We recently connected with Allana Wells and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Allana thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

I believe faith , putting in the work and staying consistent is what it takes to be successful. I’m not sure if you’re a spiritual person but I am but the scripture is “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.” James 2:26.

I can pray all day that I want to be successful, I want this and that but if I’m not actually putting in the work , waking up early to go to the post office , send emails , do pop up shop events , meetings with vendors , content planning , and etc. What’s the purpose of praying about it everyday ?

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.

Who is The Playground? The Playground is an upcoming children’s brand that is focused on high end children’s fashion. Our clothing is fashionable and desired by parents who want to dress their children in unique creative fun clothing. The Playground offers a range of t-shirts, onesies, hoodies, loungewear and outerwear for infant, toddler and preschool age girls that will soon expand to offer both girl and boy clothing as we grow.
The Playground was founded by Allana Wells in 2019 originally named as “Play Pretty.” Allana has a strong background in Early Childhood. She was an infant and toddler teacher for many years working at many daycare centers around Cleveland Ohio. While teaching Allana found her love for children’s fashion when she became a God mother. Allana took her background in childcare, love for shopping for her God daughter Nareyiah and sense of style and created Play Pretty.
Play Pretty was a little shop of different children’s t-shirts and denim jackets that was sold out of the daycare center Allana worked at. Play Pretty was a huge success with her parents at the daycare, nearly selling out her 1st week in business. Allana then saw her own potential and decided to leave the vendors alone and create her own brand. That’s when The Playground was created.
The Playground made its 1st debut in 2020 being sold exclusively online. Since then Allana and The Playground have been vendors too many pop-up shops and events in Cleveland. After seeing the results, The Playground had in Cleveland. Allana knew The Playground was the next big brand for kids.

How did you build your audience on social media?

When it comes to building your audience on social media , you want it to be authentic! Remember these followers are your supporters and customers . You want it to be authentic . Don’t over think it , plan content days , and plan the days you’re going to post so you don’t drive yourself crazy like I did in the beginning lol , but more importantly be yourself! Social media has everybody feeling like it has to be an “ aesthetic “ in order to sale and yes it looks good but it’s not 100% true . Being yourself will get your farther in the long run vs following some fake aesthetic trend .

Also don’t always expect your friends and family to support you! Yes we all want to feel like we have a supportive tribe that’s going to repost every single content and push our brands like we would but that’s not always going to happen and that’s ok! Don’t be afraid to reach out to people and influencers to get your brand out there . You never know who will respond! I’m just a girl from Cleveland Ohio and my brand has already been seen on A list celebrity children like Moneybagg Yo and Da baby’s children . My brand has also been seen on almost every big tik tok influencer like Jonah Saige , Delaney Dream and many more . You can’t always depend on your family to push your brand . Making connections , genuinely being yourself and believing in your brand’s worth is what’s going to bring your targeted audience to you .

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

My manufacturing story is a funny one but good one. So with me being young and this is my first business I didn’t really know anything about the manufacturing world , I just knew I had a vision and a goal lol . I had every piece drawn out and then I sent it to a T-shirt company where they just really printed out my logo on t-shirts and that’s how I got majority of my line made . Then when I started wanting more embroidered products I bought a bunch of clothes from a vendor overseas and then took them to a local embroidery shop here and cleveland where I told her my vision . The lady did a wonderful job but me knowing what I know now I definitely took the hard way lol where now I’m definitely using one manufacturing company for my rebrand where I’m sending over my completed collection and just saying yes or no to the samples they provide .

Contact Info:

• Website: Shoptheplayground.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/shop.theplayground?igshid=MjEwN2IyYWYwYw==