Rod Johnson, 36, and Pernell Cezar, 37, are childhood friends who have leveraged a lifelong bond of shared values, complementing skills, and love of community into a thriving young business. BLK & Bold Specialty Beverages, which produces and distributes a product line of quality coffees and teas, is growing its market share while investing real dollars in America’s youth. The duo donates 5% of BLK & Bold’s gross revenue to nonprofit organizations that provide guidance and support to children to help them “become the best versions of themselves.” 

Johnson is BLK & Bold’s co-founder and chief values officer; partner and co-founder Cezar serves as CEO. 

Both friends hail from Gary, Indiana, but attended different colleges—Johnson at Indiana University and Cezar at the University of Northern Iowa. The two remained in touch through college and post-graduation, nurturing ideas of entrepreneurship and joining forces to start a new venture. 

“My professional background is in merchandising and consumer goods development, focused on building national and emerging brands,” Cezar explains. “Ultimately, that professional background, along with my passion for mixing community impact and entrepreneurship, is where Rod and I started maturing our conversation about what doing business together would look like. BLK and Bold is the byproduct of that.” 

Their talks during the Summer of 2017 helped solidify the concept, which joined Cezar’s love of coffee with Johnson’s passion for tea and their respective roles in what began as an eCommerce business. Johnson would take on the “digital experience,” managing social media, community outreach, and the company’s social impact mission, while Cezar would run operations and sales. 

“It was a very organic start,” Johnson said. “We were learning on the fly how to start a business.” 

Cezar set up shop, roasting beans in his garage in Des Moines, while Johnson worked on his laptop from his couch in Sacramento. The venture started coming together and finally launched in 2018. It didn’t take long for BLK & Bold to draw loyal customers and a growing corporate clientele. Soon, cafes wanted BLK & Bold to supply them. 

Business growth and mounting demand eventually brought the partners under one roof, first sharing space in a local brewery and ultimately moving into their current space, a 33,000-square-foot facility in Des Moines. 

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic wreaking broad economic havoc, BLK & Bold made a successful leap into national retail in partnership with Target. Today, BLK & Bold is a fixture on corporate and university campuses. At the same time, shoppers can find selections at an estimated 12,000 retail outlets across the United States, from regional grocers to big chains like Albertsons, Safeway, and Walgreens. 

“We’ve been able to secure some landmark partnerships, like working with the NBA and Ben and Jerry’s, because of who we are at our core,” Johnson said. Microsoft, Amazon, and Bank of America are anchor partners, also. “We are a social impact company that is trying to invite more people into conscious consumerism by way of their everyday habits. And that philosophy—that ethos—is entities with a similar focus.” 

For both men, the determination to make BLK & Bold profitable and socially impactful comes with the understanding that the company’s money management structure must be coordinated with its dual priorities. The two are also engaged in keeping laser-beam focus on their personal financial needs as well. 

As Johnson put it: “As a bootstrap business, we have to be intentional with where we allocate resources so there isn’t a lot of frivolous spending. We don’t have the luxury to make those mistakes or take those risks.” He cited inventory missteps as valued learning opportunities that helped shape the partners’ disciplined approach. 

Cezar credits their successful merger of business and social impact with the ability to prevent company growth from outpacing the founders’ control. 

“Rod and I self-funded the business, and we are still 100% co-owners,” says Cezar, noting that while BLK & Bold has been fortunate to attract investor capital and lending support to fund its expansion, the pair have been careful to sustain the right balance—the price of capital would not be control of the direction of the company or a compromise of its goals. 

“We are almost six years into the business, and we’ve learned a lot about the various means of capital and the needs of investors and lenders. And so, we’ve been open to learning and pursuing opportunities. Nonetheless, we continue to navigate and control the pace of our journey.” 

Of course, the flip side of 100% control of a venture means assuming 100% of the risk—a responsibility both men take especially seriously. Entrepreneurs who choose the coffee business confront marketplace uncertainty and unique production challenges. Strong insurance coverage is a must. 

Cezar: “We’re roasting coffee beans to between 400 to 500 degrees. If we have a fire and the equipment that we’re financing is down, we’re screwed if we can’t replace it as fast as possible. So, it becomes essential to play offense by playing defense and having the right coverage across the different needs.” 

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Olajuwon Ajanaku and Earl A. Cooper—both 34 and Morehouse College alums—are driving an expanding cultural revolution with their Eastside Golf lifestyle and fashion brand. Launched in 2019, the company brings youth and hip-hop swagger to traditionally staid golf courses. 

