<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s a popular image of the entrepreneur that few can live up to. Usually young, they\u2019re daring and fearless, breaking rules, working from a laptop on the beach and enjoying a glamorous lifestyle. And lest we forget, they\u2019re also making lots of money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s almost like the Instagram version of entrepreneurship,\u201d smiles Kim-Parker, who\u2019s in the third year of her entrepreneurial journey, having co-founded Thrilling, an online marketplace of curated vintage and secondhand items in 2018. \u201cYou only read about the highs and you don\u2019t realise these people have systems of support that allow them to take that risky step. The fact that it\u2019s enormously risky and there are just as many downs as there are ups is something that should be talked about more openly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Kim-Parker, the desire to set up her own business was something that had been gnawing away at her for a long time. \u201cI always had this urge, throughout the twists and turns of my career to build something with my own two hands,\u201d she explains. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
She hails from a family of small business owners and says she\u2019s proud of the fact her grandparents started the first black owned business in a small town in North Carolina in the 1940s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But even so, nothing prepared her for giving up a very good job as Chief of Staff for the Disney\/ABC Television Group and setting up her own business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was terrifying and full of risk!\u201d she recalls. \u201cI don\u2019t have a trust fund or safety nets and I do often think that entrepreneurship is glamorised.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She\u2019s quick to highlight where some of the structural support around entrepreneurship needs to be improved to create a more diverse community of founders \u2013 and give everyone the opportunity to create businesses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kim-Parker comes across as having a strong sense of community \u2013 both in terms of wanting to make the entrepreneurial community bigger and more diverse and also in wanting to support the small business community and help them survive in a digital-first environment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her business operates around a simple principle; it uses technology to bring vintage stores online and make second hand shopping more modern, accessible and popular with the average consumer. It\u2019s firmly rooted in the sustainable fashion movement and she admits that everyone at Thrilling is passionate about the climate crisis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
She hosts over 300 stores across 100 cities on their platform and says many vintage stores have felt left behind and ignored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere are more second hand small business shops across the U.S. than Starbucks and McDonalds combined and yet it\u2019s completely ignored as an industry and retail category. You wouldn\u2019t even know it existed if you read analysts\u2019 reports,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thrilling has raised over $12million in venture capital since its launch in 2018 and Kim-Parker is increasingly in demand. A partnership with Beyonce\u2019s stylist resulted in an acclaimed curated collection of vintage pieces from black owned businesses and interviews with the likes of Fortune magazine have followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She readily acknowledges there have been some great highs so far in the start-up journey. But true to her keeping-it-real persona, she also doesn\u2019t shy away from the low points. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve experienced a lot of growth and our revenue grew 1,900 per cent during the pandemic,\u201d she says. \u201cBut the most meaningful thing for us is when our store partners do well. There\u2019s a lot of mutual affection between us and our stores and we have a very close relationship with our stakeholders. The biggest high is when they thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But while she says they\u2019re happy to have been able to find the right investors, fundraising is something she admits can be incredibly draining. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFundraising for sure is one of the hardest challenges,\u201d she concedes. \u201cYou do have to go through hundreds if not thousands of conversations. A lot of them can feel defeating, some of them can be offensive. It takes an enormous amount of grit to keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But as she looks to expanding the business globally, with the UK very much on her radar, Kim-Parker is quick to thank others for helping her grow \u2013 and says this is something all entrepreneurs need. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOne of the hardest parts of entrepreneurship is that it\u2019s a very vulnerable journey, so you have to ask for help. Do not by shy,\u201d she says. \u201cYou may feel self-conscious about how often you\u2019re going to have to ask for help. But you should get over it. You know the saying, \u2018It takes a village…\u2019, well you\u2019re going to need the village.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At this point, the sounds of her two young children in the background are a reminder of the competing priorities she\u2019s juggling – and she\u2019s quick to debunk the idea that entrepreneurship is easy. \u201cIt is going to be hard,\u201d she says when asked for advice for others beginning the start-up journey. \u201cNothing remarkable comes from being easy.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But if this all sounds hard medicine to swallow, it\u2019s because she\u2019s continually focussed on a bigger picture of ultimately changing consumer behaviour to help the environment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Becoming an entrepreneur is nothing like the romanticised calling we often hear of, argues Thrilling…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":1332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klickerdev.com\/enshored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1331"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klickerdev.com\/enshored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klickerdev.com\/enshored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klickerdev.com\/enshored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klickerdev.com\/enshored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klickerdev.com\/enshored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klickerdev.com\/enshored\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klickerdev.com\/enshored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klickerdev.com\/enshored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klickerdev.com\/enshored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}