Today I am chatting with Chana Ginelle Ewing.Chana is cultural entrepreneur, marketer, and author working across film, books, retail and tech. She is the author of the bestselling book, An ABC of Equality (with illustration by Paulina Morgan; published by Quarto, 2019), introducing identity and social justice concepts to children. She believes that identity is a lever to pull to unlock human potential. And entrepreneurship is an opportunity to make dents that move culture forward. She’s currently pivoting GEENIE to maximize value for diverse consumers and small business owners.
This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. This series is a platform for women, female-identified, & non-binary individuals to share their professional stories and personal narrative as it relates to their story. This podcast is designed to hold a space for all individuals to learn from their counterparts regardless of age, status, or industry.
TRANSCRIPTION
*Please note this is an automated transcription, please excuse any typos or errors
[00:00:40] Hi, my name is Patricia Kathleen, and this podcast series contains interviews I conduct with women. Female identified and non binary individuals regarding their professional stories and personal narrative. This podcast is designed to hold a space for all individuals to learn from their counterparts regardless of age status. For industry, we aim to contribute to the evolving global dialog surrounding underrepresented figures in all industries across the USA and abroad. If you're enjoying this podcast, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as Vegan life, fasting and roundtable topics. They can be found via our Web site. Patricia Kathleen dot COM, where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pod Bean and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation.
[00:01:38] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I am your host, Patricia. Today I am sitting down with Chana, Ginelle Ewing. She is a founder, entrepreneur and author. You can find out more on her website. Chana Ewing dot com. That is C h a n a e w i n g dot com. Welcome, Chana.
[00:01:57] Thank you for having me, Patricia.
[00:01:59] Absolutely. I'm excited to unpack everything that you do. I know you've got a like of several different areas that you work within. And I also look forward to unpacking your book, which was a very unexpected surprise when I was doing research on you for everyone listening. A quick roadmap of today's podcast. I will read a quick bio on Chana. But before I do that, we will first look at unpacking and looking at her academic history, as well as early professional career that brought her to where she is now. And then we will look at unpacking her different endeavors, namely Chana's book an ABC of equality. Then we will look at her company titled Gini. And the interesting pivoting point that is at now and then, we will also look towards another endeavor that I will have her explain and enumerate on called Little Big Girl and Company, which is based out of New York City. Then we'll turn our efforts towards looking at goals that China has for all of her endeavors, as well as personally for the next one to three years. This is an area that has been changing for every business owner globally. We'll wrap everything up with advice that China may have for those of you who are looking to get involved in some of her endeavors or perhaps emulate some of her amazing success. A quick bio on Chana. Before I start peppering her with questions. Chana Ginelle Ewing is cultural entrepreneur, marketer and author, working across films, books, retail and tech. She is the author of the bestselling book an ABC of Equality with illustrations by Pollina Morgan, published by Quarto in 2019, introducing identity and social justice concepts to children. She believes that identity is a lever to pull to unlock human potential and entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is an opportunity to make dents that move culture forward. She's currently pivoting GENI to maximize value for diverse cust consumers and small business owners. I kind of dropped that a little a little bait for everyone to listen in the beginning because I love companies that are in transition and pivoting moments.
[00:04:02] I think it's so fun and I want to go into that.
[00:04:05] But before we get there, I'm hoping you can draw just a quick description of your academic background and early professional life that brought you to the launching of Little Big Girl and Jenie and writing your book. Yeah. So I'm going to start earlier in my academic background because I think the sort of weaves together nicely around like my professional interests over the letter. It has since graduated anthologies over the last 50 or so. But very early in life, like I think third or fourth grade, I've learned about this word called screenwriters likes screenwriting without my mother, like, you know, who are the people? And I don't know what how well, what was it or the people writing the movies, you know, like I was whatever reason. I realized that I was watching something that was constructive and that fascinated me. And I wanted to figure out how I could become a screenwriter. So that was kind of like from being a very young child in elementary school.
[00:05:13] I got just. Got onto that cap of like, you want to create content, you know, like that was my goal. And so that was sort of the driving force throughout, like, you know, middle school and high school and then eventually college, where I majored in African-American studies and media studies at the University of Virginia. So and then, you know, while I was at you, B.A., it was like really like a focus on developing my storytelling craft. And I thought that I was going to become a director of a writer director.
