Hello everyone!
I cannot believe I’m almost five months into the launch of Valley Armor and just now sitting down to write my first blog post. Well, it only feels fitting to start off at the beginning and get into more of the nitty gritty detail on how and why I started this business…here we go!
So back in 2018 I started my first very own business, some of you are here because of that business! It surely kept me on my toes, especially as a single mom. I spent my days with my daughter and my nights physically working on my business which meant no time off for me. Several years into this business, I was completely exhausted but also extremely thankful to have been blessed with such a (semi) successful business that provided for my daughter and I. Sometime around 2021, a friend of mine, let's call her Amy, who I hadn't seen in a very long time, randomly contacted me and wanted to talk to me about business. So, we made lunch plans! I wasn’t really too sure what to expect but because of the physical demand of my old business, I was absolutely open to any business ideas. When we sat down and got our food, she very quickly spilled on how she wanted to start a Christian jewelry company with me. I was extremely hesitant at first because I knew absolutely nothing about jewelry, but still kept an open mind. She sold this idea to me around this: she had a manufacturing contact + could run the social media, and I would provide the customers and do the marketing as well as financially fund everything. It was the perfect plan for a duo like us because we both offered opposite traits that could easily get this thing off the ground. So, we immediately agreed to do this and took action!
We scheduled weekly meetings to get started, which usually ended up being at her apartment. The first thing we brainstormed on was a name. What could we possibly call this business? That is where the Holy Spirit stepped in and the name Valley Armor popped into my head. Still to this day, I have zero idea how that name even came together. I was not searching for names or ideas online, I was genuinely leaning on my own creativity to come up with something but I will never take credit for the name of this company because only the Lord could be so creative! When I pitched this name to her, she immediately loved it as much as I did, which I was of course thrilled about. That is when the ideas started to flow about creating pieces based around the Full Armor of God. All of the sudden all of these ideas started to flow and we started sketching designs on a notepad. As I have shared on social media, the Esther Shield was the very first design to be born! It was a proud moment for us both.
Fast forward many months later, we were about three weeks away from launch. At this point, we had about 10-12 designs, samples made, photography done, the website almost finished being built (all of which were funded by me) and then this is where things took a very hard turn. We had a meeting set up between Amy, I, and our manufacturer to go over final details on things. Well, Amy ended up sleeping in and missing the meeting, so I went ahead and hopped on the call without her. On the call, I shared everything I could with the manufacturer, but told her that we needed Amy on the call to be able to continue with the progress. Well, hours later, Amy eventually woke up and I guess spoke with her friend who owns the manufacturing company and she told Amy some things that were taken far out of context. Next thing I know, Amy is blowing up my phone angry and telling me we are no longer doing this business together. Of course I instantly was freaking out, but then as the minutes went by, I realized that doing Valley Armor myself actually brought me more peace. So we went our separate ways and that was the end of the first beginning of Valley Armor. The first version of Valley Armor might have ended that day, but the calling didn’t.
What I didn’t realize yet was that God was stripping everything back so He could rebuild it the way it was always meant to be… not as a partnership, not as a plan on paper, but as something far more personal and far more purposeful.
In the next post, I’ll share what happened after this… how Valley Armor didn’t die here, and how the vision began to take shape in a way I never could have planned on my own.
With love,
Katrina