My Little Black Book

My Little Black Book since its inception is a story of sheer tenacity. It was founded on the premise of giving Black-owned brands a voice and amplifying their visibility on the market. It has been totally bootstrapped up until this point. With the funding from the Elevate Prize, we will be able to release the highly anticipated version 2 of the app that will include upgraded features and a more in-depth backend database. We will also continue to push our marketing efforts through the integration of SEO growth hacking, digital and physical billboards, brand partnerships, curated events, and more. With the prize funding, we will also be able to expand our team to hire 2-3 full-time employees to help with the day-to-day operations. 

After college graduation, I moved to New York with a dream in my heart to work in fashion. I started off as an intern at Factory PR and instantly fell in love with event production and VIP/Talent relations. After five years of working in the industry, the disparities of Black designers became more apparent to me. During the lockdown, I realized I wanted to create more impactful work and really do my part in amplifying the voice of Black creatives - that's how MLBB was born. Through My Little Black Book, my dreams of being an editor have come to life. The possibility of where the brand can go is endless. I am using the MLBB platform to forge meaningful relationships with brands, designers, creatives, allies, and more to fulfill my purpose of visibility and representation in the fashion industry. For the future, I hope to build partnerships with major retailers to supply their shelves with Black-owned brands. I will open in the next three years, an MLBB concept store that brings the app to life. 

There is a visibility and representation problem in retail. My Little Black Book gives Black-owned brands the opportunity to have an extra layer of visibility through our on-the-go functional app. Currently, in the U.S. alone there are 2.5M Black-owned brands. However, less than 1% of Black-owned brands live on the shelves of retailers such as Target, Sephora, Amazon, Nordstrom, Saks, and more.  Over 25B are affected by this issue. That's a problem that we will fix. 

MLBB is the premier app for discovering Black-owned fashion, accessories, and related lifestyle brands through our on-the-go functional directory and one-of-a-kind inspiration board creation. We are the go-to resource for agencies, stylists, publications, showrooms, and more to discover Black-owned brands. We offer a subscription service that helps companies find Black-owned products when they need them.

Aside from being a totally functional on-the-go app, we also offer users the ability to curate inspiration boards with the content of Black people. Continuing with our goal of visibility, we want our users to feel seen and represented. Unlike Pinterest, you do not have to put "Black" before your searches to find content that displays Black people. 

We are currently building out a partnership program with creative agencies to extend our efforts to bring visibility to the brands housed within our app. Through networking, marketing, and previous relationships we have been able to build a community of 1,000+ users, followers, influencers, brand-owners, creatives, subscribers and more within the first month of our launch - which was February 2021.