The duo’s creative sportswear is just a piece of a larger mission to attract young African Americans to golf and bring greater diversity to the sport. 

“When I first started playing golf as a child, golf wear was all khaki pants and a white Polo shirt—our culture and fashion were missing, and I didn’t enjoy it,” says Ajanaku. He was introduced to the sport at an early age and later aspired to a pro career. Unable to garner sponsorship, he turned to entrepreneurship to finance his dream. 

The two have also used Eastside Golf to not only drive their business passion on the greens but also use the venture to get on deck to master the lessons required for long-term financial success.  

Eastside Golf started with Ajanaku’s self-designed logo for his golf gear – a cool graphic of a Black golfer based on himself, with a club raised and a swinging gold chain. His friend and Morehouse brother Cooper, a PGA professional and Eastside Golf co-founder, immediately sensed that the logo was lightning in a bottle.

The response from the tee box has been strong. Ajanaku says he shipped the first 3,000 orders from his apartment in Detroit, where he lived during the company’s inception. At the same time, Ajanaku and Cooper forged a strong partnership based on their love for the sport and their desire to bridge the traditional golf world with the culture. “I think we’re well qualified to do just that because of our common experience,” Cooper says. “We both started playing golf at six years old and went on to compete at the junior and collegiate levels. Something that we’ve talked about forever is that golf needs culture…golf needs representation. We’ve worked together and figured out ways to align passion with purpose. That separates us from any other apparel business or golf company.”

Both partners have finance backgrounds and learned about money management and budgeting early on. 

For instance, Cooper gained his introduction to personal finance and business while in grade school. He and a friend realized they could buy a box of brownie mix for a dollar, sell the cut-up baked product for 50 cents each, and earn a tidy profit. He’s been focused on figures ever since. 

That’s not to say that Cooper hasn’t had to learn valuable lessons from financial challenges. “I was introduced to saving and investing really significantly around college. Because, again, you had an allotted amount of money, and it had to stretch. I can also remember my first credit card. I went off to spring break and ran it all the way up. I’m fighting this hole, right, because I didn’t have the steady income coming in, he says. “But as I progressed. It taught me how to really learn how to manage finances by setting a budget, which we do obviously for the company, but that’s something that we need to do with our own personal finances.” 

Ajanaku, who graduated from Morehouse with a degree in accounting, worked in regional sales management for eight years after graduation. He says money management was vital once he launched the business since “I started off with my savings, a credit card, and my cryptocurrency [account].” With limited funds, he had to be extremely precise about managing inventory – how quickly he sold items and when he had to replenish stock across an array of different sizes. “I didn’t do a very good job of that at the beginning. But now, we’re hiring a fractional accountant. Hiring people [who] can actually help us figure [out] what those sizes are that we need. Learning from our mistakes is definitely helping us move forward.”

The company bootstrapped for a year and a half, but it was clear to Ajanaku and Cooper that they couldn’t sustain the business on savings and sweat forever. It was time to raise capital to promote business growth. The funding avenue they chose was a SAFE note – a Simple Agreement for Future Equity. 

For many startups, SAFE notes are a simpler, more “founder-friendly” alternative to more traditional funding sources and represent a simpler alternative to convertible notes and other more conventional routes to funding. A SAFE note is a legally binding agreement that allows investors to buy future shares at a set price. Like convertible notes, SAFE notes include valuation caps and discounts but provide the founder with a more straightforward formula and greater flexibility.

“You still need to hit your valuation threshold, but there are safeguards in it,” says Cooper, adding that the SAFE note documentation opened the company to the kinds of investment opportunities they weren’t prepared to take advantage of in the earlier stages of the company’s development. “We had the desire, we had the intensity, but at the end of the day, you needed the paperwork.”

Another critical challenge for growing e-commerce retailers like Eastside Golf is keeping pace with tax requirements across the many states where the business is bringing in sales. Cooper stressed the importance of enlisting a CPA to ensure tax compliance and conducting a nexus study to determine when earnings hit tax thresholds in each state. “If you don’t do the study, it’s easy to fall behind in your tax payments and not realize it until it’s time to file.”

The hard work and lessons learned have produced impressive dividends for the company. The founders recently announced that Eastside Golf secured an investment from the PGA, marking the first time the golf association partnered with an apparel company. “To have that credibility, to have the game’s governing body decide, ‘We’re going to park our money with you” – that’s huge,” Ajanaku says. 