[00:05:56] And that was that was going to be my professional career. And so the other pieces that I knew that I wanted to live in New York, because if you want to, you know, want to work in the film and television industry, it's like either two spaces, New York or L.A.. And I just knew that I was a New York girl. You know, Slainte L.A. was not going to be for me. I'm from the East Coast. I'm from Boston. I love big cities. I love being in a city. So, you know, New York is going to be west, establish my career. So I came to New York on about two thousand five. And this is before. And the reason why this is important, because I think the today's landscape around filmmaking is a lot different. Bulik, right. Right. Then it was still more the traditional filmmaking trajectory, like where you would be become a P.A. and then, you know, work your way up that, you know, pick a production supervisor or manager, you know, like you kind of work up the production track, like professionally and then somehow figure out how to create your, you know, become a director or a writer on the side because it wasn't a real, like, clear professional through line for writing directing where you could get paid for it. Right. It's always like prete Kickstarter and priede like. Yeah, indigo go and pre like like let's let's do it yourself. You know, it was right when that when, where people were still figuring how do they you know, if you weren't independently wealthy and you didn't have huge connections. Like how does a 20 something year old, you know, make our first film. And so without going to school. So I did a lot of that. That production work in New York realized very quickly that I did not like being a producer.
[00:07:47] And like at all, like I described no desire for work.
[00:07:53] And then also, like, coincidently like as I was doing the, like, full time job piece. So, you know, you could do production work over the weekend. And then I had a full time job. And one of the last full time jobs there has was at McKinsey and Co., which is the largest global management consulting firm in the world. Let me even though I went to UBS. Like I was a creative at heart. I didn't know anything about McKinsey until I got there, like what a big deal was to be there. Right. And I was an executive assistant and their media entertainment practice. So it was like, just by coincidence, I'm in the media entertainment practice. I want to be a media entertainment, but I want to be in media and saying it from the creative end. But I'm in the I'm now working for folks who are thinking about the business. Right. And they're thinking large clients like Viacom and Disney. And you're thinking about, you know, media and entertainment from a global perspective. And I'm serving the partners who are doing this work. So I'm going to look fantastic. Lives on like what the industry that I want to be in. But as a creator. And so I'm like, this is really like this is really interesting. And another thing that was interesting to me was that, like the partners maybe a few years older than me, you know, like they were like, you know, my eight needs. You know, I was like, OK, this is interesting. These talks are like, you know, using their brains. You've met creativity. And so with this man's results, there is some creativity there. And, you know, they're they're basically getting paid to use their minds. And I thought that that was like who had not even he didn't even know that was even a possibility as a career, you know? So when the like, recession happened in 2009, he got laid off. And I always tell people this is really interesting because we're in the middle of another recession right now. Like laid off. And I mean, this is this is a very privileged perspective to have. But being laid off was a game changer for me because things happened as a result of me being laid off. I got a severance package, severance package. I was I had unemployment. So for the first time in my life, I had a little. Money that I didn't necessarily have to like Ryan for, you know. So that meant that I had some space to think about what it is I want to do. Right. And so that. So that's what I'm usually like with you. You grew up working class. You grew up without, like, you know, someone being able to just, like, pay for you to explore. You know, it was like that was my moment to actually explore what are my true interests. And so in that year, after being laid off, I spent it really learning about entrepreneurship, learning about basaltic, because I had got like that entrepreneurial, even those in a company, you know, the way that that company is shaped. It's like, you know, there's a small teams that are going out and supporting other businesses. So I was like I was like that that was bit by that. Like, I got that book. It was like, OK. What is it that I know that I could serve other people with? And what I know really well is storytelling. And so I that's where I decided to develop Little Big Girl. And it was like our first initial piece was we were going to use the hero's journey like this, really simple. We were going to utilize the hero's journey to help small businesses tell their stories online. And that was it. Like, you know, we were this was like 2009, 2010. Everyone felt like I need to be on social media. How do I being social. Yeah. All right. Well, you can create a narrative around your business and connect with your consumers using the hero's journey as a as a kind of for the day.
[00:11:57] Let me grab you really quickly right there just to get some logistics out of the way for our nerdy listeners. So 2009, 2010, a little big girl launches.
