Everyday Entrepreneur

This is the seventeeth edition of JTPL Stories: a series of interviews with library patrons, staff, and partners. Continue below to meet the faces of JTPL with our Outreach Coordinator, Aliya! Click Here to read the entire series.

On May 5, Jivonta Montgomery won $5,000 in a business pitch competition in front of four professional judges. It marked the end of a ten session business education program held right here at JTPL.

Watching Jivonta and her fellow entrepreneurs present their business ideas was like watching an episode of Shark Tank in real life. But she insists they’re nothing like TV stars.

“Sometimes people look at entrepreneurs and they see success, right? But behind the scenes we’re just people,” she told me.

“Like, we’re just people with everyday struggles,” she said. “I deal with imposter syndrome. And it took another small business owner to encourage me and validate that I was ready in order for me to put myself out there.”

Jivonta never saw herself as a business owner until recently. Before starting Le(a)d to Love, she tried a bit of everything, from law school, to consulting, to working for the Department of Child Services in Indianapolis.

After the Covid pandemic, she began experimenting with making her own natural beauty projects as a form of self-care. Many store-bought beauty products are full of unpronounceable chemicals that could be harmful to us. Not knowing what was in the products she used on her body made Jivonta uncomfortable.

“It’s kind of counterproductive as well,” she said. “Those are the things that I want to use to make me feel good. But I can’t immediately tell if it’s really healthy or good for me.” Once she began sharing her alternative hair butters and oils with her friends and family, they encouraged Jivonta to sell them.

Today, she has a successful website and shared retail space in New Albany and regularly visits farmer’s markets to sell her products. She’s now looking to hire several employees and expand her business with her pitch competition winnings.

The journey to owning a small business has been difficult and scary. “It’s a huge leap,” Jivonta said. “You know, because I don’t want to be questioning how I’m going to pay bills next month… it can be hard to give up your Saturday mornings, or to give up vacations and try to find the balance between family and enjoying my life with my business.”

But to Jivonta, it’s all worth it to be her own boss doing something she loves. Her brand promotes self-care through helping her customers take ownership of the products they use on themselves. And she strives to embody this philosophy in her life as well as her approach to business.

It’s not all about making money, Jivonta told me.

While we took photos in our Makerspace, she stopped to speak to a patron who was printing out pictures for his late mother’s memorial. She offered him a hug and encouraged him to take time to feel his grief and care for himself.

“It’s the experience that’s the most rewarding thing for me,” she said. “It’s the people that I meet; it’s the relationships… This is about using my talents and skills from God and sharing those with other people, like, hey it’s OK to love yourself. You don’t need to buy anything, I can just give you a hug.”

Starting a business is a life-altering decision and one that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Jivonta encourages anyone thinking of becoming an entrepreneur to plan as much as they can ahead of time and to take it slow.

New entrepreneurs can use resources like the library and the Indiana Small Business Development Center to build their business ideas into concrete plans just like she did. And during that process, Jivonta told me, you shouldn’t forget to love yourself.

“It’s like they say on the airplane, put your mask on before you help somebody else with theirs. You can’t support other people until you love yourself.”

You can find Jivonta’s products at leadtolove.net and at her shared retail space on the second floor of The District Artisan Market & Patio in New Albany.