Today we’d like to introduce you to Dwight Stewart.
Dwight, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
So, my story… I am a twin and I grew up a Pastor’s son. My father is still a Pastor for a fairly large church in Miami Gardens – Pentecostal Tabernacle, Int’l. The church started when I was 13. The church used to use the banquet hall of what was formally named Miami Inn/El Palacio located right off of Palmetto expressway and 12th ave less than a mile from our home. they would pack some of the equipment in our room after services. I remember asking my Dad how many people would be in attendance at the first service and he said “weeeell, your mother, your brother, you, me, maybe your uncle Vin & Aunt Dahlia, and possibly a few others, I said ok… that first service had over a hundred people in it and had people in the hallways of the hotel trying to be apart of the service. My Dad had a history of being a stand-up guy all the way back to his days as a youth leader in Jamaica. People’s respect for him rang true for us that day. We left a large church that he was actively involved in located in Cooper City back in the early ’90s. I didn’t understand the racial dynamics of South Florida in the ’90s and parents did everything in there power to protect our minds from it until we were old enough to understand. My parents are of Jamaican descent so protectiveness runs to extremes in the conservative Christian Caribbean households. Growing up that way and being in that leadership situation forced us to adopt a selfless attitude, sometimes at the expense of ourselves. I wasn’t a good student but I tested well. I ended up getting kicked out of Mast Academy for not maintaining a B+ Avg.
Midway through my junior year; I had a B- and wound up graduating from Norland with a reasonable GPA and pretty good SAT scores. During this time, my Father was able to purchase an entire Winn-Dixie shopping plaza off of 183rd and 7th avenue with the help of members and random strangers from the community that felt led to help. You can imagine the excitement and simultaneous distraction it created for us but I’ll let him tell his own story.
Pentab as we call it was an integral part of me staying out of the community trouble. I lived in coming from Scott Lake up growing which is now located in what is called Miami Gardens. I joined the choir and media team at church and that taught me a lot of my discipline because naturally, my father couldn’t be as hands-on with us like he was able to be with my older siblings that attended some really great schools in New York. While volunteering for the media team I was given the responsibility of labeling cassette tapes and selling them after services. I took pride in that job and I told my best friend Ryan about it and he left the choir shortly after to join the media team and we sold tapes together. Majority of my friends left the choir to join that team and if you ask them, they’d probably all agree that it was one of the best periods of our lives because we got to work and travel together. Being a part of that team exposed me to technology and shortly after I was asked to lead the team. This period was an integral part of who I am today but I’ll summarize it by saying I wouldn’t be who I am today without the support of that church.
That experience led me into studying digital media and multimedia technology from Broward Community College (now Broward College) and receiving my AAS Degree and starting my first multimedia business with a childhood friend – Doran Francis (Owner of Luxunery.com). Shortly after I received my BFA in Visual FX and Motion Graphics, I went to work in the movie industry working on movies like Transformers 3 and Smurfs 1. After about a year and seven months there, our entire team was laid off and I had to come home and start all over again… my Dog Wade came into my life around that time while I was in Port St. Lucie. I moved back home to Miami Gardens and applied to about 50 jobs before getting the corporate job I have now at a consumer goods company producing their online videos content for their products. This job afforded me the opportunity to purchase my first home and it exposed me to a new world of creativity of building things in my home. I built my dining table, expanded countertops, built a deck, adding recessed light, fire pit, garage, benches, fence, dug trenches for a sprinkler system and the list goes on. After completing the renovation, I got the news that our company is being acquired and our creative team will be let go. Two weeks prior to my release date, I landed a job in the consumer services dept. and that’s where I am today. That instability was the catalyst for me thinking about self-employment.
A year after learning a completely new industry, I got more news that the consumer’s services team will be downsizing… I got that news the day after I got back from my honeymoon. My wife can tell you I woke feeling heaviness after an incredible 2 and a half week honeymoon to Madrid, Spain, Ibiza, and South of France. I said, “babe, I don’t know what it is but something is gonna happen at work today, I can feel it”. With a few weeks to spare, I managed to land a position with the downsized team as a Senior Analyst.
