They don’t understand that in order to provide this service and stay in business I have to have room to make a profit. For example, people come in to sell but expect a very high number at the market. Lastly, the biggest struggle I face is satisfying everyone. So that being said, this industry forced me to become a stronger woman. I was definitely naive, and I have taken over $10,000 in losses due to credit card scams. I did not know that people were capable of doing this. In one of the first bulk deals I ever did, the guy told me “I scammed you, it’s too late, sorry, but girls just aren’t cut out for resell.” Not to mention, a lot of guys did credit card scamming when I first opened. I was one of the first females in this industry, and plenty of men took this as a way to scam me or give me a difficult time. A lot of men undermined me or tried to take advantage of me. A lot of these challenges came from being a female in a male-dominated industry. It was very challenging at first to gain people’s trust to believe in my vision. Some of the first challenges I faced were learning to authenticate inventory, making connections to get inventory, and getting people to actually come shop with me. There are still some that I continue to face to this day. It was far from a smooth road, there were many adversities that I went through. We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road? I now have an entire upstairs dedicated to just sneakers alone, with about 350+ sneakers on the shelf! I started out in a small room in my father’s office, with about 15 sneakers on the shelf, to take over the entire building. We kept growing and I kept renovating the shop as time went on. Later that year, I was able to afford to pay him and hire another employee. This change helped me have the ability to focus on other things that would help my business grow. Within two years, I got an intern from Belmont, who helped me out for free in the meantime for his college credits. I was juggling school and all the work in the shop myself. I was a one-woman show for about 2 years because I didn’t have the funds to afford an employee yet. Despite this, I still showed up every day with the mindset of succeeding regardless of the outcome. I also dealt with many challenges being a female in a very male-dominated industry. I had to do a lot of educating my customers when they would come in, but there were a lot of long days when no one would come in. Nashville was a tough market because sneakers and streetwear were still very new. It was really challenging to get my brand out there at first. I rushed every day straight to open up the store after class was over, regardless if anyone would show up. I was in class until 12 pm, so I set my hours at first to 1 pm-5 pm. This was my last semester of college, but my goal was to put my footprint in Nashville as fast as I could, with the vision that I had. I worked really hard for 6 months to get as much inventory as I could because my goal was to open up in January 2019. I searched for inventory, I was networking with resellers in Atlanta, and I was learning as much as I could on authenticating clothing and sneakers. From that moment on, I started my journey. I was in college at Belmont for business/entrepreneurship, finishing up my last year. I found a hole in the market, and I said to myself, WAIT, why don’t I do it?! In frustration, I was complaining, and then it all of a sudden hit me. I was so confused as to why there wasn’t really anything like this in Nashville. I immediately fell in love with these stores and kept coming in a couple of times a month to visit. I visited my friend in Louisville, Kentucky, and we went to a few sneaker/streetwear resell stores. A dream of mine was to open up a boutique clothing store, but I never knew what I could do that would be unique enough to be successful. Since I was a little kid, I was always into the process of business, like selling things at school to my friends and classmates. I was always into streetwear fashion and sneakers. My story began with thrifting and selling vintage clothing online on apps like Depop and Mercari. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself. Today we’d like to introduce you to Jenny Ukaj.
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