Humber Hawks’ Men’s Basketball Entrepreneurs: The Journeys of Brett Pearce and Jamani Barrett
By: Julia Vellucci
Humber Athletics Communication
Brett Pearce, a shooting guard for the Humber Hawks' Men's Basketball team, has ventured into entrepreneurship with his own graphic design business focusing on sports.
"My dream, whether graphic design, photography, or videography—two other skills I'm developing—is to create content for any sports franchise or organization," Pearce said.
While basketball is more than a hobby for him, he is leaning towards a career in media rather than professional basketball.
"[During the school year], I don't do a lot of promotion on social media because I have less time for it. I always want to ensure I can do things that best my abilities for others. So, it's a little hard to get clients and orders during the school year, but that's something that I only get better at as time goes on," Pearce said.
He emphasized that his basketball graphics are the most popular, having worked extensively for his teammates as good practice. He plans to showcase his work on a website as an online portfolio to display his content.
Pearce is currently in his third year of Guelph Humber's Media and Communication Studies program and started his graphic design business the summer after his second year.
"I took my first graphic design class in my second year and a photography class in my first year. It just sparked my interest in digital media and content creation. So I thought I would start my brand in business because I want to pursue a career in content creation and visual media," he said.
"Just create the content you love, start posting it, and then, as you post it, you'll learn what works for you and what doesn't," Pearce said.
He advised anyone pursuing a small business to do outside research on different social media strategies and continuously work on their craft.
"The better the data, the better you get at what you love to do, and the more people will notice. Things will work out eventually," Pearce said.
Jamani Barrett, Pearce's teammate, was his main inspiration for starting his small business. Barrett, the captain of the Humber Hawks' Men's Basketball team, had a love-hate relationship with basketball due to battling injuries but wants to share his story with the community.
In his final year of Humber College's Media Communications diploma program, Barrett founded Twerplyfe Originals, a lifestyle brand focused on sharing the untold stories of the community to uplift and inspire his audience of students, athletes, and entrepreneurs.
The vision is to use this platform to educate the youth about diverse career paths beyond the athlete's journey.
"The long-term goal and how it will start is the process of countless ideations and trial and error. This clothing line is probably my fifth attempt at a business. So, it's like this entire time, I've been learning things," he said.
"I opted to return to school to have industry professionals who mentor me and give me assignments that get me on a certain path," Barrett said.
"The clothing line is like a loose term for me because clothing is only such a small part of what I envision for that brand. The entire vision of that brand is to share the stories of the community and educate our audience. So one is giving the youth and adults tools that empower them to do what they must," he said.
"You have to have a forecast for what's going to happen in the future, and a lot of times in entrepreneurship, it's precarious and hard to forecast within the first three or five years or hours long or however long it takes you to get stable in that career," Barrett said.
"It's nice to take skills and diversify the portfolio so that you don't necessarily have to record videos to make money but record videos for yourself and the product or whatever and intersect with different markets," he said.
