We recently connected with Carlos Kelly and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Carlos thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

We actually care about our community that we do business in unlike these major corporations, or means isn’t to just make a lot of money to make me rich. It’s about building up people in these communities so they can have more resources to also contribute to their community.

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

These days I am focusing on being a pizza chef but before that I was heavy in the music and entertainment business, and still am. Music was my first passion and love and I explored it more in college and became an engineer/producer/ videographer. I took the videography serious and created my first company and had people working as independent contractors and I did that for about eight years. I also hosted events, threw my own events/ festivals etc.

I then created a clothing line in 2014 called Ey3am clothing. That would be the start of my latest empire. I finally started to take music seriously as a solo artist in 2018 and created Ey3aMusik. my passion for music was reignited and I honestly just wanted to put out one body of work and be done but since then I have dropped an EP, mixtape and numerous singles that have been very much received by the world. My number one reason for doing music is to leave a positive impact on people like music does for me.

About six years ago with my partner at the time, tried to create a vegan food business but it never worked out. So three years ago I tried again with the idea of just doing my favorite food which is pizza. after doing a lot of research I decided to go with a mobile food trailer with a wood brick oven. I am always finding ways to be different and set myself apart from other people and businesses. Also I felt like this would be a great way to contribute healthy food to communities. there is a major lack of healthy options all across the nation and plenty of food deserts. This is a major way to bring your healthy food and jobs with great pay at the same time.

Bringing food into the equation was a great idea because I can throw events,network with people in the music industry and have great food and merch. The whole idea of my brand is to expose people to new innovative, cosmic, futuristic ideas.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

The pizza journey started off not exactly with pizza but with vegan food in general about six years ago with my partner at the time. We tried to start a mobile food business in North Carolina but that did not work out. Then we tried a brick and mortar in Atlanta and because we never did that type of business before they did not want to risk us doing business with them, so that didn’t work out. Eventually the idea of doing the food business fizzled out. my partner At the time and who is now a very good friend of mine used the name for her organic products and I no longer was trying to do the food business.

Honestly about four years ago I wasn’t inspired to do any entrepreneurial work I was just working ubrr and wasn’t doing anything creative. Just working was not sitting right with me so I started getting back into music and that also spsrked me to look back into the food business. I try to get funding from people that I knew but no one believed or wanted to invest in the idea. So luckily I got into contract work and did that for the past three years and I was able to save money and bootstrap my idea myself.

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

I always want to build and work with people. That’s not a bad thing, but sometimes you have to build an idea up to a certain extent so that people can really see your vision. I wasted a lot of time trying to convince people of my vision instead of just doing what it took for me to create my vision solely by myself. I learned that great ideas alone even with the business plan may not convince people especially if the people that are around you or not business minded or financially literate. No one in my family really creates businesses, all they do is work for other people. So I had to be the first in many of my circles to do something that they have never seen done before. I have created my first family business when I decided to do everything on my own and if I had help along the way that would be great but I fully depended on myself.

So the first time me and my partner at the time tried to start the mobile vegan food business we had a woman who we thought was interested but she didn’t want to invest any money into that idea and we didn’t have any money or good credit. So I build up my credit over the years and they also helped along with me saving my money.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.Ey3am.com
• Instagram: Raquan_da_Maji
• Facebook: Raquan Da Maji
• Twitter: Raquan Da Maji
• Youtube: Raquan Da Maji