The company continues to grow. Their focus on promoting diversity in golf has bolstered its partnership with NIKE’s Jordan Brand, including its Change 1961 collection—inspired by the year the ban on Black golfers earning tour cards and participating in competitions was lifted in professional golf. 

Adds Cooper: “Having a partnership like that puts us in a unique position to get young people back to the game.”

The two are also focused on building generational wealth as they build the business. “The advice that I would give to other entrepreneurs as they develop their own personal finance goals, and even for the business, is you need to start preparing today. I know it’s a cliché, but you need to be looking [at] ‘where I am today is, not where I want to go.’ In order to be prepared with where you want to go, there may be financial advisers that you need to start talking to now.” It doesn’t necessarily mean you need a ton of money, but at least you’re prepared, as Ajanaku mentioned earlier when the moment does arise.

The partners are still focused on their personal finances. Cooper, who manages his money from a conservative standpoint, says: “We need to be saving. We need to be thinking about contingency plans. One of the things that I’ve always done is never make a move that can affect my lifestyle.”

Asserts Ajanaku: “At the end of the day, what do you want to do with your life? That is what the money is for. You can do your job for 40, 50 years, then retire, and then you can go on to your retirement, or you can take that money and actually invest it into your dream and make that retirement even so much larger.”

Swing by swing, Eastside Golf continues to build bridges between words and bring youth and cultural authenticity to professional golf.

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If it’s true that necessity is the mother of invention, then it was inevitable that a Black woman would create an all-weather head cover to protect that fresh-from-the-salon hairstyle from the elements – unexpected rain, wind, and humidity. And, of course, the inventions would have to be practical, affordable, and certainly fashionable. 

The inventor turned out to be Tracey Pickett, founder and CEO of Hairbrella, an Atlanta-based company offering a chic line of elevated hair coverings designed to preserve even the most delicate or elaborately coiffed hair’s shape and texture through inclement weather. 

“Growing up in Atlanta, I would go get my hair done, and it would rain every single time!” Pickett explains, echoing a common frustration of Black consumers who invest significant time and money in their appearance for both professional reasons and personal satisfaction. When it comes to Black hairstyles, a sudden downturn in the weather can ruin that ample outlay in seconds. 

She asserts: “I think for our generation, we’re the first to have an idea, go online and research it, and then be able to bring that idea to the market. With internet access, I could interest investors and bring the resources together and start a business.” 

Inspiration is indeed powerful, but there’s always risk in starting a venture, especially one dedicated to a product that has never existed. Would consumers grasp the concept and respond favorably? Would the research, development, and marketing cost overwhelm whatever revenue came from that first critical sales stage? 

“Well, starting your own business means taking a personal financial risk, and that’s exactly what I did,” Pickett says. A law degree and full-time work at one of the nation’s largest public companies provided her with stability and a year’s worth of savings to get started, but the path was still treacherous. “I wish I had saved for three years because I needed that money. There was a period when I was very vulnerable and not in the best place financially.” 

Pickett’s perseverance and willingness to put everything on the line to realize her vision helped Hairbrella through growing pains and make a strong impression on potential investors: “If I was going to have anyone invest in my business, I needed to show that I was willing to risk my well-being and financial resources to see it grow.” 

As with many new entrepreneurs, one of Pickett’s most significant obstacles was her inexperience in running a business and managing its assets. 

“As I was building the business and finally bringing in venture capital, I realized that I had to think differently about managing the company and my finances. I had to Hairbrella understand what investors were looking for in terms of return. That was new territory for me – definitely a learning experience.” 

At the same time, Pickett did make some smart early decisions, like filing a patent for the Hairbrella concept out of the gate – that’s the attorney in her – to protect against copycats. Even with such protection, imitators have invaded her space as the audience grew and her concept has become universally understood and accepted. 

“The real core of how you protect yourself is execution,” she says. “If you know your consumers better than your competitors or those trying to infringe on your IP, then you can execute and serve your community better. At the end of the day, that [will] win the game, and they can’t copy that. 

Pickett also realizes that meeting the customer’s needs goes hand-in-hand with the management of the company’s finances. To that end, she meets weekly with her team of financial advisors and her mentor/investors to report out the latest numbers and get feedback on the company’s progress. She has become just as methodical and diligent in handling her personal money matters. 

