We recently connected with Kimberly Ikediobi and have shared our conversation below.

Kimberly, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How do you feel about asking friends and family to support your business? What’s appropriate, what’s not? Where do you draw the line?

With my business, I quickly learned that strangers will support you more than your own friends do. I have a couple of friends who are huge supporters of Natural Kuru and it means the world to me, but I also have some friends who have never purchased from Natural Kuru but have natural hair. It does hurt me sometimes when I think about it, because I would definitely support them if roles were reversed, but I have hundreds of customers who show so much love and I appreciate them dearly. Without my supporters, Natural Kuru wouldn’t exist, so I give my success to all the strangers who don’t know me personally but still decide to purchase my hair products, as well as my very close friends who have completely adopted Natural Kuru into their haircare routine.

Kimberly, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Growing up, I had permed hair because that was the “standard” or what my parents saw to be “professional”. I used to get bullied a lot because of my hair, and so I decided to cut off all my hair and go natural in March of 2014. Half a year later, I started a YouTube channel, called Natural Kuru, to educate others about natural hair and encourage those to make the switch. Being natural eventually became apart of my identity. Natural hair products are typically expensive, and understandably so, my parents were hesitant on buying such expensive hair products. Because of this, I only used small amounts of product at a time to make it last. I then started to wonder how hair products were made, which brought me to majoring in chemical engineering at Virginia Tech. After my first two classes of chemistry, I started writing formulations and researching ingredients for products I wanted to create. I then launched my business, Natural Kuru, taking off from the name of my YouTube channel. I created the name because I wanted to be a natural hair guru and because my name starts with a K, I replaced the “g” in guru with “k”. Natural Kuru serves the purpose of providing quality organic ingredients at an affordable price. Everyone, no matter their financial status, should be able to take care of their hair. Since my launch in August of 2020, I am recognized around my campus as “Natural Kuru”, which makes me so happy. Walking around campus and students saying “Are you Natural Kuru??” always makes my day. Hearing back from customers and them saying that my products has made their hair grow exponentially is why I do what I do. On my website, I go into detail of what each specific ingredient does for your hair, because it’s important to know exactly what you’re putting in your hair and to educate yourself on all the quality ingredients in hair care. Staying away from bad ingredients was always my main priority and I want to help educate others to do the same.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I’m currently a full-time chemical engineering college student at Virginia Tech with various leadership positions there. I also work part-time at a software company. I have worked full-time at chemical engineering companies over the summer and right now I’m working full-time at one company a few weeks into the school year. All while owning a small business with me as the only employee. Finding the balance for everything I want to do can be challenging, which results in many sleepless nights. For my sophomore year in college, I used to make all of my products on demand in my tiny dorm room on campus, while taking classes. My junior year I decided to make the products in bulk at home over the holidays so that I wouldn’t be rushing from a test to ship out an order. While this has helped tremendously, it’s still difficult being a college student, working part-time jobs, and being a CEO all at once. However, because this is what I love to do, it doesn’t feel like extra work.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

For every order, I write a personalized message for each customer and include it in their package to show how much they mean to me. Literally every single order I get always makes my day and I remember each name. I also give first -time customers a coupon to use for their second purchase. Encouraging them to follow Natural Kuru is a huge one, because I want to be able to see the results on their hair and take in any feedback on how to make my products better.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://thenaturalkuru.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/naturalkuru/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/natural-kuru/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NaturalKuru