Few teenagers can say they founded a business before they could even legally drive. Kumei Norwood is an exception. The 17-year-old entrepreneur and activist has been running her shop, Tofu Tees, since she was 8. The brick-and-mortar store, a fixture of Fergusons Downtown since 2021, has been a project of passion but also purpose. 

Norwood, a Las Vegas Academy of the Arts senior with a flair for fashion, uses her apparel designs and art for activism, shining a light on social issues through everything from T-shirts to totes. You’re just as likely to find clothing with timeless taglines like “Racism Is Trash” as you are to find books on Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Pinky Cole’s vegan tome Eat Plants, B*tch. 

That said, Norwood is still your average teenage girl in every way that matters. Her prom was nothing short of magical. She’s eagerly awaiting the next Olivia Rodrigo album. And high school graduation is just around the corner. So what happens next? 

As Norwood prepares to enter a new stage of life, the Weekly sat down to talk about the future of Tofu Tees and how building it has shaped her. 

Now that graduation is almost here, how do you feel about the next chapter and where you’re headed with Tofu Tees? 

It’s really been a blur running Tofu Tees because I have all of these amazing memories of things I’ve done throughout all the years. Everybody Downtown is just so supportive of me. I always call Fergusons my second home because I’m down here 24/7. But definitely in the future, I’m very excited about just going forward and progressing Tofu Tees. … I did get into UNLV and everything. I was gonna go there for marketing, but then I decided that I didn’t really want to do that currently. I wanted to more so just be one with the business and myself without the pressure of school. When I first opened my store, I was already in school, so it’ll be sort of a new experience for me and allow me to have more experiences to network.

What has running the store taught you that school could never? 

Definitely a lot of real-world experiences. Having a business taught me a lot about taxes and managing my own money and stuff, which schools do try to push, but you need to outwardly seek that to be able to learn it. Also in schools, I feel like now they’ve made it very optional for people to do public speaking. But that’s a very important thing, just learning how to communicate with people. Running a business and being so integrated in a community, you need to have that in your skill set. Then also just expressing yourself artistically, because my school is very good at doing that. Some schools don’t have the opportunity to have a ton of artistic programs for people to express themselves. And I mean, that’s what my business is all about. 

Was there a point where you thought about stepping back and just focusing on being a teen?

I never had the opinion that I should just completely stop. At some points I did get a little discouraged, with how political my messaging is, in terms of some adults being like, you’re a kid. You shouldn’t be knowing about all this. There’s even some people who would heckle my parents about it. They’d be like, we’re gonna call CPS on you. That was the only time where I was really like, do I continue this? And then I got the opportunity to open up the shop, and it just went up from there. 

Have you ever had a customer interaction that reaffirmed why you’re doing all of this? 

It’s always when families come in. It’s a really crazy experience whenever people bring in their kids. And they’re like, Hey, look at this girl. She started when she was 8, and she has all this now, and they show them around the shop. And I’m trying not to get embarrassed or really excited [laughs], but that’s just always an amazing feeling. That’s really what keeps me going, knowing that it’s inspiring for other people to want to do that. Entrepreneurship is such a crazy path to go on, but it’s really fun and it’s such a good learning experience, even if you don’t want to pursue it in the future or make a career out of it. It’s still such a great thing to do at least once in your life. 

Tofu Tees has always been so community focused. Has there ever been a time when the community showed up unexpectedly? 

Yeah, actually a week ago. I actually had a very big tax payment that I needed to make, and it just came out of the blue. It was a really big amount, and I didn’t have enough to pay that. So I just made a little post. I’m not one to ask for things, especially money because it’s very hard for me to ask for help in that way. But my mom and another one of our friends were like, just do it. Some people might show up and help out. So I did. I was like, Hey you guys, I need to sell 37 shirts by Friday. …I hit my goal within, I think, 36 hours. People really showed up online and also came to the store. That was really amazing because, like I said, I’m not one to ask for that. 

Last year, Phil Rosenthal featured Tofu Tees on his Netflix show, Somebody Feed Phil. What did it mean to be spotlighted on such a national level?

I’ll be honest about this: I didn’t know who he was at all. One day I just opened my email and they were like, do you want to be featured on a Netflix show? I thought it was a scam at first because there’s a lot of spam emails like that, but then we just went for it.

It didn’t feel real until he was actually here. Even now I look through my camera roll like, did that happen? He’s such a down-to-earth guy, too. When I was talking to him, it just felt like I was talking to a family member. He’s just so warm and inviting. And being on the show, it helped my business so much. I’ve had so many international orders now. …The show was so crazy and awesome to be on.

This experience has been most of your adolescence. How has it changed you? 

When I first started Tofu Tees, I was in elementary school. Back then it was less political and more just whatever I felt like doodling. … But then it sort of evolved as I got older and more into my middle school years, that’s when it began to get more political. It really gave me a political identity as well, because I feel like, at that time, I was one to follow the crowd. I didn’t want to really stand out much. In middle school, you want to fit in with everybody. 

Tofu Tees really gave me an outlet to just express myself without having to talk. At that time as well, I was very shy and closed off. … When I was set up at a market or anything, or just in my element with the store, I was really able to express myself and be self-assured in what I was saying. … Tofu Tees, combined with LVA, made me myself. It gave me an outlet to express myself in different ways that I typically wouldn’t have if I didn’t go down those routes, especially with my fashion. …That combination just really lit a spark in me to open up.