[00:12:06] Were you the sole founder? Did you get any funding or did you bootstrap with that severance package? And and who were some of your first clients?
[00:12:17] Yes. So much of no funding. It was a services company. I think, you know, I don't think it does not a lot of like a funny resources for a service based company. Right. But I bootstrap with the money that I that I had from my severance and a portal to get out of my for one care. Pretty good. Hey, I was like, I don't know, late 20s at the time. Feels like, oh, I don't make up for this at some point, you know, like of like, you know, just thinking about like how I can get going. You know. Yeah. And I your first client.
[00:12:56] It was the was this entrepreneurial program that I was in. So I was in this program called Ladies Who Lunch. And I don't know they're familiar with them, but they are. I don't know. They're as active anymore. But essentially they were at that time, there was like a global organization that taught women how to become entrepreneurs. And they had like this membership community online. And so we like seeing the opportunity. I was like, well, you all have this great community. The social media doesn't seem to be as tight between the online community, the offline events and those social media handles like, you know, would you what would you be open to me? You know, coming you guys coming on board as like your digital marketing strategist? You know, these guys would be my first client. I'll give you a huge discount in order to come on and come on board as my first client. And they said, yes, they went for it. And I mean, the insight is that like which I feel like I don't take a lot of credit for it now, but like, I maybe I kind of knew it organically. But that was a really good move, because starting with a organization that has a bunch of other entrepreneurs that they serve meant that that was an embedded customer pipeline. Right. So if I did a good job with the organization, obviously they would recommend me to go with an entrepreneurs that would are attending their programs. And that's actually what happened.
[00:14:38] A lot of my first clients were women that were coming out of that program. It's genius. I mean, and it's it's built in. It's baked in right there, you know, and to be able to turn on it and pitch them and then have that index of clients that are already coming through.
[00:14:54] You know, and I'm not intimately I have heard about ladies who launch from previous times. I'm not sure what the current statute looks like, but it was almost the earliest forms of like the current day. I want to say, like accelerators and incubator programs, you know, where they kind of draw you through these this these techniques. But it was more of an earlier format, as I understand it, from. But your take on it and your approach to just re pitching it is just it's so astronomically powerful and also to catch people in their infancy, there's something about people that grab companies while they're young. It's a dynamic space. There's usually more room for creativity because they haven't locked into certain things. And also seeing that growth, those, you know, those lifetime colleagues and customers and things of that nature, it's it's one of the most rare forms, you know, to kind of bump into your company. And I love it. I love that you started there. You didn't tell us why yet. I'm going to ask you a little big girl. Tap the name.
[00:15:52] Where? That company. Yeah. So, I mean, I guess, like, I have this picture. I don't know. We got to eat bitches. Look at the logo. But that picture is like the logo is a picture of like the top of my head and like I'll throw but it's my baby picture of me actually that's illustrated. And the picture is like it was taken on my kindergarten graduation day. And I like sitting there with my hands on my head. And for whatever reason, it just made me whenever I look at that picture, it makes me feel strong in line. It makes me feel like, hey, you already know what you're doing, because when you're an entrepreneur, you're always second guessing yourself.
[00:16:36] And so, you know, having the like North Star of my business baked in to the title like that, you know, this I'm this little person, like this little business, this little person, you know.
[00:16:50] But I'm big. I'm a girl. And like, this is it. It was like it enabled me to like Bill to feel playful about the work and to also, like feel like I could do it, you know. So it was really just like a it was a nod to my own inner child and like in given her permission to do the work that I was doing.
[00:17:14] That's awesome. And it's a constant reminder. You know, you have the logo. I do like it. I like your art. Which is rare because I've been around way too long. And I do like I like the art. I like the name. It verges. It's like it's it's right on that line of like I'm going to love it or hate it.
[00:17:30] And I love it. It's like the dividing line, which is brave. Right off the bat, which I am.
[00:17:37] And I'm wondering. So the growth.
[00:17:39] Can you speak just kind of generally to the bro with the growth of a little bit girl from its soft launch from 2009, 2010 until now or right in 2020, pre covered 19 pandemic. Let's take that chunk.
