Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Cindy Onyekwelu. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Cindy, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
We were founded in 2022 from San Antonio, Texas and our mission is to help out many local vendors within America by posting their community events by providing a well-rounded online marketing service for local community vendors within your local areas nationwide!
We use many marketing tools, such as our our themed vendor brand displays at major conferences to get small businesses out there through our podcasting services and digital media marketing services after your 1st FREE 30 sec Ad Reel! While directing the customers to the vendor’s online platform of choice to buy more products they have enjoyed from the selected vendor!
During my childhood, I used to attend food drives, flea markets and local farmer’s markets in town with my mother. She was a vendor at many markets in town. I would help her sell handmade holiday gifts and various seasonal decorations to locals that would walk by our booth. I enjoyed everything! My favorite part was talking to all vendors with my mother about their American dreams. I am the first within my family to be born within the United States and my dream is to help other’s dreams grow in any way possible. My mother depended on her market profits back in the day, in order to make ends meet. Unfortunately, we had to close up shop due to the slow flow of local traffic and primarily depending on word of mouth for our marketing efforts.
From that fruitful experience, I learned that several factors go into sustaining a business such as implementing multi-marketing tactics, monitoring budgets, continuously improving user experiences, and more. More importantly, I realized there is no market without a constant flow of local customers supporting small vendors. That experience planted a seed that now has blossomed in this exciting journey to help other local vendors and small businesses blossom even more in their towns and beyond.
Cindy, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I’m Cindy, the Founder & Podcast Producer of Local Community Vendors LLC, a Affordable Creative Marketing Services company that supports the growth of many underrepresented small local vendors such as disabled veterans, women-owned, minority-owned, disadvantaged and etc within America by providing a well-rounded online marketing service for local community vendors within your local areas nationwide! We use many marketing tools, such as our our themed vendor brand displays at major conferences to get small businesses out there through our podcasting services and digital media marketing services after your 1st FREE 30 sec Ad Reel! While directing the customers to the vendor’s online platform of choice to buy more products they have enjoyed from the selected vendor!
Your AD will be displayed on social media pages & videos for shoppers to download anytime !
We offer the following:
30 second podcast ad for $10 per episode
60 second podcast ad for $25 per episode
2-3mins podcast ad for $50 per episode
5 mins podcast ad for $75 per episode
PRODUCT BRAND-EXPOSURE PLACEMENT MEMBERSHIP PROGRAM
The first event raffle package demo is FREE, then an affordable monthly subscription rate of $24.99/monthly (or) $199.99/yearly for your brand name’s product to be placed within our local vendor auction display tables, we raffle off at large events and conferences for all to see! This includes 12 (1-3min) AD Reels to be posted once a month onto ALL of our Social Media Platforms.
We’re currently working with multiple vendors, market managers and event planners combined within America to strengthen our local networking communities and help our partnered vendors get noticed by major corporations like yourself locally for catering opportunities, mentorship and brand awareness. “Any level of support will be acknowledged and showcased onto our website, social media and gift baskets with your flyers of course given out at local farmers markets to show how you have given back to the community as a whole! ”
Have you ever had to pivot?
During undergrad at Pitzer College, Cindy set her sights on becoming a pharmacist. Her parents thought pharmacy school would be the best career path for her and she wanted to make them proud, but after taking one lower division chemistry course she knew her heart wasn’t in it.
While at Pitzer, she started exploring other courses offered by the Claremont Colleges. Cindy decided to take on Zachary Dodd’s programming class at Harvey Mudd College, and found her passion for programming. Cindy dove in fast with hours of self-teaching through online courses on Udemy, reading programming books and she never looked back.
For some students, pivoting from one major to another would be daunting, but for Cindy, it was an opportunity to take risks and chart her own path.
“Focus on your journey. [Be] creative around the roadblocks.”
As a new programmer, she spent a lot of time networking to understand the field. She attended the Grace Hopper Celebration in 2016 where she made new friends and connected with female mentors. She became involved with National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), an expansive non-profit organization dedicated to advancing culturally responsible black engineers. Her consistent involvement with NSBE opened up a world of opportunity for Cindy, building her professional and technical skill set. It connected her with big names like Twitter, Snapchat, and Visa. In fact, later that year Twitter invited her to the highly selective Early Bird Camp, where she learned more about Android Development and created, Productivity, a social task management mobile application, in less than a week.
Fast forward to the summer of 2017 and Cindy interned as an Android Mobile Developer at Nike World Headquarters in Oregon. With the front end and front-facing consumer mobile teams, Cindy was able to work on the mobile retail app for Nike’s millions of shoe fanatics. While at Nike, she joined the leadership community with an augmented reality and virtual reality project during an employee hackathon. One of the applications they created was inspired for Nike’s most loyal fans, aka “Sneakerheads”, that would identify a Nike sneaker model by simply taking a picture of the shoes. She taught her team all the technical aspects of AR and VR during the hackathon and inspired others excited about the potential that technology adds to Nike’s products.
Despite turning down pharmacy school, Cindy still found a way to give back to her parents through her work — through Android development. Her parents are from Nigeria, where Android phones are much more common and affordable than iPhones. So, despite most of her colleagues (and let’s be honest — most millennials in general) preferring Apple products, Cindy keeps her focus on the products her parents are more likely to use and enjoy. (Fortunately, at the global level 80% to 90% of the mobile market is dominated by Android, according to Forbes, so being an Android developer is a highly a versatile and desirable skill.)
Cindy graduated Pitzer College in the summer of 2018 with a degree in Computational Economics, a major she designed herself with only the most rigorous Computer Science and Economics courses from Pitzer and Harvey Mudd College. While most post-grads move onto one full-time job, Cindy will have two. In addition to being the CEO and Founder of Exchange Reactions, a Glassdoor for students to explore study abroad projects, she is also starting full-time at General Motors as a software developer.
What keeps her motivated amidst all this work? A strong belief in herself.
“Only compare yourself to yourself and never let others bully you out of your goals. Stay focused and make your own path! Remember what you love most and integrate it into your work life. Self-care is key!” – featured within People of Color in Tech website. URL: https://peopleofcolorintech.com/interview/cindy-onyekwelu-prescribes-her-own-path-from-pharmacy-student-to-founder/
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
A link to a book that published my life essay about me called “College Essays That Made a Difference, 6th Edition
By The Princeton Review on Page 116”
Essay was titled “My adversities led to perseverance”
URL: https://books.google.com/books?id=40dABAAAQBAJ&pg=PA116&lpg=PA116&dq=college+essays+that+mad+e+adifference+cindy+onyekwelu&source=bl&ots=NENeRSrIxh&sig=ACfU3U26I0GqTD4d5WWlNKqDgko6gPdThQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiZuL7h7NT_AhXNk2oFHW9HDjQQ6AF6BAgdEAM#v=onepage&q=college%20essays%20that%20mad%20e%20adifference%20cindy%20onyekwelu&f=false
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.localcommunityvendors.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/localcommunityvendors/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/techieLou/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/conyekwelu/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmt19Dd9btuqwK8gs1YrMfQ
- Company Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/localcommunityvendorsllc
Image Credits
All images approved, Founder Cindy O is on the google colorful photo and the united table set up was when i was hosting at the uniteSA networking night providing free podcast interviews