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

Vadra, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

First, as an entrepreneur, I feel like I should start by defining what success looks like to me.

I define success as the accomplishment of self-set goals. Those milestones you set for yourself that measures your individual or business growth. Success is different for every person and does not align with the amount of money earned or popularity.

With that in mind, what I believe it takes to be successful, is the ability to see your strengths separate from what the world tells you your strengths should be in a certain field. The road to success includes the lack of fear of failure, instead the welcoming of experiences and lessons. One must be willing to try and try again, despite the hard days. But most importantly, the path to success involves being able to appreciate small wins and changing your view on unobtained goals.

Vadra, 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?

Building businesses for others was never my expected outcome. Up until the birth of my daughter in August of 2020, I was excelling as a Corrections Officer at my local County Jail. Only months away from being able to be promoted to Sergeant, I decided I no longer wanted the long over night shifts away from my growing family and after 7 years, I walked away from what I thought would have been my career that led me through retirement.

While out on maternity leave, I took a leap into something I’d been considering for years and opened an online women’s boutique. The process to launch was long and learning included a lot of stumbling and unforeseen obstacles. One of the biggest was finding someone to create my ecommerce store at a price that I could afford. I was quickly hit with the realization that my budget was literally $0, and so I resorted to learning how to create the website myself.

Creating my own website took months! I literally worked on it from sun up to sun down. I played with different designs, different site hosts, different colors until I eventually found my groove and created a website that I felt comfortable in releasing. The day of my launch, I noticed several flaws and imperfections and quickly found myself revising my newly designed website that I’d worked so hard on completing. Though the face of my site was appealing and I was gaining many acknowledgments and applause from those around me, I continued to find something else that needed improving. Sometimes it was something as simple as a word being off centered on the main screen, and other times, it was something more serious like customers weren’t able to navigate to the purchase page as seamless as I would have liked. More often than not, I was finding something wrong. and though I grew irritated, I never quit trying. Until finally I had my website to my level of perfection and my boutique was doing very well.

Yet and still, I’d grown to miss the journey and time spent designing the website.

I started promoting my services as a site designer more than I was promoting my boutique. I was completing others websites for extremely low costs and learning something new and different every time. I began to crave the challenge. My best friend, The Late Troy Kyles, encouraged me to invest in learning more. He enrolled me in different online classes where I learned tips and tricks about designs and the details of coding. I consumed so much information in a span of six months while simultaneously putting my new knowledge to the test for people gracious enough to allow me the chance to create their website for them.

While still ordering inventory for my boutique and fulfilling orders, I began to get annoyed by any distractions that took me away from creating. Designing had become therapeutic and the satisfaction of my customers was motivation. The joy my clients had after seeing something that I’d created became a feeling that I wanted more and more.

Providing websites for over two years as well as maintaining a very successful online boutique, I have been able to share my knowledge with other business owners and those aspiring to be, and incorporate tools into their service that help them to achieve their level of desired success.

Now, offering branding consultations that helps to maintain a consistent and trusting image for my client’s company as well as virtual marketing guidance to reach the company’s largest group of their target audience, I’ve been able to expend my website design services into a business helping businesses.

With everything that I do, I am most proud of the feedback. I’ve had clients cry in happiness and expel a sigh of relief when presented with their finished website. I am proud of being able to stay relatable and patient. To continue to humbly learn as I grow and teach others in a way they can understand. I take pride in my clients feeling comfortable enough to reach out to me and ask me questions about their website or their business, no matter how simple they may feel their question may be. It means the most to me that I remain their go-to person on their business representation and its growth.

And honestly, it makes me smile the most when a client trusts me with their vision. I am simply provided an idea and I am trusted to bring that idea to life. And those same clients embrace me creation and share it with pride. I am allowed to create a company’s “facecard”, meaning when the customers of my clients think of my client’s business, they immediately associate their business with something that I created. My designs have been admired by people I never knew possible and I’ve had the privilege of watching something that I created hoisted upon billboards, displayed on television screens and shared by larger names.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

There is a particular goal that drives me. The goal is to never stop learning and growing. When I grew the most frustrated with designs and wasn’t sure of the direction of my business, my best friend, Troy, gave me the confidence to keep going. He saw my vision when I didn’t even see it. He enrolled me in so many different courses and his only request was for me to see it through. Troy Passed away in December of 2021 and I immediately wanted to stop. However, I have made it my mission to see this journey completely through. To help as many people that would allow me to and continue to excel in my strength.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

The entire website designer, marketing strategist was a huge pivot. I was a Corrections Officer with the desire to open an online boutique and after doing them both successfully, neither has given me the satisfaction that I receive from doing what I now do for others.

I still pushed my boutique while working as a site designer, however my boutique began to acquire less and less of my attention. I started pushing things off like, “I’ll get to it later” when it was things that actually needed my immediate attention, yet I couldn’t pull myself away from designing. Having that honest conversation about stopping my boutique with myself was the hardest, but I had to admit, it didn’t prove to be my passion. I learned that you can indeed find your purpose, your strength, your passion while on a completely different journey all together.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ShaeBougieBusiness.com
• Instagram: ShaeBougieBusiness
• Facebook: ShaeBougieBusiness
• Yelp: Shae Bougie Business