Today we’d like to introduce you to DaNae’ Winston.
Hi DaNae’, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Hi there! I’m DaNae’ Winston. I’m from a small town called Hitchcock, TX. I graduated from Texas State University with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and minored in Applied Mathematics in December 2018. Once I went off to college, I was on my own for the first time and I began to find myself. Meaning… what I wanted to do with my life, what I was passionate about, how far I could push myself, and learning how to believe in myself and my vision.
I made a name for myself in college, I joined the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) as a Freshman, became the Treasure as a Sophomore, then became the Section President until I graduated (re-elected over 2.5 years). Stay with me haha, this story is relevant because this is when I truly learned how to run a business. SWE was my baby, my business in college.
When I was a Freshman, we started with 6-8 members. By the time I graduated, we had about 70 active members of SWE. As you can imagine, the numbers of women in STEM are very, very low, so this was a huge accomplishment. To do this, I
1- Expanded the officer board. We started with about 4 officers, and by the time I graduated, we had 10 officers. I did this to provide more leadership opportunities. Leadership on a college resume looks really good, and they learn tons of soft skills.
2- Founded our first mentorship program. I created this mentorship program to help with retention for women in STEM. I paired upperclassmen with underclassmen, the turnout was amazing! The program still lives on to this day.
3- I capitalized on professional development. I held meetings on campus to help build resumes, explain how to operate in interviews, how to dress in interviews, how to work a career fair, sponsored engineering industry visits, and invited companies to come on campus to meet and hire women from SWE.
4- I raised funds to support my organization through the semesters and send our members to the annual SWE conference. I helped raise funds for registration tickets, flights, and housing. The conference was one of the most important things to do for my members. It’s the largest conference for Women in Engineering. There are hundreds of companies attending that do on-the-spot interviews and hiring (in addition to networking, volunteering opportunities, professional development sessions, and selling our SWE section’s apparel and accessories for more fundraising). My SWE members came back to campus with many offers from various companies, which made me proud. Even if they didn’t come back with offers, they benefitted heavily from the conference as a whole with the networking and professional development, which I am proud of as well. Every year, the interest grew more and more from my peers wanting to attend the SWE conference.
5- I set up volunteering events for the campus, San Marcos community, and K-12 students of San Marcos. This included things like partnering with the local Girl Scouts and inviting underrepresented schools to campus for a day (panel, engineering activities, guest speakers, etc.).
There were over 300 student organizations at Texas State. I was selected as Student Leader of the Month for November 2017. Later in 2018, my organization as a whole was given “Org of the Month”. I think I cried both times, haha. It felt surreal to see my photo hanging up in our LBJ Student Center.
Doing all of this while being a full time student, working, and holding leadership positions in other organizations definitely showed me what I was capable of. School was already hard from an academic perspective. Those classes were challenging! Even being a double minority (female and African American) got to me sometimes. Meaning, I would get imposter syndrome sometimes. I would cringe sometimes walking in class and around the halls being one of the few black women. I’m proud that I finished, I survived, and I broke glass ceilings.
I am now a full time, Electrical Engineer at Dell Technologies. I started in February 2019. I am currently the Engineer that works on memory qualification of systems in development. This is fun because I work on all of the new stuff that hasn’t been released yet (: In this role, I combine technical skills, project management skills, and soft skills. In addition to my day to day work, I’m well-known in my workplace for my volunteering. I’ve participated in very many Intern and student panels, and I also organize my immediate team’s volunteer and team offsite events.
This is why I am who I am today. I started my business in 2020. My mental health had taken a downturn 1- because of covid and 2- I was still mourning the loss of my grandmother. I needed something to do in order to take my mind off of the real world so I started experimenting with skincare. My grandmother had the most beautiful skin… her skin was always so soft! She was an avid user of Vitamin C, which you can see, is the primary ingredient feature in my facial care line. I use to not appreciate my melanated skin, but my grandmother and my Dad always reminded me of my inner and outer beauty. That’s the message I carry within my brand.
Leaning into skincare helped pull me out of those dark days. It was hard at first because skincare isn’t instant gratification. You have to work at it for a very long time in a specific routine to see results. That taught me patience, and it got me up out of bed when I didn’t have the courage to sometimes.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It’s never been “smooth”. However, I believe that’s what makes my journey so great.
As far as Engineering, it was tough to try and accomplish so much while going through the ups and downs of life. I always kept pushing though. I have a really close-knit family, so I wanted to do it for myself and for them. One of my favorite stories is with my mom, haha. One finals week, I was so stressed and overwhelmed. I called her crying… she was very empathetic. Then I said, I don’t wanna do this anymore. I wanna come home. Even though she was empathetic at first, she replied, “oh, you not coming home.” and further encouraged me to stay the course.
