From Scratch to Success: Starting Your Own Creative Small Business

We've got some fun news for all of you crafters, entrepreneurs, business-minded readers, and those who are just plain curious about options: Andie is teaching an online workshop with Go Mighty & Skillshare on starting up your own business. From Scratch to Success: Starting Your Own Creative Small Business will help you on your way to writing a comprehensive business plan, plus give you some solid tips for discovering your business's true road to success. Plus it's only 20 bucks, and you can watch the videos at your leisure!


Oh and here's the best part--one lucky student will win a $500 grant towards developing their business, as well as a business consultation with Andie at the end of the sessions. Pretty great incentive, right? Click the link here, or the screenshot below to go to the sign-up page. Yay!

A Brand New Side Project: Freelance Writing + Business + Brand Consultation

Okay, so I know we usually promote other amazing business ladies and creative teams on Fridays, but I feel the need to (quietly) toot my own horn on this one. After many years freelancing, and just kind of "hearing" about jobs and writing here and there (you may already know I'm an Apartment Therapy contributor), I finally made a website to promote my work. So, I present to you, my brand new site: AndiePowers.com


I'm excited about moving forward with freelance writing and brand consulting--don't worry, Assemble is still first and foremost in my heart--but it will give me a chance to help other creative businesses with their branding and business planning. Speaking of, I'm going to be teaching an online class on Skillshare, sponsored by Go Mighty, starting on May 1st. I hope you'll join me if you are looking for a good, positive environment in which to receive a loving kick in the pants to start up that business you've been wanting! One student will win a free business consultation and plan review from me!

Keep watch here and on AndiePowers.com for more info, coming soon. Oh, and ps., I also have a new personal twitter, where I will be mostly talking about things like how much cake I ate that day, new classes I'm teaching and articles I write about television. Please follow me at @andiegwpowers. Love you guys!

Those Girls: A Retrospective on Failing Up by Michele Tansey of Homestead Seattle

I met Michele and Ryan Tansey of Homestead Seattle last year when I was lucky enough to take photos in their home and write their house tour for Apartment Therapy. They are both absolutely delightful and incredibly talented, so I was excited to read Michele's heartwarming entry for our Failing Up writing project. Thanks to everyone who wrote entries, and although we responded personally to each one, we also wanted to thank you here on the blog for your amazing and inspiring words. I'll hand it over to Michele below:

___

Photo by Kristen Marie Photography
Andie's post about "failing up" really struck a cord with me. Being a small business owner comes with perks and drawbacks. One of those drawbacks is isolation. When you work with a big team you have an opportunity to bounce ideas off of each other, give encouragement and also commiserate when things aren't their best. Aside from Ryan I don't get a chance to hear from other small business owners about the challenges that we all face trying to make our way alongside big corporations and established businesses. It's easy to get stuck on all the things that we could be doing better. It's easy see every little setback as a failure. Andie's post helped remind me that I'm not in this alone and how important it is to use what may seem like failures to learn and improve.

My last corporate job was as a Store Manager of an Urban Outfitters. I ran a 7mil a year store and had 50+ employees. At 24 I had achieved something in my life that I was very proud of. When I left Urban I knew I was on to bigger and better things but I was having a hard time giving up "my store." Every time I walked into the store I felt respected. I felt empowered. This tangible, enormous, beautiful, well oiled machine was run by me. I felt proud explaining where I worked and what I did. I felt accomplished in my life. My friends and parents were skeptical about me leaving a great job that I was very good at.

After Urban I started running an unnamed vintage furniture business out of my house while I went back to school. I wanted to sell furniture so that I could buy more furniture (and not be a hoarder). I ended up loving the job but I needed an extra set of hands to grow the business, so I asked my husband for help. With Ryan's photography and muscles we were able to buy more furniture, move furniture around easily and take more professional looking pictures. I was selling exclusively on Craigslist and my price point was super low, but I still made almost as much money as I was making at Urban. I could see the potential in my business but I needed to make it more real. I felt embarrassed telling people my job was selling used furniture on Craigslist. It's definitely not the same feeling as telling someone you run a well known, successful store. My new goal was to pick a brand name and create a website. That was in July of 2011.

After the launch of the website something great happened. I was extremely lucky that photos of our home, from our wedding, were featured all over the internet with a link to our photographer who linked to my website. Because of those amazing wedding photos our home was featured on Apartment Therapy (a life goal of mine) which also linked to my website and gave a lot of credibility to the business. It was the first time that I felt really proud of the new career path I was on.


