With the rise of more and more black women breaking away from traditional 9-5s to become their own bosses, the CEO is getting a revamp as the SHEeo. CEOs are forging their own paths, blazing their own trails, and turning their passion into a profit. Curious to know how she does it? In the Meet The SHEeo series, we talk to melanated mavens leveling up and glowing up, all while redefining what it means to be a boss.
Dionna Collins originally launched ComfiArt in 2016 as a way to combine her graphic design and digital marketing skills into unique home goods pieces for herself. But a year later, a job layoff led the entrepreneur to rebrand ComfiArt to cater to consumers who want affordable art and home decor and expanded her product offerings to include apparel and accessories. Partnering with local artists and brands in the Atlanta community, ComfiArt services e-commerce, events, and business-to-business clients wishing to take their space up a notch without sacrificing quality or style.
In this week's feature, meet Dionna Collins of ComfiArt.
Courtesy of Dionna Collins
The Stats
Title: Founder/CEO of ComfiArt
Location: Atlanta
Year Founded: 2016
# of Employee(s): 2
30-Second Pitch: "ComfiArt was founded in 2016 as an affordable way to buy unique art that you can wear and also decorate your space. We create exclusive pieces while collaborating with artists and brands around the community."
The Details
What inspired you to start your brand?
I've always loved graphic design. I have 14 years in the graphic design and digital marketing world, but I didn't want to deal with freelance market. I started ComfiArt for myself. Originally, it was only pillows and home goods. Creating ComfiArt has allowed me to be able to create for the consumer while feeding my soul with the love and passion of creativity without the pressure.
What was your "A-ha!" moment that brought your idea into reality?
My "A-ha!" moment was in 2017 when I got laid off from my job. While trying to generate an income, that pushed me to rebrand ComfiArt. I expanded the products I was selling online to include more apparel and accessories, which led to the three tiers that make up ComfiArt: e-commerce, events, and business-to-business.
Courtesy of Dionna Collins
Who is your ideal customer?
Being that my main focus is on art, we at ComfiArt like to collaborate with artists in their area, Atlanta, Georgia. With that, we ensure that people are able to afford beautiful artwork in the small pieces we offer online. Our goal is to make sure that if you aren't able to afford a $5,000 and upward original piece, you can afford original artwork with ComfiArt. Our ideal customers are art enthusiasts, people that love unique items, creatives, home decorators and people who like to stand out from the crowd.
What makes your business different?
ComfiArt is an affordable way to bring unique art that you can wear and also decorate your space. We create exclusive pieces while collaborating with artists and brands around the Atlanta area. The collaborations we have with Atlanta artists help them find other alternatives in creating financial wealth for themselves. Some ways that we help are by curating events, connecting them with brands, and sharing profit opportunities with ComfiArt through our website e-commerce.
What obstacles did you have to overcome while launching and growing your brand?
Like everyone, I'm still going through obstacles. Finances are one struggle as a small business. It can be hard finding funding to help grow and expand the business. Self-doubt, confidence, and depending on others to make my dreams come true are some of the obstacles I've overcome so far and I depend more on myself now. This entrepreneurial life is more personal. It has forced me to depend on myself, not doubt my own ideas and how to follow through. Now when I hear a "no" or a door closes, I don't get as upset anymore. I just realize that it's not the time or that God is telling me that I'm not quite ready and that opportunity will come back when the time is right.
What was the defining moment in your entrepreneurial journey?
For me, I don't think I have one yet. In this past year, I have reached some major milestones in regards to helping artists sell their artwork and expanding my brand identity, as well as collaborating with other major brands such as WeWork and Whole Foods while still being such a young company. As a brand, what sets me apart is being able to bring artists to platforms and environments that they're not typically used to being in. In the upcoming years, I'd like to expand more on that. The NBA, Hawks, Nike, Amazon, and Coca-Cola are a few of the brands that I'd like to collaborate with.
Where do you see your company in 5-10 years?
To be a global brand. In the next 5-10 years, I want to be the company that brands call to find artists while being the brand that artists come to find contracts for work. Our main purpose at ComfiArt is to help artists find alternatives to building financial wealth while merging the gap between brands and artists and assisting with government contracts. My goal is to also expand the e-commerce aspect of ComfiArt and collaborate with more artists while being the brand that hosts major art events throughout the country and simultaneously expands the experiential realm for artists.
