Our Story, The Evolutuion of Orange Clay

For as long she can remember, Lola wanted to be a businesswoman because she thought it would be challenging and the way she’d like to contribute. She wasn’t very fulfilled whilst employed and had an education, but no tangible skills that she was aware of. All of her other ideas required masses amounts of investment because they involved producing products that relied on other people’s skills that they deserved to be paid for. Lola had no way of proving that she could do what she believed she could, but wished she could work in a simulation, a development environment, training ground, she wanted to practice without too much pressure before going live and get paid! Too much to ask of any employer! She decided after her second 'career’ change that the next would involve developing skills herself.

Lola believed she had to learn to draw if she wanted to design anything and had to be patient and unabashed to make progress.She really could not draw a straight line and had terrible handwriting, but made some progress! She still played it safe by wanting to be a self-employed consultant/project manager, because of being highly organized and methodical.She gave that up after building a few static sites just using front end technology. She decided to be completely fearless and learn programming/the backend technology as it would be more beneficial long term.Technology was completely unrelated to anything she had done before (other than as an end user) or was naturally good at, so it was a challenge. She completed all the exercises in a book "Mathematics's a Complete Introduction" to prepare and still has the folder to prove it!She taught herself programming/web development and used fashion design and garment construction, alongside books left over from a career in real estate and a interior design course (she dropped out) to help her learn.

Initially, she wanted to run a membership site called Archetype which was based on entrepreneurialism, exchanging ideas, creativity and online interaction. She devised networks and wanted to dynamically match people together to create ideas/groups and make things happen, but soon realized what she had learnt was too basic to execute this herself. She tried to get a bank loan to pay someone else but couldn’t. Stuck, she decided she was going to have to put way more time and effort into learning and decided she'd be better off with a traditional business idea/model as the basis of her first big web/development project. So there it was, buying and selling to get started. She decided her niche or USP would be that she would design, build and project manage the development of her own online store, selling products that people already buy at a discount. With her back-to-basics idea, Lola researched how to build software and then devised her own software project management system and documentation. She had to learn more languages and also how run her own servers/networks to host her proprietarycode (she couldn't be bothered to learn later that she should have trusted no one!

Armed with a lengthy business plan, 3-4 years later, she is trying to crowdfund to make progress with her online store.Lola says, the great thing about building from scratch, apart from it feeling more productive and exciting is that it feels so real and she can organically see how the design itself has generated the need for staff, as she cannot fulfill the needs of the system itself, let alone the entire business. It was always suggested that she should use Shopify, Amazon or other ecommerce solutions, but fulfing a life long dream of employment creation for herself as well as others, from something she created herself, is still a shock to her.

SMITHIES

They say you should tell people when you are at your destination, not when you’re on your way there. Unfortunately, she learned this, having to continually tell people of her ideas and plans in attempt to secure finance, left her wide open to racism and sabotage whilst studying and building the store. A group targeted her livelihood and her physical and mental wellbeing to stop her from making progress. You’d think she was Neo, from the Matrix! But she is not the first person to change careers and won’t be the last. She manage to obtain an Injunction against a participant and was awarded damages for being harassed (for 3 years) for over £7,200 (was not recoverable) and this didn't even include business related losses! She is still having to fight the landlords for this in court!

Lola has worked hard to get to this stage, and is very proud of what she has achieved so far and with your support, the business could grow and become a big contributor to employment in the future of a wide variety of roles, especially for those who know they are extremely motivated and can beat the odds if they right environment or structure, that’s why some of the roles are casual and modern (to her).

Orange Clay is a trademark for the business Orange Clay. It has a specific plan for the future in the area of ecommerce, in addition, Lola wants to produce her own Fashion and Skincare products, using the success of this business, Orange Clay, to fund future projects. Clearly, she is trying to build a business/brand that becomes self-sufficient and sustainable by keeping up with industry, technological and world development/advancement.

Integration

With your pledges above £75, Orange Clay has the opportunity to redefine and launch the Archetype membership and as Orange Clay builds its own inhouse ecommerce solutions, project management being an important feature of software development, you can see how all the previous work will be integrated.

Job Creation/Skill Development

With your pledges to this independent Ecommerce Everything Campaign, Orange Clay could create many roles in next 1-6 months, for example:

• Customer Support
• Product Description Editors
• Content Creators
• Models
• Videographers
• Jnr Developers
• Influencers
• Photographers
• Online Sales Execs

You should support this campaign with a financial pledge because Orange Clay will be an employer that has the ability to believe in the good that is unmanifested, hidden or unknown.

Lola, the owner, can learn well, so can teach. Orange Clay will help people become better at whatever they want to be really good at and therefore people employed by Orange Clay should attract more opportunities in the future.

Just remember, she has been working singlehandedly and "pressed" so if your of the opinion, you can do better wait until she is armed with a knockout squad!

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