We recently connected with Drew Kinkade and have shared our conversation below.

Drew, appreciate you joining us today. Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.

When I first started my business I was in school studying engineering at university. I’d spend week days doing my homework and studying the course material, and weekends focused entirely on my business. I had no free time outside of these two things. They both required an incredible amount of time, and they both desired more of my time. I knew in my heart I had to pick one or the other if I was to do either justice. The world around me was all telling me to pick the engineering degree. Not one friend, family, or societal influence was in support of me focusing full time on my business. In hienz sight, I don’t blame them. An engineering degree would insure me stability. My business, well, it was an art project! A pipe dream!
It didn’t take much thought for me though, I knew I only had one choice. I quit school after 4 semesters and worked on my business full time. This is a risk I am forever grateful for taking.

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

I run an art organization called Flavor World. Flavor World does many different art and community related things. We create clothing, videos, paintings, and more, as well as host events, support our community, and actively work to get artists to meet other artists. My business began as a clothing brand, but we always had the intentions of scaling up much beyond this. The name “Flavor World” describes all the flavorful things that we love to do. 2 years after starting the business, we expanded into a record label as well. Thought that we help people chase their music dreams and empower local bands in the Minneapolis area

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Our business has been self funded through it’s entirety. Low and slow has been our money motto. It’s a far from perfect or ideal approach, but since I started it at the young age of 20, I had the financial freedom and the patience to let it grow slow.

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

3 years after starting my business, it had grown to a point where it was demanding its own space of operations, as my garage and bedroom were no longer big enough to accommodate the HQ. This created a tough situation though, as the business was not yet generating a large enough amount of money to pay rent for a year at a commercial space. I decided I had to commit with my full self. I canceled my lease at my place of living, rented the commercial space, and began to live there with my business. After over a year of doing this, I was able to get the business profitable enough to get an apartment for myself and truly dedicate the space just to the business

Contact Info:

• Website:flavorworld.co
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/flavorworld_
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/flavorworld