim women of various racial and cultural background often experience challenges with managing their various daily responsibilities and routines, while attending to the core tenets of their faith and its daily practices. The work-life context of the United States makes it especially challenging to navigate these roles. The products offerings through Striving Flawlessly aim to address these challenges by providing innovative and efficient tools for Muslim women who want to persevere in their faith while excelling in their various roles as career women, educators, students, and home makers. We offer stationary tools that support Muslim with organizing their day-to-day activities through our planners, post-it notes, reflection prompts, and journals.
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 Aminat O. OdunEwu-Seese. The owner and founder of The Striving Empire. I was born in Lagos, Nigeria but grew up in Chicago, IL, USA. I am a passionate business owner with a focus on developing myself, growing my businesses, having a fulfilled career and helping others do the same.
I have always had big dreams that involved being successful in multiple areas. One of my passions lie in youth development, policies and international relations and I’ve pursued these interests academically by obtaining two master’s degree. I’ve also acquired professional experiences in working in youth development and teaching positions.
My other interests lie in lifestyle and fashion. To this extent, I founded Striving for Modesty and Striving Flawlessly, fashion and lifestyle brands, respectively. Both of these brands align with my core value of living this modern life according to my religious beliefs. Trying to live out loud as a Muslim in America can be challenging. Therefore, I aim to provide tools that enrich the lives of Muslim Women who choose to not sacrifice fashion and efficiency as they live their lives fully.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
My experience as a business owner has likely resembled that of any mother or primary caregiver that owns a business. As a self-funded small business, my output is largely dependent upon my availability and productivity. Availability and productivity certainly starts to look different once you have incorporate the time and energy that must also be given to two little children. I found it challenging to balance all of these responsibilities, especially when you consider how things like consistency and frequency of social media presence, ability to respond to inquiries, and even attending to the administrative responsibilities of running a business.
I had to come to terms with the fact that things had to be different and gave myself permission to reprioritize and even cut back on the amount of hours I spend on my business. I have myself a time frame for this and once I was ready to resume my full workload, I hired a staff member to manage the things I could not fall behind on (e.g. emails, social media presence, and graphic design). That allowed me to focus on more product focused tasks that could be completed at odds times of the day (or night) when my children were sleeping.
Through this strategy, I was able to regain the level of business productivity I was used to and was even able to develop additional products.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
My experience as a business owner has likely resembled that of any mother or primary caregiver that owns a business. As a self-funded small business, my output is largely dependent upon my availability and productivity. Availability and productivity certainly start to look different once you account for the time and energy that must also be given to two little children. I found it challenging to balance all these responsibilities, especially when you consider how things like consistency and frequency of social media presence, ability to respond to inquiries, and even attending to the administrative responsibilities of running a business.
I had to come to terms with the fact that things had to be different and gave myself permission to reprioritize and even cut back on the number of hours I spend on my business. I have myself a time frame for this and once I was ready to resume my full workload, I hired a staff member to manage the things I could not fall behind on (e.g., emails, social media presence, and graphic design). That allowed me to focus on more product focused tasks that could be completed at odds times of the day (or night) when my children were sleeping.
Through this strategy, I was able to regain the level of business productivity I was used to and was even able to develop additional products.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.strivingformodesty.com/store
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/strivingflawlessly
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StrivingFlawlesslyTSE/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aoseese/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/StrivingEmpire