Entrepreneur of the week: Bad Influence

1. What is your name ?

Bresha Durham

2. How old are you ?

26 yrs old

3. Where are you from? Where is your business located?

Born in Orlando, business in Atlanta

4. What’s your business/brand?

Bold Ambitious Designs Influence

(B.Influence)

5. What services do you offer?

•Design/Custom Clothes - special occasion pieces, a person may just want something different, or seen something in the store they wanted to create but differently due to fit or design.

•Alterations/Seamstress- movie sets, photo shoots, magazine set, music video, tv shows, person alterations

•Branding/Collections- collaborating with other designers to help their brand; help design and create but my name is not attached to any of the work.

•Private Sewing Lessons- children and adult learn basic sewing 1 on 1

6. What does it feel like to have your own business?

Having my own brand is stressful! I started off just loving to create and people would tell me I need to charge people for the work I’m doing. My intention were to just create freely and passionately. I started my own brand to put a name behind the creations but most of the time I’m overwhelmed with the business aspect because I’m not financially stable enough to buy help I have to source the fabric, create the pattern, go buy everything, make the garment, find the model or be the model, find a photographer or be it, post the picture, market, sell, advertise, build the website and social media outlet, manage the outlet. It’s A LOT! And it takes away from my actual love for creating sometimes. So it becomes super overwhelming. And 95% of the time I feel like I’m not doing enough while doing everything I can.

7. What steps did you take to start your business?

I didn’t have any business owners in my family to take advice from so I started on YouTube and searched how to start a business. I have a bachelor's degree in fashion design so I already had to business plan and the idea I just need legal documents. I would buy books and take all the advice I could. As well as working with celebrity designs who are successful in my field. The overall steps I took was going on a .gov website seeing how much an LLC was seeing how much trademarks and copyrights were.

8. What advice do you have for someone in their twenties trying to start their business like yours or in general?

Save up for it! If your going to start it don’t LLC it until your comfortable with the Financial revenue it’s bringing in. Start with just your family and friends (still charge them, still keep your receipt/invoices) but don’t get the government involved until your comfortable and have all the legal knowledge to back your brand legal documents.