From early hustles to founding Manifest, K.J. Hughes reflects on the family experiences that shaped his entrepreneurial path.
Entrepreneurship runs through K.J. Hughes’ veins.
While Hughes has a MBA from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, he was making good money from an early age.
At 15, he started hosting basement parties at his friend’s house while his mom was out of town, which would earn him between $1,000 and $1,500 a week.
“One of my boys was a deejay. Another one of my boys was a photographer, and like you know, we had this whole little enterprise,” Hughes said.
During a recent interview on Founding DC, the founder and CEO of Manifest explained how he learned the right and wrong ways to run a business from his parents.
“My mom was a hair stylist in the ’80s, worked at a really fancy salon, something really out of a movie,” Hughes said. “It was kind of the who’s who of Black America at the time on Connecticut Avenue. Never forget, Connecticut Avenue at that time was like Fifth Avenue.”
Hughes would go on to start Manifest, the part barbershop, coffee bar, speakeasy and boutique in Adams Morgan on Florida Avenue and later at Union Market. He said his father, unlike his mom, didn’t have the magic touch.
“My dad, on the other hand, was an entrepreneur as well: unsuccessful criminal,” Hughes said. “Robbed banks, had gambling houses, and then ultimately, you know, fell to drugs.”
Hughes spoke of how someone was killed during his father’s bank robbery in 1982, which led him to spend the next 40 years in jail.
“If you know anything about committing a crime in D.C., there is no state jail. So immediately you get shipped anywhere around the country,” Hughes said. It was difficult to, you know, maintain that relationship through incarceration.”
Hughes admitted that it was tough growing up under that shadow.
“My grandfather was a hustler. My dad was a hustler,” Hughes said.
During this time, Hughes’ mom, who he calls his hero, made a tough decision and moved them both from their home in the District to Silver Spring, Maryland.
Even though the distance was not that far, it made a huge difference in Hughes’ life.
“Although so close, Silver Spring was like another country,” Hughes said. “If I would have stayed in the neighborhood that I grew up in or around the people that my mom and dad knew, I think some of my entrepreneurial pursuits could have went the other way.”
Hughes explained that the move protected him from cycles and that his Mom had the foresight to see things would not change unless something changed.
“Definitely give her all the praise of having forward thinking and making some sacrifices. It’s hard to step out of your comfort zone,” Hughes said.
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