“I’m creating accountability,” she says. “You build a team of people who constantly hold you accountable, so the financials don’t become a blind spot. I was able to put together my own group of advisors who helped me grow and become savvy to run the business effectively. And also make sure that I have a good outcome for myself.” 

Now in her late 30s, Pickett is starting to think about legacy and leading Hairbrella through the next phase of its evolution. While Hairbrella has some ground to cover, Pickett holds business aspirations for achieving unicorn status –$1 billion or more in revenue – for her baby. 

“We’ve been around now for seven years. I definitely want to have an exit event, but I want the business to continue to thrive. I’m focused on bringing about the financial resources, the board, and the advisors to help us reach that next level.” 

She is also focused on executing her personal wealth plan as well. 

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For Ahriana Edwards, 24, her decision to start a business grew from her frustration at being denied a fashion option many young women take for granted. “Growing up, I developed a love of fashion,” she explained. “I was especially inspired by the business attire on those Law & Order shows my mom and I would always watch. I wanted to be that corporate boss woman in the room.”

True to her vision, Edwards embraced that sensibility when she started her career as a young marketing and sales professional. While working at companies like Toyota and Facebook, she adopted that “boss” look with sharp two-piece dress suits and power accessories. But she could never find the high-fashion shoes to complete the ensemble. Retailer after retailer, the fashionable options tapped out at size seven. Edwards is a size nine.

“I’ve always worn an extended shoe size since middle school,” she continues. “I found it extremely challenging to show up as my whole self in these corporate spaces without the right shoes to complement my outfit. And that’s what led me to create Vaila Shoes.”

Launched in 2021, when Edwards was just 21, Vaila Shoes is a modern footwear brand for what the Gen Z founder calls “big steppers” – women with extended shoe sizes (nine to 14) looking for stylish fashion choices in their footwear. The aim was to offer this underserved consumer base a spectrum of seasonal dress shoe collections for the workplace and after-hours. “The big steppers run in my family. We all shared the same story of feeling shy in stores trying to find our size, of not feeling feminine enough. I wanted to take that feminine power back.”

Simply put, Edwards started the company because she “felt like somebody had to do it.”

She has applied this entrepreneurial model to follow her path to developing shrewd money management skills and long-term wealth accumulation.

Edwards has confidence that the ability to snare select customers who share her same frustration with footwear limitations will also enable her to build a profitable business and advance her personal finance agenda.

The impact of Vaila was almost immediate. Her sisterhood of “big steppers” felt seen and responded with their dollars and brand loyalty. Within a year, the company had landed a lucrative deal with a major department store chain, and the company has seen continued growth ever since.

As a young entrepreneur fortunate to find early success, Edwards benefitted from the self-awareness to realize that a good idea and ready audience—while essential—will only take a fledgling business so far. Smart money management and a sound financial strategy were priorities from the beginning.

“I was first introduced to money management as a child,” she maintains. “I’ve always wanted to be an entrepreneur. In middle school, I sold candy and those silly band bracelets, and I got a feel for cash flow, what it meant to buy inventory upfront, and why you need to save what you earn to make back your investment.”

Those skills served her well in the early days of the company. Her success at various pitch competitions brought in $80,000, which enabled Vaila to get off the ground despite the company having no inventory or even a design on paper. Vaila Shoes was just a concept that sparked a demand for a product that still needed to be created. Wasting little time, she used that prize money to build inventory and finance a marketing plan. The cash carried the company through its critical first year.

“In the beginning, financial projections were always the big headache when creating our business plans. Many entrepreneurs say that, but it helps you home in on every dollar spent and how it works for you. That’s especially important in a product-based business where cash flow can be high at one point and fall off, and you have to rely on selling through to make something shake.”

Helping her through the headaches was her three-point support team consisting of an accountant, a bookkeeper, and her attorney.

“You definitely need a financial team to help figure out how much you’re spending, how the money is adding up, and exactly what you need to start the next month. As entrepreneurs, we have to run the business and the day-to-day operations. Sometimes, especially at the beginning, you can’t be as hands-on with the capital as you need to be.”

And don’t forget legal support: “You have to make sure you have your trademark and protect your baby by all means necessary because, in business, it’s all for grabs.”

