We were lucky to catch up with Devon Hillary recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Devon, thanks for joining us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

I knew I wanted to be a creative when, in my free time instead of relaxing I would always want to create fun things with my fiancée. We would see so many cool things online that we could not afford to purchase ourselves but could afford supplies to make it, so thats what we did and then Hype Warehouse was created after that.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Hype Warehouse is meant to be a place where trendy and fun items can be purchased. First we started with selling custom made tufted rugs. The rugs were so much fun to make and we got really good reviews on them even from the beginning. We expanded after that to selling Croc jibbits/charms, which was always a big hit at every pop up event we would attend. From there we launched our candle line called “Warehouse Wicks” which officially launches May 16. The candles are handmade by my fiancée and I and is a true bonding and relationship building activity. We put a lot of love and effort into the making of our all of our products and items and we just want people to see Hype Warehouse and know it is a business built from love.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

Something that is hard for non-creatives to understand is the amount of time and effort that goes into every aspect of a product, and the hurt that is felt when it seems like you aren’t getting any love from your audience. So much thought and intentionality goes into the making of our products and the designs for our products, and sometimes people seem to undermind the hours and hours of revisions and tweaks and do not give respect to the craft.

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

There is an Instagram influencer that has 322k followers and I have always looked up to him as an inspiration black man. His videos have always been really interesting and seem to be top quality. With hopeful spirits I decide to DM this influencer and ask if Hype Warehouse could create a rug for him free of charge, only play for shipping in exchange for a shoutout. When he agreed, I thought it was one of the most rewarding experiences for our business. We walk through designs and create him a 2-piece abstract rug that was amazing. Once we shipped it to him we also sent photos of the rug to him and he talked about how much he loved it. The rug says it was delivered and I message the influencer to make sure he got the package and he says he never did, so I start to stress because I dont want it to seem like we do not have control of our business. I apologize for the inconvenience and call the Post Office to file a lost claim and even offer the influencer to make another rug and hand deliver it. The influencer says ill keep an eye out for it, and that was the end of the conversation for a couple weeks. Later, I message him again asking if he has seen the rug and he says no he never received it, but then another few weeks later I see on his Instagram post the rug is in one of his videos, super excited I DM him saying I see the rug im so happy you received it how do you like it? No response, I see the rug again, and ask if he can shout us out, no response. I felt like my spirits were crushed that a fellow black man would do something like this and not that he cares, but I unfollowed him. From then on, we do not give out freebies to people simply because we look up to them, but hopefully if we are ever blessed with an opportunity to help promote another brand we can.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Hypedotwarehouse