After my Sophomore year in college, I got my first internship with Samsung Austin Semiconductor. This was huge because I had always heard how many thousands of applications they received and how hard it was to get an internship with them. I did it! And even better, they invited me back for a second internship- which I completed as well. During my final internship in college, I was invited back to Samsung but I accepted an internship with Dell Technologies in Massachusetts. I was so nervous and reluctant to take the internship with Dell because I would be moving to a new state for the summer by myself. That turned out to be one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had.
From a business perspective, it was a very long and difficult process to get to that launch point. I started in 2020, and I launched this year in June 2022. The struggles were
1- Nailing the product formulas. Each product of mine took about 6 to 8 months to finalize. I formulated hundreds of renditions of my products to find the right textures and benefits. Skincare is tough. People aren’t going to put just anything on their faces.
2- Not knowing what I didn’t know. From an administration perspective, I completed a branding identity project to establish my company’s vibe, mission, color scheme, packaging, and logo. This process took months. It was pretty fun until I had to start finding label distributors, the actual bottles, box sizes, etc. I wasn’t in a position to waste money, so I had to be spot on with anything I moved forward with. It was really stressful.
3- Creating a professional website. I’m a tech girl, so user interfaces are a big thing to me. My website has undergone several different renditions and this was very costly.
4- Hiring contractors. I’m a huge advocate of hiring the most fit personnel to bring my ideas to light. For example… to me, it wouldn’t make sense for me to spend so much time learning how to create the perfect website. I want someone who is phenomenal at website construction, that can bring my vision together. If I am not proficient in something, I reach out for help to maximize my chances for the best results.
Overall, it has been a long, hard, and tedious journey to launching my company. I don’t regret any of the struggles because I learned so much from them.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Since I explained my professional career in my backstory, I’ll just add a little bit more to that.
I had a very quick ramp-up as an entry-level Engineer. After about 3 months, I was given my first major project. I evaluated our test suite to determine how we could make it more robust. I had just arrived at that job so I was insanely nervous about doing it. In any case, I completed it successfully. I reached out to multiple team members and stakeholders at Dell and added 2 critical test cases. One, I consulted with an Intern to create a proof of concept that worked. The other test case, I built myself. I proposed calculating memory power measurements, basically determining the power a memory module would produce while running in a system. I didn’t realize they would actually have me build it, haha. I thought we would just purchase a tester. That was a curveball! I had never built a test bench from scratch. We still use my power bench to this day (:
At work, I’m seen as a self-starter. I can start with very little information and work my way towards a solution. I also have the privilege of seeing products develop cradle to grave (i.e. start to finish). While testing these development systems (to eventually launch them on Dell.com), we face a lot of obstacles, like failures and defects. We have to work through every single failure and defect until we get the root cause and mitigation, so that has given me a ton of valuable experience, technically and non-technically.
Overall, being an Engineer has taught me how to problem-solve more efficiently. Whether it’s in the workplace, or in my personal life.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
Growing up, I was very goofy, loved being around my family, and loved playing sports. Funny enough, I wasn’t very interested in technology when I was younger. I played softball and eventually went to the world series with my team from Texas City, Tx.
I played basketball most of my life. I started out playing on all-boy teams because there were never enough girls to form a team or league. Eventually went into AAU and high school.
My favorite sport was volleyball though. I joined my first club team in high school. Club volleyball was really expensive so my parents sacrificed a lot for me to play. I remember for Freshman tryouts. The coaches separated us into 2 categories, who played club volleyball and who didn’t. Of course, the girls that played club volleyball had competed at a higher level (than that of mine only playing at school for free) and they were prioritized. I hadn’t started playing club ball when I was a freshman yet. I was placed on the B team. I wanted to quit so bad because I thought I should be on the A team, but you know my mom was like, “no, you’re gonna prove them wrong”. Eventually, I worked my way to the A team bench and eventually was the starting setter! I was eventually too short to stay a setter, and later became the starting Libero during my senior year. We were the first volleyball team at Clear Springs High School to make it to the playoffs that year. I also finished the year setting the new record for the most digs, defensive player of the year, and ranked #3 in the Houston area.
One common thing when I was younger, is that I didn’t believe in myself so much. Which is much different present day. My childhood mostly consisted of sports and keeping my grades up.
Overall, what my story taught me the most is… that I am capable of whatever I put my mind to. I’m no stranger to unfamiliar territory. I now feel that I can be put into new situations and find my way. It takes dedication and consistency.
Strive to understand. Strive to achieve. Strive to improve and innovate. When you climb the ladder, don’t forget to lift others up behind you.
Pricing:
- Vitamin C Facial Cleanser- $23
- Vitamin C Face Oil- $20
- Bliss Body Butter- $15
- Homebody Butter- $15
Contact Info:
- Website:denarayessentials.com
- Instagram: @denarayessentials
- Facebook: @denarayessentials
Image Credits
Texas State University (photo in a blue shirt, in lab, on a laptop)