Another critical concern was insurance. The meticulous entrepreneur carefully put general liability, product, and freight policies in place before shipping a single pair of shoes. “I ship a lot of my products from overseas into the U.S., and with shipping, you want to make sure you’re covered from the sea to the land to your front door. I also make sure to have a little extra coverage to protect against the unexpected.”

With three years of growth and experience behind her, Edwards is more confident in her business acumen and practices. And her goals for the company go beyond immediate business demands. At only 24, she is engaged in long-term thinking about her business legacy. “I want to have something to pass down. I am always thinking about ways to grow revenue to the point where I can exit the company and leave something behind for the next generation. I don’t want Vaila Shoes to leave when I leave.”

Viewing her youth as an advantage, Edwards has time to dream, plan, and execute. She is also focused on gaining more knowledge and guidance on such vital matters as personal finance and insurance planning, portfolio building, and tax management. Her advice to other GenZers is not to let age or limited experience hold them back.

“Being young in business can come with some obstacles. I mean, you’re growing, you’re learning. You’re entering into industries where others may know more than you do. But age won’t mean anything if you keep going and have the right team in your corner. Don’t feel like your age is a barrier to entering these spaces because you absolutely deserve a seat.”

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Melissa Orijin recalls the moment she will “never forget.” While shopping for toys, she witnessed her young daughter, Esi, select a Caucasian doll with blonde hair. Although she taught her daughter to be proud of her familial ties to Cabo Verde (or Cape Verde) and Ghana in West Africa, Melissa noticed Esi began to shun her skin tone and curly hair when she became the only Black girl in class at school. Another blow to Esi’s cultural esteem: Melissa could not find a doll that resembled her child.  

Devastated by the experience, Melissa believed she and her husband, Archyn, failed their eldest daughter. She eventually discovered a solution to this vexing problem through her husband’s game-changing suggestion: “Well, why don’t you just create the dolls you want to see?”

That life-changing idea produced a flourishing business and a viable pathway to generational wealth. 

Melissa launched Orijin Bees in 2018. Over the past half-decade, the company grew into a disruptor within the toy industry, selling 30 multicultural dolls, according to its website. It offered a collection of dolls representing Black and Brown children with assorted complexions and hair textures. 

The ambitious founder also became driven to use Orijin Bees as a wealth-building vehicle for Esi, her creative partner, and the rest of the family.

With a mission encouraging self-love and inclusion, the brand proved to be a huge hit with customers—including several celebrities—and retailers. Orijin Bees gained massive exposure when it landed on “Oprah’s Favorite Things List” in 2021. 

“I wasn’t sure if it was legit because we [didn’t] have any direct relationship, and I didn’t understand how they found us,” Melissa says. “But the guy upstairs made it happen.”

Furthermore, according to Advertising Week , Melissa expanded Orijin Bees’ product reach by scoring partnerships with retailers such as Target, QVC, and Maisonette. The website also reported that the company plans to launch Sankofa Bees in 2024. Programmed using AI, the doll will interact with children by telling folktales, teaching them different languages, and playing multicultural tunes. Melissa says: “We don’t want our kids to be anything other than who they are.”

Now, the company is braced for more growth within the toy industry. Rising demand from targeted consumers and greater spending by parents on children’s toys have been reported as contributing growth factors. 

Launching Orijin Bees, however, has not been child’s play. As a CPA with 20 years of experience in the financial services sector, Melissa made the tough decision in the startup phase to leave her secure job to operate the business full time. She was able to apply her finance and management skills to ensure its profitability.

Melissa made the firm a money-maker by focusing on distribution, making the product line available on its website, marketplaces, big-box stores, and through partnerships with an array of organizations. “As we increase our production, it decreases our unit costs. So, the goal is just to continue to grow without sacrificing the core of what Orijin Bees is,” she says.

A self-funded venture, Orijin Bees has and maintains its forward momentum through bootstrapping. That type of funding can allow a business to rely on financing from an owner’s personal savings or operating revenues while remaining independent. “We’re family owned, and we haven’t brought in investors, but we’re not necessarily against it,” Melissa says. “We would only be open to the right investor because we don’t want to change how we run our business.”

Orijin Bees has served as a wealth-building asset and financial education tool for the millennial couple and their children—two daughters and a son that range in age from nine to four. (They also include Archyn’s company, Orijin Culture, an Afro-luxe fashion brand, as part of their strategic plan.)  

Financing college educations—including the development and execution of a savings and investment strategy—and teaching their children money management and budgeting skills represent the couple’s highest priorities. 

