We were lucky to catch up with Nicole Smith recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Nicole thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So, let’s imagine that you were advising someone who wanted to start something similar to you and they asked you what you would do differently in the startup-process knowing what you know now. How would you respond?

If I was to start over. I would do everything completely different I would have did more research to figure out what my plan was. When I started my company It was honestly a group of friends that liked to go out and party so I figured let’s make money while doing it and also create safe spaces for people to enjoy themselves without worrying about anything. Been doing party planning event throwing for 4 years and we never had a problem. So while still doing the parties I starting learning how to make merchandise so I starting making t shirts crated a brand for my son 2 ♾️ and beyond and glg kidz for all the kids of everyone in glg ent. All while I have been hand painting clothing ,shoes, purses, bodies. I would learn more about business credit and how to get grants how to write a business statement all things I was blind to. Make sure I had all things I needed to run a successful business. But I’m still learning and it will get better over time

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 back background and context?

Well let’s start with my name is Nicole every calls me nic or da don. I started off with hand painting clothes and shoes started that in 2009 I was known as Kustomzbynic in 2018 my son was born and I knew I had to do something else so I linked up with a group of friends it was about 6 of us and we all like to go out have fun so after awhile I figure let’s make some money while going out and having fun so I started the company green light gang entertainment in 2019 we started off as strictly a entertainment company we had events all over the city of Pittsburgh for about 3 years than Covid hit so I decided to start making custom clothing , t shirts , cups, hats still doing that til this day! So basically I’m just a one stop shop

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

A time when I had to pivot in my business was when Covid hit. I had already been throwing events for 3 years prior to Covid. So once Covid hit I had to change my lane I had to try something totally different that’s when I started to make custom clothes which I feel just gave me time to learn another talent

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

How I met the co founder and business partners we all met at a local bar we would go every Friday and Saturday to the events they would have after about a month we all linked and created a bond which became glg green light gang cause we all listened to rod wave lol

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Greenlightgangthamovement
• Facebook: Nicsmith and greenlightgangent

Image Credits
42bugshots -ladybug Baby Egypt photography -Egypt Originally sauced up photography -ace