I wasn’t chasing the Black Mecca when I packed my bags and left New Jersey for Atlanta. I had no idea what I was walking into and I wasn’t thinking about legacy or lineage. I definitely didn’t understand what it meant to plant roots in one of the most historically significant cities for Black wealth in the entire country. I was chasing a degree from one of the best art schools in the world, the Savannah College of Art and Design. Atlanta just happened to be where it took me.
I didn’t know about Sweet Auburn Avenue or that this city had been producing Black millionaires, Black institutions, and Black power long before it became a destination. I would later learn that the soil I was building on had already been cultivated by generations of people who looked like me. People who, just like me, refused to settle for anything less than what they deserved. What I knew for sure was that I loved what I was learning, I loved the city I had landed in, and when graduation came, something deep and quiet inside me said: stay.
So I listened. And in 2013, from a kitchen table in Atlanta, Georgia, I started Creative Juice.
A girl from New Jersey who had never been to Atlanta ended up building a legacy here becoming the CEO of the city’s top multicultural marketing agency. This city turned out to be exactly where I was supposed to be.
Thirteen years later, I understand what that pull was. You don’t build a top creative agency in Atlanta and walk away unchanged. The city’s relationship with Black excellence is unmatched. It’s in how people carry themselves, how they build and invest in each other, and how they dream without apology. Without even knowing it, I had rooted myself in a city “too busy to hate.” With hustle, hard work, and determination, you can build something real here.
Creative Juice, Chroma Creators™ parent company, was founded in 2013. Our multicultural, multilingual agency employs a team all across the globe and has now served over 400 clients and counting. We’ve worked with Atlanta Habitat for Humanity, rebranded the Home Depot Supplier Diversity department, created a Valentine’s Day campaign for MARTA, built the FairFight Georgia website for Stacey Abrams, and so much more. These projects, just to name a few, went well beyond marketing into something bigger.
Things I never imagined being possible for me, became a reality. We closed a single contract worth $850,000. And two years ago, we launched Chroma Creators™, a second agency born not from ambition alone, but from a specific, gutting moment in this industry that made one thing clear: someone had to care about Black business, and that someone was going to be us.
Both Creative Juice™ and Chroma Creators™ exist as answers to something the industry was missing. Two brands, the same DNA, built for the gaps everyone else kept stepping over. Creative Juice™ proved that a Black girl from New Jersey could build a premium agency in a major market and win. Chroma Creators™ said: now let’s build something specifically for the people who were never supposed to win at all.
Here are the 13 lessons that actually got us here. The real ones. The hard ones. And the ones we’re still learning.
LESSON 01
The city you build in will shape everything you build
Be intentional about where you plant your business. Your environment is either expanding your imagination or quietly capping it. Atlanta has always been about that Black excellence life. From the moment I set up shop here, I was surrounded by Black business owners, Black creatives, and Black institutions doing serious, consequential work without asking anyone’s permission. That energy doesn’t just inspire you. It recalibrates what you believe is possible for yourself. To see people who look like you operating at that level is beyond powerful. Choose the room that expects greatness from you, because that expectation becomes your standard.
LESSON 02
The kitchen table is a completely legitimate starting point
Don’t despise small beginnings. Before you become a pro, you’ll have to be an amateur. There was no office or team when I first launched. No investor writing checks, no mentor holding my hand, no roadmap. There was my kitchen table, my laptop, a skill set I had worked hard to develop, and a decision to start before I was ready. Some of the most powerful companies in the world began the same way, whether it was in a kitchen or in a garage. Don’t let the absence of infrastructure convince you that what you’re building isn’t real. Being scared is not a valid excuse. Be afraid, and do it anyway. Every successful entrepreneur has made mistakes, and failure is a part of it. Those who win keep going anyway.
LESSON 03
Growth without infrastructure will break you and it almost broke us
The year we crossed $1 million in revenue, we scaled four times our previous size. The economy was booming and clients were pouring in faster than we could process them. I was taking nine, sometimes ten sales calls a day. When the dust settled, we had 31 active clients supporting 52 projects and an internal team that was nowhere near equipped to hold it.
