🧸
Meet Ila Kofford.
My first and, still to this day, best customer.

I was sixteen years old.
I had started my first business: “Kolette’s Collectibles”
I sold custom handmade dolls that looked like the person who owned the doll. 
Well, I use “looked like” roughly in this case.
The yarn hair was yellow or brown or black or orange-ish.
The embroidered eyes were blue or brown or hazel or green and rivaled Disney princesses in their big-ness.
The custom-sewn dress was the recipient’s favorite color.

And Ila bought a bunch of them.
One for every daughter.
One for every granddaughter. 

It was serious business for me to fulfill this large custom order. I worked many hours creating each doll.
Then when I delivered them one-by-one, Ila would exclaim and encourage and love on me.

Ila was my first business influencer.
I learned how to take an order and fill it.
I learned how to do the work and put care into my product.
I learned that I could create things of value.
I learned that someone would pay for my idea.

My life as an entrepreneur began at age sixteen. 
Because Ila Kofford decided to believe in me.
Ila passed away a month ago.
At her funeral, her daughter called her “The Queen of the Forgotten.”
I don’t consider myself “the forgotten,” but her daughter described Ila this way because she saw people as individuals.
Each person. She saw them.

She saw me.
A teenage girl with a creative mind and a desire to make some money working as her own boss.
No wonder I’m still doing that today.
Because I know I can.
Ila taught me.💙