{"id":1208,"date":"2020-12-01T09:54:50","date_gmt":"2020-11-30T22:54:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.downsyndrome.org.au\/voice\/?p=1208"},"modified":"2020-12-01T15:25:38","modified_gmt":"2020-12-01T04:25:38","slug":"hazzah-apparel-ben-paior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.downsyndrome.org.au\/voice\/2020\/12\/01\/hazzah-apparel-ben-paior\/","title":{"rendered":"No fashion victim"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Ben wearing one of his own designs for Hazzah Apparel. Photo by Dylan DuCaine.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been running my business for about a year. We started in September 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I used to work in a store for four years. Then the most tragic thing happened: they shut down. It was a surf and ski shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I had my job, I was thinking of having my own talent agency. My talent agency did not go well though, but now I do my apparel business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I did not first have my job there, I would not have this business at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My PA Dylan helps bring my ideas to life with all of the effects and really cool stuff for our clothes designs. We did the original design sketches on my iPad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the start we designed about 100 shirts. We picked 10 fundamental designs to start the business with, and then made 9 cap designs.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It was plenty of work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reason I picked Dylan to work with is really, really simple: he has really nice clothes. He\u2019s more casual than the business!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After we picked our designs, we built the website with Shopify.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was actually quite cool. When it became public it went skyrocketing up to almost 1000 people who viewed it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love my community! I\u2019d do anything for the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the hardest things about starting a business would be the slow progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since I have a disability with Down syndrome, it can take me longer to do some things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now I\u2019m getting used to it though. Now it\u2019s not too bad. Having a business, it takes time for you to think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m thinking of getting a store we can use. I\u2019m thinking of renting an apartment and using that as my store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But my big goal is to have my own house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My advice to people wanting a business is, first off, you need to record your ideas all the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the biggest tip would be, if you\u2019re going to have your business, you need to have a set mind on something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you do not have a set mind of what you\u2019re going to do, then why are you here? Why do you want to have a business?<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

See Ben’s awesome clothing for awesome people here: https:\/\/www.hazzah.com.au\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ben’s mum Sam shares how they used the NDIS to help start Ben\u2019s microenterprise here: https:\/\/www.downsyndrome.org.au\/voice\/2020\/12\/01\/microenterprise-and-the-ndis\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The full article is available in the following formats to download:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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PDF<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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WORD<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ben dreams big and has high ambitions for his business Hazzah Apparel. With the support of designer Dylan, he is bringing his dreams to a reality. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1209,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[80,84,9,82,81,79,28,83,12],"class_list":["post-1208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ben-paior","tag-business","tag-down-syndrome","tag-entrepreneur","tag-fashion","tag-hazzah-apparel","tag-intellectual-disability","tag-micro-enterprise","tag-ndis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.downsyndrome.org.au\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.downsyndrome.org.au\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.downsyndrome.org.au\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downsyndrome.org.au\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downsyndrome.org.au\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1208"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.downsyndrome.org.au\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1283,"href":"https:\/\/www.downsyndrome.org.au\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1208\/revisions\/1283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downsyndrome.org.au\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.downsyndrome.org.au\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downsyndrome.org.au\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downsyndrome.org.au\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}