We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tayuania Lee a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Tayuania , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you tell us a story about a time you failed?
2021 everything was going great and then i got hit with vertigo, if you don’t know its when your equilibrium is off so it makes you dizzy, can make you extremely sick and unable to operate no driving or anything it’s miserable ! So at that time i had signed a lease to my new salon because i do have 2 businesses mink lee which is my brow business and then lee K’mor which is my luxury clothing brand. So i was starting the renovation on ghat pretty much halfway done and then the vertigo hit me extremely hard ! I was in and out of the hospital, could barely work so i lost money, had no strength or will to finish my salon which onset some bad anxiety so i was in and out of the hospital for that as well. This resulted in me deciding against opening the salon. So i shut it down weeks before my openings which was such a bummer for me. That was a huge accomplishment for me and i was beyond ready ! But you know they say everything happens for a reason because that was around the time I started my other brand which took off fast ! But that still weighs on my mind today because i know it would have been AMAZING ! But i plan to bring that to life again one day but better ! I know it wasn’t meant to be because better is waiting for me !
Tayuania , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
So my name is Tayuania, tay for short. I’m 26 years old from Baltimore, MD. I have 2 brands lee K’mor which is my luxury clothing brand and mink lee which is my brow business. I started this journey in 2018, I always knew i wanted to be an entrepreneur i had dreams of going to school for fashion designing in California but i ended up getting pregnant in 2016 so of course things took a short turn. By 2018 i had decided to start doing makeup and that did pretty well, i so happen to see an ad on Instagram about permanent makeup for brows which is a brow tattoo. I took a leap of faith and took the class, and the class ended up not really working out in my favor i didn’t really learn much so i had to go home and literally figure out this field on my own because i didn’t have the money to do another training. I started doing brows in my moms basement on all my friends and family that would let me practice on them. I stayed consistent with brows and makeup for a while and then by the 6th month of doing brows i was in my first salon suite . My clientele had grew tremendously! After a year or so about 2020 when covid hit i was so nervous because everything was closing but that actually was my breaking point ! I made 6 figures that year from not only doing brows but teaching others to do brows. I traveled to newyork, ATL, Houston, Miami to train other people ! I had clients that would drive hours to get to me, even planes ! 2021 is when i got the idea for Lee K’mor. I started and was selling tshirts, dresses and sweatsuits. Because of my already growing following i actually did pretty ok starting out. I knew i wanted my brand to be luxury so I decided to get my first handbag made which was a small crossbody bag, then i got my first sample for the meleni Tote which was this bright orange it was eye catching ! I fell in love ! So i decided to post pictures with and the picture went VIRAL ! I had so many people asking about the bag so i decided to do a preorder. The preorder Made me $10,000 so i went ahead and dropped that along with 3 other colors blue, brown and black. From there i have done multiple magazine articles, i was on fox 45 news for the business spotlight, and more ! Then i decided to drop the smaller version of that same tote and even added a new color which was red, people loved it !!! October of 2022 i jumped out on faith again and decided to do a fashion show . I planned this show, i paid for everything for this show and i showcased alone so this was strictly lee K’mors show ! I had 100 people show up, i had 7 vendors who made great money that night ! It was an amazing experience! And to think i only expected 10 people to show up. From there i just have been focusing on growing and expanding ! I’ve sold over 700 bags. And now i get to experience even seeing my bags out in public now which is amazing !!! That is my story that is still being written !
Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.
So my handbags are manufactured. I knew nothing about manufacturing when i started when i tell you that GOOGLE is really your best friend ! Sometimes alot of the information we are looking for is right in our faces you just have to have the will and patience to do research ! I did so much research on manufacturing bags and finding vendors. Finding the right vendor comes down to investing you have to be willing to invest in sampling with these manufacturers . In my case i got pretty lucky. I’ve only had one company who’s product didn’t meet my expectations but the second company which is who does my meleni totes they are amazing !!!!! Also reviews lol i did some extensive research on the company as well and everything checked out ! What i will say about manufacturing is that is can be an extremely stressful process especially with handbags, first the process can be pretty long, it can be very expensive especially for quality products about a few months for production and shipping . then you risk your product being lost in transit because I’ve had that happen. Imagine 10 boxes just being lost it was devastating!!! You really have to have patience with this journey. But it’s well worth it !!
What’s been the best source of new clients for you?
My best source is social media ! We live in a world literally revolved around social media and that is one of the number one places to market ! So many people find me through their explore page, seeing someone else with the bag on social media or through ads. I always recommend trying to expand your brand on social media
Contact Info:
- Website: Www.leekmor.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/leekmor?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100075661668861&mibextid=LQQJ4d