We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Miya D a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Miya, thanks for joining us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your business sooner or later?

I started my business a year ago in July of 2021 , I’ve been working at my current job for about 3-4 years then and just wanted more for my son to have one day. But life got really stressful, body was feelings off, was having family issues, and then a hurricane came and destroyed about 60% of my business products. Thankfully I had all my herbs moved to a different place at the time, but it really stressing me out wondering how I would recover, I could never fully get the help for business owners website after a disaster to load and all the calls I did ended up unanswered to where I finally gave up. Yet, I still attempted my business, made orders, promoted, got new blends together, then my body basically shut down on me. I ended up in the hospital for about a week. Scariest moment of my life and I just felt like I’ve worked myself sick trying to perfect things in life instead of just taking my time. I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis which made me put a pause on everything. I felt like I couldn’t worry about my business, I could no longer just fall back and just depend on it. A week out the hospital I went back to my regular job working myself crazy once again, I seriously took no break and got right back into making sure my son and I would be okay. Working overtime for months straight until I felt I could no longer, and eventually I kept getting asked “what’s going on with SOUGA? Did you give up?” And I didn’t like that feeling. It took me months to get back into SOUGA, and now that I am, I wish I would of waited at least 3 more years to be in a better position as a single mom and a women in general. I feel as if I did, all those setbacks would of never been an issue and I would be focused on just SOUGA without needing to work for anyone but myself. But overall, do I regret my decision? No, because I’ve truly helped so many people along the lines of having SOUGA started.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I got into the business from wanting to find natural products for my starter locs. It was hard to find something natural and honestly something black owned for locs. So I started making my own with my plants outside in my backyard. As I got into my plants, I got into herbs. Crazy that I’ve been working at a Home Depot for at least 2-3 years before I fell in love with plants and herbs, lol. To be fully into my business I try to dedicate a day or a week every so often into my business to fulfill the dreams I had for it. I feel what sets me aside from others is that I didn’t go all out with custom boxes or bags or reels, I kept everything super simple because I’m so simple. SOUGA♀-
Saving Our Unique Girl Aberrations
I want everyone to know that I put forth the best energy possible into whatever I make for them for it to truly be helpful for their particular need and I plan to keep everything homemade and natural at all costs.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

To me the best source of clients is to promote on social media, I made my website with WIX, so every-time I promote it sends me a notification from what states have went onto my website. From the promotions at least 70% of my orders are out of state, which I love that it can truly help me be known way more.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

My journey with multiple sclerosis could of honestly pushed me into giving up on everything I put forth into wanting this business, and honestly I won’t lie, it almost did. But having this disease has also pushed me to be the best version of me within myself as a person, a mom, and a business owner. One of the main things MS does is affect you mood, now I make sure to find a way to turn every negative into a positive thought to truly move forward on the daily. I’m a warrior that will never give up despite the challenges that come my way out the blue.

Contact Info:

• Website: addsomesouga.com
• Instagram: @addsomesouga
• Facebook: @addsomesouga