Photo by Kristen Marie Photography
Business was going great, but I needed Ryan full time. He was exhausted from essentially working two jobs and I couldn't continue to grow without him. In November of 2011, after some very forceful persuasion from me (and a severe lack of support from our friends and families) Ryan finally decided to quit his job. Just as I had felt sad and like a bit of a failure leaving my fancy corporate job, Ryan was in the same funk. However, in general we were feeling pretty confident and still getting featured frequently which was encouraging. We were starting to build the business that I dreamed of. We were really proud. Then we had the fire.

I don't want to go into lengthy details, but we had an electrical fire (on Dec 28, 2011) in the middle of the night that destroyed the second story of our home. Luckily we and our pets were safe along with our inventory, but we couldn't live at our house and we had to find a place to run our business. Less than two months after Ryan gave up his steady income. A few months after we had finally finished making our fixer-up of a home beautiful enough to be featured on Apartment Therapy. Never have I felt so down and so hopeless. This was a perfect time to just quit, get regular jobs and try to bounce back from this tragedy. I was a depressed shell of a person. My house was gone, but I refused to give up on our business.

For the first month we showed furniture out of our friend's 800 sq ft house while living there with four adults, three large dogs and two cats. In February we moved into a rental that we picked to best house our business. We had relied heavily on our customers' excitement to see our home, so not being there was an adjustment. We had to explain why we weren't there over and over again. I couldn't tell the story at all. I had to stop dealing with customers, it was too much for me. Ryan was happy to start working directly with customers. He is a rock. He also moved all of our product from our house to the rental. I physically couldn't go to the house, I was in tears the entire time, even driving by was too hard for me.

Everything seemed terrible but we kept going. Ryan worked on his furniture refinishing skills and I worked more with fabrics and our upholsterer. Ryan learned more about photography and photo editing. I learned more about writing copy and what product to buy. We had to go though the first year of our business (and marriage) living in a rental while overseeing a massive ($130K) renovation of our home that we didn't even want to renovate or have the life experience to deal with! We also lost both of our dogs to cancer - trying to motivate yourself to work thought that is impossible.

We didn't have our fancy corporate job titles, we didn't have our beautiful home and we didn't even have our dogs. It was hard not to feel like we failed, but we had this business and we had each other. When we felt stifled by selling solely on Craigslist we made an Etsy shop and then learned everything we could about shipping furniture. When we felt like our name wasn't really us we re-branded, had a couple of slow months because of it, but came out happier and more proud of what we had created. We learned more about furniture designers and the value of what we were selling, then got better product. We spent weeks looking though online shops that inspired us and then upgraded our logos, improved photography even more and launched a new website. We took what seemed like the ultimate fail and used it to motivate us to improve.


We are back in our house and the contractors were gone as of last week. We still have a lot of work to do to get the house staged and really feel proud of it again but we can finally focus on getting settled. We are happy, our business is doing better than ever and we have a new dog. Life goes on.


Photo via Ryan Tansey's Instagram
Even though things are going so well I still beat myself up over not being good enough. I cringe looking at the vendors on competitors' sites and seeing the exact things we sell priced 2-10 times higher than we can price them. My initial reaction is, "what am I doing wrong!?" Instead of getting down on myself for all the things I'm not doing I ask, "how do we get from where we are to there?" and focus instead on how far we've come. Maybe one day that will be a good fit for us, but right now I am thankful for where we are with our business and all of the progress we've made despite the odds being majorly stacked against us. We could have given up so many times, but thankfully we didn't let ourselves fail, we grew.

-Michele.

Favorite Friend Friday: Drygoods Design

We are so excited to chat with Keli Faw, owner of Seattle fabric shop Drygoods Design. Keli recently expanded her growing online shop into a cute, new storefront in Ballard. Not only does Keli carry the best selection of modern fabric, her store is stocked with twine, totes, sewing patterns and other handmade goods like their in-house designs called Bread + Salt. I think we have a mutual case of shop envy!


Congratulations on opening your brick-and-mortar shop earlier this year! How's it going?
Keli Faw of Drygoods Design: Thanks so much! It's going well - we started out at weekends only and are now open six days a week and it's rather fantastic to get to see our customers most every day. While our online customers are fun in and of themselves, getting to be a part of someone's in-person experience of such a tactile product like fabric is really rewarding. Merging online and storefront experiences, I hope, is beneficial for both groups of our community.


You recently began hosting a monthly craft night, which we're determined to attend. What kind of projects are people working on?
Would love to have you there and share your crafting know-how! Although we've just had two so far, I have to say I am so glad it worked out to do these and with any luck this will become a weekly, rather than monthly, event. It ranges from embroidery, knitting, hand sewing (quilt bindings), quilts, apparel to handmade gifts. There's something so magical about like-minded people gathering in a room and producing thoughtful creations. We fawn over the construction, gasp over the fabrics or thread/yarn, discuss what approach might work best and even better, laugh, chat and partake in a glass of wine and sweet treats. It's really the sense of community that inspires me, hopefully others too, and brings gratitude to be a part of it.

