We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Destiny Brewton. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Destiny below.

Destiny, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Has Covid resulted in any major changes to your business model?

Due to COVID-19, supply companies that I used to obtain materials from have closed or are operating at a smaller capacity limiting my access to available goods to complete projects and orders. This has impacted our ability to accept new orders to continue my main stream of income and it has reduced the number of orders I can take due to limited supply. The reduction has caused us to have a tight cash flow affecting our ability to maintain lease costs and overhead to continually run successfully. Although COVID-19 has limited our access to resources for completing custom work, we as a business have shifted to extending our digital offerings like our 1-on-1 classes, webinars and educational resources for other businesses to learn our unique process for creating their own custom items at home. We also took on more custom projects below our minimum requirements to give businesses the opportunity to test products before committing to higher MOQs while their businesses adjusted. Additionally, we have made efforts to donate funds to organizations helping others during these times.

Destiny, 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?

While working on developing new accessories for our previous marketplace, I found it very hard to develop my artistic concept into a tangible product without having to acquire high minimum order quantities or a lack of personalization in customer service from providers. I was very fond of patches and enamel pins and decided to read more into how I could bring the product production in house. Through more thorough research, I found that embroidery was something I could not only do at home, but could start without a lot of startup funds. Earning money from doing Uber and Shipt, I bought my first one-needle embroidery machine and got to work! As I posted my work on social media, I started receiving testing orders from family and friends and the word started to spread. As I practiced and perfected, so was A House Called Hue, the embroidery company born.

A House Called Hue creates high-quality custom embroidered goods to help consumers and small businesses elevate their branding and product offerings. We love to help small businesses, in particular black female owned businesses. Being a black mompreneur I know how hard it is to get authentic help while building your business. My daughter was premature and she had a two week stay in NICU, while I had to stay for a week recovering from stroke level blood pressure. This unexpected change took a toll on customer retention, service and the ability to bounce back after maternity leave which was longer than expected and I could not reopen until March of 2020. The community we built allowed us to develop new production schedules and strategies that allowed me to not only recover financially but set myself up to scale Q3 and Q4 in 2020 and set up the business to be poured into in 2021. We are blessed to have our community pour back into us. We have been featured and seen with Facebook, The Village Market ATL, Beyoncé.com, XONecole, The NBA, Support Black Colleges, Shine N Jam, to name a few. A House Called Hue keeps community first in our business model. We sponsor custom work or provide monetary donations to other companies that are classified as 501c3 or work within our community.

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

The most recent challenge I have encountered in my business was unexpectedly having my first child. During Quarter 4 in 2019, I went into early labor in November and was blessed with a beautiful daughter. My daughter was premature and she had a two week stay in NICU, while I had to stay for a week recovering from stroke level blood pressure. This unexpected change took a toll on customer retention, service and the ability to bounce back after maternity leave which was longer than expected and I could not reopen until March of 2020. I had to refund over $1k in sales and shut down, to not only still send out pending orders but recover from unprepared loss of income. What helped me overcome and position myself into the most rewarding Quarter 1 of 2020 was my innate ability to multitask. Being a female business owner and now mom, I developed new production schedules and strategies that allowed me to not only recover financially but set myself up to scale in 2020. In the first 3 quarters of 2020 I was able to not only quadruple my revenue from last year but also add on machinery to increase productivity.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Our quality makes us the best in our class along with our mission of promoting the companies we make products for (with their permission of course). We strive to continue the circulation of small business dollars, mostly through black and minority owned businesses. This allows us to connect to new clients by showing off our previous clients. We have a heavy presence on social media between Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. A House Called Hue stands out in the garment decoration industry because not only are black women owned, we are working to provide our services to businesses that cannot afford MOQs. Building a high quality custom patch and embroidery company domestically is not only challenging to overseas counterparts it’s harder for black women as the custom apparel and in particular the embroidery industry is dominated by white males.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.ahousecalledhue.com
• Instagram: http://www.Instagram.com/ahousecalledhue
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ahousecalledhue
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a-house-called-hue
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@ahousecalledhue?lang=en https://www.linkedin.com/in/destinybrewton/

Image Credits
Jean Jacket, Custom for The Village Retail The Roses Hair Patch, Custom for @ogidentity The Bear, Custom for @dwalkerexperience The Beanies, Custom for @awilkywilk