Photo courtesy of Jical Jilal
Name: Jical Jial
Work: Nijahwhan.com
Occupation: Creative stager
Contact: [email protected]
What’s the meaning behind the names of your businesses and brands?
Mosotomoss was a company that I acquired through another friend. They are just two names combined together. Nijahwhan came to me in a dream. I was on an Indian reserve and someone said, ‘My name is Nijahwhan,’ and I woke up and thought, I’m going to use that name. So, I wrote it down. I had the name back in 2005 but I didn’t know what I was going to use the it for. So, I said surely an opportunity is going to come up. When we were thinking of doing the store, I thought of using the name Nijahwhan. Because with Google you have to have a unique name. Usually, you may come up with a name that’s already taken. So it’s recommended that you either combine two words together or come up with something totally different. When Nijahwhan came to me I said surely no one would have that name. When I googled it, no one had it and I bought the domains for it. And I said, ‘OK God; this is it.’ It’s short. It’s simple. So this is the direction the store should go. So Nijahwhan was it.
Your title is creative stager. Take us through the process of creative staging.
My job as creative stager is to come up with products. Once I come up with a product, I implement it and make it happen. It really originated when I was originally with Mosotomoss where I did workshops, seminars and training for our clients. whenever Mosotomoss would get a new client, I would go to a city, gather up small businesses and work with them on branding, storytelling and how to get their story out to their audience. Basically I will come up with creative themes, and then I stage it out in the marketplace to make sure it gets out there. So from beginning to end, that mainly what I do. I come up with ideas and if it’s the right fit for the company, I put it out there.
What is your focal demographic?
Our target audience is entrepreneurs, artists, creative thinkers. But most importantly it’s people who have a desire to start their own businesses. That’s our demographic. That’s the core group of people we go after only because that market will never go out. There’s always someone trying to start their own business. And there someone trying to be a freelancer or go out on their own. So we feel that we will always have customers as long as we stick to that demographic.
What makes Nijahwhan different from all the other online stores?
When we were trying to decide what products we were going to sell, I always felt that Mosotomoss needed to do a store. At the same time I thought what kind of store we were going to do. Are we going to do merchandise since I have a background in fashion design? To me it made sense since I know that industry. I’ve been in it and I’ve trained in it. So I thought let’s go with apparel. We are only going to focus on apparel first, then branch out into homeware. We’re going after the people Apple talked about, the creative thinkers the people who think differently. Because so many people need to dress and look the part of an entrepreneur. Same thing with artists, when you are a freelancer with a portfolio and you don’t look the part, it will be hard to sell. When people meet you in person they have already sized you up on what type of person you are based on your demeanor and how you look. We are an image society. And it goes back to our core value. If we go after those groups of people then we will always have something to sell. These people need to look the part and they got to look good when they’re doing whatever they do.
When will you start?
We are going to launch in November. We are getting everything together. The store design is already done. The shipping, the boxes, the last finishing touches. We prefer that so hopefully that will be a slow month sale. We are new at this so we don’t want to put a lot of stress on ourselves. Because we have a small group of people and we have never done a store before, let’s start off slow. Let’s get our brand out there. Maybe December and January we can hit the ground running. We need to get our feet wet because we are screenprinting our own products. We are not outsourcing anything. Everything at Nijahwhan is going to be done in-house. Let’s take our time and do it right the first time. We’re going to start here in Atlanta and branch out in maybe December and January by getting bigger media and national attention.
Tell us about a line of your merchandise.
The name of the T-shirts is Mirroruriah. The whole concept is you have to be in front of a mirror to see the message. Everything is backwards so it’s your message, not our message. When someone told me that “Uriah” in Arabic means “light,” I thought since we are trying to inspire people, be enlightened. And since a mirror is reflective, reflect a light, enlighten within. So I put the two together. It goes back to coming up with a brand name. Mirroruriah came to me around July and I pitched it to the team. They loved it. So I slept on it for a week. Nothing came up on Google search and I thought, okay this is what we will go with.
With Mirroruriah, Nijahwhan and Mosotomoss, it’s all about being different and it’s all about creating a brand for something that no one has ever heard. I love the idea that no one’s ever heard of Google. I remember thinking that’s a dumb name: Google. I said the same thing about Yahoo when it first got started. Now they’re household names and they’re a part of our lives. We’re trying to create a brand and catchphrase that when people think of the whole concept of reading something in the mirror, they will immediately think of Mirroruriah.
