We were lucky to catch up with Angel Johnson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Angel, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today The first dollar your business earns is always special and we’d love to hear how your brand made its first dollar of revenue.

I acquired my very first client thanks to social media. Prior to launching ICONI’s first collection, we shared a preview of what our first collection would look like and started to build a community on social media based on our motivational activewear. So we started connecting with potential customers before we even had a product to sell them and were already providing value to them with fitness tip and home workouts to do during the pandemic. Getting my very first client that was not a family member or friend was magical because it was exciting knowing that a complete stranger bought into my brand.

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?

ICONI is a motivational and inclusive activewear line that champions confidence and community to our customers. ICONI also donates a portion of profits to help change the world one legging at a time.

We are solving the problem of people not feeling confident in the gym due to ill-fitting, see-through, and non-supportive activewear. When people do not feel confident in their workout setting, they are less likely to stay consistent and motivated, which in turn negatively impacts their health and wellness. Our focus is to ensure our customers can focus on their workouts, instead of see-through, non-supportive, low-quality, and boring activewear. We want our customers to know we are right there with them on their fitness journeys.

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

I was an active duty Air Force officer for 8 years and I had gotten used to someone else setting the priorities of my job for me. I was used to every word from a General’s mouth being a number 1 priority. When I became the CEO of my own company, I had to learn that everything was not a number 1 priority meaning it every task was not important AND urgent. By unlearning the habit of prioritizing everything as number 1, I was able to lower my stress level, focus in on ICONI’s key growth areas, and actually get more done.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

The initial capital for my business came from bootstrapping. I used the money I saved up from deployments and TDYs while I was in the military to incorporate my business, buy supplies, and buy inventory to sale for my business. I used all the capital that I had to invest in my business time and time again to ensure I could build my business into what I wanted it to be.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.iconi.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/iconileggings
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/iconileggings
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/company/iconileggings
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/iconileggings

Image Credits
Image Credits: Sun Lee