Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Diishan Imira Full Interview

Transcript

Diishan Imira Full Interview · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: My neck. Guest is a successful person. Uh he's a
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: native of Oakland, California. That's home over black panther um.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Name of the company is Maven at California based Harry
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Extension Company. Their partners with Stylus, who service the salesforce
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: for their hair extension their clients by please welcome to
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: money Making Conversation. The CEO and founder of Mavin, Deshaan Emira, Hello,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: and thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Cool.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: I really do you California and your mind telling me? Uh,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: what's your educational background, your little history before we start
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: talking about Yeah, I was born and raised in Oakland. Um,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I went to high school there. After high school, I
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: went to Hampton University. So I'm an alum of HBC.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Is my executive producer. She's a Hampton grad. So happy
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: she's cheering in the background, sir, So all right, let's
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: go all day. Yeah. So I, um, I got really
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: interested in Um, you know, I wanted to travel when
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: I got to college, or I've always just sort of
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: wanted to. I've been curious about the world. So, um,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: you know, sophomore year I traveled. I went to Japan
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: for for six months, I studied abroad there ended up
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: doing the same thing again the next year in Spain
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: when I after I graduated, I moved to China. UM
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: and then and we can get into you know what
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I was doing over there later. But then education wise,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: I ended up going back to school. I did an
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: NBA at Georgia State in Atlanta, UM in between two
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: thousand and eight and two thousand and ten. So, now,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: when you went to those different places, did you are
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: you experienced the culture? Did you learn the language? I did?
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: I was in China for a year and a half straight,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: and then for the next several years, I would be
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: going back in China, the back and forth to China,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: probably every every couple two to three months. I was
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: going back and forth to China. UM and so I
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: learned a great deal both Mandarin at the time. UM.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: You know it's it's it's worn off a little bit
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: since then, but I still can I stick it. I
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: still can get around. Oh good, good, Devin, is what
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: what you know? I always like to explore new opportunities.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: That's a new opportunity from a social and a lifestyle standpoint.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: What what if what did you learn from that experience?
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Because you know that when we go out and travel,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: you know, you are an African American male, and so
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: there are perceptions about us, um in different parts of
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: the country. I know I've experienced that. So were there
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: any perceptions that you had to overcome, you had to
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: deal with in your travels? Um, there were definitely definitely
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of you know, perceptions that people had or misconceptions.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: I mean in China at the time and I got
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: in two thousand three, Um, there was hardly I was.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: I went to the city called shen Jin, which is
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: now like a super popping city. Um. You know, at
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: the time, there was about four million people there. Now
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: I think there's like fifteen million people. So just in
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: the past, you know, ten years, it's it's uh, it's
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: grown quite a bit. But there was hardly any foreigners
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: there at all. Um, let alone had they ever seen
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: any any black people? You know? So uh, you know,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: I had students were you know, I taught English there
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: for a little while, and the students would run up
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: to me and try to touch my my skin and
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: if they're rubbed off, you know, and they called me
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Mr Chaka Lee you know. Um. And then I had
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: people there who just straight up didn't believe that I
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: came from America because they're from what they understood of
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  Speaker 1: the world, and they don't get they didn't get a
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: lot of they don't get a lot of the media
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  Speaker 1: and the images that everybody else gets. America's white people
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  Speaker 1: and America is the land of white people in blond
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: hair and blue eyes. Um. And so they just didn't
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  Speaker 1: even believe that there were black people there, um, let
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  Speaker 1: alone all of the intricacies of like, you know, the
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: history of African Americans in America. So um, you know,
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  Speaker 1: people tended to think I was either from you know,
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  Speaker 1: Africa or you know, or or India or something like that.
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  Speaker 1: And then they had certain you know, they had certain perceptions, um,
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  Speaker 1: of of those countries, right, um, which weren't always so good. Right.
