Meet Areial Lomack of Twelve AM Co in North Hollywood

Today we’d like to introduce you to Areial Lomack.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Areial. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I am from Oakland, CA I studied public health in college. I’ve always loved helping people and community health, so when I was in college I used to go out and teach health education to high school students in the Bay Area. Although I loved working for the community I quickly realized that I couldn’t work for anyone else or behind a desk.

I used to have to sit behind the desk for hours and hours a day doing research etc. but it made me really depressed, I think that’s when I realized I needed freedom in my workspace and no constrictions. Once I graduated from college, I really wanted to find a job in public health, working for a program that focused on youth but I went on many interviews and was never hired. Shortly after that I was feeling as if I needed to get out of Oakland. I really wanted to be in New York but I couldn’t afford the move at the time so LA it was. I planned a week of interviews with marketing firms, PR houses, Stylist interns, any type of job in fashion I applied for. Once I made it down to LA I went off for interviews but realized that this was not it, those jobs I applied for were a bust, but I was still so determined to move here so I asked my cousin if I could sleep on her couch while I figured it out.

Long story short I ended up sleeping on her couch for about two years off and on until I finally got on my feet. I started working with a stylist named Jessica Pastor. I worked for her for about a year and a half, being under her she started telling me that I needed to be and entrepreneur and start my own business. I don’t know if it was my young hustler ways, being bossy or the ego I had as a youngster here in la. She continued to push me to figure out what business I would start and I told her I wanted to sell shoes. She had affiliations with the well-known shoe store Just Fab and always made me go on their site and study how they did things. From there, I started to stay up at night and write up a business plan and pretty much get my head wrapped around starting a business for myself. Seeing a lot of businesswomen on Instagram got me really inspired. I used to drive from Inglewood to Pasadena to go meet with the business advisors at the small business association to help me with my marketing plan until I finally worked up enough money to make my first shoe purchase. I been going ever since and this was in 2015/2016 when everything first began for me with Twelve AM.

I continued to work my job as a freelance production assistant and that helped me get enough revenue so I could keep my business going. I hustled and did that for about 2/3 years and as of November 2018, I’ve been doing solely Twelve AM which is amazing but still has its challenges. I’m enjoying it and also working on developing my own shoe designs while trying to bring my health education skills full circle with the business. I want to pivot the business so I can be active in the community while running the business and doing things to help and inspire the youth and other people of business.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Its been a bumpy road, as I mentioned before I worked full time while also running the business. Just imagine working 16 hour days and having to come home late and pack up orders, waking up at 4am to go back to work. I had to learn how to do quality control of the business as well, making sure I have good content produced so I could sell the products in a timely manner. Good thing as a production assistant I was working on commercial sets and music videos so I was able to learn how to put together an entire set, which helped me in the long run with the business when it came time to do my own campaigns etc. this all helped. I applied all the skills I learned in production and as a stylist assistant to my business of selling shoes and making it look beautiful.

As I go on with the business I continue to learn new things every single day and just when you think you master something it’s so much more you could learn, you just have to keep going a really learn your craft. I’m enjoying it fully and want to continue to learn and do new things to keep me motivated within it that’s where shoe design come in and community efforts start to come into play.

Please tell us about Twelve AM .Co.
Within the business, I pretty much do everything, I don’t have an assistant. If I do have help I’m contracting others to come help me on special projects etc. but I handle all the day to day on my own. This gets exhausted and I’m finally at the point where I need to hire someone to help me. I do all the buying for the business, I crunch numbers and work on my budget, I create the content but I do have a photographer that I work with on the weekly bases and models that I hire.

I think what I’m most proud of in the business is the content I produce. I think my content is pretty good and good quality at that. Also, I love the shoe selection that I bring to the table. I don’t try to make the fast fashion purchases, I am very selective in the buying process and try to bring good quality shoes for an even sweeter price so I won’t hurt pockets.

The shoe selection I have sets my store apart and the content because I don’t just try to give shoe shots I like to show people a full look, so they can know how to wear the shoe. Most of our shoes aren’t really basic they are statement makers and some girls don’t know what to do with them so I make our page look good by shoeing them full looks and them providing them with detailed shoe shots.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
If I had to start over, I would have started working on shoe designs earlier and I wouldn’t second guess myself as much. I would tell myself GO more often and don’t sit on ideas so long just produce what comes to mind. I think I would be further if I didn’t over-analyze things so much.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.twelveam.co
• Email: info@twelveam.co
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/twelveam.co/?hl=en

Image Credit:
In the picture with me and the guy his name is Chris IG: @officialc5; The pictures with me in the T shirt its for my non profit organization Passionate & Prepared that I just launch and having a backpack drive for 8/10/19; All the pictures were taken by Kin Cordell my photographer IG: @kincordell

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