We were lucky to catch up with Ciara Toliver recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Ciara, thanks for joining us today. Do you think folks should manage their own social media or hire a professional? What do you do?

Starting a business from scratch has definitely sharpened me. Most people will advise you to quit your 9-5 and focus mainly on your business (I’m so happy I didn’t listen to them). Others will say, “make sure you can do everything in your business.” (Marketing, warehouse, website operator, etc. Well, my advice is, create a budget to hire individuals that are experts in these areas. This will save you time and will impact your business in a positive way. After 2 years of doing everything myself, I finally outsourced and built a team. Business couldn’t be better!

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 Ciara T., owner of La Femme D’Afrique, a lifestyle brand from the Motherland itself. Like most business owners I saw a gap in the industry and I decided to fill it. In this case the need was for Black people to feel more inclusive in the fashion and lifestyle industry. The things I’m most proud of are reflected every day in my brand. La Femme D’Afrique offers handmade, fair trade goods such as handbags, waist beads, hair care accessories and skin care products. My favorite quality about our products is that everything is sourced locally in Africa and made by hand through hundreds of years of traditional artesian work.

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

I wouldn’t say that it’s a lesson I had to unlearn, but more so a lesson I had to learn. Building a business that’s based primarily in another country and exporting your inventory into the U.S. has taught me that business is not the same globally. In order to be successful in communication, logistics, fair trade and the well-being of employees that are not local to you -I had to do a lot of studying, have a lot of uncomfortable conversations, and most importantly I had to be willing to adapt .

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Like most businesses being started by millennials in today’s time I didn’t have the resources or the knowledge of receiving a loan or grant to start my business. La Femme D’Afrique is 100% debt-free because everything was started from my personal funds.. My initial capital derived from my 9 to 5, the money that I saved after taking care of my necessities, I poured that money back into my business. Overtime I was able to afford inventory and I would sell the inventory I had, take that money and buy more inventory. Consistency overtime allowed me to and purchase the things and services that I needed to grow .

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.Lafemmedafrique.com
• Instagram: LaFemme_DAfrique
• Facebook: LaFemmeDAfrique

Image Credits
2nd look photography