We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Desiree Byfield a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Desiree, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?

My partner and I created the Young Gifted and Black 16 movement in 2016. We started this movement in our hometown of West Palm Beach Fl because we were deeply impacted by the perception that surrounded black and brown people in the media. We knew of so many young minorities doing amazing things that the public would not know about because it wasn’t covered in mainstream news. We came up with a great concept to reach out to these people and create an Instagram that featured them and their platforms. We felt like this would work because it was different and we were in our own lane. It was like we created a canvas of young black talent It was beautiful! I definitely believe we were problem-solving because the media type casts minorities all the time and as young minorities, we know that we are not a monolith. What got us most excited about Young Gifted and Black 16 was creating something that could introduce the world to so many new faces. In 2018 we launched our merchandise that aligns with our movement and at first, it wasn’t selling that fast. We worked on revamping the brand and really creating unique pieces with phrases of affirmation on them like Young Gifted and Black, Black Men are Dope, and Black Women are Dope. People really started to gravitate towards the new pieces because of the colors that we infused with our products and their uniqueness.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My partner and I both love fashion and styling. We didn’t go to school for design but we created unique pieces for our pro-black movement. We didn’t want to just do basic black and white T-shirts although we do offer them for our customers who like a more simplistic style. Our most popular piece is our Black Women are Dope T-shirt dress in the color of orange and turquoise like the Miami Dolphins team. Although we are Florida natives that’s not why we selected those colors we just thought they would really pop! We also offer Black and red sweatshirts under our Black Men are Dope and Black Women are Dope collections which are really popular. With our fonts, we didn’t want to just stick to the plain black and white so that’s why we offer color because the pieces really pop in photographs and when worn outside. The main thing that we want supporters to know is that we created these pieces for our community to feel loved, unique, and vibrant. We created these pieces so that we always know how special you are. Our customers always feel this way in our products and they let us know daily.

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

A lesson that we had to unlearn would be people telling us that we cannot sell our products at the price they are at. When we first started our brand there was a young lady that we had reached out to just to introduce our brand she really loved our brand and she told us that in order to sell our pieces we would have to give them away first. In a way, I understand what she was saying but that would be taking a huge loss before seeing any profit whatsoever on top of that we fund our brand by ourselves so that was not a loss we were willing to take. We really worked on building our story and connecting with our followers and from there, the support and the sales started flying in regardless of the price! We want readers and our fellow entrepreneurs to unlearn that you have to lower your worth and your price to accommodate others. Really the young lady wanted us to send her free merchandise but that would be a loss that we were unwilling to take.

How’d you meet your business partner?

My business partner is my boyfriend and we met at a mutual acquaintance networking event. My partner and I had a lot of things in common and when we met we clicked immediately on all levels. We literally liked the same movies, music, and fashion so when I got the dream and the vision for Young Gifted and Black 16 it was a no-brainer for me who I would want on my side for the journey. When I shared the vision with my partner he immediately loved it. My partner is so great at creating design concepts and he has taught me so much when it comes to creating different designs so we work really well together in that aspect of things.

Contact Info:

• Website: Ygb16.myshopify.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/younggiftedandblack16/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009543072477
• Linkedin: linktree/DesireeByfield
• Youtube: https://youtu.be/NS090lpDp3M?si=js3L8jRXNkJtng5s

Image Credits
Not applicable I own all images