Nashville, TN: Company Chronicles

Learn from a local entrepreneur why Nashville is the perfect place to launch a business.

By Rebecca Treon on November 17, 2023

Elle Danielle

Monchiere’ Holmes Jones is the founder and chief brand curator at MOJO Marketing + PR in Nashville, TN, a full-service, experiential marketing and branding agency known for launching community-driven, multicultural brands. Holmes Jones started her company in 2013 with a focus on helping small, minority-owned businesses flourish.

What brought you to Nashville?

I’m originally from New Orleans, but I was living in Detroit and working at a corporate job when I had the chance to travel to Nashville in about 2008. I became fixated on moving to Nashville and would sit at my desk and daydream about it. It was much closer to home, near Louisville, Memphis and Atlanta. I didn’t officially make the jump until 2013, but I had been looking and searching and believing there was the opportunity to own my own business and fulfill my dream, and it’s come to fruition. I feel like it was destiny.

Tell us about MOJO, who it works with and what it represents.

We are a multimillion-dollar firm located in the heart of historic Jefferson Street, which was the heart of the Black economic boom of the South. It was Black Wall Street and significant during the civil rights movement. I intentionally put my office here. MOJO Marketing is known for amplifying brands, community and culture. You don’t have to be African American or a minority, but because culture dwells heavily in the immigrant, minority and Hispanic spaces, that’s a big part of our clientele. I do a lot of intercultural connecting of the city through my community work, and it also folds into our business.

How has your business grown since you opened?

I originally launched the business from my home in New Orleans. I was just doing PR, but I borrowed $200 from a girlfriend to get some business cards because I was waiting on the check from cashing out my 401K, and I was headed to a networking event and needed cards. That was how it started. I moved to Nashville, took a job and did PR on the side, but I gave myself a treat and invested that year into networking and connecting with the community, so I could really understand the city and build what I was trying to build here. We launched full time in 2014 with one $60,000 client, and today we stand with seven employees and are a multimillion-dollar agency.