Melissa emphasizes insurance and retirement planning as vital items for them to check off their generational wealth agenda for their children. She believes “whole life insurance is really a great way to enhance wealth planning.” Building cash value and retirement income are among the advantages of whole life insurance over time. But the coverage can come with pros and cons. 

“No matter how old they are, no matter how great they’re doing, I would want to be able to be a part of building that generational wealth for my children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren.”

Further, the Orijins plan to enhance their family’s financial well-being and provide options with the inclusion of real estate. “So, just having different streams of wealth generation, that’s how we focus on our retirement and what we’ll leave to our babies.” 

Melissa maintains their daughters have already gained valuable entrepreneurial and financial insight that can apply to the company’s potential and their respective financial future. Says Melissa: “They know the dolls…they know so many parts of our business that if they choose to take our businesses on when they’re adults, they will be 1,000 steps ahead. They would be able to take the business to levels that we could only imagine.”

If they choose not to move forward as business owners, Melissa believes her children will have businesses that will generate wealth for them and provide resources for any other dreams they seek to fulfill.

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Kathy Fogle, the creative force behind Happy Kat Candles & Gifts, is building her unique wax brand into exquisite works of art. Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, Kathy has not only mastered the art of candle making, but she has also created a thriving business with multiple locations and a growing number of vendors. Along the way, she has illuminated the steps required to bolster her financial education.  

A seasoned hairstylist of 30 years, Fogle stumbled upon candle-making by accident. Fueled by her love for dessert scents, she embarked on a mission to create candles that smelled delightful and resembled delectable treats. Little did she know that this passion would evolve into a successful business.

Her transition into the new venture initially proved to be a juggling act. Balancing her daytime hairstyling job with evening candle-making sessions, she gradually honed her craft. It wasn’t until 2016, after a pivotal surgery, that she decided to plunge into candle-making full-time.

By 2017, Fogle officially launched Happy Kat Candles, starting with small popup shops throughout Charlotte. However, her company took another unexpected turn when Happy Kat Candles won a competition – Battle of the Popups at a local mall – and gained a permanent, brick-and-mortar location.

Happy Kat Candles has since expanded to three venues, offering customers an assortment of unique candles designed to resemble foods and drinks. As a result, the appealing designs and enticing aromas make her product line a highly sought-after gift for special occasions.

She has expanded her venture to include hosting candle-pouring parties and providing customers hands-on experience. One of the standout features that has contributed to her brand’s growing popularity has been seasonal collections in which she offers limited-edition candle designs for holidays and special occasions. Moreover, she also features products from 25 local vendors, promoting a sense of community and collaboration among other small businesses.

Beyond entrepreneurship, she has spent much time navigating the challenges of financial planning. Due to her upbringing, Fogle admits she has been a late bloomer in personal financial management. “In terms of financial education, I didn’t grow up in a household where we had those discussions at the dinner table. I learned through trial and error.”

In transitioning from a self-employed beautician to a full-fledged business owner, Fogle found it necessary to proactively seek assistance from a team of financial professionals. In addition to seeking to engage in financial planning, she has been focused on the value of such areas as tax management and portfolio building in her pursuit of a comfortable retirement. She says: “I’m getting a late start, but I’m headed in the right direction.”

As she balances priorities of meeting customer needs and developing strategies to ensure her financial goals, Fogle currently handles the vital role of a full-time caregiver for her father, a military veteran. This added responsibility has reshaped her daily routine, but she has been fortunate enough to gain support from the Veterans Administration to help manage her caregiving duties.

Looking ahead, Fogle has focused on growth plans for her company, including the nationwide expansion of the Happy Kat brand through its online presence. The brand’s social media channels foster a greater connection with its audience through product highlights and glimpses into the creative process.

A dedication to continuous learning marked Kathy’s journey. She attends workshops and industry events and remains at the forefront of candle-making trends, ensuring that Happy Kat Candles stays ahead of the curve. Her commitment to refining her craft is evident in the quality and uniqueness of each hand-poured candle.

Despite her achievements, Kathy remains deeply rooted in her values. She actively gives back to the community by supporting local charities through unique edition candles, with a percentage of proceeds going to causes close to her heart. This philanthropic aspect of Happy Kat Candles aligns with Kathy’s belief in using her success to make a positive impact beyond her business.

Securing a bright future, however, will require her to follow her goal: her commitment to continuous financial education. 

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