Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Norah Shazad. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Norah thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We love asking folks what they would do differently if they were starting today – how they would speed up the process, etc. We’d love to hear how you would set everything up if you were to start from step 1 today

If I was starting over, I would definitely give myself more confidence and motivation from the beginning. I started this entire process of my clothing brand and poetry two years ago, but felt like I was not good enough at it so I had stopped. It wasn’t until I came to college and found one of my good friends that pushed me a bit further and along with my family, really helped me become who I am today. I wish that I really did not doubt myself and kept going because I am pretty sure I would be way more successful than I am now.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I am a poet, author, and an entrepreneur. When I was 12 years old, my father passed away and everything that I do today is through his legacy and support from my loved ones, to make them proud. I started writing poetry at the age of 14, and published two poetry books. I published Scarlet Rose & Growth in April 2020 and Caged Thorns was published in February 2021. These two books are about the process of grieving and coping with traumatic events, while growing into being your best, true self. In November 2021, I felt a spark to actually continue the passion for my clothing brand that I had left off in 2019, and I created Azure Co. This is a clothing brand that portrays the concept of my books, into a clothing art form. Azure, meaning “blue butterfly,” is the epitome of the rose theme carried on from both of the books, Scarlet Rose & Growth and Caged Thorns. It is a conjoint theme of the rose blooming from the cage of its thorns, and in presence, blossoming into becoming a beautiful, blue, butterfly. I believe that the big range that I have with my art certainly sets me apart from others because who do you know has both a clothing brand and is multi-published? I am most proud of work ethic honestly, being a college student is not easy in general, but being a college student balancing her poetic life as well as a clothing brand makes it a bit harder, but honestly nothing that I can’t handle. Though this journey has been long and definitely had multiple obstacles, I am certainly not where I want to be in life and will continue to push through every single day until I become my version of successful.

How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.

I have my own website through Shopify, and I 100% believe that this is the best thing to do when creating a business with tangible items such as retail. Shopify makes it very easy as a business owner to track analytics, providing marketing tactics, and channeling inventory. I believe this is an upgrade from Amazon, because as someone who used to have just her books being sold through Amazon, I barely got profit and was not really able to handle my own business the way that I wanted. Creating my own site and adding everything on there is not easy, but who said being a business owner was going to be easy? Now, just like every other ecommerce site, there are cons. The price is pretty expensive, but in my opinion, the price is worth it for everything that comes with Shopify, and in the long run, you are benefiting from it more than you are losing.

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

2 years ago when I was starting my “first” clothing brand, I used to literally get blank tees and some colored film from Walmart, and iron my designs onto the t-shirt. This is how I got started. Definitely have come a long way because now I get my products manufactured/screen-printed through a couple of different vendors. I remember doing a lot of research on different clothing vendors in the DFW area and looking through their ratings while also getting recommendations from my friends that have their own clothing brands. I have a couple of different vendors because, personally, I feel like one vendor cannot do everything that I want them to do given the short time frame, especially when I drop a couple of different products on my site at once. Some are also more specialized in doing embroidery, whereas others might be better for screen-printing. Some might specialize in doing puff letters, or others might not specialize in specific typography. Throughout this entire process, I have learned that being the most clear as you can be on the design you are trying to replicate is very important, so you get exactly what you want. Also, give yourself a good heads up that sometimes there might be delays, and always have a back-up plan. When I dropped my first batch of crewnecks, I had a 3 month delay due to covid and was not prepared one bit, and it was devastating especially being the one having to communicate that with the customers, knowing that I had just started my brand too. Always have a back-up plan, things do not go the way that you expect them to, so again, always have a back-up plan.

Contact Info:

• Website: norahshazad.com
• Instagram: @azure_clo
• Twitter: @azure_clo
• Other: Tiktok: @azure_clo