How do you choose such great fabrics? There must be so many out there.
It's not easy to edit down the amazing selection out there these days. However, I really try to live and die, from a buying perspective, from something I learned from a coworker when I worked in retail and we were basically handing our paychecks back to the company with the amount of clothing we purchased. If it didn't give you butterflies, you couldn't buy it. While I always want to have our merchandise mix tell a story, unless I love it or customer requests it, it doesn't come into the store. Of course, there are wild cards but I believe that if you love it, more than likely, you will find others that do too. However, the downside is that I often get sad when something sells out. It's like saying goodbye to a good friend.


What seem to be the trendiest patterns right now? Anything you're in love with currently?
Chevron and ikat definitely are still on the top of the list in the modern quilting cottons, however, I am really loving the play on geometrics as well as what we've seen in type become popular - a more hand drawn and watercolor feel. We're also seeing a heavy dedication to nautical prints and primary colors. I am rather obsessed with the combination of navy, coral, teal, grey and citrine. I head to Houston for one of the bigger fabric shows with weekend and I am excited to see what's new for Spring 2013! Every time I think it will be hard to see something new or unexpected and every time I am overwhelming surpassed in expectations.

Is there a designer you would be excited to see develop a fabric line?
I would really love to see Susan Connor of SusyJack* bring something to market. I know she's working on it but I have loved what I have seen. And Jenny Gordy of Wiksten. She's made her prints available on Spoonflower but it would be so fantastic to have them available in a collection that's more approachable in prices. The same, with respect to price, would be true for Anna Bond of Rifle Paper Co. I satiate my love for her artwork via her cards and paper goods we carry.

We're inspired by so many small-business owners, and wonder how you balance work and home life. How do you juggle it all with two young (and adorable) kiddos?
To be honest, I drop a lot of balls when I juggle :) And thank you, I think they are rather amazing, and adorable too. The notion of running your own business is a very romantic one. It's hard, and I keep an impossible schedule of late nights and early mornings.However, I also know that real balance will eventually come, it just takes a lot of time. Our recent growth has allowed me to expand my team, and I feel very fortunate to have the staff that I do. Each person adds something to the mix and I love the diversity in perspective, skill set and interpretation of craft. Truthfully, I couldn't do all that I do without the understanding and support of my family, specifically my husband. Partnership is key and between my business and his insane travel schedule, we just really try to work on maximizing our work time and our family time with the understanding that they will never be completely equal but it is our time, no one else's. It has taken time to just figure this out and we're continually learning about what works better than other approaches. Making time to hang out and laugh makes it easier. Kids and friends are something for which I feel very grateful.



Now for some fun ones! What do you like to do in your off-time?
While there is little of that at the moment - I like to play with my family, food and cocktails. I also like to sew. When I am not making things for the shop or customers, I am finally taking on what I deemed most intimidating of sewing - apparel and quilting. Both are much more approachable than I originally thought and gratifying.

If you could be anything in the world, what would you be?
Easy answer, but really, part of my life is doing it. I hope to leave my other job by the middle of next year but other than that I get to buy, sell and help others discover the fabrics and other goods that they want in their lives and turn into something handmade for their favorite people. However, if I could add more international travel into it, that would be pretty sweet.

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?
Has a transporter been invented yet? Because if so, it would be perfection to live near the Mediterranean. I am a sucker for old world charm, sun, good food and wine but proximity to family and friends is important, hence the need for advances in transporting technology.

If you could eat at only one local restaurant for a year, where would you go and what would you order?
We are so lucky in Seattle to have so many options but I think Delancey would be it. While their pizza is amazing, I love their salads and the beverages. The days they are closed we could consider detox/fasting opportunities and to offset the pizza further, we could walk there more often!

If you could invite one famous person into your shop/studio, who would it be?
Hardest.question.ever. Can I categorize the famous folks? If so - from the textile perspective: Lotta Jansdotter; from the design and lifestyle community perspective: Martha Stewart. I used to be more critical of her, maybe because everyone was into her. But after hearing her speak at a conference and her perspective and seeing her headquarters, I think it would rather awesome to receive her feedback - the good and the ugly. From a current events/general perspective: Michelle Obama. Lady has class and would love to sit back on the couch and hear her thoughts on life and the world (okay and maybe about her rocking arms too).

Thanks, Keli!!

Images via Drygoods Design's Instagram