Page 24 - EQ Magazine Issue #3

COVER STORY (CONT’D)
His music can be found on major streaming platforms
such as Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, Amazon, Pandora
and YouTube Music. His clothing line can be found on
www.HavokKlan.spreadshirt.com
What have these young entrepreneurs learned so far?
For Joel, “Besides coming out of my shell, I became less
worried about hearing ‘no.’ You always have this doubt,
what if? You go thru life wishing you’d done it or taking
a leap and saying ‘look at what happened.’ What’s the
worst that can happen, hearing a no? Taking the chance
to see if it could be a yes, that could be the life changer
right there. Never be afraid to hear no. Having a
definitive answer of no and moving on from there.”
Jeremy’s input, “You have to count your losses as much
as your wins. If you don’t know how to handle the
negatives, it’s going to be rough for you. This is a long
term game; this is a competitive sport. There is someone
younger that can offer something that you can’t. I have
to stay true to myself. I do what I see fit for myself and
people support me. Sometimes I feel lucky, but it’s
because I took time to build relationships with people.
Those will build new connections with new people and
talk about what I’ve done. Now it’s gotten bigger than
music.” In closing, Jeremy wants to “thank everyone for
counting me out, because I beat the odds.”
[As seen on Fox 8 News, Cleveland, Ohio]
Evolving
Entrepreneur
by Rosa Worth
23 | www.equitymovement247.com
Just like Joel and Jeremy’s unique journeys to becoming
businessmen, so is Autumn Oliver journey to evolving
entrepreneur beginning at the young age of seven.
Autumn is a second generation business-woman. Her
mother initially opened up a bakery called “Baby
Cakes.” When Autumn took the reigns of the family
business, she renamed it “The Boujie Bakery.”
I spoke with Autumn and asked her to share how a
young 22 year old manages to pick up the torch and
grow a startup family business to new heights.
She shares the beginnings of her story: “I was about
seven years old and remember my mother always
working. During her working years, she’s done bail
bonds; foster care; she done everything she wanted to
do. One day she said that she was going to open a
bakery, and everybody was like, “You don’t bake. Why
you want a bakery?” She replied, “This is what I want to
do.” And she went ahead she opened up her first
bakery in Cleveland Heights. And it grew to be really
successful. She was able to open a second location and
eventually she ended up getting a food truck. After a
10 year run, she closed the stores in 2015. I graduated
high school in 2014 and I went away to college in
Cincinnati to study business administration. At the time,
I wanted nothing to do with the bakery, or cupcakes, or
cakes, nothing. I didn’t even work at the store when I
was in school. I worked at a pizzeria directly across the
street from my mom’s bakery.
Unfortunately, I only attended college for a year because
it was hard for my mom to pay for school as a single
parent from the bakery earnings she and my
grandmother owned together. My grandmother was
getting older and sickly and she was in and out the
hospital and it was just becoming too much for my
mother. So, she decided to close the stores and I
decided to leave college and go home. My mother still
baked for people from her home. Subsequently, my
mother ended up going back to school and now she’s a
pharmacy tech at Hillcrest Hospital. Her co-workers
started placing orders for cakes and cupcakes from her.
As the orders grew and become too much for her she
would ask me to step in and help her while she was at
work. Since I didn’t have a job at the time, I helped out,
this also helped pay my car note.
One day, I started posting the cupcakes and the
decorations on my social media, not to advertise, just
taking pictures of what I was doing. From the post more
and more people start showing attention and a couple
of people order cakes and cupcakes. I started working a
part-time job and before I knew it I was making more
money baking than what the part-time job was paying
me. I was making more money baking cakes. At that