Meet Chyna Bratcher

We were lucky to catch up with Chyna Bratcher recently and have shared our conversation below.

Chyna , thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

I come from parents who are resilient to the core. My mother and father experienced so much being young parents, trying to figure out life without a solid foundation and raising my siblings and I to be the best versions of ourselves. It taught me how to make the best out of every season of my life, not complaining but working with what the situation is developing within me. My sister and I are resilient in business because we have a mother who pushes us even when we feel like we are pushed to the max; she always shows us how we can improve our craft and business. Quitting is never an option, but taking time to breathe and take care of ourselves is always encouraged.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

Hello Honey! We are Honey Co Fro, a natural hair care brand created by naturals for naturals. We are sisters by nature and business partners by choice and we started this entrepreneurship journey so unexpectedly. We started in 2019, with about $200, no previous experience with formulating while I was a senior in college working as a substitute teacher and my sister Chaniya was a middle school student passionate about STEM. It started from a conversation my sister and I had about hair textures. Chaniya confessed to me that she hated her natural hair because of her texture being coily and dry. This caused me to ponder on how to create a solution. That is where our first product was birthed, “Meant to Bee Styling Custard”. This product was curated specifically for dry 4 type hair to provide lasting results and help provide penetrating moisture to natural strands. We stand for creating products that use clean ingredients and products that are naturally safe and encourage naturals to embrace their natural hair. We have expanded our brand by creating 5 products to create a better hair care routine and plan to continue to help naturals embrace their hair one product at a time!

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

There are three qualities Honey Co Fro stands by; consistency, faith and individuality. There will be times as a small business owner where business will get slow or you don’t get the results that you worked for but consistency is important as a business owner. You can’t give up! Showing up for your business consistently is what separates a lot of businesses from the major ones. Those who consistently work on their craft are the ones who truly see the difference. It has also been important to remain original and sticking to our original blueprint. Being encouraged knowing that our business stands out from others has to remain as our vision in a world where everyone wants to be so similar. We want to inspire young African Americans to dig deep and find their purpose and create opportunity for change for the world. Last but not least, our faith is really important to us. We believe that our faith can take our business places that we can’t take ourselves with our natural resources alone. We are consistently working to stretch our faith by looking for opportunities to grow our business and being thankful to God for the opportunities that are given to us.

What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?

As a business owner, there are many times when I feel overwhelmed because there are many responsibilities for a small business owner. There is a lot of behind the scenes pieces that have to be moved to push the business forward. Being the kind of person I am, I have a struggle with trying to carry everything on my own even though I have such a great support system. So now, when I start to feel overwhelmed, I first take a step back and look at what is important in that moment. I work with my team that consist of my mother and sister. I know I can depend on them for anything. It is important that you have a team that can carry you when you feel overwhelmed. Don’t allow yourself to get so overwhelmed that you lose focus on what the purpose your business serves. Allow your team to help you move the little pieces to put the puzzle together!

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Image Credits

Melissa Bratcher

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