Chaymeriyia Moncrief is making history in the IT business as the first Black woman to own a smart eyewear brand, thanks to her innovative abilities.
She told Canvas Rebel, “I’ve been fascinated with technology, computers, and gadgets since I was eight years old.” I’ve dreamed of owning my own smartphone and electronic brand since childhood, drawing and sketching how I imagined it would look. When I saw the first iPhone, it fueled my desire to start my own smartphone brand one day. This concept is what inspired Tesix Wireless Network.”
Tesix Wireless Network is a prepaid wireless carrier or telecoms company that debuted in the summer of 2018, spurred by a terrible experience she had with a cell phone company.
Moncrief claimed that she began her entrepreneurial path at the age of five, motivated by her family. From elementary school till the age of sixteen, she had numerous business ideas, including selling items at school. She implemented all of them.
After graduating from high school in 2013, she bought her first contract phone from a major carrier. She had expected to pay only $90 each month, but she quickly learned that her phone bills were costing her more than she had anticipated. Eventually, her monthly phone costs exceeded $150. But an outrageous monthly fee of over $200 went too far.
She noted that after thinking about the charges on her bill, she began to understand how postpaid carriers work. She was charged for excessive data consumption, activation fees, and other costs. She stopped the contract because the costs exceeded her monthly salary from Taco Bell, where she earned slightly less than $400 per month.
The entrepreneur remembered, “The “aha” moment for Tesix Wireless came to me while working on my smartphone idea, and I began to wonder, If I launch a smartphone, why not add my own phone service to it. But, without knowing what to research at the moment, I couldn’t conceive having access to these things. My investigation revealed that I required hundreds of millions of dollars in land, towers, and infrastructure; I temporarily abandoned the concept until 2017.”
In 2017, she recognized she needed to focus her efforts on researching how to create an MVNO/prepaid cellphone service. “Once I had this understanding, my research took off and this is when I really started to execute on the idea,” she went on to say.
Following Tesix Wireless’ launch, the company gained multiple customers and private investors. Tesix Wireless attracted investment and takeover approaches, valuing the company at $5.9 million prior to debut, according to EURweb.
She stated this about the company: “Everything is included in the cost. When you choose the $25 plan, you pay that amount; when you choose the $45 plan, you pay that amount per month, with no extras. Everything is transparent and straightforward, something you don’t get with the others.”
Two years after founding Tesix Wireless Network, she founded NSPRE, a consumer electronics brand aimed at “inspiring the culture through social technology.”
Her brand has expanded tremendously since its launch in 2020, garnering $1.5 million in funding in its first year. NSPRE established its headquarters in Alabama in 2021, with its most popular product being Smart Glasses.
The glasses, which have two-way microphones for phone and video chats and an in-directional sound that allows for sound privacy, were a watershed moment for NSPRE, paving the way for further advances like the NX Pro Plus LE.
Other features include the ability to control music, answer and reject phone calls directly from the glass legs, and insert prescriptions into lenses.
Moncrief’s smart glasses, Gen 1 and Gen 2, have differing playback times of seven and twelve hours, according to POCIT.
By December 2021, NSPRE had won an additional $450,000 in funding, demonstrating its continued performance since its debut. In 2022, the business also launched the Solace Smart Glasses and the innovative Sophomore Smartphone design.
Moncrief stated to Voyage ATL in November 2013, “The fact that I am one of the only African American women to launch a smartphone and wireless carrier, no matter the hardships, is one of my proudest moments all around—stepping into such challenging spaces and making it past year 5.”