We were lucky to catch up with Angela Humphrey recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Angela, thanks for joining us today. Almost all entrepreneurs have had to decide whether to start now or later? There are always pros and cons for waiting and so we’d love to hear what you think about your decision in retrospect. If you could go back in time, would you have started your business sooner, later or at the exact time you started?

If I could go back in time, starting my business sooner, would definitely be my first choice. When starting my business, it was 2nd semester of freshman year at Oakwood University. After switching my major from psychology to music, I still wasn’t satisfied.

Before going to college, I made the decision that I would not work a job that wasn’t enjoyable. From 14-18, I was already doing hair for church members and their children. I enjoyed it because, hair was simply a hobby that paid. So why not do this in college? Eventually, I started to put my name out that I did hair. At one point, my clientele was maybe once or twice a month. By senior year, my clientele was every week.

Had I taken my business more serious in college, I would have learned the fundamental skills earlier, and my business would be further along now. I believe I would have been more invested into full-time entrepreneurship. From a young age, I knew I was not made to work for someone else. Though I could provide good leadership qualities for corporate America, it just wasn’t for me.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Angela Humphrey but, most people know me as Joy. At age 3, I began to learn how to do hair while also having an interest in music. Hair was more so a hobby for me but music is my passion. I got into hair from watching other stylists braid their clients hair. With my dolls being my very first client, braiding hair seemed so easy.

Though I didn’t take hair seriously until I got much older, I knew that it would be a back-up plan. By the time I was 14, I started having real clients and made some money from it. Did I start to take hair seriously at this point? Absolutely not. Lol. In fact, I was more passionate about music than I’ve ever been.

My mom was my first vocal coach. I can remember her saying now ‘Angela you need to annunciate your words so people can understand what you’re singing.’ Want the truth? I really didn’t become passionate about music until I was 8. There was always an interest to play the piano or sing since I was 4. Music became the outlet I never knew existed.

You know how when kids become curious they do/say the dumbest things? Ok so story time. I wrote my first song at 8 and let’s just say it wasn’t the most appropriate for a child to be writing. Can’t really say what sparked the interest but, I was fascinated with rhyming as many words with ‘duck’ and ‘itch.’ It was horrible but I was feeling confident because I was writing some bars lol.

See I messed up though. Word of advice. Keep your business to yourself cause people can’t be trusted. It would have been nice to know this at 8 though. I had a pamphlet of songs that I decided to share with a classmate. Mans was a SNITCH. Long story short, he told the teacher whom later told my dad and the rest is history.

That wasn’t going to stop me though. Writing became therapeutic no matter how messy it could get. It was an escape. There were 2 occasions I remember vividly of someone throwing away my music. The first time, I was angry. I was ready to fight my substitute teacher cause why is you touching my stuff?! The second time, I was more so heartbroken because of who it was.

Eventually, it was the best decision to just make a box to keep my songs safe. So I did and I’ve been depositing songs over the last 14 years. When I think of lyrics, it’s like painting a picture with words, singing a story over a beautiful melody. The beauty in music is no matter how dark and twisted it may sound, someone, somewhere will and can relate to what the lyrics said, how the words made them feel, or just how the music vibrates.

The products/services that I provide to my clients would mainly be hair services including loc retwist & styles, haircut, and kids cornrows as well. I also sell Amore’ products which would single-handedly be the thing I’m most proud of. So if we’re going to be honest, African American hair is very diverse and beautiful. The reality is a lot of hair products and oils that can be bought from various hair stores don’t always benefit healthy hair.

How many times have you went to your local store in hopes to find something that will work for your hair? You buy the product hoping it will actually moisten your hair and help it grow as advertised. After you’ve spent $20-$50 on hair products, you get home just to realize it doesn’t even work, or at least not like you wanted. I too experienced this. It was very hard trying to find the product that worked best for my thick kinky hair.

After experiencing my hair drying out, flaking from time to time, and even becoming brittle, I knew it was time to possibly create something that could produce better results. For a couple months straight, I used olive oil, castor oil, and argan oil. With consistent use, I was able to see significant results. My roots were getting even thicker, my locs were growing, and my hair felt super moisturized.

Going through the test run, I added a couple more oils and let my friends try them out. Everyone who used the oil said it had a great smell, saw significant growth after using it for a few weeks, and their hair felt soft. To wrap this very long story up, let’s just say Amore’ products are the goat and the best products for natural hair/locs, anyone experiencing thinning/balding, and you can use it as a body oil.

Truly, I believe what sets me apart from other competitors is my ability to be multi-faceted. Being fluently versatile is a skill on it’s own and it’s certainly not easy. Theres constantly a million and one things that’s constantly running through your mind. Without having proper time management and self-discipline it’s easy to become overwhelmed and essentially get behind.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Biggest lesson I had to unlearn was, STOP TELLING EVERYBODY YOUR PLANS. MOVE IN SILENCE AND LET YOUR WORK SPEAK FOR ITSELF. Now I know this might be coming off aggressive, almost as if I’m yelling but, hear me out.

It’s perfectly natural to want to include your friends and family into your plans. You know? You wanna keep everyone informed on future endeavors, essentially the vision. The truth is, not everyone will see your vision as clear as you do. Sometimes, people don’t have the ability to be optimistic and think outside the box.

I had to learn this year after year. From talking about future albums I wanted to create, plans I had for my brand, and etc, I never saw any of these things come to pass until the sacredness of it was truly protected.

In order to protect outside judgement and opinions from blurring the picture that’s perfectly painted for me, I had to stop allowing others to hold the paintbrush. It’s not their canvas. It’s not their path. Therefore, it’s not their decision.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

Honestly, my side hustle turned into my career. Before pursuing entrepreneurship full time, I worked at a couple different jobs being a secretary assistant or nanny/babysitter. The last ‘job’ I had was in 2019.

During this time, I think I considered full time entrepreneurship but, it was scary. The first thoughts are, ‘How am I going to make enough money to support myself? Will I be able to make double the amount from my regular job doing hair? How long would it take to have a consistent client base?’

After a while, my income from hair started to bring in more funds than my regular job. The beauty is I could also make the amount in less amount of days. Though it was scary, stepping out on faith has been a beautiful rocky experience.

Some of the key milestones was I wanted to make at least 4 digits a month, make more than I made playing piano at a Sunday church, comfortably make money and not have to work on the Sabbath, and last but not least, expanding by creating the Amore collection.

Contact Info:

• Website: Beejoyshair.com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/joysthe.goat
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/starchildmusiq