I was overworked, running on fumes, holding everything together with willpower alone. Growth isn’t always a celebration. Sometimes it’s a warning that your foundation needs to catch up to your ceiling.
The greatest lessons I learned were:
- Build your systems and processes first, then scale.
- Hire before you’re desperate.
- Document everything before you forget it.
- BONUS: If you wait until you desperately need the infrastructure, it’s already too late to build it in time without experiencing losses.
LESSON 04
Your portfolio walks into rooms before you do so make sure it’s dressed for the occasion
Nobody closes an $850,000 deal on vibes and charisma alone. They close it because the work speaks loud and clear. And it has to do so in a clear, compelling package that can be easily viewed, shared, and revisited every time a prospective client asks to see your receipts. Stay ready so you don’t have to get ready. Every campaign we’ve executed, every brand we’ve built, every website that launched under our hand were not just deliverables. They were proof. Strong brand and web work is what made the right clients call us instead of someone else. If you want to attract the rooms you belong in, your portfolio has to be ready for those rooms long before you are.
If you’re unsure whether your portfolio is doing the work? That’s exactly what our Chromies are built to fix.
LESSON 05
Opportunity doesn’t wait for a convenient moment and neither did we
I was on a beach in Mexico with my best friend in full vacation mode when my phone rang. A large public health foundation needed a proposal and they needed it the next morning. Luckily I had my laptop, because sometimes running a business means you are never fully off the clock. That beachfront proposal became the largest single contract Creative Juice had ever closed: $850,000. The feeling when the confirmation came in was somewhere between “oh my God, we did it” and “oh my God, what did I just get us into.” Equal parts pride and terror. That’s usually how you know you’ve hit a new level. When the opportunity scares you as much as it excites you.
LESSON 06
Work for the city that shaped you because the clients closest to home often mean the most
Some of the work we are most proud of sits right here in Atlanta. Over 13 years, Creative Juice has had the honor of working with institutions that shape this city every single day:
Atlanta Housing, The Home Depot, MARTA, The Goodwill of North Georgia, Chick-fil-A, Microsoft, Georgia State University, Emory University, Georgia Tech, City of Atlanta’s Mayor’s Office, City of Atlanta’s Mayor’s Office of Technology and Innovation, The Office of Cultural Affairs, The Atlanta Municipal Court, The Department of Transportation, KIPP Atlanta Schools, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, The Atlanta Habitat for Humanity, Medtronic, LG Electronics, Cox Enterprises, Equifax, CARE USA, Greystone Power Corporation, Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, H.J. Russell & Co, The Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation, Georgia Department of Public Health, The Gathering Spot, Design Essentials, FairFight Georgia, and Strength of Nature.
These are just some of the clients we’ve served in Atlanta alone. When your work touches the city that raised your business, it carries a different weight. Seek out the clients who are building the community you live inside. Legacy isn’t only about how much you earn. It’s about what you helped make possible.
LESSON 07
Visibility is not vanity. It’s a signal to someone watching who needed to see you
In 2018, SCAD, the school that brought me to Atlanta, invited my family and me to their Savannah campus and awarded me their Emerging Alumni honor. They featured me in advertising, put me in the academic catalog as an alumni success story, and sent a full production crew to our downtown Atlanta office near Centennial Park to film a profile shown to prospective students during campus visits.
That same year, a contractor came to my home and noticed the SCAD catalog on my end table. He recognized my face. He told me he and his daughter had just toured the SCAD Atlanta campus and that my story was featured in the welcome video. His daughter saw me and because she saw someone who looked like her, she decided she wanted to attend.
I felt amazed. Proud. Accomplished. And seen. Something I had built quietly was making an impact out loud, in ways I never anticipated and couldn’t have planned for.
I didn’t start Creative Juice to be a symbol. But showing up visibly, unapologetically, and in the fullness of who you are is never just for you. Someone is always watching. Keep building your legacy out loud.
