Today we’d like to introduce you to Teju Aluko.
Hi Teju, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’m Teju, an Intuitive Empath and Founder + Chief Experience Officer of Branperience – a Full-Service Brand Experience Firm I opened in 2018 – in a coffee shop in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin with my two daughters who were early teenagers at the time.
I got started with about $65 in my bank account. I used about $25 for gas to pick my daughters up from school and make it to the meeting in order to sign our first official Stakeholder at the coffee shop, which was free. I used about $3.50 to print a contract at the University, for about $0.10 a page. I spent around $10.00 at the coffee shop buying myself a coffee and a bagel for my daughters to split for a snack. And by the time the meeting started I had spent about $40 of the $65 I had to jump start my business – the initial capital.
I was banking on closing that deal that day in the coffee shop to officially open Branperience. The proposal was for $1500 to manage three brands for 90 days. At the time I thought I did this grand cost analysis but it really broke down to $500 a brand at 90 days each which was about $17 a day or $2 an hour or sometimes less on the 16 hour work days – wild times but it worked.
We closed the deal, signed our first official Stakeholder, used $350 to obtain an LLC and register the business, another $100 to create a Stakeholder portal, $150 on addition operations systems to help manage the brands, and invested $300 into putting on our first live activation to land addition Stakeholders with the results we were going to achieve post the 90 days with case studies + testimonials.
Seven years later, we’re still here, managing some of your favorite brand experiences and making an impact in over eleven industries across the Country with over thirty small to large size businesses and brands, the best $65 I’ve ever invested.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
One of the main challenges we’ve had is the limited or non-existent access to capital. We’ve been fortunate enough to grow exponentially over the past seven years, increasing our revenue year over year and minimizing our operating expenses, but we’ve been bootstrapping since 2018. Although we met the criteria and qualifications, oftentimes exceeding them, we still have not been able to be a recipient of any capital for reasons beyond our control .
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
As Chief Experience Officer of Branperience, for nearly 7 years, I’ve spent my days strategizing and advocating for the use and consideration of emotions and feelings when brand building, or rebuilding, through a strategic experiential approach resulting in increased brand equity, loyalty, return on experience and investment. We’ve been able to impact and develop a diverse portfolio supporting an array of industries, most notably in Sports & Entertainment, Nonprofits, and Social Impact Organizations across the country with each Stakeholder partnership spanning, on average, over 19 months each with our unique approach.
Our Stakeholders aren’t scrambling to find several different agencies to handle siloed areas of their businesses, with a bunch of different strategies and tactics, we’re all inclusive – handling their internal & external strategy, email, website, social media, activations + events, text messaging, and much more. Think of a Spa, that’s essentially our business model. In turn, they get to focus on a Return on Experience for them and their Stakeholders while we handle the rest.
We’ve been fortunate to increase our revenue each year but everyday I’m most proud of the impact we continuously deliver while fostering great relationships throughout the process to maximize our stakeholder’s return on experience. Our approach is a unique differentiator that takes a lot of discipline, as it often goes against the what society or the industry tells us of not “acting off of emotion”. But, we stay steadfast in our pursuit to champion strategy over tactics, two-way communication over pitches, and consistency over ‘prisoners of the moments’ and we’re not positioned as a “quick fix” type of Firm. Most importantly, we’ve been able to prove that experiential marketing should be utilized for more than events or activations – experiential marketing is a much more beneficial concept and more of a strategic principle.
Do you any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
One of my favorite childhood memories are the many haunted houses I planned and executed for my family and friends to attend in the basement of my house! Halloween is my absolute favorite holiday but wasn’t able to Trick-or-Treat, dress up in costumes, or celebrate much outside of my home when I was a child. As I entered into my preteen era I found as many creative ways to celebrate from the basement of my home. All my family members would attend my homemade haunted house, and pay an entry fee of $1 to go through the haunted house and conclude with a party upstairs. Everyone loved it and we still talk about them to this day.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.branperience.com/tejualuko
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tejualuko/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/teju-a-7969131b/
Image Credits
Madi Sims Bailey Aluko
