We recently connected with Akilah Afrika and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Akilah thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Parents play a huge role in our development as youngsters and sometimes that impact follows us into adulthood and into our lives and careers. Looking back, what’s something you think you parents did right?

My parent’s Pan-African principles have had a huge impact on my life and businesses.
I was taught from an early age that having your own business is the key to freedom. My parents brought me with them to many different cultural events when we lived in Canada. They’d sell handmade leatherworks from Jamaica, connecting Jamaicans abroad to their roots and providing fair and stable trade for Jamaicans ‘a yaad’.
I had my first business at 9 years old. I was an avid reader and to fund my love of books I’d sell the ones I’d read at whatever event my parents were attending. They always made sure to leave room on their table for my books. I’d easily sell two to six books at each event and I’d happily take my hard earned money back to the bookstore.
As I got older, it was never discussed whether I’d get a job. I always knew that I would follow in my parent’s footsteps and create my own business. A business that allowed me to express my principles and values; a business that allowed me to explore my interests; a business that allowed me the flexibility to go where I wanted, when I wanted.
Now, as a business owner of over a decade and with two successful businesses growing steadily, I enjoy connecting with clients and partners who share my passions in sustainability, self-expression, and interdependence.

Akilah, 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?

My first business here in Jamaica was designing and creating jewelry. I started out when I was fourteen years old with the beads that my mother brought me from Canada.
I started making beaded jewelry and giving it away as gifts. To my family and friends. Everyone really loved the creativity of it. They started trying to pay me for my pieces and encouraged me to start selling them. I started attending events with my parents and we soon joined the Ujima collective, a group of businesses mostly based in our parish of St Thomas.
As my business started to grow, I had to create my own branding. My own logos, business cards, flyers, and brochures. So, I started learning how to use Microsoft Publisher, which I soon traded for Canva, and other design tools. I taught myself about branding and design colors.
In teaching myself these skills, I started to notice that there were other businesses who needed these skills, some of which were older folks, who weren’t as tech savvy as I was. They would ask me to create a small logo, create a small label or flyer, some of them started to pay me. And it’s from there that my second business was born.
Virtual Girl Friday was born out of the need for my business community to have graphics and administrative work done.
So, as the business cooperative grew and as Black Butterfly continued to grow, so did Virtual Girl Friday.

Most businesses are asked, what do you provide to your clients? And that doesn’t just mean what products you provide. The products are important, but what intangible aspect are you providing to your clients?
At Black Butterfly, our tagline is ‘True To Spirit’ and the idea is that we are using fashion as an avenue of self-expression. We’re using jewelry, we’re using textiles and the beautiful designs we put on them to give people the freedom and the tools they need to be their truest self.
While we take a lot of inspiration from African and Indigenous cultures for the design of our jewelry, we also use the organic forms of our materials to influence the art they produce. Everything we make is organic. It’s born, not just produced. So we are through that, we allow our customers to choose the designs that speak directly to them.

Virtual Girl Friday, on the other hand, our tagline is ‘Because You Know You Need Us’. We fill the gap that a lot of businesses in Jamaica have: they can make the product and they can go out and sell it, but they’re branding tends to be a little bit lacking. Their administrative tasks tend to fall to the wayside. So, that’s where we step in. We help keep records, with filing, with planning. We help turn their ideas into actionable goals.
We help businesses to capture their ideas, analyze it, brand it for the public, and keep track of it as it grows.

I’m very proud of both my businesses.
Black Butterfly helps me to express my creative side; I just go crazy with my designs. I think of an idea and I just put it down in copper or silver or brass. I put it down on a t-shirt, on a head wrap. And I let my creativity carry me away. Virtual Girl Friday, on the other hand, is an outlet for my analytical and logical mind. I’m able to puzzle things out and to create solutions for my clients.
And that’s one of the best things about owning a business: you’re able to figure out what is needed. What do you need? Because a lot of times, as business owners, we need to identify the need within ourselves because we can find ourselves reflected in the masses.
I figured out what I needed and I provided that solution and I’m able to provide that solution many times over to my clients. Whether it’s through Virtual Girl Friday, providing them with administrative and graphic solutions, or through Black Butterfly, giving them an outlet for self-expression, I am proud to be part of the solution.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

One of the lessons I’ve had to unlearn this past year was how often I go to events.
Growing up, we always attended events. I always saw my parents going to event after event and I thought that’s how you could really make an impact. It’s a great way to meet your customers and it’s a great way to engage with them one on one, but the expenses of going to events is very high. Travel, food, and even your own time add up.
Last year, I attended numerous events, especially towards the end of the year. And all of the time and money that I spent weren’t regained through sales. So I had to learn how to work smarter and not harder. This year, I’m focused on getting Black Butterfly into stores. I’m realizing that not having to spend time and money traveling and working an event all day is well worth taking that cut from a retail price to a wholesale price.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

When I started my businesses, Black Butterfly was the one that I saw making the most money. I imagined that Black Butterfly was going to be the business that took me far and made me a millionaire. After COVID, there wasn’t as many events going on and I had to find some way to make money. So Virtual Girl Friday, which was more of a side hustle to Black Butterfly, became the main business. During this time, I used my skills to manage and plan events for different clients, to help people who were restarting their businesses to rebrand themselves. Now, I’ve built a client list that keeps me comfortable and a skill set that keeps that list growing.
The lesson I learned is to always of two business in different industries because you’ll never know when you’ll need to adapt to new circumstances.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @blackbutterflyja @virtual.girl.friday
• Other: Black Butterfly Whatsapp: 876-427-6621
  Virtual Girl Friday Whatsapp: 876-503-1226

Image Credits

Edward Miller
Akilah Afrika
Nzinga Allen