Many college students worry about passing finals and finding a summer internship. Bless Kinga has a more ambitious plan.
The Portland Community College marketing student founded a company. And he's already received a grant to fund it.
Kinga is a winner of a $5,000 Include Award from the Angel Oregon Tech competition. The grants support early-stage founders who are Black, Indigenous and people of color.
In November 2020, Kinga founded 1HubFashion, an online sales portal for streetwear brands. Many of the brands use Instagram, a sales channel that can be harder to navigate than a website.
1HubFashion is a way to funnel all of those sales through one website. As a digital middleman, 1HubFashion takes a commission on sales.
"I'm a customer of the streetwear sector," Kinga said. "I've always seen how people look for streetwear brands on Instagram."
He'll use the grant money to continue building his network of streetwear brands selling through 1HubFashion.
Many of the brands Kinga sells are based overseas, which can make customer service difficult and cause shipping delays. Kinga hopes to improve on both those counts for 1HubFashion customers.
"We want to ship in five to 10 days," he said.
Kinga said business is going well and traffic on the website is improving each month.
“Once we found TikTok, we really got a boost," he said. "We found out exactly where our target market is and how to reach them and how to speak to them."
The site has good traction internationally. 1HubFashion brands include 10 in Russia, two in Indonesia, two in Nigeria and brands in South Korea.
"People outside the U.S. realize the value of this platform more than people in the U.S.," Kinga said.
Kinga said his mom is an entrepreneur and he's grown up around people running businesses.
"It's nothing new to me," he said.
And how does he manage juggling classes and running a business?
"It's just about being organized," he said. "I could just complain, but if I just sat here complaining, nothing would happen. Make a plan. Whatever you want to do, you just have to make a plan."
