We recently connected with Ashley Prince and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Ashley thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

Earning a full-time living from creative work, just like most entrepreneurial endeavors presents its challenges. Offering educational services, creating and selling merchandise as well as securing branding deals eventually aided with increasing revenue.
Simply put, working with other creators, managers and self education is a formula that I used that continues to prove a successful formula to increase profits.
A major step that was missed in the beginning was having a financial team in place to count the costs as things move very quickly in production and it’s very easy to jump into projects without evaluation cost benefit analysis as the supporters are demanding the “best if the best”

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?

I was always very impressed with the arts as a child. I was in dance, theatre and traveled to New York often to watch broadway shows with my family. I went on to pursue a degree in Fashion Merchandising largely inspired by my global shopping experiences before the internet was “born”.
I encouraged my children to pursue all things they were interested in. This included ballet, painting, beat making and ultimately acting.
As a mother, moved by their similarities, I began RAPALOTKIDS as a catalyst to educate aspiring child entrepreneurs. I quickly learned management styles that would promote a healthy work life balance and began teaching my children marketing and branding through merchandise and music.
Within a year of collaborating with Johnny Dang, That Girl Lay Lay and tons of YouTubers, the RAPALOTKIDS went viral.
We are most proud that in the wake of the pandemic, we continued to serve our community and share our resources in our family-owned homeschooling/private school network to push influencer and supporters alike to keep education first.

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

To stop assuming that people want to see you win. As people, we’ll the good-hearted, we can sometimes be so laser focused on a project or mission that we assume all around us are on the same wavelength.
There are people who want the glory. They want recognition, fame and money. There is no interest in what happens when you become emotionally available to a child who wants to create.
That is the part that drives me. I have had to let a lot of people go because our visions and missions were not aligned.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

I have had a very strong interest in NFT’s for quite awhile. Several offers on the table that never materialized.
It takes a tech brain or futuristic mindset to even withstand a conversation about digital currency or terminology as it relates to digital assets. However, I try to stay in touch with what our future is as much as possible. Teaching and training the youth to make smart business decisions.

Contact Info:

• Website: Ashley Prince.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ashleyprinceworld_?igsh=MTVoZWVidmtldmsyaQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
• Linkedin: Check out Ashley Prince’s profile on LinkedIn
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@therapalotfamily?si=hNJ-GPB_jbLj1Ov0