[00:17:52] Yeah. So it's always been a fairly small business. I mean, I think we've never had over like five or six kinds at a time. You know, what we've done is like we we do projects. So residents like one of our recent projects were like around Afro punk when they launch their podcasts. So we will do a rollout like that or will be with a film from it's like festival premiere too. It's even Oscar can't be. So that could be like an 18 month window that a will on a project. And we also had some theaters like where we're worked with with a nonprofit like the Andrew Goodman Foundation. We work with them for a number of years around how their messaging to millennials and building internal capacity and programs within that organization that directly targeted millennial audiences. So it really, because of the nature of the work, you know, we we can be sustained by like several kind of ongoing contracts. And then, you know, some spurts, like some splits with projects that have a defined beginning and end. I would say. I mean, people use this word pejoratively, but I think, you know, it's.
[00:19:17] It's been like a lifestyle business, if you will, like, it hasn't been like on a huge growth trajectory or anything like that, but it's enabled me to sustain my my life and then it's enabled us to have folks, contractors and other folks who work with us. So that's nice.
[00:19:34] Yeah. It sounds like you can you can grow and shrink to clients needs with, like you mentioned, contractors and things of that nature. What would you say? The bulk of a large part of what you do for the majority of your clients is with the branding and the marketing and such a massive field. Are you handling social media campaigns? Are you developing imagery? Like what areas do you find yourself working most in?
[00:19:55] Sure. So the bulk of our work is actually around marketing. And what we're doing here. We're doing Web sites. We're joined on social media campaigns with jewelry, social media management.
[00:20:08] We also do an influence on marketing. We're just thinking about what typically will work in collaboration with an impact producer who is thinking about how to get that film out to different partners. And we're thinking about a while they're thinking about how to like how that film is a gauge in partners and communities and building community. We're thinking about how the how the film is engaging general audiences. What's the messaging or general audience?
[00:20:41] How do we target them on social? What sort of revenge should we do? Or the different influences that we should bring to the table? You know, what might we do with your partners? That could be a little bit more like audience specific and like talking about the film itself. So just really shaping the film or consumer already hoping to shape the film. What consumer audience in partnership with Impact Producers and Impress? Yeah, there's a lot of moving parts there. It's got to be really customizable, right? Depends on the project as to which area you push harder on to understand the film.
[00:21:19] I want to pivot right here since we're talking about, you know, film and cultural changes really quickly and talk about your book, which at first at first blush, when I went to buy it and look at it, I thought it was gonna be an adult book. I just didn't have any reference or anything else because the name for me, knowing that you were an entrepreneur and this founder, I had assumed it was almost going to be this How to Woman's Guide. I don't know, something like that. And so I was shocked to find a children's board book. And and I love it because I think it's so necessary and it's just beginning. What I see to be a new wave of children's books coming out, and I don't think we can get enough to them. And because it's not that long, I'm going to ask you to kind of walk us through. But it's called an ABC of equality. And it starts out with very it's very, very friendly, appropriate across all. Even the youngest children's ages. And it goes through the ABC and it starts to assign a value to each letter, a word value. And then it kind of enumerates on that. And it brings it into this societal like environment within a paragraph. And then it goes to the next letter.
[00:22:33] Is that correct, like observation of your description? I'm actually quite a description. I love that look. I love the idea. It's like I've never heard anyone describe it quite that way, that it assigns of value to each word and then enumerates and then like and it draws to society like I think is really a perfect description.
[00:22:55] Well, it's genius for me. That's exactly how young brains and audience members who have been listening to me for a couple of years now know I have four children and I knew nothing about educating children.
[00:23:11] But when I started having them, there were no classes taken. But what you learn very quickly is that you have to place things in a value in an environment. You can't just hold something up and say orange and drop it, because the next thing you pick up, they'll be like orange. There's no way you need to kind of describe what you're saying. And that's what this does. It takes very philosophical concepts about, you know, important terms that are difficult citizenship or something like that, you know, where you can kind of like those are deep terms and empathy or those kinds of words. And you have to put them in an environment and really relate them back in. And that's exactly what the book does. It's everything that the exact pedagogical lens, if you will, about teaching children about global citizenship and responsibility and empathy and compassion and diversity and all of these transparency and all of these things that we look at and dida of describing this to a six year old brain. And it really does that beautifully. I think it's so remarkable. And I'm wondering, what was the impetus for that for you? What was the philosophy?
