Growing up, Monique Little always had an interest in entrepreneurship and fashion. During her first two years at Temple University in Philadelphia, she thought she might pursue pharmacy as a career path.
However, as she began her course, she realized she had a passion for a career in fashion and applied to some top fashion programs in the US. Eventually, she got accepted to The Parsons School of Design but took a year off from formal school to take design courses at the Fashion Institute of Technology on a part-time basis due to financial constraints.
Within a short time, she learned a lot about product design and then decided to finish off her schooling with a business degree from Rutgers. After school, she tried her hands at several positions at Corporate America.
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However, she always found herself pulled towards building a brand of her own. This led her to start several small businesses. During this period, she always found that she thrived when she was able to use her creative juices to find ways to make extra money.
Shortly after having her first child, she faced challenges balancing her caregiving role while maintaining her hair care regime. “Wearing my hair in its natural state has been a passion of mine since high school, and I suddenly did not have the time to dedicate to it as I had in the past,” she told Medium in an Interview.
She started to identify several solutions to help care for and style natural hair without spending hours studying tutorials and YouTube videos. According to her, she recognized that there was a clear hole in the market and that was her opportunity to build something special.
This led her to start You Go Natural (YGN) to address the need for easy styling options for women who opt to wear their hair in its natural state, she told Side Hustle Pro.
Traditionally, business owners in her space would develop a prototype of their product and shop around for funding. However, because she did not have the resources to do it the traditional way, she enlisted her mother, who helped her to sew the original wraps.
“Within weeks, we knew that the demand was greater than we could handle, and I began to hire local seamstresses who were working out of their homes for extra money,” she said. “I would cut all of the items and deliver them to their homes, and they would drop off the finished product at my front door. This allowed me to build unique relationships with people of diverse backgrounds.”
Today, the business occupies a 7500 ft production facility with a local team of approximately 50 sewing machine operators in Dallas, Texas. Her hair brand is also one of the fastest-growing natural hair accessory brands.
With just one sewing machine in just five years, Little has successfully grown into a multimillion-dollar brand.
