We were lucky to catch up with Nija Spencer recently and have shared our conversation below.

Nija , appreciate you joining us today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

What I think it takes to be successful is to have ambition and drive. When you have a dream or passion that you are truly passionate about you’ll do any and everything to make that dream come true. For example, I’ve gone through a lot as an undergrad college student. From going off to college fresh out of high school, leaving because my mom got into a bad accident, enrolling into community college, and then going back to university. I’m only 24 years old and I feel like I’ve started my life over 4-5 times already. No matter how hard it’s been I’ve never given up. I kept going despite the odds against me. I never lost sight of my dream of obtaining my degree. I’ve driven myself through the obstacles that stood in my way. My ambition for school never died and I used that ambition as ammunition to keep me in school no matter how long it’ll take me

Nija , 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?

I’m Nija but the internet knows me as Nyethebrat. I am a 24 year old college student attending Rowan University studying Psychology with a minor in Medical Social Science. I’m an entrepreneur, Youtuber and Tik Toker. My entrepreneur journey began 3 years ago. I decided to go into business myself. I honestly had no clue as to what I was doing but Youtube was my best friend. I was miserable in community college tired of working 9-5 jobs. I also wanted to enhance my own beauty without paying thousands of dollars. My friend at the time always wore lashes and they looked so cute on her and that’s when I decided to start my lash brand Brat’s Way. Brat’s Way is a lash brand for all my bad b’s okay. We sell 25mm mink lashes and plan on branching into cosmetics and I’m so excited for this transition. I think what sets my brand apart from others is how loud and raunchy it is. My brand speaks to the young adult women and influencer girlies of this generation. As I started my business I started my Youtube channel. One of my videos got over 27,000 views and I was able to monetize my channel a year after I made it. I then went viral on Tik Tok a year after that for exposing my toxic family and now I have 394,000 besties/cousins that follow me. Knowing that I’m not alone or that I wasn’t the only one going through what I was going through and that 394,000 people could relate to me is still mind-blowing to me. I love the community I built and they’re always ten toes behind me supporting any and everything that I do. If it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t have been able to start my influencer career. I’ve worked with over +200 brands within the past few years and I’m forever grateful. I want my community and supporters to know that every platform and business venture they see me partake in, I do it all out of love and passion. I’m passionate about any and everything I attach my name to and I feel like they can feel that. I never thought entrepreneurship would be for me. I thought it was too expensive to run a business and you needed a degree or something. I was in such a bad space mentally and emotionally when I started my business but I started it. I didn’t know how far it’d take me or where I’d go but I knew that I was going to go somewhere and that was more than enough for me

How did you build your audience on social media?

I built my audience on social media by being myself unapologetically. I used to always wonder when I was younger if I ever did have a big platform how would I obtain such a big audience? Authenticity is the key. When I exposed my toxic living situation on Tik Tok I genuinely didn’t think anything would come from it. I was exposing my truth because I had been in pain for so long. I took my pain and helped others identify their pain because a lot of people like me had no clue that what they were enduring behind closed doors wasn’t normal. I ended up pivoting my content to beauty and wellness eventually but I built my audience by showing up and being myself. The me you get on social media is the me you’ll get if you meet me in real life. People thrive off of authenticity and can tell when your being fake. My advice to those starting to build a social media presence don’t worry about the numbers. The audience your seeking out will find you I promise. Consistently show up as YOU and your presence will build. Also, as you start building your audience create a community. Connect with your audience. You don’t want to have a huge audience and you never talk to them, get to know them etc. Interact with them. Your audience is the reason you are who you are

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

I don’t personally manufacture my products (yet) but I have full creative control of every design that I put out and create. Back when I started my business three years ago entrepreneurship was very popular. You had “How to start a lipgloss business with $500, I started my lash brand with $100, $2000 Inventory Hauls”. Whenever I saw videos like this I was quick to click on them because I wanna know the tea and secrets too. I had people like Ky Lashaii & Jassy Leno to look up too specifically when I started my lash businesses. Alibaba is the manufacturer that I get my products from and I personally sought out my vendors on the app communicating with them through Alibaba and Whatsapp. I found the right vendor by testing out multiple vendors. When finding the right vendor for your business it’s all about trial and error. What I did to find my perfect vendor was search for the type of lashes I wanted to sell and of course the vendors would pop up. I’d do my due diligence and read their reviews, look over their catalogs and send them a message about wanting to purchase lashes from them. I’d always sample 5-10 pairs of lashes from a vendor’s catalog because to me that is the perfect amount to test out. Once I’d purchase the lashes I’d wear them for as many times as the vendors said they could be worn whether it was 20 times or 30 times just to see if that quality is up to par. If it was then that was my vendor. What I learned about outsourcing a vendor since I haven’t manufactured my own products yet is that you have to know what your talking about when you speak to these vendors. They will try to get over on you and overcharge you if you communicate with them like you don’t know what your talking about. Make sure you know what it is that your looking for and ask 1,000 questions. You have a right to ask as many questions as you want when your about to potentially put money in somebody else’s pockets

Contact Info:

• Website: www.tiktok.com/@nyethebrat
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/nyethebrat?igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA==
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@NYETHEBRAT
• Other: https://beacons.ai/nyethebrat