Hope and Mission for Cultivate Different

Working with Small Businesses

My biggest hope and mission for Cultivate Different is to give small businesses an online presence that completely embodies their business. I plan to help guide them through the process seamlessly and package a product that is responsive, interactive, and easy for them to update. I truly believe that most businesses don’t need to pay an agency or web developer just to change text or add a new section. 

After all, small businesses usually invest most of their money back into their employees and products. I’d rather not take valuable resources away from building our communities into better places. 

Let’s rewind a bit and look at how I got started in web design. 

Where it Started

This journey started when I realized that a science major wasn’t for me. I felt pressure, a lot of it, to go into the sciences. My family didn’t put any of that pressure on me, but the majority of my extended family are in the sciences. I thought that I needed to follow their lead. Boy was I wrong! One day something clicked and I realized my talents were better suited in the communication realm. I changed my major to public relations and picked up French studies as a second. After I graduated undergrad, I joined a small marketing agency and got to work. 

The agency gave me a chance and challenged my abilities. I was able to work on projects in varying industries and learn about almost every type of digital marketing. Pro Tip: If you don’t know what you want to do yet, join an agency and get a taste of everything! I knew I wasn’t going to be there forever and grad school was going to set me apart. 

Falling in love with web design, I jumped into a program at the University of Florida. I took classes in branding, coding (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP), Adobe products, and blog writing. I’m not going to sugar coat it, I cried a lot, especially in the coding classes. If you have one small mistake, your whole site could break. But I grew! 

Isn’t it hard and a lot of work to start your own business? 

This Life Chose Me

The pandemic hit. Haven’t we heard that line so many times? Well it did and flipped my world upside down. To my surprise, some amazing families gave me a chance and helped me practice owning and operating a small business coaching kids tennis. Coach Clara Tennis was born with a mission to mentor kids into great adults while teaching them a life-long sport. I was trying to make rent and still be able to eat Chick-fil-A every now and again. When you get put into that survival mode, it’s a amazing what you can accomplish!

Now it doesn’t feel so hard. Creating real connections and being honest with them – through the ups and downs – has made the journey feel so much easier. I feel supported and that I have my whole community behind this endeavor. The seeds to work on my own time didn’t start out of desperation. 

In my freshman year of college I started learning about finance. I followed Graham Stephan on YouTube and watched all his videos. His main message was just to do it. Do the thing that will give you freedom and stop holding back. When I got this freedom of being self-employed, I didn’t want to give it up. 

Don’t get me wrong, this is scary. I’m putting my trust in God and letting Him take the lead. 

God’s Provision 

Everyone has experienced hardship, there is no denying that. It’s how we handle those hard times that really matter. Also, looking back at how God has pulled you through those hard times help. 

I can call out dozens of times where I have thought there was no hope, but God showed me otherwise. It’s an easy temptation to worry that this won’t work out, but I know it’s part of the bigger plan.

Mathew 17:20 says it best, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

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Now that you know a little more about Cultivate Different, I’d love to know more about you! Send me a message here or on social media and I’d be overjoyed to hear about you. 

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