Dr. Traci Lynn, the founder of Traci Lynn Fashion Jewelry, has turned her formerly modest company into a multi-million dollar enterprise. Lynn’s rise to fame is a living testimony of how much one can achieve with tenacity, confidence, and faith.

Lynn was exposed to the inner workings of being an entrepreneur at an early age. A native of Philadelphia, at four years of age, she was accompanying her grandmother, who was selling clothes from the back of a car. While in high school, Lynne earned a beauty school certificate, opened a hair salon, and obtained a nursing license. Lynn says she thought the permit was the first step to being a doctor because her mother groomed her to be a physician.

But in college at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, after becoming the founding president of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority chapter there, Lynn took a job with a large mutual fund firm and rapidly learned the intricacies of the business. She left the company and founded a series of businesses, including a wedding planning company and selling clothes like she did as a girl. None of the businesses took off, but everything changed when she decided to make a foray into jewelry.

With just $200, Lynn began her low-cost fashion jewelry business. At 25, she quickly rose in the ranks as a young businesswoman and was named a rising entrepreneur by Essence in 1994. Lynn also won the Madame C.J. Walker Award for Entrepreneur Excellence during this period. But despite all the accolades, Lynn couldn’t keep the company afloat, so it folded.