Celebrity chef and blogger Ayesha Curry shares her experience with marketing her passions and tells how you can do it, too.
Can you tell us a little bit about the “Make The World You Want” campaign? Why is this initiative important to you?
I feel like it’s important for every entrepreneur to have a platform to market their passions and their businesses. Having a website is the easiest way to do that, so I feel like being able to spread the word through my partnership with GoDaddy is an amazing opportunity, since they’ve helped me launched my new Homemade site.
How are you making the world you want?
I am making the world I want by having my Homemade website up! It’s literally its own little world. I love that I’m able to customize everything, and that I’m able to send out my message and build my platform the way I want — to use it for good, and for change.
In your opinion, what qualities make a someone a maker? Who are some makers that inspire you?
I feel like a maker is a doer. Somebody who is willing to put up the work to see their ideas through. It’s anybody that’s original, and makes their original idea come to life. A maker who inspires me is Jessica Alba — I feel like she is the epitome of an entrepreneur who succeeded against the odds. No one was really sure what would come of Honest Company, and it ended up becoming a billion dollar company.
What is the best business advice you have ever received? Who gave it to you?
The best business advice I ever received was from Jennifer Aaker. She told me to just go for it. Basically I had a huge chunk of my cookbook written before it was official, I was just playing around in my kitchen. She told me “You know, this is really good, you should do it!”, and I took that little bit of a book that I had to a publisher and they bought the book. It’s crazy, and it’s kind of what started this whole thing.
What is your process when making crucial business decisions, whether it involves your career or your family?
Deciding if I’m passionate about the opportunity first is the most important thing for me. It has to spark my interest and it has to spark joy — if it doesn’t do those two things, then it’s an automatic no. I love partnerships and things that are a vessel for change. So anything that has a charitable component to it is a win for me. That’s the stuff that really inspires me.
What advice would you give a maker looking to start their own business or fund their own idea?
Just go for it! Don’t let anybody tell you no. It’s important to think outside of the box, so conventional and traditional isn’t always the way — especially in business. Try to be innovative, creative and stay ahead of the curve. Always make sure you’re reading and trying to gain knowledge and learn in any way you can, no matter how successful you are. Ask your peers how they do what they do, because everybody does it a little differently. Try to take little bits and pieces of advice away from each person you talk to.
