We caught up with the brilliant and insightful KITANA CA$H a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, KITANA thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Looking back, do you think you started your business at the right time? Do you wish you had started sooner or later

I actually started my first business at around age 25 called Rogue Lingerie. It was an online lingerie business and we did a few pop ups in Atlanta and Brooklyn, but I had no clue what I was doing, kind of rushed into it and treated it like a hobby instead of a career. I was young and I think, in my mind, I thought being a business owner sounded cool and I was just looking for a way out of the rat race. I had no idea how much money and dedication it would actually take to make it a reality.

In between then and now, when I was about 27, I started a t-shirt company called Millionaire Made, which had some decent traction, but was in a crossroads of my life where I was, in a way, forced to choose between corporate America or the entrepreneurship path and I chose the steady path.

Fast forward to now, I think I finally am getting it right. I left a pretty great salary and a position in luxury brand management but I wasn’t fulfilled, and ultimately, I think I’ve made the best choice for me.

To answer your question, entrepreneurship is something I pretty much knew I wanted all long. If i could go back in time and do it again, I think I would’ve started sooner and took it more seriously then.

I think the things that stopped me from doing that were my own self doubt and the major players in my life at that time that were telling me it was nothing but a dream. They were wrong. And I hope anyone who’s reading this takes away the message that at the end of the day, it’s your life. Do what feels good to you.

KITANA, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

After leaving my 9 to 5, I started AllWhoWander Design, and got into freelancing as a set designer, interior designer and visual merchandiser. From there, I realized that I still wanted to have my hands in fashion and other things, so I created The Society Empire, which is the parent company to all of the things I do now.

Under that umbrella is ELEVEN17, my boutique that specializes in statement pieces, particularly accessories, for those who like to stand out. November 17th is the day my mother passed, which is where the name derives from. It was my way of commemorating her, as she was always fly. We are based online, but we have pop ups often around the city and almost monthly at Williams Sonoma. We also have a pop up booth at Westside Market Midtown and are opening another one near Mall of Georgia this fall.

The Society Empire also houses my nonprofit, “Come As You Are” which I co-create with my boyfriend, Malcolm, who co-owns Lyftd Clothing Co. I created Come As You Are (formerly known as The Heal Space) during COVID-19 as a safe space for people who had experienced narcissistic abuse to come and vent. I am a narcissistic abuse survivor, and at the time, I had no idea what it was, what it meant or what was happening to me. Since then, it has grown into a community event for healing in general. We host one event a month, typically on Sundays, where we invite people to come take part in spiritually gratifying activities and network with others as well as having wellness vendors. We have hosted yoga, breath-work and this month will be hosting a silent disco hike. We’ve also been lucky enough to partner with some really great brands like Topo Chico, Sweetgreen and most recently Sweathouz that have supplied us with product for our attendees.

Lastly, I have a background in the film industry and have started exploring that a bit more through my final sub-brand, Brooklyn James Productions. I haven’t done as much with this as the other two, but I’ve been sitting on a documentary that I want to shoot. Hopefully, I can complete that by 2024. And, if anyone reading this wants to shoot some photos-get at me, dawg lol.

Overall, the goal is to be something like a black LVMH (people always laugh when I say that, lol). But, what I mean by that is I want to be the owner/creator/investor of dope, iconic brands and events and leave behind something meaningful. I want to change the world, and what I’m most proud of is I’m doing things my way with absolutely no handouts. Not even a business loan lol.

Have you ever had to pivot?

As mentioned elsewhere in this interview, I’ve started and stopped a few times. Sometimes, life just called me to a different path, sometimes, I didn’t have the disposable income to put towards my business to make it function properly. In all those phases, though, I had to remind myself that at any given moment, you are where your supposed to be.

Social media makes being your own boss look like it’s this overnight success, take trips to Morocco every weekend kind of story, but the truth of the matter is, it’s not. Especially, when you’re first starting out.

There will be days when you feel like a complete failure. There will be days you won’t make a dime. There will be months where you make thousands and months where you wonder how in the hell you’re about to pay rent.

I think the reason why most entrepreneurs fail is either lack of financial discipline or expecting results too quickly and bailing. I’ve been guilty of both. When you clock in for a regular job, your paycheck comes every week or two weeks and everything is automated for you. As a entrepreneur, you are responsible for everything. You only eat what you kill. That takes a major mindset shift.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

When I saw myself being in the fashion arena again, I was positive it would be clothing that would be the breadwinner. I actually got into accessories as kind of a forced situation. I was working on The Ms. Pat Show (Season 1) and afterwards, I decided I didn’t want to move on to another project immediately, plus we were in the thick of COVID, so there wasn’t much work anyway.

I was in California and things weren’t really poppin there as a result. so I came back to Atlanta and decided I was going to start doing pop ups. I had some t-shirt inventory left and then I had a bunch of product from some visual merchandising work I was doing pre-pandemic and I was like, “I’m going to sell this.” lol. And, crazy enough, it sold out. Every last piece minus like 5 things was gone by the end of the day and I had made like $500 in 4 hours. I thought to myself, surely this is just beginner’s luck, so I did another one, no expectations, sold out again. After that, I was like, “Oh ok, there’s some money in this.”

After that, I started doing pop ups every weekend, playing around with making my own jewelry, etc. and a company was born.

Almost three years later, I’m still at it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thesocietyempire.com
• Instagram: @shopexvii_ @iloveashleye @comeasyouare_atl

Image Credits
KITANA CA$H, Anitra Isler