The email arrived over a month after I'd sent my new rates notice. Over a month of silence, and then this — a response that should have been a simple "OK great" or a "no, thank you". Instead, the tone inside was worse than any outright rejection I'd ever received.
"It's unclear if you're bringing anything more to the table," something to that effect — this, despite my practically immediate response times, same-day delivery of technical design work, and the fact that I was essentially on tap for their every whim. Then came the carrot: a quarter of the rate increase I'd asked for. If I still felt it was warranted.
They'd sat with my new rates for thirty days and came back with that.
My body knew before my mind did. The anxiety crept up my spine. The shame settled in my chest, shame for daring to ask, for thinking my work was worth more than poverty wages.
I was a Tech Concierge of colour, working primarily with privileged coaches in the spiritual and healing space. Women who posted the right words on social media about equity and inclusion, love and light. Women who later showed up very differently behind closed digital doors.
They forwarded me personal emails with no context, expecting me to "just pick it up". They demanded I drop everything to focus on them. They gaslit me when I set boundaries. Basic manners, please, thank you, were apparently optional when addressing "the help".
And I was tired of being the help.
The Kitchen Was Where I Went to Remember
While they diminished me in emails, I was in my kitchen, hands deep in spices and steam, creating something that actually nourished. Cooking was my sanctuary, the one place where my worth wasn't up for negotiation.
The day I decided enough was enough, I was making sweet and sour pork. The sauce bubbled in the white deep-bottom frying pan, filling my home with the smell of ginger and vinegar and possibility. I stood there watching it transform, and something clicked.
I didn't want to build behind anyone's scenes anymore. Sure, I had felt safe there in some way, hidden in the shadows for so long. But now? I wanted to stand in my own kitchen, literally and metaphorically, and create something that was mine.
Everyone told me I was insane. "You can't mix tech work with cooking! That will never work!"
But I knew something they didn't. I knew that my days of providing Done-for-You services were dying. I knew that simple backend systems, paired with basic knowledge of how to use them and great nourishment, were the keys to sustainable success when building a home-based business while raising a family. And I knew, firsthand, what getting kids involved in the kitchen could create.
My eldest was proof. At 17, with A–C high school grades after only 18 months in traditional school following eight years of home and world education, they'd been invited to cook in a Jamie Oliver kitchen in central London. At 15, they landed brand deals from Instagram reels with 2.9 million views. At 13, they were planning menus and cooking for paying customers in a Mexican café. At 12, they were a self-taught Adobe Premiere Pro and Photoshop expert running a video editing business for YouTube gamers with tens of thousands of subscribers.
All because they'd been in the kitchen since age two.
But the moment I knew, really knew, that this worked? When I became deathly ill in 2023, and my eldest stepped up. They did the food shopping, managed the budget, cooked every meal for me and their two-year-old sibling. They handled it with ease and joy.
The kitchen had given my child agency. Confidence. Capability. Everything the internet, social media, convenience foods, and modern schooling were designed to strip away.
So I built Empire Kitchen, a place where entrepreneurial families, especially those from marginalised communities and families of colour, could learn the foundations of sustainable success. Where parents could build without burnout. Where kids could develop real-world skills instead of scrolling into oblivion. Where the family unit became the secret weapon, not the thing holding you back.
Despite the naysayers, I did it. And it worked.
The Transformation I Didn't Expect
But here's what I didn't tell you: before Empire Kitchen, there was a time I was drowning.
My kitchen was chaos. Every cup and plate used. The dishwasher perpetually full, either dirty or clean but never unpacked. I was living on a mix of beige oven food, takeaways that cost more than we could sustain, and chocolate pretzels washed down with endless coffee. So much coffee I don't even touch it now.
I felt miserable. Exhausted. Brain fog so thick I couldn't make clear decisions or think straight. I was stuck in a cycle of starting and stopping business ventures, never gaining traction.
And underneath it all, I knew: I desired location independence. I craved a way forward.
