We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Chris Bolden a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Chris, appreciate you joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?
I would have to say I’ve learned that’s it’s more than just learning the craft. It’s learning yourself and strengthening your mind to handle the ups and downs up business. I have had ups where I have made $20k in 5 hours and downs where I had I had release and I didn’t make any money at all. Which is very disappointing. I had to realize that it’s seasons in everything. Also to be as prepared as I can be 2 seasons ahead now.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I’m Chris Bolden, a hungy entrepreneur from Washington DC. After leaving the military and working several years for WMATA as a track repairer. I started my business after my younger brothers untimely death in December 2016. Which started off with just family and friends in the neighborhood wearing shirts I made with my brothers favorite saying on them. Which lead to researching the clothing business which seemed like a win the way shirt orders were coming in. I turned those shirts sold into over $500,000 being sold all over the world. Opening a store front on Rhode Island Ave and getting deal with Shoe City. We’ve had people like Stephen Jackson (NBA) Common (rapper) Gillie Da King (Rapper) Wallo (Entrepreneur) in our apparel. We love to give back to local communities and have events like back to school drives , Christmas and Thanksgiving giveaways. I have make rounds to local schools to talk to students about life. As a small business owner I know the struggles of maintaining a business so I also created a course and wrote a book that’s explains how to start and maintain a clothing brand. Our mission is to inspire and Spread The Love
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
For me, the most rewarding part of creating clothing is me sitting there and coming up with an idea and bringing it to life. Also seeing the smiles and happiness, it brings to people when they purchase my clothing.
Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?
I will say the resources I wish I would have would have known about earlier would have to be business credit and how to properly structure a business. I missed out on a lot of grants because my paperwork wasn’t right when I first started. I also could have been a lot further, if I would’ve known about business credit seeing as though I was paying for everything out of pocket.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.Iceentapparel.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Iceentapparel
- Facebook: https://www.Facebook.com/iceeentapparel
- Linkedin: https://www.LinkedIn.com/iceentapparel
- Youtube: https://www.YouTube.com/creatingcontenttoinspire
- Other: My Discord called The Elevation Room. https://discord.gg/JKcckC7S I have 50 members so far and started it a month ago. I put all information that I come across that I think is helpful to them. Anything from credit , grants, stocks and motivation every morning.