LESSON 08
Knowing exactly who you serve is not a limitation. It’s a competitive advantage
Chroma Creators™ exists because we saw something the industry was choosing to ignore. We built it specifically for Black founders, Black-owned businesses, and brands that speak to Black audiences, from the ground up, with AI-enhanced branding, multicultural strategy, and creative work that understands the culture from the inside. When you are crystal clear on who you are for, your positioning sharpens, your messaging tightens, and your ideal clients find you. Niche is not a cage. It’s a superpower and one of the most powerful brand decisions you will ever make.
Chroma’s branding, messaging, and marketing services are built specifically around this clarity. We help you own your lane completely and strategically.
LESSON 09
Chroma was born out of a moment the industry would rather forget
In the wake of George Floyd’s death, the calls came flooding in. Corporations wanted diversity campaigns, strategies, and seats at the table for voices they had been ignoring for years. Then, about two years later, just as quietly as they arrived, the calls stopped. DEI budgets were gutted. Diversity departments were dismantled. The performative solidarity evaporated and many brands simply moved on to the next trend.
We didn’t. Because for us, it was never a trend. Chroma Creators™ launched because someone had to keep caring, consistently, structurally, with real work and real investment. Creative Juice™ and Chroma Creators™ together are the answer to something the industry keeps failing to provide: sustained, genuine, expert support for the communities that deserve it most.
The corporations stopped calling and DEI budgets disappeared, but Chroma stands stronger than ever. We didn’t build this for the hype. We built it for the long game.
LESSON 10
Storytelling is the most underrated business strategy in the room
Features tell, but stories sell. The brands that build real loyalty, the ones people defend, champion, and return to for years, are the ones brave enough to lead with something true–not polished or perfect. Across 400 clients and 13 years spanning branding, web, social media, influencer marketing, activations, and messaging, the pattern is always the same: the businesses that struggle most cannot tell their own story clearly. When you integrate your brand narrative with your why, your clients will find you. The businesses that understand this will always outrun the ones that don’t.
Storytelling and brand messaging are two of Chroma’s core specialties. If you don’t know how to say what you do in a way that moves people, that’s exactly where we start.
LESSON 11
Your brand is either your biggest asset or your quietest liability
We have worked with businesses that were extraordinary at what they did and completely invisible to the people who needed them most. An unclear brand is a leaky bucket. You can pour every resource into marketing, social media, and outreach but if the brand itself isn’t solid, none of it will hold. Branding is the full, coherent story of who you are, what you stand for, and why someone should choose you over every other option available. Get that story right before you market what you sell. Everything else builds on top of a strong brand and nothing works well without it.
LESSON 12
Women’s history is not a month. It’s the foundation this country was built on
Atlanta knows this. The women who organized on Sweet Auburn Avenue knew this. Madam C.J. Walker knew this. Every Black woman who built a business, raised capital, hired staff, and created generational wealth without a blueprint knew this long before there was a month set aside to acknowledge it. We are not new to this industry. We are carrying the torch and that is more powerful than any campaign we could ever create. Build with that consciousness, not just for yourself, but for the women who come after you. Pay it forward. Help a fellow woman reach the next level if you can. There is enough for all of us to eat.
LESSON 13
Legacy is a decision you make every single day
Thirteen years in, I know that legacy isn’t something that arrives at the finish line. It accumulates in the daily decisions, which clients you take, which work you defend, which voices you amplify, which young woman sees your face somewhere and decides she can do it too. Creative Juice™ was built on a kitchen table by someone who had no idea what she was doing. Chroma Creators™ was built in response to an industry that keeps forgetting who it owes. Together, they are proof that you do not need permission to build something that lasts.
Atlanta gave us the backdrop. The work gave us a legacy. And we are just getting started, so stay tuned.
Ready to build a brand with staying power?
Chroma Creators™ partners exclusively with Black founders, Black-owned businesses, and brands targeting Black audiences. Branding, web design, social media, influencer marketing, activations, storytelling. We build with legacy in mind. Creative Juice™ brings that same standard of excellence to the broader market, backed by 13 years and 400+ client wins.
You’ve been playing small long enough. Let’s build something that lasts.
Book your discovery call at chromacreators.agency