-Young journalist and author set to launch biography business

A GOAL for many of us in life, is to have the ability to share those precious moments of memories, love, laughter and even sorrows with the ones who are slated to come after us. However, sharing those moments are often hindered by the inevitable, nevertheless, one can preserve those very precious moments with Reminiscence Bio.

Founded by 26-year-old journalist and author Lisa Hamilton, Reminiscence Bio offers Guyanese an array of services that allows persons to preserve their life stories in the form of biographies.
Hamilton was able to convince a line-up of judges that her business, Reminiscence Biographies, deserved an investment of $500,000 along with sustained support and opportunities for development.

The business initiative which was birthed out of Hamilton’s personal journey caters primarily to persons at or above the pension or retirement age, but also considers that persons at a younger age may want to commence or complete their biographies.

“In August 2020, my family had planned a trip to Berbice, so I visited my grandfather that [sic] lives up that side and I thought, why not make him my first client and during the interview, I found that I learnt so much about him and my grandmother; things I didn’t know until then,” Hamilton told the Pepperpot magazine.
She explained that having learnt so much about her grandparents’ lives motivated her to take a leap of faith and start her business.
“I realised there and then that this is definitely not something that I should keep to myself. There are thousands of other Guyanese like me who would appreciate preserving their history,” she explained.

Hamilton admitted that she is always thinking of new and innovative ideas.
“Well if you would speak to my immediate family members, they would tell you that I am always pitching them a new movie idea or a new television idea or a new business idea, granted that some of them were extravagant,” she said adding: “The idea of a business that focuses on publishing biographies, that was the first idea that I found was not only completely feasible, but it meets a need in Guyana. This was the first idea I found that was so much bigger than me that I believed that I had to follow through with it.”
On March 10, she pitched her business to the judges as new and innovative. Reminiscence Bio, explained, is a biography business focused on memorialising the life stories of ordinary and extraordinary people.

“Before I saw the poster advertising the ‘Invest a ton’ competition, I was actually on Google, googling opportunities for investments in small businesses in Guyana. I was on Google doing that and I closed that tab and I went on Facebook and I scrolled about two times and there the poster was, advertising the competition and I immediately signed up for it and here I am today,” she said.

She added that after entering the competition she garnered a lot of support from persons who were interested in her services as well as close family and friends.
“Well since August 2020 to the date of the competition, no one really knew what I was working on except for my family members and a few close friends and since the competition, whereby I had to advertise and market my business, I received a lot of phone calls, a lot of website visits, new likes and followers to the social media platforms and you know everyone is saying that it is definitely an innovative idea that we need in Guyana,” she said. “Some persons have called me and told me that not only in Guyana, they hope that I would branch out to Trinidad or other Caribbean countries and that definitely is a plan,” she added.

Hamilton’s business offers both print and video biography packages as well as other services which cater to group biographies for low-income persons; books on a business’ history; contractual biography services as part of the benefits package for large organisations and editing services.

Though Reminiscence Bio was established in August 2020, Hamilton plans to launch officially in April 2021, on her grandfather’s birthday.
Interested persons can visit Hamilton’s website www.reminiscencebio.com or Facebook @ Reminiscence Bio.