MyKitta Davis has reached the point where she's ready to give back, share her example as a model for others' success.
Friday, the Minority Owned Business Network will host a luncheon with Davis, owner of Everyday365 clothing in Rochester, as a keynote speaker.
Davis, a John Marshall High School and RCTC graduate, started her clothing brand in 2016 as a side gig from her full-time job working as a coordinator for Girl Scouts branches in Southeast Minnesota.
"I wanted to go into this new model of selling my Everyday branded merchandise, but I also want to provide to the community with the gap of urban clothing," said Davis on her inspiration to start the Everyday365 clothing line. "Jeans, and clothing specific for men and kids were sparse in local urban clothing stores, and I really wanted to fill in those gaps for clothing merchandise."
Tawonda Burks, founder of the Minority Owned Business Network and owner of ELOCINA Consulting & Customization, said Davis' story provides an example for other minority entrepreneurs in Rochester.
"She comes from the same schools and community as a lot of these other people coming through our doors have been in," Burks said. "MyKitta's story is one of perseverance doing all she has done to get her brand from a pop-up to now being a brick-and-mortar store. She can really share with people that being from this community, they too can have an opportunity to grow and make their own business a reality."
Being able to speak to other minority entrepreneurs on Friday, Davis said, shows the path she's been able to take so far as a business owner.
"I want to be able to help and really give back to minority-owned businesses because we have a lack of support in our community," Davis said. "There's a gap in funding and in wealth and if I can use my experience to help somebody else, change their life as they start a business or start something that could be a future legacy to bring generational wealth to their family, that's everything to me."
From 2016 to 2019, Davis slowly chipped away at building business. Then in late 2019, many big life changes happened to her at once. A promotion to a supervisor role, finding out she was pregnant with her third child, and having her father pass away.
"My dad literally was my biggest supporter. He would just tell me, 'You're dressed for success. The way that you dress, nobody can stop you, nobody can top you.' My dad was always the one to never let me go second-guessing myself, he always let me know I had great potential in me," Davis said.
Following her father's passing and the relaunch of Everyday 365, Davis also worked on refurbishing the logo of her brand as it had been praying hands behind the company title on clothing.
"I still wanted the message of the brand being about what you do every day. When I went through that rebranding process after my dad died and my life kind of changed in a year, I really wanted to focus on 365, because those 365 days changed my life. And that's how we ended up with 365 in Roman numerals as a part of the logo," Davis said.
These big changes and the coming COVID-19 pandemic forcing more time at home brought about the opportunity for Davis to rebrand her business into what it is now.
Davis officially relaunched the brand through Facebook Marketplace two weeks after her son was born in July 2020. During this time, she was still balancing her full-time job and raising three children.
It wasn't until Memorial Day weekend of 2021 that Davis was able to land her first pop-up stand at Apache Mall and realize she could make her clothing brand a full time job and commitment when she made two months' salary at her full-time job in a short pop-up event.
"It spoke volumes to me that if I could do this in three days, imagine what I could do in 30 days and just see how it goes for the summer," Davis said.
Davis kept doing pop-ups and eventually a kiosk stand at Apache Mall from June to December of 2021. She took a break for a few months when she caught COVID that December and later found out she was pregnant with her fourth child.
Davis made a return to the mall kiosk stands in April 2022 and continued that until July of last year. Then through the help of her friend and other local business owner, Christina Jones of True Queens Boutique, Davis was finally able to land her first brick-and-mortar store location right next door to Jones and her business.
With her business up and running at its new location at 115 North Broadway Ave., Davis is ready for her next steps in her journey as an entrepreneur: Beginning a new venture on business coaching and consulting under the name of 365 Collective.
Original source can be found here.
