Reflecting on oneKIN's oneYEAR...

It's our 1-year Anniversary, KINfolk!

As we celebrate oneKIN's first year, we remain grounded in our hearts’ work: our greater purpose. While our mandate is, in part, to create an ecosystem for black and Latinx owned businesses to excel, and to make product discoverability easy for customers, we see ourselves as a tech-enabled vehicle for socioeconomic change. Ecommerce is just the beginning!

A year ago, we set out to do this work with no small ambition that we would change the world! It’s important for us to remember the WHY of it all.

Need for a mission-driven brand (and movement)

oneKIN was birthed in response to widespread injustice we observed in our communities, and the belief that economic empowerment would be our most important tool; that if we properly addressed this central thing, we could effectively remake our communities socioeconomically, and in time spark widespread and sustainable reform (with respect to education, the criminal justice system, etc )

oneKIN was birthed in recognition that our communities’ collective resourcefulness, creativity, and genius were an economy of their own: robust and self-sustaining.

We were formed out of a desire to reclaim our rich and pervasive culture, which had taken center stage on a global scale, but often not to our benefit.

Pioneering an industry powered by community

As we eagerly look forward to the future, and all of the ways we intend to serve our partners and customers better, we pause and reflect on the important lessons of the past year; the most important of which is the power of our community.

We are daily fueled by the audacious and entrepreneurial spirits of our retail partners, many of whom have abandoned life’s comforts to pursue their dreams, and effect change in their communities. Their stories arrest the imagination and keep us human in a world where relationships are increasingly robotic and transactional. Their craftsmanship is motivated by their insatiable love for their community. Their ambition is uncontained giving us all permission to dream radically.

We are genuinely inspired by our allies and co-conspirators in this work from Project Beauty Expo to TheBOM™ to BLK+GRN to up-and-coming ShopLatinx and others, who daily challenge the status quo and create spaces for people of color. Together, we are actively creating the world we want, and there’s something divine about that!

Most importantly, we are humbled by the continued support of our customers, who keep us honest and deserve the absolute best from us.

You all play a critical role in everything we do, and continually remind us that we are one kin.

Watch our one year sizzle HERE!