We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Antoinette Adefela a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Antoinette, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What sort of legacy are you hoping to build. What do you think people will say about you after you are gone, what do you hope to be remembered for?

The first thing I think about when considering my legacy is family. Being able to show love to my family and be there when they need me matters the most. I moved away from home but visited throughout the year. It wasn’t the same. I felt like my parents aged every time I came back and visited. I dealt with the struggle of being ambitious and going after my dream while losing time with the people around me who cared and supported me.

Now that I’m back in my hometown after almost 7 years, I feel like I’m making up for my time away. Before moving back, I would consider what I would leave my kids one day as my legacy. But now, since time is shorter as the weeks go by, I want to solidify my family’s legacy.

We own the land that my dad grew up on in an area of Houston going through gentrification, and I want to build something there, keep the land in the family, and provide income to the kids of our grandkids.

I love my creative learning agency, but I don’t want to be remembered as someone who worked on great projects. I want my team to say that I provided them work when they needed to support their family and the work they did impacted the lives of others. I want my business to represent a dream fulfilled and a glance at what taking a risk looks like to my kids and younger family members.

I want my legacy to represent a life well-lived, someone who did things afraid and cared deeply for her family and the people in her life.

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.

I’m someone who has always written down my goals and monitored my growth throughout the year. I also feel that since I’m the youngest of my sisters, I had plenty of time to live in an imaginary world and be creative by myself. Both of those things are contributing factors to who I am today. I also can’t forget the role my parents played in instilling the importance of family, serving the community, and doing things while I’m shaking in my boots like playing the piano or speeches at church. All these things make me who I am and can help explain why I am the way I am.

Plus, I would say they also make me a great Instructional Designer and eLearning Developer who takes a creative approach to designing online learning for companies who want to impact their employees and customers.

To make a long story short, I’ve been in the learning and development industry for over 14 years, and I’ve been able to consult for companies like ConocoPhillips, ResMed, Google, and Facebook in various departments such as diversity and inclusion, business education, customer/ partner support, and global learning. Rooted in a passion for marketing and helping people learn differently, I took the many things I learned from my experience and education and started a creative learning agency, Exp.Design LLC. We act as an extension to a corporate or startup training team and allow them to scale their operations and reach their organization goals through custom animated videos, illustrations, interactive eLearning courses, and learning systems support using the science behind learning and design.

What makes us different is that we provide a human-centered approach focused on the learning design, the aesthetics of the learning environment, and the overall learner experience. The team of Instructional Designers, Animators, UX/Visual Designers, Voice-Over Narrators, Illustrators, Copywriters, eLearning developers, Tech consultants, and researchers are all senior consultants who work on projects that amplify their strengths. We are a global, diverse group of learning consultants who focus on designing for inclusivity and impact.

Most importantly, we want to change the way people think about learning and open their minds to having a beautiful, memorable, and impactful experience.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

I left the company I was working at for health reasons and attended a TSP business conference the next month. I purchased the LLC for my company from my personal savings account right before I went to that conference.

In the meantime, I was talking to a company that was a vendor for a large tech company, and they needed a consultant to work on their DE&I team. I worked for their client through a corporation-to-corporation agreement, and this opportunity led me to get the right business insurance and establish other business documents I needed to operate my own business as well.

Like with most corporate contracts, the payment structure is slightly delayed, and I had to work for 30 days, submit my invoice, and then receive my payment in 30 days or more. From that 8-month project, I put almost all of the money back into the business. I was able to pay for what was needed for the business, and grow my team and pay team members as they came along in a timely matter.

I had an advantage since the company is remote. This client provided a laptop and I didn’t have to purchase anything additional.

Basically, initially, I started my business while I was talking to a potential client and used the money from that project to fund the company.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

There are so many resources that come to mind!

First, being a part of business communities like TSP (Traffic, Sales, and Profit) and Goldman Sach’s 10K Small Business has really shaped my thinking as a business owner and supported my journey.

I love reading and seeing the stories of other entrepreneurs like Cathy Hughes and Issa Rae and learning about the stories behind companies on CNBC.

I’m a huge fan of Lit Video books and can’t not recommend Radical Candor by Kim Scott and Unapologetically ambitious by Shellye Archambeau enough. Also, the Making of a Manager by Jjulie Zhuo is another resource that will impact the way you lead your team.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://expdesign.co/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/expdesignllc/
• Other: Personal website: https://www.msantoinette.com/ Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antoinetteaadefela/

Image Credits
@Expdesignllc