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  Speaker 1: If they think they think America is the land of
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  Speaker 1: the white then you you also have to think that
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  Speaker 1: that that there was a backwards view of Africa, you know,
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  Speaker 1: very backwards ignorance, slavery, poverty, violence, you know, exactly need
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  Speaker 1: to be Also they're I'm sure they're aware of the
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: slave slavery too. So so all those negative things dominated
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  Speaker 1: Joe presence. So you are you are a torch bearer. Um, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I mean it was it was you know, it definitely
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  Speaker 1: felt very you know, pioneering to be out there. That
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: was hardly as I said, hardly any other foreigners there was.
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  Speaker 1: You know, there was about three or four other black
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  Speaker 1: people that I met when I was out there, you know,
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  Speaker 1: in the city of four million people, and we all
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: abandoned together and there was two or three. How did
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: you find them? Now? Well, you know, there would be
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: certain places in the city where only you know, only
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: were like foreigners would go to these boarders restaurants or whatever.
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  Speaker 1: We're foreigners would convene so they can you know, um,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: and you know, they would just be a random black
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: person in there and we were just automatically connect and
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: be like, hey, what are you doing here? You know?
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: So um yeah, it was crazy. It was crazy, but
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: it was you know, it ended up being one of
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: the most transformative, um and informative periods of my life.
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  Speaker 1: You know, I learned a lot about myself. I learned
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: a lot about what I was capable of. Um, you know,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: I learned a lot about you know, they put into
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: context where I came from the country that I came from. Um,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: and what was going on outside of America, you know,
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  Speaker 1: and that America wasn't the center of the world. UM
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: and uh. And I grew tremendously from that, and it became,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: you know, China just became sort of the platform from
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: which all of my my business and entrepreneurial endeavors kind
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: of sprang from relationships there, that's what you're I made
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: amazing relationships there, um, you know, and and also learned
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  Speaker 1: how to navigate UM sourcing products UH. You know, so
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  Speaker 1: I went to hundreds of factories, UM figured out you know,
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  Speaker 1: the first thing I started importing from China because I
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: just wanted to make some money where like sneakers, and
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: so I saw they had sneakers out there. I started
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: buying them and sending them back home. And through that
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: process learned all about you know, shipping from from China
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  Speaker 1: and freight forwarding and customs and tariffs UH and all that,
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  Speaker 1: and learned how to negotiate with with the Chinese and UM,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: how to find different factories and source different products and
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: figure out you know, quality control and who to trust
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: who not to trust. UM. It was an incredible it
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: was an incredible UM educational experience. You knew the language
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: as well. Well. I learned it as I went, you know,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: like I just um, you know, I decided I wanted
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: to make some money while I was over there. I've
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: seen these shoes, I said, I'm gonna start trying to
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: sell these shoes. So I just had to start learning
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: how to say shoes in Chinese and how much you
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: know what I mean? And so I literally I just
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: had to teach myself based on what it was that
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: I wanted to say, and I just would I would
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: point at stuff and then I would say, how do
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: you say? You know UM? And you'd be surprised how
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  Speaker 1: fast you can learn um the basics of a new
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: language UM or or I should say, you'd be surprised
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  Speaker 1: how much you can really communicate with people if you
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  Speaker 1: just know a few phrases. And also if you make
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: it also if you make an effort, and if you're
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: make an effort, Yeah, people really appreciate that as well.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: So now you're you're setting a basis. Now it's interesting
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: thing about it, because we're gonna get to the company
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: that you launched here in California, Maven, was this w
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: you was headed because you was over there teaching English.
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  Speaker 1: And then you started, like I said, becoming that entrepreneurial
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: side started popping up, seeing opportunities to business. You started
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: learning to learning certain key terminologists or you can negotiate
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: or communicate. So we get back to the States. What
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  Speaker 1: did you when you return back and say I'm gonna
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  Speaker 1: stay over here permanently, what did you What did you
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: immediately go when in Oakland? Um? No, I actually went
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: to Miami. Um. And I just honestly, I was. I
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: was in China for a year and a half straight.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: I think I had got to the point where I
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: was like, I need to get the hell out of China.