Where have you seen the biggest return on investment?
Social media has been our biggest ROI. We get a lot of traffic via Instagram and influencer marketing through our events with other artists. This has helped to grow my email marketing list and expand the brand to other artists.
Do you have a mentor?
No mentors, hoping to find one soon to assist with questions that I have on building and expanding the company and learning more about investments and finances.
Biggest lesson you’ve learned in business?
Not everyone will believe in your dreams at first, you just have to trust and believe in yourself and take risks. It takes a lot of hard work, dedication, blood, sweat, and tears. It won't happen overnight, you just have to be consistent.
For more ComfiArt, follow them on social media @ComfiArt.
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In an xoNecole exclusive, the mom of two opened up about many things, including starting her wellness journey at 13 years old. However, a near-death experience during a procedure at 20 made her start taking her health more seriously.
“There's so many different levels, and now, I'm in a space of just integrating all of this good stuff that I've learned just about just being human, you know?” Dreka tells us. “So it's also fun because it's like a journey of self-discovery and self-mastery. That's what I call it. So it's never-ending.”
Courtesy
If you follow Dreka, then you’re familiar with her holistic lifestyle, as she’s no stranger to promoting wellness, self-care, and holistic living. She even lives part-time on a Mississippi farm, not far from her grandmother and great-grandmother’s farm, where she spent some summers as a child.
While her grandmother and great-grandmother have passed on, Dreka reflects on that time in her life and how having a farm as an adult is her getting back to her roots. “So the farm was purchased back in 2017, and it was like, ah, that'll just be a place where we go when we're not touring or whatever,” she said.
“But COVID hit, and I was there, and I was on the land, and I just started remembering back to going to my grandmother's during the summertime and freaking picking peas and going and eating mulberries off the freaking tree in the bushes.
“And she literally had cotton plants. I know some people feel weird about picking cotton and stuff. She had cotton plants and I would go and pick cotton out of her garden. And she had chickens, and I literally just broke down in tears one day when I was on the farm just doing all the things, and I'm like, ‘Oh my gosh. I'm literally getting back to my roots.”
"I literally just broke down in tears one day when I was on the farm just doing all the things, and I'm like, ‘Oh my gosh. I'm literally getting back to my roots."
You can catch glimpses of Dreka’s farm life on Instagram, which shows her picking fruit and vegetables and loving on her animals like her camel Eessa. Her passion for growing and cultivating led her to try and grow all of her ingredients for her wellness brand, Dreka Wellness. However, she quickly realized that she might be biting off more than she could chew. But that didn’t stop her from fulfilling her vision.
Watch below as Dreka talks more about her business, her wellness tips, breaking toxic cycles, becoming a doula, and more.
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Feature image courtesy
As many “church kids” can attest, the altar doubled as a stage for nurturing natural talent, and Angel’s experience was no different. "Growing up in the church, they’re going make you sing in the choir — so singing was a part of my life, probably even before acting became a part of my life." Angel's role as the youngest of four also played well with bringing out her comedic sensibilities. "It kind of became my role, an unspoken role, to bring levity to my family. I was always the comedic little sister that lightened up the mood," she says.
Angel’s trajectory into the industry may not have been the one she imagined, but is far from unexpected.
Credit: Ted Sun
Her formal training in acting, including earning an MFA from the University of California, Irvine, led her to explore musical theater and eventually stand-up comedy. This instinct for humor created a non-linear yet harmonious path, landing her in roles on hit TV shows like Black-ish and A Black Lady Sketch Show, preparing her for what would come next.
Last summer, her spontaneous freestyle launched Angel into her second act: a hit-making rapper. What started with a TikTok video of a preacher warning Louisiana State University students of the supposed dangers of women in Mexican restaurants, soon turned into an instant summertime anthem.
She debuted a freestyle on her podcast Here's the Thing, co-hosted with Kevin Fredericks (KevOnStage), asking Fredericks for a beat, and began freestyling what is now “One Margarita.”
While she admits that she usually “can’t land the plane” doing freestyles, this time it stuck. Producers Casa Di and Steve Steven Terrell blessed the track with a beat that took flight, transforming a cautionary sermon into a chart-topping hit.
