Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Dami Adesoye. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Dami, thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
I got the idea for the company in a rather serendipitous way. As a music producer, I have developed a song called blue film and wanted to shoot develop content that would go along with the song. I ended up doing a shoot in the Ukraine via one of my colleagues. This was in the middle of the pandemic, so I was unable to do the shoot myself. I ended up directing the shoot over zoom, and while directing I decided to include professional photos as well. I never released the music video or the song, but I sat on these beautiful photos for a while. One day I decided to put these photos as a wallpaper on my phone and laptop. A complete stranger saw them and asked where I found those photos. I posted it to tell him that those were actually photos that I had directed a photo shoot for, to which he was surprised. He said “I would certainly pay for those”. And thus, Māksla Collections was born. I am myself I’m a big fan of Photography, but I felt that there were not enough unique, bespoke aren’t out there for the regular person. This is a problem that I decided to solve with the company.
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?
My name is Dami Adesoye, Founder of Māksla Collections where we provide bespoke, unique art to everyday folks to help them transform their spaces and make statements with their art choices. We work with independent artist, and models, from across the globe to develop unique collections which we make available in multiple art styles (Canvas, Fine Art Paper, Metal and more). Our goal is to create gallery-style-art exploring unique forms (e.g. human form, water, etc)
I am proud of the quality work that we have put out, from a perfect blend of creatives, leading to a very visually compelling art pieces. I have spent the past decade of my life working in corporate America, and successfully learning how to run and scale of business. I always had a desire to go into the arts, but coming from where I came from, being able to be financially sustainable was the most important thing. So I spent a decade developing skill set that I knew I could always fall back on, before follow my passion.
Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?
I had to break open my 401k to fund the business. I had always had the desire to start an art business, however, I had lost my job at the time, due to layoffs. I was cash strapped, with no idea how i was going to fund my day-to-day. However, I knew that Māksla was my life goal. So i decided to take my life savings from a decade of working in Corporate America, and poured it all into my business. While it was a big risk, I couldn’t be happier with the decision.
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
While starting my business, I had to really dig deep into myself. A lot of the outcome of your business depends on your mental stability and your general well being. I started off with working on myself, so that I could stay focused and have the energy to support my business. Once I made a good start with myself, I spent a lot of time listening to videos on https://www.entrepreneur.com/video. This helped me hear other people’s story and perspective. Elevator pitches, etc. I also made it a thing to attend networking events, to build my community. This community serves as my ears and eyes, and report back opportunities that i may have missed.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://makslacollections.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/makslacollections/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Makslacollections
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/m%C4%81ksla-collections/about/?viewAsMember=true
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/maksla_art
Image Credits
Photographer – Vadim Stein Model – Anna Loanova