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  Speaker 1: I can't. I can't do this anymore, you know, like
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  Speaker 1: it just got it just got all the way to
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  Speaker 1: that point. I loved it for a while, and then
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: it became like I just became super homesick and I
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  Speaker 1: wanted to go somewhere beautiful. You know, time is not
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: the like you know or shinin. I say, it's not.
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  Speaker 1: You know, it's not the most beautiful environment to be.
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  Speaker 1: You know, it's manufacturing, it's it's crowded, full of people,
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  Speaker 1: it's polluted. Um, there's a lot of beautiful things in
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: that country. I don't want anybody, you know, they got
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  Speaker 1: out of context. But um Shinjin is just it's a
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  Speaker 1: it's a crazy and hectic metropolis. And I wanted to
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  Speaker 1: go somewhere beautiful. I know some people down in Miami. Um.
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  Speaker 1: I had started to develop some some contacts in China
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  Speaker 1: around importing furniture. It was the housing um bubble was
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  Speaker 1: like in full gear, and everybody was building and buying
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: condos in Miami. And I said, I'm gonna go to Miami.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna import a couple containers of furniture and I'm
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: gonna start selling furniture UM in Miami. And that's literally,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: that was just literally how I was thinking. Just I
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: want to go somewhere nice. Nice. Now you wouldn't say
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: one nice. Now. Are you with Miami two thousands? Yeah,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: you're with someplace nice Now that's the that's the beauty
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  Speaker 1: capital of the world down there, brother. Yeah, beautiful. It's
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: just beautiful, just beautiful. Just pretty things. Just walking around now,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: just pretty things, just walking around, just walking around, going
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  Speaker 1: to Burkey, Oh you're so pretty. Oh, just walked to
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  Speaker 1: the coming Oh you're so pretty, walked down on the beach,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Oh you're so pretty Oh, just so much better than child.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: But when you come back, we're talking about man. He's uh,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: he's he's the CEO and he's the founder of Mavin,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: a California based Harris stitching company. Will be right back
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: with my man to Sean, I love talking about I
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: just wanted to make sure that we understood his roots
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: before we start talking about the roots that he's using
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: to make a lot of money with Harry Stenchons. I
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: just ro Sean McDonald's having a very great conversation with
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: the CEO and founder Mavin. He's on the phone talking
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: about his uh, his past, his roots, which I think
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: is important when people try to understand how people are successful.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: It's not people can pop up and be successful. They
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: develop a traits that they pick up along the way.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: They develop relationships they pick up along the way, and
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: then you turn around you look at your past. I
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: always tell people, if you want to find out your future,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: looking to your past and you understand why you can
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: be successful because it's the roots that you established in
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: your twenties. There really was such a stage of what
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: you're gonna make economically in your financial life and your forties,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: in your fifties. A lot of people look always looking ahead.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: They're always looking at here, go what I'm gonna do?
