If you're a supporter of Black-owned businesses taking things to the next level, then you've come to the right place! Jamii is an online marketplace and discovery platform for Black creators and makers in the UK.
So far they’ve partnered with Airbnb for a three-week Christmas pop-up, and have recently teamed up with Lloyd's bank for two pop-ups in Birmingham and London.
We got the chance to sit down and talk to the founder Khalia about the partnership, her own career journey, and all things Jamii.
The idea of Jamii first came to Khalia after the murder of George Floyd sparked international protests. She noticed that a lot of people were talking about how they could make a difference within the community, and whether there was enough support for Black-owned businesses that could lead to some sort of change.
"We were trying to work out what was that missing piece, so we originally came up with a discount card cos everyone loves a discount", explains Khalia. "I think most of the time when you have to buy something you do think to yourself, okay, let me check these places first. There's just something psychological in that."
After launching the card the following year in August 2016, there was a huge response, but as time went on, Khalia realised more could be done. She followed up by launching an online marketplace in which all orders could be made in one central location, making it much easier for the customer.
"It was just so easy for people to find Black makers to shop. To amplify our mission, we recently started to work with bigger brand partners", shares Khalia. "Our pop-ups we did last month in London and Birmingham were supported by Lloyd's, and we did a three-week Christmas pop-up that was supported by Airbnb. We also released a short film called Legacy last year."
As we all know, success is not easily accomplished, and even though Khalia came up with the concept of Jamii right out of uni, she didn't know how to make it a reality. So she decided to go to Kenya for a few months and work with entrepreneurs as a spare pair of hands. When she came back she had newfound confidence within her.
"I started a full-time job in a co-working space where I worked in sales, and then I worked in customer relationship management. I met an investor who invested in Black-owned businesses and organisations that supported the global Black community. When I told him I was gonna leave this job, he offered me a position to work for his portfolio organisation. So I ended up being the marketing manager for a Caribbean quick-service restaurant. At the same time, it was also the operations manager for a charity that was scaling up SMEs in Ghana."
For a year and a half, Khalia worked three jobs, and even though it was intense, she describes it as "the world’s best experience" because she learned every function of a business. It would seem that Jamii succeeded very quickly, but it was anything but easy. Khalia had to overcome a lot of self-doubt – it was her first business and she had no prior experience, so she blamed herself for everything that went wrong until she realised that she had to separate herself from Jamii.
"You will influence your business's successes and failures, but you don't control them, and there are things that will happen that are just completely out of your power. Sometimes things go wrong and you can't take it personally because your business is not you. I think when it was really small, it was really hard for me to see that, but as we've grown I've realised that Jamii and I are separate entities, and I can't take things so personally."
Another hurdle that Khalia had to overcome was doubt from others. "I was like, I don't care about you. I'm gonna do it anyway, and I think that's because I was so fuelled by my life. I wasn't like 'I'm going to become a billionaire', I just felt like this platform needed to exist and I was going to do it regardless. I had a full-time job as well; obviously you want to make money, but I also had rent to pay! Even so, I knew I was gonna keep going until I kind of made it work."
"I just felt like this platform needed to exist, and I was going to do it regardless."
Taking that leap of faith really paid off, and reflecting back on the journey of Jamii Khalia remembers her biggest OMG moment so far. "I think it was probably the very first pop-up shop we did. The reason why I say this is three years before I had the idea of doing a pop-up shop in Boxpark. I thought, oh, this would be such a good idea, but didn't really do anything with it at the time because I had my job. Three years later they reached out to us, and when it was finally done I could not believe that three years ago I had this idea and now it was real!"
Jamii is going from strength to strength, so we wanted to ask Khalia what she would tell her younger self if she could. "I would probably say follow your gut. Even when your head says no, that doesn't always make the most sense. Follow your gut because your gut picks up on way more than your brain does!"
"Even when your head says no, that doesn't always make the most sense. Follow your gut."
As someone who's motivated by speaking things into existence, it wouldn't be right if I didn't end by asking what success means to Khalia now. "I would say that my definition of success is probably contentment in your life. If you wake up every day and you're happy with your general life, that to me is success. It doesn't matter what it looks like."