We were lucky to catch up with Deja’Lynn Hicks recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Deja’Lynn, thanks for joining us today. So, let’s imagine that you were advising someone who wanted to start something similar to you and they asked you what you would do differently in the startup-process knowing what you know now. How would you respond?

When I was starting my business, I was mostly doing crafts and t.shirts and very few hair bows. I had my hands in too many different pots, like a jack of all trades and a master at none. For example, I wasn’t spending enough time on the shirts and sometimes the vinyl was coming up after one wear, or my bows wouldn’t be properly secured and the clip would come off. I had to make the decision which one liked more and which one can I stand out the most with my creativity. If I had the opportunity to start over I would focus more on one category. That way I could skip the year of trial and error while also stopping myself from wasting a lot of money.

Deja’Lynn, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Hi, my name is Deja’Lynn, I am 27 years old and I own Lovely Expression LLC. I am a single mother of a 6-year-old girl. I’ve been a crafty person, always turning something out of nothing. A good friend of mind notice all the crafts I was doing at the time and asked why don’t sell any of the projects I create. I never thought about selling anything before until she mention it. That friend was also making and selling her own crafts at the time but it never registered in my head that I could do it too. My business was originally selling some crafts that I would randomly make and some t.shirts from time to time. Until one day I needed some bows to match my daughter’s Easter dress 3 years ago when I realized that the bows in the stores were basic and none of them stood out from each other. I started trying to see if I can make ribbons bows, but I quickly found out that those were not in my calling to do. I came across this ad on Facebook right after that about the vegan faux leather company that sells them in sheets. Tried it out and loved it, even joined their Facebook group, and others like it. As I started getting into the flow of making these bows, I started looking around as a black momma myself, I realized that not too many bows have characters that look like my baby. So I do cater my business to little black girls who deserve to have themselves represented in hair bows too. Although I do have accessories for everything little girl, mom, dad, and brother too. Here at Lovely Expression, I specialized in quality hair bows, with curly hair-friendly clips that do not come unattached from the bows and guarantee they will stand out in any crowd. I hand trace, hand cut, and assembly every single hair bow myself. For quality purpose, I do it all myself, for me it’s about quality, not quantity. Seeing all the smiles on littles girl’s faces, even my own baby girl, makes all of it worth it.

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

My mother had me very young, so we never had a solid foundation. We moved around a lot between two different states. In total, I went to 7 different elementary schools. We did get some stability once I made it to high school then my mother and I went on our separate, I went to college in a different city and she left the state. One thing my mother always told me is that she wanted me to do better than she did but everyone around us told me that I was going to be nothing. Years later I have a business, I work full-time as a breastfeeding peer counselor, I am a doula, I attended grad school and did all of it on my own. My daughter is 6 now and she has seen me accomplish all of these achievements in her presence, so I can only imagine what she will accomplish.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

When it comes to getting customers for my business, I reach them on social media or at pop-up events. The key to social media is consistency and knowing your target audience. When I first started getting serious with social media I was following a lot of other businesses, and it took me a while to realize the more I watch other business content, the more I like their videos, and the more social media is going to provide me more content like that. Once I got in my mind that social media is for me to grow my business and get in the mindset of my target audience the more of that content I was starting to get pushed to me. As I was getting more content from people in my target audience I started genuinely engaging in their content and nine times out of ten they in return engaged in my content. I like to say my bows speak for themselves, as soon as you see them you have to have them. I am in no way a pro at social media, I am always learning with all the platforms because there is always room to grow.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://lovelyexpressionllc.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lovely_expression/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LovelyExpressionsss
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCucicWczDcBbXlNy7hAnFig

Image Credits
Glitter babies (brand ambassadors)