Moore has since gone from interviewing celebrities on the NAACP's red carpet to becoming a recipient of the NAACP’s 2023 Outstanding Social Media Personality award, what she notes as a “full circle moment.”
At times, life can feel like one long dress rehearsal, but That Chick Angel is proof that when it's your time to take the stage, no one can stop your shine.
xoNecole: You’ve shared that a lot of the inspiration behind your songs is to just have fun. Has that always been your motivation as an artist/entertainer? Or have you ever dealt with any perfectionism that can stall the flow of fun?
That Chick Angel: “In the very beginning of my content creation career, I was trying to do this ‘perfectionist’ type of thing, and I quickly stopped because nothing was getting done. I was waiting for perfect, but perfect wasn’t showing up. Eventually, I got to a place of, ‘Girl, we’re not going to worry about perfect, we’re going to worry about done,’ and I was able to focus on my true purpose: bringing joy into the room.
“That's where you get the ‘funness’ behind the songs and content I create online or even in my podcast. Not to say that we can’t have deep moments — I will never try to belittle my intelligence or my experiences for a joke, but I also want to speak the truth about situations as well.”
You’ve been creating content since 2009. In what ways has the power of social media played a role in your success?
“I started making content when I got pregnant with my first baby, and it was just a creative outlet. This is my 15th anniversary of [creating] content, so I am blessed to be one of the OGs that started before we knew what the heck was going on.
“At the time, I was very adamant about keeping my professional acting life separate from my content life because I didn't know the value of my content. I remember telling my friends when I would be recording stuff, ‘I don't know why I'm doing this, but I feel like I'm supposed to be doing this.’ I continued to make content, not knowing what it would all amount to. What it has amounted to, career-wise, is that I’ve gotten to establish my brand and say who I am before someone else even had the opportunity to fix their lips to tell me who I am in the space.”
"I continued to make content, not knowing what it would all amount to. What it has amounted to, career-wise, is that I’ve gotten to establish my brand and say who I am before someone else even had the opportunity to fix their lips to tell me who I am in the space."
Credit: Ted Sun
You're a wife and mother of four boys — how do you find balance between the demands of motherhood with your entertainment career?
“I'm a card-carrying member of the Beyhive and I remember seeing the clips of when Blue Ivy started performing with Beyoncé. I'm not an emotional person, but I remember tears welled up seeing Blue Ivy on stage with Beyoncé. It wasn't so much about Blue Ivy in that moment, it was seeing Beyoncé be a consummate performer and a mother at the same moment, at 100 percent. That’s what I long to be: to not have to shrink what God has purposed in me and all the gifts He's given me while being a mother. And not have to shrink being a mother to be all the things God wants me to be.
“Are there times when one has to take precedence? Absolutely. But I feel like I have created a life where I get to do both things: be a family woman and be a businesswoman and not having to sacrifice one for the other.”
One of the things I appreciate about "One Margarita" is how it playfully embraces sexual freedom. How have your personal experiences, including growing up in the church, shaped your views on sexual freedom as the woman you are today?
“It creates safety for a woman to be able to clearly and unashamedly say what she wants. When we have conversations around consent, it’s two people saying, ‘This is what I like, would you like to do this with me?’ And the other person saying, ‘I would like to do this.’ Until we make women know that it is okay for them to verbalize what they want, we're constantly putting them in unsafe places if they don't feel like they can say yes or no.”
"That’s what I long to be: to not have to shrink what God has purposed in me and all the gifts He's given me while being a mother. And not have to shrink being a mother to be all the things God wants me to be."
Credit: Ted Sun
Your latest single, "I Just Wanna Shake My," captures your fun and audacious spirit, and with your EP coming this fall, what can new and existing fans expect from your debut EP?
“They can expect me to walk through whatever door God opens. In 2023, I didn’t know I would have a trap song that has over 20 million streams, but I'm sure the Lord did. My ultimate goal is to release this EP, create a one-woman show around the songs, and tour it in 2025 so I can bring out more of my comedic elements and acting. Whatever doors are going to open, Angel is going to run through and say, ‘God what do you want me to do with it?’"
For more of That Chick Angel, follow her on Instagram @thatchickangel.
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Featured image by Ted Sun