Behind Ade’s business
As part of the Xero #behindyourbusiness series, we spoke to Ade, the visionary behind fashion brand Nubian Skin.
A change for the better
A message on a birthday card was the spark that got Ade Hassan thinking seriously about starting her own business.
“It said: ‘It’s time to start living the life you’ve always imagined’,” says Ade. “At the time I was working in a job that I hated, and the idea for starting Nubian Skin popped into my head.”
Ade came up with the idea for Nubian Skin after noticing there was a gap in the market for skin tone lingerie and hosiery for women of colour.
“I had the recurring problem of walking into a shop, asking for a nude bra and being given something that didn’t match my skin tone at all,” she says. “And so I decided that if nobody else was doing this, then I might as well try.”
“Nubian Skin’s motto is: ‘Empowering women. Embracing our colour.’ It’s really important to me that people know that they matter, their skin tone matters and that they are represented.”
– Ade Hassan, MBE, Nubian Skin
I get to build the culture of the company, I get to hire people who have a passion for what Nubian Skin is doing,” she says. “I love being able to create something that’s entirely moulded in the way I’d like.”
And using Xero to run her business is one of the choices Ade made early on.
“Xero has made a really big difference in helping me keep my finances organised,” she says. “It makes my life easier by making it very easy to get invoices out to customers.”
Knowing the finances are taken care of, Ade has more time to spend on building Nubian Skin into a small business that makes a big difference.
“I would like to leave a mark on the world,” says Ade. “Making it a slightly better place for whoever happens to come across our product.”
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Behind your business is a Xero series celebrating the people who power the UK’s small business economy.
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