[00:24:12] I'm just I'm truly honored. I just to say I'm truly honored and. That you've really, really got it. I like I'm just like, honestly, I'm like taking a moment that is like really, really gone. And so thank you so much for spending time with it. So to the first thing I like to tell people is that it actually was an opportunity that came to me. So I'm a I'm not a religious person, but I am I have just to give you a sense of like how woo woo I could be I have a Monday sessions that I do right now with a group of friends that it's called Let's Get Metaphysical. Like like how would you like to be meaning that like there's work that you do but there's also you need to leave space for the universe. Leave a leave space for just magic to happen. Right. And the this book was literally one of those open spaces that just dropped in my lap. I literally looked in my own my in my inbox one day in twenty eighteen and there was a note from a publisher that said, hey, are you interested in writing a children's book. And I was like, like, OK. I had to look them up to see if this was real. I actually thought it was what it is like spam emails. And I looked him up. They were real prolific publisher of children's content. So then it became like, well, why me? You know, because, you know, you have to the whole, like, insecurity around like why I didn't write it positioned myself as an author. But actually, I've been calling myself a storyteller my entire life. So it it it makes sense. But I was it because I didn't actually actively pursue it. It felt like. Can I step into this moment? Can I do this? And so they have the idea. They were like, you know, we want to do a children's book about equality and we want to know if you would like. This is something that you'd be interested in. And so we had some conversations. And it was like, yes, I will do this. Like, let's do it. And so in terms of the construction of the book, it is for children. But like, if you can, I think that it's. My idea when writing it was that it was going to be a book that parents were going to read to their children. So for me, I was always thinking about that first audience, which is the parent. You know, I was thinking about not necessarily. It was like, how does a parent think about how to talk about these times in the simplest way possible? And so that is the way I approach the book. And I think about it as a bit of like cultural instigation, cultural intervention, you know, cultural inspiration. You know, like I want parents to look at the book and be like, wow, I can do this. I can think about how I am thinking about belief and race and xenophobia. You know, it's a lot of the words or words that you may not even like.
[00:27:31] But before writing the book, I might have known all these terms just intuitively because as an adult.
[00:27:37] But I didn't know if you had asked me before, like how to quickly describe xenophobia, like I would, you know, like I would have kind of told you this large, you know, big conversational piece, but I wouldn't be able to drill down.
[00:27:53] And so it's like, how do you drill down on the term, on the conversation and then be in conversation with yourself?
[00:28:01] But also do children around these ideas was and that's delivered.
[00:28:05] You know, it's awesome because that's how I received it. And when I when I read it to my child, that was exactly it. And it was such a sigh of relief, because even when you do have those conversations, you know, about my seven year old said, what's the stock market?
[00:28:21] And I was like, oh, my, breaking this down.
[00:28:25] Like, there's so many turns and systems we live under in this society. And even then, the more theoretical, you know, what is what is honesty, what is valiante like, those types of things you go to to find them. And it's very interpersonal and it changes throughout life. And you end up having this dialog with their eyes spinning. And so it's just so nice to see someone that's had that conversation and written down this various distinct narrative about some of those terms, especially the negative ones, you know, and having like a very honest rhetoric without getting too brutal. It's it's tricky. It just is. You know, I'm find much more comfort in those subject matters in higher academia where you can kind of just let it go, you know, and just throw everything at the wall. But with young minds, that is the true annexation, you know, between those concepts in that Terramin honesty and gentility being provided even in the explanation. So I love it. I want to pivot now and look at Geni, and I know it's in a transitional moment for you, and I love that. And so I want you to first describe for everyone what Jenie is the company and when it was launched and what it originally did.
[00:29:34] Yeah. So just another word about the book. Oh, yes. No, look, just because earlier you were like the expectation as an entrepreneur is that you do like a business book. Right. But I've now started to see this book as a foundational text for entry for entering my world, you know, and that like, you know, the way I'm the way I've set up my life, the little the way I have set up the work that I do. And my interests are all around this idea as of like being a cultural adds, cultural instigation and of like difference being something that should be embraced and as a point of connection versus as a point of Dubai. Right. And so I think that book does a good job of kind of laying out the way in which I see, like, that lens that, like identity and difference are literally saves that you as a human being, you should lean into and utilize for your own personal growth.
