It took a role model to show Erika-Rae Griffin that her path to entrepreneurship was possible. Her hands were always at work doing everything from sewing to painting, but she’d never dreamed of starting her own business.
So when she had the opportunity to do freelance work for a local designer in 2014, something clicked. “That was my first time working with someone who was my age, looked like me, and was actually building a brand out of nothing,” she says.
Today, Griffin is working to build her own business, Create or Conform, to sell jewelry and T-shirts she describes as “handmade items for the Afrocentric minimalist.” Her mission is to share what she sees in Black and African culture. “There’s a richness and a beauty to it that I appreciate,” she says. “And there’s something about [the culture] that calls me to express that in my own way.”