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Just look backwards. It's all established like that, because what
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: happens to Sean is there a lot of people they
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: start shifting, they get married, they have kids, they move away,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: and so they've dreams kind of that those original dreams
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: kind of go away, and so you have. So you
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: have just done that in yourself. And so to launch
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: this company wasn't an idea that you created by yourself
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: or you brought in other people to help you, to
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: motivate you and financially support you. So I UM, I
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: the way that I ended up in the world of
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: hair extensions and hair stylists and salons. Um you know,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: I had this. I had this incredible background in supply
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: chain and importing stuff from from China, and and by
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: this time, and this is about around two thousand, UM
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: twelve or so, after I had finished grad school, got
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: my n b A, I was shut of just trying
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: to figure out what I wanted to do. UM. I
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: knew that I wanted to start a company. I knew
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: I wanted to build a company that was going to
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: be large and impactful. Um. I had the I had
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: the notion that I wanted to raise venture capital to
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: do it. I wanted to be a venture capital scale business,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: but I didn't know exactly what it was yet. Um.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: So I took sort of just like some odd in
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: jobs so that I didn't have to take up like
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: a corporate nine to five, which would just like suck
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: all my time in my my brain space, you know,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: away from me. And so I literally just had an
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: n B A and spoke Chinese and I just started
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: like valeting cars because I could just do it for
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: a few hours make some money, and then I could
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: just go to Starbucks and be on my computer research
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: and stuff all day. Um. And I just tried different things. Um.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: And then someone in my family who was a hairstyle is,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: asked me if I can help her get some hair
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: extensions from China, and so I did, yeah, And so
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: I did, And in the process I took the hair
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: extensions to these hair salons and I said can you
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: uh and they you know, and they say, I said
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: this is good quality, and they said it's great. Can
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: you get some more? Um? And so I said, yeah,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: How did you say yeah? How did you say did
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: you say, lightbulb, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can work this out. Yeah.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: At the time, at the time, it was yeah, yeah
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: I could, Yeah, I could do that. And the way
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: I looked at it at that point was I'm balanting cars.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: I can make more money just selling some of his
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: hair to these hair stylers right now. So I ended
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: up just like selling hair off the trunk of my
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: car to these hairstylers, um all through Oakland. And as
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: I was doing that, the lightbulb started to get brighter
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: and brighter and brighter, and then I saw something much
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: bigger than and then really than just hair extensions. UM.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: You know what I had been taught to see through
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: all these you know, all the years of like importing
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: from China and you know, going to BIS school, B school,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: I had been trained to see how products were distributed.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: And and that was the part that was the lightbulb
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: for me, because what I saw was, Okay, we're buying
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: you know, six billion dollars of hair extensions, nine billion
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: dollars of just beauty products in general, you know, as
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: in the African American community. However, all these salons that
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: I'm going into to sell these products, they don't they're
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: not selling products in there, they're not selling the hair
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: extensions in the salon. They're not they don't have a
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: big old retail section in their salon, which you might
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: see in some of the more mainstream you know should
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: he you know salons, um. And the main reason for
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: that is because they just can't afford inventory or manage it.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: And so we have all the customers going outside of
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: our of our hair salons and outside of our community
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: to buy all of our products. And so across the
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: street from the hair salon, you have a beauty supply
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: store that is owned by Koreans. And that happens to
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: be the case for eighty five of all of the
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: beauty supply stores that cater to to African Americans across
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: the country. Like in every black neighborhood there's a Korean
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: owned beauty supply store. And we all know them, and
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: we've all been there, we all know what what what
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: they look like. But the important thing what I saw
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: was that all those dollars we're just flowing directly out
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: of the community. Um. But but conversely, what I saw
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: was that these hair stylers, right, we're incredibly powerful, but
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: just lacked a certain tool and they had they have
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: the expertise, they had the relationships with the customers. Um,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: they knew what they were talking about when it came
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: came to the hair, and the customers trusted them. They
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: were the natural point of sale for these products. They
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: just didn't have the infrastructure for it. And so I said,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: if I can use technology to basically turn all of
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: these hair salons into retail distribution points for these products,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: we can shift all the dollars retail dollars to the
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: salons and they can be selling it and making money
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: from it, and we can create a really large business
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: and own our own distribution. Was that hard? Was that
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: a hard spin? When you when you approach the salons
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: because you approach one at a time, or you got
