Today we’d like to introduce you to Dennis Ashley.
Hi Dennis, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I grew up in LA playing basketball and earned my way to become a Division 1 basketball player. I played four years in college and also got my MBA from a top 50 graduate program. Before finishing up school, I had small inclinations that I had the mind and drive to become a business owner when I was asked to write business plans and proposals for a dispensary in LA my father brought to my attention. All while I briefly flirted with working in a NBA organization front office after holding an internship and having many people in that NBA world in my corner. During Covid, it was tough for everyone and especially me as I just had graduated with my master’s and NBA teams were in the process of either firing and/or not hiring at the time being. Floating back forth with the ideas that I wanted to stick around basketball while also capitalizing on ideas I had formulated while in school was a very hard moment for me. Moving back home with a mindful of ideas, I jumped right into the business owner world and my father and I started going after opening the storefront. After a long licensing process, we were able to get up and running and started living the father and son dream.
Shortly after, growing up in the music world with my father started to foster other ideas that I had passions for. I have always enjoyed bringing people and ideas together and ultimately enjoy building things from concept. After reaching out to my dad’s connections in this music industry, I started a new business that focused on the promoting and event hosting space. While running and using my capital from the dispensary, I was able to bring in my best friend and create our first-ever “culture summit” that brought together signed record label artists to growing and established clothing vendors. As I look on it today, I know I am nowhere close to where I envision myself but I feel because of the people around me and the people I call my friends and family, I am well on my way to completing the goals and visions I set for myself and my companies.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Always struggles and always beauty in the struggles. I think of everything happens for a reason. And you grow from every struggle you go through in life and business.
Biggest struggles to date would be licensing for the dispensary and sourcing the right people to be around when building a company from concept.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about S.N.O. Culture?
We are an event and promotions company that organizes events and brings people together for seasonal and monthly events. We specialize in 500+ people events that bring every aspect of urban culture together(arts, music, fashion).
I am most proud of how our friends and circle of people have helped us push the culture of what we are trying to accomplish. I feel like everyone we know in our circle wants to see us succeed and has helped us build this from a concept.
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
Success is subjective. I don’t think one person can tell someone is successful because everyone has their own bar of success. Success to me will be a feeling I have inside when I know my parent’s sacrifices were all paid off and they know I capitalized on everything they have given me in life.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: snoculture.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/snoculture
Image Credits
@leeatlman @jcfilms @bellikemike
