We recently connected with Dwyane Stovall and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Dwyane thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear a story from back when you were an intern or apprentice. What’s a memorable story you can share with us?

I use to volunteer for a nonprofit organization back when i was in college where i had the opportunity to learn new things the organization did for diverse communities that I myself was apart of. We would support people who needed assistance with food, forums where they could share their stories with us and each other, allowed new business owners to utilize the organizations center for meetings, or events which opened the doors for more people to participate and get to know one another giving them opportunity to grow. This was a internship outside of school, but it was something that made me happy because i love people, i love the diversw stories they shared with us, and most of all i enjoyed having others around who enjoyed helping us help uplift other people.

This was a major time in my life because this was one of many opportunities i have done that set the tone for how Im running LULMagazine today. We are in the process of bringing on students who are in need of credits to complete their senior year by offering them a chance to work in the mass media/communications department surrounding our publication. From sharing knowledge, introducing them to our quarterly process where we break down how the business is run, access to tools to help market and promote the business, journalism opportunities for writers, business admin tasks that help them focus on the logistics and flow of the business so that they can apply in their career paths or everyday life. These are just a number of things that we do to ensure the most important lesson is learned which is preparation in the work place in which they will soon be apart of in which we believe will help them to succeed.

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.

LUL Magazine is a 10+ year old independent business that has been growing steadily. We are an inclusive lifestyle business and brand that is looking for people who have diverse stories to tell in hopes of motivating and speaking truth to by working with great writers on our team. Not only are we a publication, but we also work with vendors or partners that help provide services to the communities like homelessness, food drives, or just simple wellness checkups when ever it is needed.

We have created an amazing website that is out main online platform to reach clients daily. Clients reach out because they have a desire to be on the front cover of our magazine to recognize which helps to amplify their voices, product or businesses.

We spend time building out the issue in which we create that then turns into a major release event surrounding the client and many others who are featured in it. Our team invites family and friends out to help us celebrate the front cover client by using our events to recognize and honor them in front of the people they truly care about.

Receiving this opportunity is major because not only does the client get a cover, but they also get a chance to witness their cover on a billboard, and consistent promotional advertising during the time of the release which continues to push the content further.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I remember a time when we first published omthe first magazine, and I was still new to how things went in order to produce such a product, and I didnt have a vudget sheet to go off of, and so i used most of my money in areas that left other important factors isolated which in turn turned put bad. I was disappointed after the event was over because where others didnt know the issue, I did.

Once I realized that ther was a better way of putting together my list of TO DOs, I pivoted away from that old strategy, and because of that I have been able to independently produce 10 full magazines along with being able to fund each event that supported the current issue coming out.

This is something I believe all people should keep in mind when running any business. How the business operates is determined on how much you invest in your business through research. It helps.

Can you talk to us about how you funded your business?

When I started up LULMagazine in college, my time was tied up mostly because i was involved in campus activities, work and or course personal time until it was time to actually produce my first issue.

I decided to select a weekend where my team I had at the time would be available to help me do a car wash to start gaining profit so that we could work with our graphic designer today to help put together a full issue that we could present to the world. The car wash helped but it wasnt enough. Next, I spoke with owners of lounges until i found one where we could put on a talent show which helped artists with exposure which helped them build even more business relationships, and so forth.

We would do these kind of things to support the dream behind LULMagazine so that it would evebtually start to catch people’s eyes.

Apart from team efforts, I worked daily to ensure that I would be able to take care of other things like purchasing the right barcode for the magazine, obtaining venues/locations for photoshoots and everything that comes along with that such as Glam, food on sets, and even rides to and from for my clients.

Every step we took was necessary because without that we would have never got as far as we are today. With more people finding out about LUL, we were able to scale the business more by getting access to tools to help us automate processes that fell short, bring on contractors to help get jobs fone like writing, editing, email marketing, promotional and advertising services and more which in turn allowed us to make profit so that we could put more money into the business so that it could thrive.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lulmagazine.com
• Instagram: @lulmagazine
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@lulmagazine13?feature=shared

Image Credits

I was the photographer