My story is a story of hope, struggle and luck. It is a story of a young boy left behind in Jamaica after my mother and father split up. My mother was left alone with two kids and suddenly was forced to make a hard decision to leave her homeland.

I was only two when my mother left and the next time I saw her I was seven. By that time she was truly a stranger to me and when that cold day in February arrived and it was my brother's and my turn to join her in Canada. There was a strange and disconnected feeling that was shared by all of us.

The beginning of life in a new country is no easy feat I struggled with the language and living with my new mother; the customs of my new country were very different from my simple Jamaican lifestyle and they were in stark contrast to what I'd been accustomed to back home. A new language had been thrust upon me and educators and mom seemed somewhat contemptuous of my language they called patois. This language I'd spoken for my whole life was now not good enough for my new country. But this was all I knew; it was all I had. I lost my first language in this transition and in a bigger way I lost my self esteem as a result. Television and all other modes of advertising filtered into my world and my brother and I wanted it all without knowing that there was a price to pay for everything we saw. And yes, in our new society not being able to pay for things began to loom large: We lived in low income Ontario Housing units which were subsidized by the government. It was home for us.

In contrast, from the outside looking in there was a stigma attached to the address: outsiders automatically assumed that because we lived there we didn't pay much of anything for rent and that we were just lowlifes who stole from the system. What did I know about how the system worked at that time? All I remember was seeing my mother working her butt off as a maid to make ends meet! And the ends didn't always meet! There were hard times and I quickly learned that I had a responsibility to help make things easier by getting a paper route, shoveling snow, singing Christmas carols or just learning how to do my laundry. These were my realities as a new Canadian. Some bed of roses I thought!

Yet, that particular time in my life has taught me some valuable lessons such as always being respectful of people no matter what their station in life and to never look down on anyone's native tongue. Having basic respect for other people's cultures and languages has been fostered into Big It Up's company philosophy inside out. We are an organization that believes that people respectful and united can make miracles happen.

The story about how Big It Up came to be leaves you believing in the idea of "what's meant to be will be." In the summer of 1996 I was working as a barber while studying business at Humber College and the idea for starting a business came about that summer. I had a friend who was staying at my place and left a bottle of lotion that I began to use and I loved it. This lotion turned out to be the hot topic at the barber shop and people wanted to buy it. We decided that we were going to start a company and suddenly there was this grandiose idea to get the distributor license for this product and sell the lotion through Shoppers Drug Mart.

The idea was hatched up to go down to New York and meet the company execs and get that license. However, as you know more likely than not plans sometimes don't pan out. It was a disaster and the company execs didn't believe young men with no track record could represent their name and brand well enough in the Canadian market. So the trip resulted in bringing back only 60 bottles of lotions and no licensing deal. What a bummer!

This was a huge downer and all involved had to come down from such unrealistic, dreamy heights. Luckily we had friends who were believers and were willing to give suggestions to help the project go forward. Out of these suggestions blossomed the idea to create our own lotion. OK, we thought, why not? Back then the internet wasn't as omnipresent as it is today, so we used the most popular directory then - the yellow pages - and let our fingers do the walking. This turned up a fabulous Hungarian chemist who after hearing the ideas was very welcoming and eager to help in this new venture. But first we needed a name for our company out of several brainstorming sessions came the idea to call the company Big It Up it's the Jamaican vernacular which means to give respect. And we loved it! We felt we needed a name that was different and hip; one that would standout and Big It Up had a nice ring to it on the streets. It was the word DJ's always used to give shout outs to people in the party.

When my mother heard the name she flipped and said "you can't call the company Big It Up. Who is going to buy from a company named like that?" It wasn't a conservative name, but heck we weren't conservative people so we went with our gut feeling. The name just felt right and we loved it's flavour; it gave us a solid base for showcasing our culture to others after all other cultures were always presenting their ideas to us. So we stuck with our guns and it proved to be the right move. We registered the name and came up with $9,000 dollars start up cash. I sold the rims on my car, the car stereo system and cashed in my mutual funds against my brokers wishes and forged ahead.

It seemed we lucked out with our chemist his credentials were solid: having worked for Alfred Sung and a slew of other high profile brands for several decades. This man taught so much about the fragrance business which was key for us to understand the special smell that the lotion needed to have. Big It Up was now official and we were on our way. We started selling our product at an expo at the C.N.E. in October of 1996. The response to the products was overwhelming at the show and CFRB1010 Newstalk Radio interviewed us therefore, bigging up the Big It Up brand to the thousands of listeners at home who had never heard of Big It Up before. This was our first stint with publicit

Source: http://www.enterprisetoronto.com/index.cfm?linktype=mainlink&linkId=99

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