For nearly 8 years, Lenise Williams has been providing quality leather goods through MADE Leather Co.

Today, her commitment to equipping consumers with the best of the best remains, yet Williams’ purpose and why, has taken a new form.

“My purpose with starting this business was because I’ve been in service-based industries and service-based businesses for most of my career and I felt like I was tired of trading my time for money,” Williams told aspireTV. “So I started making an effort to start a product-based business and also to be able to teach my children more about product-based businesses and entrepreneurship in general.”

“My children are now out of the house,” she continued. “So I’m an empty nester now. I feel like I was constantly doing for them and I still am doing it for them, but I’ve slowed down a lot because having them gone made me realize how much and how hard I was working. I’ve kind of started to  work a little bit smarter and not so much harder because I want some of my time back.”

After a trip to speak at a United Nations conference in Morrocco back in 2016, Williams was allowed to explore Marrakech and learn more about the artists and community, including how they tan their leather. From there, she was so intrigued and inspired that she purchased some of the goods and it wasn’t long before everyone back home wanted to get their hands on one.

From there, the light bulb to jumpstart Made was birthed and as the saying goes… the rest is history.

“On the plane ride home I just kind of thought about it, like, I’ve been wanting to create a product, I just didn’t know what I wanted to sell,” said Williams. “Then it all kind of transpired from there.”

For her, the most rewarding part of entrepreneurship is being able to cultivate her creativity and mold it into something for others to experience at a high level.

“I really enjoy taking an idea and turning it into something real and not just turning it into something real, but actually being able to find joy in it and make money from it. I feel like it’s the best of both worlds,” Williams expressed. “And I’m not going to say that I never get discouraged. That I never want to quit. I mean, there’s probably been more times than I can count on my hands that I wanted to quit, but I just kept going. The feeling that I feel when I launch a new product or I pivot or do something new after I’ve gotten kind of stale in the business, brings me a kind of excitement that I cannot explain. Being able to do something, like I said something come from my mind to fruition, it just keeps me going.”

Next up for Made is the launch of two new bags made with the avid traveler in mind.

“We’re launching two new bags and one of the bags is something that I feel is kind of a baby of mine because I wanted to design the ultimate travel backpack,” she shared. “So I’ve been taking feedback from my customers on what type of features they love, what makes them love different brand backpacks that they have and I’ve tried to incorporate all of that into one bag.”

She continued: “We don’t launch a lot of products because I like to take a lot of time to really come up with good concepts because I don’t want to just throw anything out. It’s been over a year since we’ve launched something so I’m really looking forward to this one.”

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