One day, pacing the house as I so often did, I asked myself a question that changed everything: do you want to keep going like this?
The answer was immediate. No.
No more half-cooking or not cooking at all. No more feeling incapable in my own kitchen. No more expensive takeaways. No more business dreams that never materialised because I was too foggy, too tired, too disconnected to build anything sustainable.
That's when I realised something: I already had the answer. It was in that tiny apartment abroad, where my simple backend systems automated my business and gave me time to cook and enjoy great meals with my kids. These two things, nourishing food and smart systems, went hand in hand.
You can't build a sustainable business when your kids are hungry, eating empty calories, constantly sick with colds and stomach bugs, riding sugar highs and crashes. All of that steals your time and attention. You can't think clearly. You can't work. You're always putting out fires.
But when I started getting my kids in the kitchen, really involving them, everything shifted.
They helped gather ingredients, wash produce, peel vegetables, mix sauces. Little tasks that added up to real time back for me. As they grew, they became capable. Confident. Resilient. They inherited CEO skills through the kitchen: problem-solving, creativity, initiative. My teens could cook entire meals while I finished work.
The running of the household became teamwork. Easy. Fun. Connective.
And suddenly, I had mental energy for my business. Clarity. Focus. The capacity to actually build something.
One client told me recently: "Cooking with you meant my family now eats better. The kids are enjoying new foods and learning 'dangerous' skills like using knives. I have renewed energy and clarity in my business that I just didn't have before, when I was living on oven crap, coffee, and being ref between my bickering bored kids."
That's the real transformation. It's not just "kids can cook". It's that mum can breathe.
The family grows closer, something modern norms have systematically destroyed. Kids gain confidence and capability. They learn responsibility and are actually ready for the real world. Parents stop burning out, stop carrying the full mental load, stop feeling like they do everything for everyone and get nothing back.
Health is gained by all. And health is wealth. Without it, there is no business happening.
Empire Kitchen became my rebellion against the lie that we should do it all alone. Against the normalisation of food delivery apps providing three meals a day and screens as parenting tools. Against the idea that convenience food and exhausted, disconnected families are just "how it is" for entrepreneurial parents.
We're preparing the next generation for a better world and sustainable success. And we're giving parents, especially those of us from marginalised communities who already have to work twice as hard, the foundation to actually build empires without sacrificing our families or our sanity.
That's what Empire Kitchen is. And it works.
But Something Was Still Missing
I'd found my voice. Built my own stage. But the racial bias that had broken me? I was still carrying it alone.
When I tried to talk about it, I was shushed. Told to "just let it go". Warned not to "create more division". But in my heart, I knew many of my fellow entrepreneurs of colour were experiencing this too. Hiding it. Staying silent because "you can't talk about that stuff".
I'd also been tokenised, invited to be "the one of colour" at otherwise all-white events, used as the diversity piece in the family portrait. And I was tired of that too.
Then, on 7 August 2025, at around 2 p.m., a DM arrived from my friend Sutton.
Sutton is a beautiful, dark-skinned Muslim woman I'd met on Facebook years earlier, bonded in some long-forgotten battle over a topic neither of us remembers. Her message was casual: she had an idea she'd been marinating for three years. A collaboration. Did I know anyone who might be interested?
I asked for details, mentally scrolling through my rolodex.
She told me about her vision: a community. Not like the sales-post wastelands most groups had become. Something that lifted members, moved money, influenced change, and celebrated people for who they are. People who, like her, didn't fit the traditional business mould and were often overlooked entirely.
My sacral chakra lit up like a firework.
"Sutton," I typed back immediately, "your collaborator is here. I want to put myself forward for this." She'd meant for me to suggest someone else. But when she read my response, she said: "No, don't give me names. I want to do this with you."
Just like that, The Flavor Room was born.
Twenty-Four Hours That Validated Everything
We didn't have a website. We didn't have branding. We had a Google Form and a Stripe link. But money moves at the speed of belief.