[00:30:44] And utilize your own personal curiosity, you know, and as a means of connecting with others. It's not something that, you know, we should run away from. It's like we should totally embrace. Expanding our lens are vocabulary around how we describe ourselves. Our vocabulary around how we engage each other. You know, we should totally embrace that. There's enough space for all of us, you know, and that if we create equitable, you know, equal and equitable spaces, that doesn't mean that I lose, but that there's actually a lot of space, you know.
[00:31:25] And so that's you know, I wanted to kind of like clarify that a bit because lots of.
[00:31:30] They love that. They get that take. I wish that was mine. You're like, here's my intro. It's not an entrepreneurial guide. It's a children's book. It's so easy and it ties beautifully.
[00:31:39] And with your logo. Like, it's all a theme about you. This return to identifying as, you know, this strong young child and things like that. I love all of that. The wisdom within children. You've got this this environment going that's very copacetic to itself. You know, I really do love that. I mean, I'm going to say it a ton and a ton.
[00:32:00] I can't wait for people to write. It's going to be the right time for your book. Yeah.
[00:32:05] Unpacking, Jeannie. Yeah. Yep. So aware that you do use a lot with genius. Right.
[00:32:12] So Jeannie is like about the.
[00:32:15] It started off with the idea of the genius and genius, the like magic of black women. That was like, you know, the play on that. Right. And the idea is that, like, you know how to be the original hypothesis was like there are all these like small businesses that exist, like, you know, think about the Etsy business or think about like the e-commerce business. They don't really have that many platforms for sharing their products. Like, what would be how could you do that? I was really interested in that piece. And then the other piece of ground celebrating the stories of black women before. I started doing this thing called Michelle a brunch for fun. We started that, like, literally. That was I think. Yeah. That was 2009. And it was really when Michelle Obama and Kate Lightstone round her inauguration.
[00:33:17] When she got into the white White House right now, I was so excited about her and her new sort of model that was on the public stage.
[00:33:27] You know what a black woman could be like a new black shoe starting a new mythology. Really? And so I developed this brunch series. Just kind of celebrating her. But also, we would have different women like, you know, little Oprah is a little Michelle's, you know, would cure rate the brunches and tell their stories, share their leadership techniques. And we did that in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania did for a number of years, about five or six years. And it was just for fun. Like, literally, we're not even we would never make any money off of it, would we? Would pay to whatever you paid to attend the brunch was what would cover expenses. So we got about like 2014. So while I think five or six years and I was like, you know, could this be something like. Is there clearly you're interested in this, you know, women's entrepreneurship piece like ladies who launch it is just this other narrative that you see strand in your life. Could this be a thing? And I looked at the subscription box model and I was like, well, what if we package that branch? Like, we gave you the inspiration, the product recommendations, the storytelling, and we could ship it to you, you know? And so that's that's the that was the genesis behind Cheaney box. And it's always a subscription box company that we launched in 2016.
[00:34:51] The idea was that we'd have little Oprah's little Michel's in there.
[00:34:55] Everything would have a different woman curate the blogs featuring our favorite products. So we'll do two things. One, you know, increased the visibility of these influential women and their stories and the way to increase the sales capacity of small businesses by diverse, by diverse founders. And so we did that until like our last box shipped just last year. So just about three years.
[00:35:23] I'm not uninterrupted. Mind you, like, there was plenty of challenges in that business, you know, ship monthly, like I would have loved to. It was, again, another self-funded endeavor. I was using the money from Little Big Girl to support Cheaney box. And, you know, we we didn't really go out for funding until last year because, you know, one of the things that we realized early on. Hey, people would consider this to be a niche audience. So they're not going to necessarily want to back this company based on the fact that we're dealing with a niche audience. And so we didn't get a little bit of angel funding last year through a pipeline. Angels, who is a you know, I can't recommend them enough for anyone who is thinking about doing, you know, doing an unofficial raise for their for their startup pipeline. Angels is a group of women, of women and non binary folks who invest in women, a non binary folks. And they invest in. Scalable companies. But they also invested in like say like a food and beverage or fashion business. It doesn't have to always be bigger. Hi, Wolf. Tech company. So people should look into pipelining deals. But all that to say is, you know, we got to the end of last year and we thought about, OK, you know, where do we go from here?
