We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Allister and Denise Hill a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Allister and Denise , thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

Imagine your 10-year-old son with the most bubbly personality, always the popular kid at school, and all around happy kid coming home from school telling you he didn’t feel special. As his parents we thought we were doing everything right to make him feel loved. Somehow we failed at making him feel good inside. Sometimes the biggest smile doesn’t mean your happy from within. Our son was able to fully articulate why he didn’t feel special but from what he as able to communicate, we realized that no matter how “special” we told him he was the world was telling him otherwise. To remind him of how special he was/is when he left home we started creating t-shirts with positive affirmations for him to wear to school. We soon saw a positive boost in his self esteem. Teachers, students, and parents begin to notice his shirts as well and we received amazing positive feedback. We then realized our son is not the only one dealing with low self esteem and turned our mission to inspiring others with positive affirmations on apparel, accessories, and we introduced our affirmation candles in 2019.

Allister and Denise , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Affirmation Effect is family owned business that encourages self-confidence and expression through affirmations that represent your style, passions, and way of life!

Husband and wife owners, Allister and Denise Hill are on a mission to increase the self-worth and esteem of others through affirmation based Apparel, accessories, and candles Our products range from affirmations of beauty, faith, and self-love.

We are most proud of other positive feedback and stories we receive from our customers on how our products/affirmations have a meaningful impact on their lives.

Our business is rooted in faith and we believe that’s what sets us apart from other companies. Faith has kept us in business for over 8 years when success looked far out of reach. Our customers get to experience great customers, our genuine belief in our mission, and see our determination at our weekly pop-up shops around Los Angeles.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Allister and I never imagined we would become business owners. I’ve always worked in the medical field since I was 18 years old. Three years into our business which we were running as a side business at the time, I lost my job as the manager of a medical imaging facility. I managed the facility for 8 years and helped build the company from day one. I was devastated. At that moment I realized all the hard work I put into building someone’s dream I could have been building my own business. Since 2017, Allister and I have been pouring our energy into scaling our business. This year (2022) has been our most successful year. In June we pitched to Walmart and received a deal for our Affirmation Candle line. We’re hopeful our candles will be on Walmart shelves early to mid 2023. In November we our candles were featured on Zulily.com. We reached our first six figure year in sales.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Funding our business has been mostly from personal funds. We believed we didn’t need loans or grants to have a successful business. We were in business for six years before we realized the importance of applying for grants and the need for working capital. Our intial investment was only $500 from our personal funds. As our goals grew bigger we needed more funding. We now apply for every grant opportunity and we take advantage of the working capital loans through Shopify. Limited funding, limits your growth.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.affirmationeffect.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/affirmationeffect
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/affirmationeffect
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/affirm_effect