We recently connected with Justin Drummond and have shared our conversation below.

Justin, appreciate you joining us today. How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? The world needs to hear more realistic, actionable stories about this critical part of the business building journey. Tell us your scaling up story – bring us along so we can understand what it was like making the decisions you had, implementing the strategies/tactics etc.

I scaled my business from one employee in 2019 to a total of seven in 2022. Scaling was a long process because we were moving into a new service which provides large contract amounts. One of the obstacles that I have to overcome was taking the leap of faith to hire new employees to ensure I had an infrastructure when the time presented itself. As my payroll grew to $15,000 every two weeks, it placed a lot of pressure on me as a CEO to continually bring in business to support our growth. As you scale, you need to acquire contracts that support your operation. So knowing when to scale and how to is always a challenge.

Another obstacles with scaling is understanding that my tasks as a business owner will increase. Payroll, benefits, managing employees, etc., required me to adapt my work schedule to maintain the operation I am aiming to expand.

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

I am Justin Drummond, a serial entrepreneur that owns a cyber-security company (SparkC, LLC.), custom fitted suit company (Flexsuitz), and educational gaming company (Dreamerz Inspiration, LLC.)

The reason why I decided to enter these various industries because they are having a future that is emerging and will be a need for 30 years to come. The government has many provisions for minority owned business and cybersecurity is debatably one of the fastest emerging industries in the public and private sector.

Being one of the youngest black entrepreneurs in the cybersecurity industry, it is important to pave the way for others that are looking to pursue this path.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Yes, when COVID-19 happened, I had to lay off a couple employees to ensure the company stayed afloat. We lost a couple contracts with our college institutions and I had to move on from the service that sustained us to a new service that exploded during the pandemic. Since 2020 when the pandemic hit, we have grown to a total of 7 employees and thriving in the federal and private sector space.

Also with my suit company, we had to transition to a new market because everybody people where not going into work as often. The immediate need for suits was removed due to the social distancing. We transitioned to servicing the collegiate sports market which has been great for us.

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

SparkC – During college, we received scholarship money monthly for expenses. I saved that money up while in college and used it for initial capital in a new bank account in 2015. The business I started only had an upstart of $250.00.

FlexSuitz – Using the profits paid to me by SparkC, I used one business to build the next business.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.dreamerzinspiration.com/www.sparkcllc.com/www.flexsuitz.com
• Instagram: @justin.drummond_ – @flex_suitz – @dreamerz_inspiration
• Facebook: @justin.drummond_