Interviews
How To Know If Entrepreneurship Is For You – With Mimi Kone
Jemima Hunter
August 24, 2021
We caught up with the founder of Mimi et Mina, a boutique hair salon specialising in premium hair services for women of colour. Mimi Kone left her previous job as a Sales Manager at Louis Vuitton in Geneva, as she wanted to solve the lack of representation in the beauty industry by starting her own business.
Take a sneak peek into what it’s like living the entrepreneur life and whether it’s a route you’re willing to go down.
What about entrepreneurship is appealing to you?
Whilst growing up in West Africa, Kone knew she wanted to follow a career either as a lawyer or entrepreneur. Knowing the degree of information, you need to know as a lawyer, Kone decided entrepreneurship gave her the freedom she was after and realised it was more correspondent to her personality. ‘I’m someone who likes to have ideas, likes to put ideas out there and likes to try them. So, it felt right for me at the time.’
Fight the issue and turn it into a business plan
Arriving to the UK from Burkina Faso had its difficulties, however Kone had a skill to easily adapt to new cultures. ‘It was my first time to hear about racism because I grew up in Burkina Faso, where the doctor, the pilot or the guy in the corner of the shop were all black like me so I never had an idea of what racism was.’
Kone started to research into premium hair brands for black women and quickly realised there was no businesses that covered that aspect of the beauty industry. The entrepreneur soon decided she wanted to create a brand that empowers women of colour and gives them a feeling of ‘I know I’m worth a premium brand and worth anything I want to achieve in my life.’
‘Have strength and also be grounded. Think strategically constantly because a bad decision can make you lose something. A good decision can make you go in the direction you want to go.’
Mimi Kone
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