I was at home on my laptop, wondering if we were completely mad, especially after a white woman had mocked me publicly just days earlier when I'd invited her to join as a founding member. Who did I think I was to DM her when I don't even show up as a baddie on Facebook? Real mean-girl energy.
But then the payments started coming in.
One. Two. Five. Seven.
"We did it," Sutton and I said to each other. That's validation.
The Flavor Room became what we'd both been hungry for: a space where entrepreneurs of colour and those from diverse backgrounds are seen, celebrated, and elevated. Where we set the standard instead of begging for a seat at someone else's table. Where white members and partners show up as true friends and allies, not performative diversity hires with a quota to fill.
It's an invite-only community. A bold choice. One I never would have made alone.
But that's what working with Sutton taught me: partnership isn't just about shared workload. It's about being pushed to do things you'd never do solo. She encouraged me to show up on partnership calls I would've avoided. To release disrespectful clients and connections so I could set a new standard for myself. To build something unapologetically exclusive.
And for the first time in my entrepreneurial life, I felt like a peer. Respected. Celebrated. My ideas didn't just matter, they shaped the culture of what we were building. I wasn't "the help". I was a leader.
I didn't realise how much I'd needed that until I wrote these words.
What Happens When We Stop Being Silent
The Flavor Room didn't just create community. We created a movement.
And movements demand evidence.
That's why we spent months asking the questions nobody else would ask.
We spent 24+ hours interviewing entrepreneurs across the online business landscape. We documented what everyone whispers about but rarely names. We gathered the data nobody else wanted to collect.
The result? Is It LEGIT? Redefining Equity, Leadership, and Influence in Online Business. Not another surface-level report that changes nothing. This is a mirror. And a manifesto.
It exposes the truth about race, class, and access across the entire online entrepreneurial industry: coaching, consulting, creators, the whole ecosystem people of colour and marginalised entrepreneurs navigate while being told the playing field is level.
And we're not just releasing a paper. We're creating an immersive experience unlike anything the online business world has ever seen. Spoken word. Live performances. Raw conversations that don't happen anywhere else. Visual storytelling that will give you chills.
And the unveiling of something that changes everything: LEGIT™: Certified Standards for Impact-Driven Business™. Because DEI couldn't fill the gap. Because "diversity and inclusion" became corporate theatre. Because we deserve more than performative allyship.
LEGIT is the new standard. The certification. The line in the sand.
The Flavor Experience launches soon. Full details at theflavor.biz.
When this drops, when we show what accountability actually looks like, you'll want to say you were there from the beginning.
Two Businesses, One Revolution
Empire Kitchen heals the disconnection in entrepreneurial families. It gives parents a chance to build without burnout, with health and family intact. It breathes new life into kids who've been forgotten, whose potential school doesn't cultivate, whose self-esteem social media destroys. It's about healing humanity through vital life skills and real food.
The Flavor Room heals the disconnection between us and our privileged counterparts. It's changing the face of entrepreneurship and redefining the standard of business as we know it. It's truly disruptive. We talk about the things most won't and shine a light on them. Then we bring solutions. It's time for people of colour and those from diverse backgrounds to be respected and seen as the leaders we are. We created a platform for that.
Together, they're about refusing to be invisible. Empire Kitchen makes sure families see each other. The Flavor Room makes sure we see each other.
Both are rebellion. Both are legacy.
What I'd Whisper to You
If you're a woman of colour building your business right now, if you've been told to be grateful for scraps, if you've been the diversity piece in someone else's portrait, if you've dimmed your light to make others comfortable, I need you to hear this:
You are brilliant. The world needs your contribution.
Not behind the scenes. Not as the help. Not as a token.
Centre stage. Full volume. Unapologetically.
Your kids are watching what you're building. The next generation of entrepreneurs of colour is watching. And they need to see you refuse to accept less than magic.
So build your Empire Kitchen. Find your Sutton. Create your Flavor Room.
And when they ask you to dim your light? Let the sauce bubble. Let it smell so good they can't ignore it.
Then serve it on your own damn terms.
