Why did I start the company June Plum Creative? Well, it all started growing up in Jamaica when my parents got the family our first computer. As a child living in Jamaica, I was not exposed to many people that had computers. However, somehow someway my parents were able to purchase a computer for our house. At the time, I didn’t know how to use it but my young brain wanted to know more. I did as much as I could with its limited ability but I knew was hooked.
My parents decided to move to Canada when I was about 12 years old and I didn’t know what to expect with coming to a new country. We all embraced the move and hoped to make the best of it. I worked hard to fit into my new surroundings and to pick up on the cultural differences, to not stand out like a sore thumb. Because of my history with computers, I started gravitating to typing and computer basic classes because those seemed more fun and I had a genuine interest.
I remember vividly one summer working for the Osteoporosis Society of Canada. It was a job that I got through a summer job employment program. It was a bit boring there at first but then they realized that I knew a bit about computers. Once they figured out that I was handy around computers, they had me creating all their documents, working on their mail merge setup, designing pamphlets and just doing anything related to the computer. Work started being fun, especially knowing that I was being helpful. When I left that job, all my managers/colleagues made sure to tell me to pursue computers when I go to college.
When I left high school, my two prospects for higher education were Advertising or Programming. I was accepted into the programming, I believe because I had a natural aptitude for it. The Computer Programmer Analyst program wasn't easy but I had a general interest in programming and I pushed through. After my college years, I still wanted more and decided to enrol in an e-commerce program at Ryerson University. It was an intense program with coding and theory but it helped to close any gaps that I might have missed with my college program.
After all my schooling I held various positions in advertising and tech as a developer, but I wanted to do more. I was laid off one of my jobs due to a merger and thought it would be a good time to start my own company. This was years ago and my first go-around at running my own company. I realized that running my own business is tough and after a couple of years, it took its toll on me. I eventually got back into the advertising/tech industry as a developer and then a project manager.
Even though these positions have been great, I always wanted to have my own business and see if I could excel in that world. I was recently laid off from my most recent employer before the COVID pandemic started to have an impact on our community. While being laid off, I started to think about the things I really loved to do and my love for web design and programming came back to the forefront. I was thinking should I start another web design company? Does it make sense right now, especially with the COVID situation?
I thought long and hard but the decision was to give it one more chance. I had to come up with a company name and make sure it was easy to remember and also have some significance to me. I was thinking about Apple Inc. and then naming their technology company after fruit and thought, maybe I can do that. So this was how June Plum was born. I was thinking of how I can connect my company name to where it all began in Jamaica but make it fun and easy to remember. For all the people that are not familiar with June Plum, it's a fruit grown in Jamaica and on other Caribbean Islands. It has a tart taste and a spiky seed. Some people like to eat it with salt but I like it with sugar.
The journey to get here was not pretty, and the journey after this point will probably not be pretty either. The only thing I know, it that I am doing the thing that I love to do and the thing that gives me peace and that's all I need.
