We were lucky to catch up with Ayodele Olawaiye recently and have shared our conversation below.

Ayodele, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s kick things off with a hypothetical question – if it were up to you, what would you change about the school or education system to better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career?

I believe that we should learn about financial literacy at a young age. Possibly even middle school. I think we are encouraged to go to college without being set up properly. We should learn about the importance of saving, credit, bills, etc. A lot of us have to learn the hard way which puts us at a disadvantage.

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

I had a clothing brand in college. Since i didn’t want to have to pay people to take pictures of people in my clothes, i decided to buy a camera and take the pictures myself. Overtime, people began asking me to do graduation pictures, then family pictures/seasonal portraits. I began to take photography more and more serious.

When I had the clothing line in college, i just wanted to begin to learn the industry and entrepreneurship in general. Once i graduated from college, i began to think of a name for the brand as well as a purpose.

As an Accountant, i know what it feels like to not be able to be yourself. So I wanted to create a community of people that come from different backgrounds but encourage each other to be themselves despite their environment.

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

I had to learn to not make decisions based on what your friends say. I have multiple shirt designs ready for me to print, i am just trying to be strategic about which order i print the shirts. There was a particular design that a lot of friends said that they wanted me to order next and that they would buy a shirt when it came… Out of all of the people urged me to get that shirt, NONE of them purchased.

Moral of the story, I should have stuck with what i knew was already selling and just ordered more of the shirts that i currently carried since the inventory on them was getting low.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

I like to engage with my followers on social media. I will go to their page, like and comment on posts or story posts. When customers wear the brand on their Instagram page, i repost their post on my brand’s instagram.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.StreetSanctum.com
• Instagram: Street_Sanctum
• Youtube: Street Sanctum

Image Credits

AyodeleOlawaiye LLC (My photography/videography business)