Aiden Best, 17, and Eden Boakye, 16, both similar names spelt slightly differently, started a modeling, clothing brand company before even reaching the age of 18 called Vision Kidz. The two are God brothers who live together in the Uniondale/Hempstead area. Vision Kidz didn’t start off as a modeling page on Instagram. It was originally a basketball account with the same name but a different direction. These Long Islanders eventually decided to rebrand and change the concept into modeling as they saw there was more potential for growth in fashion photography. The two were always photogenic and felt this type of direction for their business would be more beneficial to them. I sat down with the two entrepreneurs as they talked about their brand, their growth on social media, their potential partnerships with future fashion modeling companies and the overall end results they want to accomplish with their brand.
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How did you come up with the name Vision Kidz?
We were on a group FaceTime at the time trying to create a name. We were thinking of names for a good two hours and couldn’t come up with anything. I looked on my bookshelf and I kept scrolling down. Then, I saw the word Vision and my first thought was like, “Oh that’s a tough name. I can see the future of it and how it’s going to go.” So I put the word “z” instead of an s at the end. I didn’t want it to be too basic and thus Vision Kidz was born. – Boyake
Long Island
Were you the only two people that created this brand or are there more of you guys behind the scene?
It was about five of us. Then it got cut down to just us two because they weren’t really consistent like that. We were doing most of the posting and effort. Originally, we wanted to do fashion and pictures. We wanted to include them because they were our friends. But we were taking it more seriously to make money and grow. – Boyake
fashion, fashion
Since you guys are so focused on running this account do you still have time to hang out with friends and your peers or is your main focus on growing the brand?
We have a whole friend group that we all grew up with that we’ve known..” since third grade that aren’t on the page not for no harm, but it’s just a God brother thing. Not everyone can touch the Instagram account, it’s definitely more of a business but we are all here for each other. We are not gonna leave each other if we get big, we are not going to do that at all. We are building it to leave a legacy to be passed down one day. – Boyake
Do you guys have a personal cameraman or do you take turns in taking each other’s pictures?
We have a camera-man, his name is Royalty Visionz. Since the jump, he has been our camera-man. The bottom pictures on our Instagram were basic, not too many edits. Those are iPhone pictures, the recents are ones camera pictures. But we all grew up together and we are trying to grow a legacy brand. So we are trying to do everything better. But we still never thought we would get our own personal cameraman. Before we worked with iPhones, now we work with actual cameras. – Best
Have you ever thought about going into other ventures or avenues in this business or mainly want to stick to fashion modeling long-term?
For now, me and brother Eden, yeah, but eventually we feel this could take you to a lot of places. If you feel like you’re a good model, why wouldn’t you go into acting? This could possibly take you into different things. For example, Eden plays basketball, he takes a picture with a basketball and then you see him in a basketball game and you could remember him from modeling. That’s how you can get your name out there. So this could get you a lot of opportunities, from music videos, commercials etc. – Best
Why do you guys call yourself “Kings Of Long Island”?
“We are in Suffolk and Nassau a lot. That’s why we call ourselves Kings of Long Island because we know people in Suffolk and Nassau. We have a house around the Uniondale/Hempstead area and a house in the Deer Park/Dix Hills area”. We know everything in Long Island because we are out and about. Unlike some people, they can’t go to Suffolk and be down with the Suffolk people or go to Nassau and be down with the Nassau people. You can’t say you from this town and can’t relate to people from this town. We feel like we are from everywhere on Long Island because we can relate.” – Best
The two driven entrepreneurs are currently in contact with a few companies about potential future partnerships down the line. One major company in current contact with them is Mackage. Mackage is one of the world’s largest outerwear leather down jackets based in Montreal, with two major stores located in midtown and downtown Manhattan. With over 158,000 followers and counting on Instagram, this type of collaboration and exposure would definitely be an extra boost to the already set foundation and fan base these kids have already established on social media. They also have been in contact with local Long Island businesses as well for uses of their images.
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Speaking of social media, Vision Kids currently has 8,400 followers and counting on Instagram since its creation back in September of 2020. That’s an average of 2,400 followers gained a month, which is pretty impressive for 16 and 17-year-olds to do in just four short months. How do they do it? What’s their marketing tool? In the age of social media, Generation Z was born with smartphones in their hands, so they already have a head start and knowledge on how to be impactful on social media immediately.
Their marketing tool to gain followers is to spread the word like wildfire, telling their friends and peers to follow their account. Using hashtags has also been a good tool to get followers on Instagram, as well as tagging other high profiled clothing brands. Consistency and effort has always been the key to managing a social media account and it shows in their quality of work and content.
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