[00:36:52] So this is even before albeit, you know, we're like, no, we're doing this for a little bit. Our margins have been really small. You know, there are so few opportunities here that we see in the business model. One was we noticed this big it became an advertising channel for larger companies who were interested in doing multicultural marketing. They wanted to do advertising. We noticed that. We also noticed that we were, you know, providing a discovery vehicle where consumers who wanted to shop their values, who wanted to shop from women, diverse folks who wanted to be able to have an easy way of doing that. So we knew that it was kind of serving those two needs in the marketplace. And so we just kind of like, could there be a bigger business model, you know, such that our margins, our margins would be healthier? And also, there were you know, we could develop a hardware company. And so we've been on that Kivett journey for about six months now. And we are near ready to release our of NBP version of the new model. But I can't say exactly what that will look like. But I think you could tell from the two problems that we're trying to solve, which is, you know, creating an opportunity for diverse business owners to reach consumers and also create an opportunity for larger brands to connect with multicultural consumers.
[00:38:33] So, you know, it you know, we're building a marketplace around those two ideas and you'll see more in the coming months.
[00:38:42] Yeah, that's a good teaser. That's exciting anyway. I like that. And anyone who is who is wanting to follow that, like we should definitely. Do you have a favorite social media platform that people who are Twitter.
[00:38:53] Yeah, Twitter. Instagram. I've been a little quiet or both.
[00:38:56] But like Twitter. Instagram. What are your handles?
[00:38:59] Also at China, you go so that CIJ and EWR energy.
[00:39:05] Cool. Yeah. That's awesome. I can't wait for a good launch, especially right now because nobody is launching when they said they would. So anyone who is going to I'm like, no problem. I'll wait.
[00:39:15] I'm wondering where I'm going to pivot now and kind of wrap everything up. I know that everyone's dialog has changed and some for better and some for worse in some. Just because you know, but this time for reflection that you had your first, you know, layoff in 2009 and people have kind of globally experienced or that's where the people I've spoken to that women female identified non binary individuals over the past three months have kind of said, I've taken the time with this forced isolation to really have a dialog with myself about my company, about my happiness level, things that they just weren't taking the space and holding the platform to do. And so I find this next question to be fascinating because it changed for a lot of people. It changed back. It never stayed the same. So I'm wondering, can you tell us anything about your goals for the next one to three years, given your endeavors and what change has taken place over the past couple of months with those goals?
[00:40:11] Yeah, so I think the biggest change is taking place for me during this pandemic has really been around centering myself first and foremost to my life in a way that I have not done ever like literally like I am for the first time in my life.
[00:40:29] Cookie lets you out there like, you know, like I just think it's the like biggies.
[00:40:37] I'm just so you know, I'm so. Excited by the fact that I'm finally cooking like this. So this is a major step in the right direction around like how I want to and I'm not doing it every day. Like, you know, there's some type like maybe once or twice a week or a really bad week. I might order out. But I, I have developed a new habit around cooking and shoveling a shadow. Hello, Fresh. They're not giving me any money, but like, hello fresh has been fantastic because they send you meals and then they send you all the ingredients and then you cook the food. Right. And they give you recipes is a really great way for novice cookers. But I guess the reason why I say that is because my my large goal is now to operate concentrically like I am, like I want to operate from the inside of me outwardly and before. I think my entire career I've been and I think this happens to most people, most entrepreneurs, most like every all of us. I was just so like caught up in what people think about me. How am I coming off to the general public comic, coming off to my friends, to clients, to investors like so invested in, you know, and what that might mean for my business. Right. And now I'm like. It doesn't matter. It starts with me. Right. And I truly believe that and I truly have seen that in a way that I haven't seen before. So my biggest goal is to hold that hold on to keeping myself centered and central in my own life and listening to my own wisdom and my own advice around how to take care of myself. So that's my first and foremost goal. Second to that is continuing to build and grow the communities that I have nurtured before the pandemic, but definitely within this space. So one one one such example is that like I created on a peer group of other entrepreneurs and we meet every Saturday around developing our business such that we continue their survive and also thrive post pandemic.