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: a group of together to make this pitch. Um, it
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: was one at a time to begin with, It was
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: one at a time. I mean I started with like
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: three hairstyles. I had the idea and I said, okay,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: let me just sort of validate whether or not this
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: could work or not, you know, and I built I'm
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: not a technical guy, like I don't make websites and stuff,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: but I I pieced together this really Jankie, you know
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: a little you know m v P. You know we
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: call a minimum viable product and just something where I
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: could test what the you know, the premise was of
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: the entire business, which is, if I give a stylist
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: this tool, a stylist can sell that the product. Let
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: me just test that and then I'll figure out later. Okay,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: how about I go get all the hairstylus. UM. But
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: if I could just prove that, then maybe I can
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: get somebody to fund me to go and get all
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: the hairstylus. And so I did that, and I did
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: that with like, you know, three hairstylists, and then it
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: was like five or six or seven um. And then
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: I really started to say, you know what, I can
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: turn this into a huge business. And I think we
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: can build a billion dollar enterprise by owning our own
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: distribution and networking up you know, all of our hair
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: salons and our stylists to to to participate in the
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: retail economics of our of our beauty industry. This. You know,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: we have four minutes left in this interview I want
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: to talk about Okay, it's a great interview. By the way,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: I just want to make sure I don't miss some
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: of the key points of why I brought you. I'm
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: going on and on. No, no, you're not, because your
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: story is important to have to be valid, you know,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: in other words, because we're talking about how you who
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: you are as a person, which is credibility. Why are
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: you able to sell this brand? How are you able
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: to grow this brand? Because you know the culture you
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: took the time to live the lifestyle. Now through what
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: I always tell people, opportunity, It's only there if you
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: if you work hard to understand, seek out, seek it out.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: How does how does this salesforce work for you? And
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: can other people around the country or is it localized
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: in the Oakland area? So? Um, so the Hairstylus are
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: we've we've over the past five years, we've grown to
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: over fifty thou hair stylusts all over the country. Who
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: just Stylus who distributing Maven products. We actually this year
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: just lost a very new and transformative service UM leveraging
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: our our stylus network UM that essentially will cut the
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: cost of getting your hair done are getting hair and
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: getting your hair done in half for customers. So now
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: you can as a customer, you can come directly to Maven.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: You can buy hair directly from us. You can put
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: in your zip code. Uh, the hand selected Maven stylus
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: in your zip code will pop up. You can look
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: at their pictures, you can look at their work um,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: the stars and reviews. And then if you choose any
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: one of those stylus, Mayven will pay for you to
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: get your hair um your hair installed. Okay, repeat that
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: one more time. So if you buy hair from Maven,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: we will pay for you to get your hair installed
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: with anyone of our thousands of hairstylists who are across
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: the country. Tell us that website because I'm gonna just
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: cut this little part out and put it on my website. Okay, okay,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: on my website, on social media dot com, M A
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Y V E N N dot com. Yeah and so,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: uh and so this opportunity. You know, I'm gonna tell
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: you so. Man, when I when I listen to you,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: I hear am WI, I hear you know avon, I
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: hear tup of ware, I hear conferences, I hear the
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: you know, the pink Cadillac for the top hair salesperson
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: in the country. You know, recognize is that the is
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: That's the next step for your brand. UM. No, I
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: would say, you know, I say that has been UM,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: that's been the core of it for a while. But
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: what we've what we've decided to do is to continue
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: to UM move more in the direction of creating a
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: platform and a marketplace. So the more you see what
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: we're what we're building now and specifically with this new
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: product where customers can match themselves with any stylist in
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: their area and it will be half to you know,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: they only have to pay for their service. It just
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: comes with the hair. It will start to look more
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: like you think more like Airbnb, right, or think more
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: like fla lift or uber or finding a hair stylist.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: We're gonna make it super easy and we're gonna make
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: it half the cost. Obviously this is a jankie website.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: You have modernized your abilities and you've taken it to
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: the next level. And just y'all, man, I you got
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: myself number, gave it to your off air. I live
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: in Atlanta, live in Houston, Texas. Uh, please use it,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: your talented person. Your story is incredible and very seriously,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna take that look clip and we're gonna get
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: some images of you. I'm gonna put it on my Facebook.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: I almost got a million followers Instagram and Twitter, and
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: to promote your brand and you keep winning, Okay, that
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: will be amazing and I appreciate that, and I appreciate you,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: UH give me the opportunity to use your platform to
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: spread the message and tell my story. I appreciate it.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: This story is awesome.