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

Rakeeda, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

Becoming a full time business owner with no money and not a lot of inventory. Had just bought my house not that long ago and had just gotten a brand new car. I had to take a big risk on making that decision especially since I had a previously been on a leave of absence from working in corporate America and was robbed at gunpoint while at work and was terminated while on the leave of absence. I didn’t have anything but my faith and God allowed blessings to come into my life and I was about to navigate through being a full time business owner for almost 4 years strong now.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I always knew I wanted to work for myself and give back to the community but at the time in the past I had no idea what I would become. While being on maternity leave I decided to make my own candles because I was making more money on leave then working full time so I had a little extra income to invest in myself. When I went back to work though I began to sell the candles that had I made and decided to create my business. While in the process of doing my candles , faith would have it that my kids developed eczema and I needed to create something that would treat it and also heal it in faster time and from that situation I become known as having some the best skincare products ever created

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I love to get feedback from my customers and their experience using my products. One particular time I decided to make a new scented shea butter and I didn’t realize I was going to go viral. I had a couple that had bought the new scented shea and completely LOVED IT. They came back to my store location to purchase another one and to GIVE ME THAT FEEDBACK. They allowed me to record their feedback and post it and to my surprise IT WENT VIRAL. What I wasn’t expecting was for my online store sales to skyrocket and I learned a valuable lesson because I was not prepared for that blessing. I had people inboxing me saying they couldn’t find it on my website and of course they couldn’t because it was new and only sold in person and not online but because of that experience I had to hurry and add it to my website which I later on learned I had lost so many potential customers because of my lack of understanding the influence of social media and how I should have had a positive insight on my own creations that God allowed me to create

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

My determination shows my resilience. I REFUSE to give in and give up. I’ve had to switch multiple locations to sell my products and even though it was a time when I didn’t have a home ready for my products to be sold in, I would go to night clubs and setup my products and continued to sell to my customers until God made a way for me to locate a new location that gave me less worries and more freedom to do other things

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.honidipmerch.com
• Instagram: Honidip_merch Honidip89
• Facebook: Honidip Candles

Image Credits
Honidip89 Rakeeda (Honi) Austin WHOSTUNTMAN