We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dr. Que Harper a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Dr. Que, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today One deeply underappreciated facet of being an entrepreneur or creative is the kind of crazy stuff that happens from time to time. It could be anything from a disgruntled client attacking an employee or waking up to find out a celebrity gave you a shoutout on TikTok – the sudden, unexpected hits (both positive and negative) make the profession both exhilarating and exhausting. Can you share one of your craziest stories?
Here is a story only the individual reader will have to understand, it all started many, many moons ago, when it was all a dream and to be frank honest there were a few dreams of myself helping at risk youth and creating a platform for minority talent, business owners, products and services where they would be able to obtain there starter package; such as graphics, an exclusive interview, commercial and so forth. These ideas were all in my head and I would often share these things with my mother. This had taken place over the course of several years and I do believe she got tired of hearing me say what I wanted to do. She would say how awesome the ideas were and one day she said to me, Son! Did you or are you writing down all of your ideas? Of course it went in one ear and out the other and as time went on I found myself telling her again and again and again lol! Now at this point my mother is like hey if you didn’t write it down maybe keep it to yourself and she proceeded to share a bible verse with me about WRITING THE VISION DOWN AND MAKING IT PLAIN! Again, like they say boys will be boys I was still rehearsing aloud what I want to do. Now, to my mom it is not making sense and she doesn’t want to hear any more so let’s fast forward to one day I went to the Dollar Store and purchased a notebook; well about 2 or 3 and went home. I didn’t actually write anything down until maybe a few days later, but a crazy thing happened! As I began to write, the pages were getting full and more fuller. See, my mom always taught us how to pray and she would say let God lead you and so here I am meditating with pen and paper. Now out of all the years of ideas I have, in less than a month’s time the plan grew wings, and once I went back through the notebook I was able to visually see the bigger picture, and it was beautiful. Once I wrote the vision down it became plain to see, it was on to the next steps and this came from following instructions and being open minded. I birthed several businesses and currently I am the creative mind behind QTV MULTIMEDIA, founder and President at Project Keep’em Off The Streets Incorporated which is a nonprofit along with a couple other entities. The moral of the story is, your business model, budget, assistance and all that comes with your creative mind will require you to WRITE THE VISION DOWN AND MAKE IT PLAIN.
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 background and context?
I am Dr. Harper; entrepreneur, artist, poet, and family man. I am also a DJ, Photographer, Graphic designer, and a musician. My field and services allow me to assist exclusively with customers and their needs. I am dedicated, determined and take pride in what I do in helping others.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
Funding a business is tricky, depending on your level of knowledge and as you grow you will find out you need this and a little of that in addition to what you already have. For example, I started a lawn service with zero dollars by asking people for old equipment, then I went to YouTube and learned how to fix them. Dj service equipment was donated as well and I used it for my nonprofit to keep at risk youth out of trouble. People saw me and started asking how much I charge to Dj and so forth; my point being creativity wins in the end.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
My goal initially was to escape the hood and learn something better and not to become a statistic. My mission is to stay free and not to go back to a life of crime, and sometimes this is everything to a person like when you know better you do better, it’s an individual thing that has to be better in order to provide the best for self.
Contact Info:
- Website: Www.pkots.org
- Instagram: QUETV MULTIMEDIA
- Facebook: QUETV MULTIMEDIA
- Youtube: QUETV MULTIMEDIA
Image Credits
QTV MULTIMEDIA