Today we’d like to introduce you to Alphonzo Cross.
Alphonzo, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Well, my entrepreneurial spirit is very much embedded in my DNA. I often say that I was less raised and more manufactured as a child considering my father was a career management employee with United Airlines while at the same time a relentless entrepreneur. He instilled in me and my sister that owning our own business was always our best chance at wealth building, and so with that in mind, I started my own lawn mowing business at the age of 14 in 1988. Fast forward to 2009 when my sister had an idea for a healthy convenient store (that we later named The Boxcar Grocer) and from there my entrepreneurial spirit blasted into high gear. We proudly (and exhaustingly) operated Boxcar for three years before closing the doors in 2015 due to committing every possible first-time small business owner sin. After a couple of years off, I was invigorated anew and started Quintessential. We are a brand development company that concepts, brands, and executes integrated boutique business units in emerging markets focused on hospitality, retail, and health. We brought our first brand, Parlor (Cocktail Den), to market in 2018 and we are happy to celebrate that brand being in business for a year and a half now with more to come on-line soon.
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?
No small business owner/entrepreneur would honestly answer that it has “been a smooth road”. Owning one’s own business is the opposite of smooth. It’s a rough, dark, and lonely road filled with potholes, unexpected detours, and other crazy drivers on the road; but, at the end of the day there is something special & magical about being in control of one’s own vehicle and pointing it in the direction of your North Star.
I have very often admitted that most small business owners will complain that financial capital is the hardest component of a business to come by, but I disagree and say that human capital is much harder to come by. Putting the right team together can seem like an insurmountable task as access to professionals (especially in communities of color) can be scarce. Assembling the proper individuals for your project can certainly give you better odds of getting access to financial capital.
For us, we put together an amazing group of people who I would work with again in the future, but we still had a hard time raising capital because as a black-owned business opening a concept in a black community we were faced with the challenge of a lack of belief that we could pull off Parlor. My sister and I ran into this same mentality when we were raising capital for The Boxcar Grocer, and so, raising capital was difficult for Quintessential also even though we had our ducks in a row.
Quintessential – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Quintessential is a brand development company. Our business model focuses on creating and executing excellent brands in the hospitality, retail, and wellness spaces. Many of us are familiar with restaurant groups or hotel groups that own/operate many different brands, but we think there is a hole in the marketplace for a company to own/operate brands that can integrate over complimentary industries in cities that are newly urbanizing. Cities like Atlanta, San Antonio, Birmingham, etc. that are really investing in their urban core and are looking for small locally branded retail, food & beverage, and wellness spaces to appeal to more & more people moving into urban cores. At Quintessential, we believe that we can fill that void and have these spaces operate in a way that they are all integrated through marketing efforts, physical aesthetics, customer service, and product offerings. It is not good enough to have one-off brands that exist in a silo, but instead we believe that our brands will appeal to the consumer on multiple levels of their lifestyles therefore, allowing for the brands to be profitable in emerging markets with low density.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
My proudest moment was getting Parlor open. It really was a dream come true. It was not easy at all and we took a lot of bumps and bruises, but we persevered and got it done.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.quintlife.com, www.parlorden.com
- Phone: 678.515.3423
- Email: a.cross@quintlife.com
- Instagram: @quint_life, @parlorden, @alphonzocross
Image Credit:
John Walder and Joelle Grace
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