[00:43:04] And so I think that, you know, creating community creating team for my businesses are like my kind of.
[00:43:16] My money like immediate goals, you know, like. And then in terms of like, well, you know, I would love to see Cheaney skill to like, you know, hundreds of thousands of customers survey, you know, tons of, like, entrepreneurs.
[00:43:35] So but really, it is about like this operate a concentrically it's more like a value-based school level. Yeah. Well done. Materializes too.
[00:43:45] That's so great. Such a visual for me. For some reason as well. I picture all of those the maps that you start off of with a problem or meditation maps and kind of go out. Do you know at the end you figured yourself out or even the other way.
[00:43:59] But you're always trying to reach the center of one's self in that work. It's a great it's a great goal. I love it. And it's it's so, so different from those that I've heard recently. And I'm a wrap everything up today with a question about advice that I pose to every person I speak with. And I'm curious if a young woman or female identified or non binary individual, essentially anyone other than a white man walked up to you tomorrow and said, listen, I know I've had this history, had this dream. I wanted to get into writing. I was going to do film work. I came to New York and I wanted to get all of these things done. I'm keeping my mind open. I'm looking at it from every different angle. I'm doing different things and think I'm going to start my first company right now. What are the top three pieces of advice you would give that individual knowing what you know now?
[00:44:54] So the concrete piece of it is get a bookkeeper and accountant early on. So so, again, the peace around that is basically get people on your team that you know, that are not your skill sets. So even if you can't necessarily hire it, you can't necessarily bring on folks as employees, figure out a way to get folks around you that are not your core skill set.
[00:45:30] So if that's like, you know, trying to find a friend's mother who's also a bookkeeper or it's like, you know, trying to find an intern who can who's an MBA, who's a CFO, you know, working that way to be a big guy.
[00:45:46] I don't know. Find a way to surround yourself with people who who have disciplines that are not at all. So that would be one. If you're about to start a business and the disciplines that are not your own, that really impact your business could be like five years we go, you know. Yeah. Like any of those sort of domains, they may not be your, quote, core competencies. So that's one. Two is. Follow your your inspirations, you know, like really follow them. I love Toby was the founder of Shopify story is like, you know, he was into snowboarding and gaming. You know, the gaming taught him how to become a coder. And then snowboarding was like, oh, I want to go to snowboard shop. So in those two things, he then built, like his shop was e-commerce platform that he, for Guilford's own shop, was so good that it was like, OK, well, maybe we can build this for, you know, millions of shops, you know. And that became Shopify. So I was like, how do you not like if you had not followed his interests, he would it be Amazon's competitor today? You know, to me. Yes. So it's like, so follow your interest.
[00:47:05] Even if they don't seem like they make a lot of sense or they don't necessarily or they're not traditional just following interests. And the third thing is build a community, stay connected to community, you know, at all levels. So you know what you want visors. So people who are a few head few years ahead of you or have some who've done what it is that you're that you're doing or think that you might want to do, you want peers, you know, so you want people who are right in the trenches, trenches with you. You want friends who don't have anything to do with what you're doing, maybe. And you want mentees. So you want like you want to grill 360 degree community around you as you build out your vision.
[00:48:02] Yeah, I love those. It's true. And you kind of cover every aspect that I think is really important when you are starting out.
[00:48:08] So I've got, number one, get a good bookkeeper or an accountant, meaning get people on your team that have skill sets other than your own that you're going to need never to follow your inspiration. And number three, build and stay connected to your community because those are the people you're gonna be functioning in. I love that. And I think it's so true. And those approaches, everything from all angles. And Chana, we are out of time today. But I want to say thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time. I know that everybody's firing on all cylinders right now, and I really appreciate your candor and your time and all of your rhetoric and story today. This is a complete pleasure, Patricia.
[00:48:51] I really appreciate your thoughtful questions and the time you spent with me today. Absolutely. It was my pleasure. And for everyone listening, we've been speaking with China, Janelle Ewing. You can find out more about her and all of her endeavors on her Web site.
[00:49:06] Chana Ewing, that is C, h a n a e w i n g dot com. Thank you for giving us your time today. Thank you for listening.
[00:49:16] And please stay safe. Stay well. And until we speak again next time, remember to always bet on yourself. It's lunch.
