We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kira Parris-Moore. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kira below.
Kira, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
I get my resilience from dealing with adversity from a young age. I have dealt with trauma, bullying, racial discrimination from a child and despite all that, I was able to accomplish a lot. Nothing matters until you make it matter meaning that you can’t allow the heavy things to weigh you down and prevent you from pursuing your goals and dreams. You can still go on to accomplish everything you want to if you just believe that you are capable.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I recently dived into the world of tech where I co-created an app called Wite Collar, that I’m very proud of. It is a mentorship matching platform that will match an individual to a Mentor that meets their preferences for business or career Mentorship. It is currently available on the Google Playstore but is coming to the Appstore very soon. I’m proud of this accomplishment because this is unlike anything I have ever done. Facing new challenges is something that doesn’t frighten me and I welcome it There have definitely been a lot of bumps during this two year journey of app development but it is finally here and I’m so very happy with the finished product. My business partner and I know that creating the app is only half the work but managing it and attracting and retaining customers is going to be our next new challenge. However, we have come too far to go back and so we will carry on knowing that we still have so much to learn, but that this is part of the journey!
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?
The skills I feel were most helpful in this journey of going into tech were perseverance, believing in myself, and believing in my vision. You have to stay the course. You have to believe in your capabilities to execute your vision. You also have to maintain faith when you come against challenges. If you expect everything to go exactly as planned, then you are not built for entrepreneurship. Even the best laid plans will go haywire and you have to be flexible and resilient enough to go with the flow. To expect to have absolute control over everything is unrealistic. You just have to be able to problem solve accordingly and be sure to have a good team around you to support you.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
We at Wite Collar are looking to collaborate with colleges or universities to offer our app to students who are interested in entrepreneurship or are career focused. In the near future, we are looking at incorporating an apprenticeship feature into our app, so we feel a partnership with these entities would be vital for everyone involved. Partnerships are important to us and we know that we are nothing without our community. We hope that some universities, especially HBCU’s, would be interested in offering our product to their students to help with their professional development.
We would also like to partner with employers such as HR reps or their brokers, by offering corporate packages that allow their employees to use our app at a free or reduced cost to help sharpen their professional skills and help employers have a more productive and effective workforce. We see employers as a very key partner in our future endeavors and would be excited to work with them in the near future!
Contact Info:
- Website: witecollar.com
- Instagram: wite.collar
- Facebook: Wite Collar
- Twitter: WiteCollar
- Other: Tiktok- wite_collar
Image Credits
Photographed by Leah Holden, Owner of Generations of Ruth Photography located in Durham, NC.
