The Future is Famalao’an collection.
Photo courtesy of Francis Valencia also known as BOYWONDER.
It Girl is a Women in Business feature highlighting the NextGen of female entrepreneurs.
By Althea Engman
Celia Anderson
Owner
Dudus Girl Guam
About 600 of Guam’s roughly 3,500 businesses are owned by women, according to the 2017 Economic Census of Guam’s latest numbers. It’s a statistic that underscores an imbalance of representation of women business owners but for these entrepreneurs, the landscape is an opportunity to showcase their boldness and that little bit of “dudus” that many women share.
Celia Anderson, a University of Guam graduate, runs her family business, Bonita Baby, which her late mother started. She also runs her own small business, Dudus Girl Guam.
Anderson started Dudus Girl Guam in 2019 while still a college student. She tells the Guam Business Magazine that her “UOG professors inspired her to start a business.”
According to Anderson, her late mentor, Professor Karri Perez “drilled it into my head that if you had a great idea or service that you think would do really well on the island then you go out and do it; nothing is stopping you, and that’s what I did.”
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Although Anderson was inspired to start the business by her professor, she shares that she always “wanted to be her own boss, grow personally into a more confident person and learn more about going into business on the island.”
Dudus Girl Guam started off as a jewelry business inspired by the island culture. According to Anderson, her numbers “doubled during the COVID-19 pandemic” especially when she “utilized social media” as a business platform. After the pandemic, Anderson saw a rise in small businesses focused on jewelry and noticed how the jewelry market was getting “overpopulated.”
“With the rise, it was the time to venture onto new things and expand to more lifestyle products,” Anderson says.
Anderson makes it a goal to push out new products that dudus girls can use daily. Dudus can be described as showy, conceited, flirtatious, and girly.
Anderson tells Guam Business Magazine that growing up as an only child meant that all eyes were on her. Anderson says that her family always told her “to not be so showy” and because being called dudus was seen in a negative light, she felt that she had to “keep quiet and hold back in expressing herself in the way she wanted to.”
Keeping that in mind, Anderson says Dudus Girl Guam’s mission is to “help women feel dudus, look dudus, and stay dudus.” An additional goal is to promote confidence and “staying true to yourself.”
Anderson says that with Dudus Girl Guam, she is able to “express herself throughout all her products and with this business she wants to be “someone who roots for other women.”
Anderson’s late mother, Jessica LG Stout, creator of Bonita Baby and Anderson’s inspiration as a woman entrepreneur, was the ultimate dudus girl. Anderson says she tries to honor her in everything she does.
A newsletter dedicated to the Dudus Girls that inspire Celia Anderson
Photo courtesy of Francis Valencia also known as BOYWONDER.
On March 1, Anderson launched the “The Future is Famalao’an” collection. This collection is inspired by women “who are not afraid to show off and be who they are, as well as women who are in different industries from S.T.E.M, the military, women pursuing higher education, and women in business.” She goes on to further say that “women are changing the world and the industries, they are making moves and this collection is for them.”
The collection proceeds will go to the Soroptimist International of the Marianas, a global volunteer organization working to improve the lives of women and girls through programs leading to social and economic empowerment by offering young women scholarships, which her mom received in the past.
According to Anderson, “the next step in Dudus Girl is to collaborate with other female owned businesses as well as introducing new products in the next couple of months.”
For more information and updates visit its Instagram page @dudusgirlguam.