It’s funny how life works because a lot of my positive feedback is related to how appreciative consumers are with our customer service. Needless to say, the instability of the job had me contemplating hard about self-employment… it was almost audible in my head to start a business. Around that time, a friend of mine – Akeem Joseph stopped by my house for a Sunday BBQ & cigar. He saw me picking some herbs to give to my wife for the burgers and if im not mistaken that’s when he asked me if I ever heard about the Moringa plant. I said no and he told me to stop by his Dads house one day to check the tree out, He preceded to also tell me about some of its benefits.
The following day, I started researching it and became obsessed with it. I learned everything about the plant and saw that there were communities of people online that swore by its benefits. I got over to his Dads house that weekend with my girl, now wife and he gave me 3 of the seeds to plant. I left all excited to plant them. I threw them in the ground as soon as I got home and till this day those things still haven’t come up. It was disappointing but it made me more determined to learn how to grow the plant, so I started to study germination and proper soil & light conditions. I purchased some seeds online and tried again. This time, I put 7 seeds in a plastic pot, used some of the soil from our composting bin, put a plastic over it to simulate a greenhouse and within days every one of them sprouted. I’ll never forget that feeling. For about a year, my wife and I ate off of the plant as a salad replacement and noticed a dramatic difference in our energy. We were sweating like crazy at night and realized that our bodies were detoxing every night. I felt great and wasn’t tired in the mornings anymore. After about six months of using the plant a light bulb went off in my head and I threw the other 93 seeds in a garden bed that I built in the back and the majority of them came up.
After about 5-7 months, I had so much leaves that I didn’t know what to do with them all so I talked to my wife and said: “babe, I want to start a business”. She looked at me -while cooking us some dinner and said: “‘ok babe, if that’s what you want to do”. We deliberated for a few minutes and landed on the name herbal goods. The rest is history.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The experience has gone better than expected. I wouldn’t say smooth but it has been a lot of figuring out as we’re just starting out. For example, we couldn’t afford a $10,000 dehydrator so I had to get old school and create one using hot lamps from home depot, pinewood, and bi computer fans to draw the heat up through the cabinet. I work full time as an Analyst so I come home and work another 6 hours on the business processing orders, creating a social post, etc. It’s literally an Army of 1 doing everything until recently because my wife works full-time as a hairstylist in Brickell and I also built her a salon in the back of our house, overlooking the yard. As a home-based business, it’s been an adjustment, to say the least, for my wife seeing garden beds popping up randomly in the backyard but she’s been very supportive. Also, because it’s a start-up, I am doing everything: branding, advertising, marketing the product, harvesting and processing the crops, fulfilling orders, delivering, consumer services rep, purchasing supplies, etc.
Managing the money coming from my 9-5 and strategically re-investing it into the business is probably the most unnerving part of the business as I have a wife and dog to look out for but seeing the quick growth of the business and the support from our customers has been worth the risk. With my prior life experience, I tend to treat everything as learning experiences. If you passed the test, then you graduate, if not, then you keep repeating the same situations until you get it.
Please tell us about herbalgods.
We are an all-natural herbal company based out of sunny South Florida, located in a Fort Lauderdale neighborhood called South Middle River. Sun is in abundance here so what better way to grow our herbs and vegetables than under natural Florida sunlight. We don’t use any off-the-shelf fertilizers in our plants. we use unused plant clippings and turn them back into the soil to limit plant waste. All of our herbal ingredients are sourced from our backyard farm or fresh markets that we trust. We take pride in the transparency of our ingredients and want to be apart of the new-age culture of consumers that care about where their products come from and how those products affect their bodies performance.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Riding go-karts through the neighborhood and kicking over garbage cans with my neighbor PooJo. Playing football in the street barefoot – tackle in the grass & touch in the street. Just being outside as a kid, climbing trees. I remember taking some old building material from a renovation at our house and using the blocks to build a treehouse. The only thing was I didn’t know how to get it in the tree so I took my mother’s bed sheet and built it on the ground. I got the idea from Full House or one of those show we use to watch after school. I remember watching Cooling Runnings for the first time and convincing my brother to build a pushcart with me. We made it all down the street before older brothers weights that doubled as wheels feel off.
Pricing:
- Soaps $8.50 online
- Moringa capsules $15.00 online free shipping
Contact Info:
- Website: www.herbalgods.com
- Email: herbalgodz@gmail.com
- Instagram: herbalgods
- Facebook: HerbalGods
- Twitter: herbalgods
Image Credit:
Dwight Stewart
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