<![CDATA[The Campus Trainer - Meet young entrepreneur, Tia Hobby]]>

Image Credit: Received permissions from Tia Hobby, picture from the brand's Instagram page @clutchbytiadash.

Tia Hobby, 21, is a young Black entrepreneur and founder of the brand CLUTCH by Tia Dash which sells clutch purses, sweatshirts, mini-bags and other accessories.
Hobby is currently a senior marketing major at Salisbury University where she learns how to expand her brand.

Hobby said her passion for fashion began when she was a little girl. She would take leftover fabric her mom used to make scrapbooks and hot glue them together to make clothes.

“She wouldn’t let me use a needle and thread but she would let me use a glue gun so I would make clothes and then model for her,” Hobby said. “That was my introduction to sewing.”

While attending high school, Hobby took outside sewing classes during her free time to enhance her knowledge. She made use of YouTube videos as well.

As her sewing skills grew, she started buying her own unique fabrics and began sewing purses because it required the least amount of fabric.

“I started to wear the actual things that I made and I would get questions about it. People would ask where I got it from,” Hobby said. “I had found my niche.”
This led her to form her CLUTCH by Tia Dash brand in 2018 during her sophomore year of college.

Image Credit: Received permissions from Tia Hobby, picture from the brand's Instagram page @clutchbytiadash.

Hobby said she has run into some obstacles while creating and running her business.

“I think the hardest part was just deciding that I was going to follow through with my idea and actually make goals for it,” she said.

To market her brand, Hobby utilizes her role as an entrepreneurship consultant for the Innovation and Entrepreneurship club at her college.

“If I can find any way to include my brand in an email that goes out to at least all the business students, I try,” Hobby said.

She also relies heavily on social media. She does giveaways and posts pictures of her customers wearing her products.

Jaden Burnett, 21, is a student at Salisbury University and a customer that has been featured on CLUTCH by Tia Dash’s social media accounts and website.

Burnett said she has purchased several products from the brand since it launched. She is constantly on the lookout for new releases.

“She comes out with really nice quality stuff and the price is very reasonable for somebody, like myself, who is a college student,” Burnett said.

Jeremiah Copeland, a 22-year-old recent graduate of Salisbury University, said he likes CLUTCH products because they come in many variations.

“The hoodies and sweatshirts are gender fluid,” Copeland said. “I like the fact that it’s very original and very well thought out.”

To create that originality, Hobby said she used to sew all her products by herself which was extremely difficult and time consuming.

“I fell behind on orders a lot and I found myself sitting at a sewing machine every single day,” Hobby said.

Now, she has an out-of-country manufacturer to help make products quicker and on a larger scale, but she’s still able to maintain the originality of CLUTCH.

Hobby said the growth she has witnessed in such a short period of time is a great achievement. She hopes to continue to see that in the future.

“My long-term goal is literally just growth. Growth in every aspect,” she said. “In five years, I’d like to see myself strictly focusing on my business.”

Image Credit: Received permissions from Tia Hobby, picture from the brand's Instagram page @clutchbytiadash.

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