We were lucky to catch up with LeDay Grant recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi LeDay, thanks for joining us today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

Imagine planning, plotting and prepping with excitement your First business opening. Woman owned, black owned, small local business. After long months of gather proper licenses, building, purchasing equipment, and using your whole savings to fund a DREAM! Grand opened March 1st of 2020 and With the spark of a flame (news) a fire (pandemic) had distorted my vision! What do I do from here? Limited education of being a business owner. Still learning rules and regulations of the line of business I started. Mommy! Full time personal banker! And trying to dodge this thing called COVID-19! From closing MyKings IceCream! Opening one day a week for take out only. Then opening Weekends! Now only functioning 4 days out of the week. No staffing so I had to do what I can. Still hard finding the proper help.Tears thinking of what else I could have spent my money on. I love shopping! Finding out I was pregnant with my 2nd son April 2020. I just felt let down, discouraged, and emotionally pregnant! I prayed and prayed! GOD allowed my shop to stay open. A few volunteers here and there helping out when they can to give my grandmother and I a break. Barely making enough money to survive. If an employee was hired we would pay more an hour then profit. Money limited and doubtful! Was it worth taking the risk is a question I ask myself? Of course it was! I’ve served many customers and we have provided great service. The timing I’d say was the battle. But when is the right time? I’m capable of opening a legit business!! Building generational wealth for my son! The shop is named after my first son, MyKing! I wouldn’t change the name for anything! Two years later we are still surviving! Advertisement had giving us more customers and publicity! We still haven’t found a team to open up more days out of the week, but we are able to pay the rent with the FAITH of greater things in our future. To be able to pay the rent and buy our supplies is amazing on its own. Can’t wait to see what the future has in store for MyKings IceCream

LeDay, 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?

My name is risk taking LeDay Grant. If you don’t step in the rain, how do you know if you’ll ever get wet? I noticed a FOR RENT sign! Pray and claimed this location as my ice cream shop. And then there was MyKings IceCream. It wasn’t easy. Long months preparing to open a legit and legally ran business. We are a unique, fun, and a community based ice cream shop. We are specially know for our specially crafted milkshakes. My favorite is pretty much all of them. If I had to choose it had to be golden Oreo with s’mores cereal. Yummy! Our mission is building the community one scoop at a time. We provide a fun place to create memories and also we teach lessons through Deloris treats. We teach financial literacy to who ever what’s to learn, we are community based and we support the youth to grow and become great leaders/individuals. Check out one of our Lick and Paunt events. Enjoying ice cream while painting a take home canvas. I love our annual youth Entrepreneur event that we have every year in august. We get youth as young as 3 up to the age of 23 together that create their crafts and have an event that builds their confidants in selling those items. We also partner with non profits to help us meet our goals and needs to support our youth. Feeding the youth, backpack drives, gifts cards, and more. Building the youth to become what ever they chooses to be. I also love hiring youth in the summer teaching and training them customer service skills. What sets us apart from others is we treat everyone like our family. I’m most proud of not giving up!! Not giving up on myself! Not giving up on my business, not going up on something I started. I love the fact that when a person works at my shop they learn many skills to add to their list of life skills. I want to be an example. I have a lot of leftovers that I’m not ashamed of! I want youth to look up to me and determine their own walks of life through a troubled kid that turned her life around! We have been in business two years and counting with outstanding customer reviews, continued support, and business rapidly growing!

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Providing great customer service is key! Representing my company and respecting those who choose to support my small business. Making the product look as delicious as the photos! Reviews! Now a days lots of people check reviews before support businesses. If your reviews aren’t good customers will pass you up for something better. I have customers willing to travel far distances because of a recommendation or review regarding our shop.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

I started my business with what ever money was in my savings account. I’d been saving money for a while and I wasn’t exactly sure what I was saving for. The opportunity came about. I wasn’t for sure of the outcome but I dived right in anyways. I started doing research of becoming an ice cream shop owner. I had by doubts with life changes but I wouldn’t change the way that I spent the money! This risk gave me a new name. This risk built confidence! This risk allowed me to make the money back that was at least invested. Even with the struggles, money well spent

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.mykingsicecream.com
• Instagram: Mykingsicecream
• Facebook: MyKings IceCream
• Yelp: Mykings ice cream
• Other: Grub hub: MyKings Ice cream Uber eats: MyKings Ice cream Door dash: MyKings Ice cream

Image Credits
Photos taken by LeDay (owner$