Power in the Pandemic: Jamie Williams
Jamie Williams
Co-Founder of NaCIO Apparel
Describe your original response to COVID
Oddly enough, I was living in NYC as of March 9th but I had gone to LA to visit my boyfriend so when it hit I was in LA. At first, we thought ‘this couldn't be real’ but we used that time to hone into our random passions and really take time to be still and quiet.
Flash forward, I ended up staying in LA for three weeks. My mom was so stressed and asked that we come home. We ended up being in quarantine in North Carolina and only had two weeks' worth of clothes. During this time, we started putting our heads together on what we could wear.
I found a really good wholesaler and ended up making our clothes for quarantine. This is really where things got going for us. We posted it and people loved it and started requesting orders and within two weeks of saying we would launch, we launched.
We both put in $125 each for the suppliers to produce a sample and grew the business from there. We started April 24th and two months later we have done WELL. For the first month, we were taking orders through an extremely efficient DM process, and then following the growth we launched the website.
Talk to one or some of your proudest moments during the pandemic
Charles (my boyfriend) and I were actually talking about that recently. From a financial perspective we had goals for our first four months and we achieved it in a month and a half without sacrificing quality or customer service.
We have been staying with our parents and they have said they are so proud of us and while I know that they are my parents and they have to do that, it really made me happy to hear them tell us how proud they were. This season taught me that If you are passionate about something do the damn thing.
When you look back on this season...what do you want to remember?
Always trust your gut and have courage to go for it. I was a designer previously and both myself and Charles have always been into this and this was the first time that we both were like ‘let's just go for it’.
I could never have imagined the grind...but I am so glad we took the leap of faith. Today is my last day at my current job and I am committing to NaCIO full-time!
Micheline Amisi. All rights reserved.
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