The Business Turns Three: The Good, the Bad, and the Upcoming.
Three whole years, man I still can’t get over it! My business is a toddler! And like a toddler, it has its good days, its bad days, and all the hope in the world for tomorrow. I thought I would take this celebratory day to share my business highs and lows and some of my goals for the next three years!
Let me set the stage for you: it’s 2018, I just graduated with my degree in Mechanical Engineering, and decided to move to Denver, Colorado to try to refresh my soul after the beat down that was my major. I started working at an outdoor gear shop, and was navigating my options of what the heck I was supposed to do with my life. I moved into a one bedroom apartment in downtown Denver with my best friend Gracie. It is still, to this day, one of the most cherished times in my life, not only because I got to be a city girl with my best friend in our 20’s but also because that was where my business started.
I had just completed my first commission ever, which was huge for me. I had always created and made things for myself or friends for fun, but never for money. Having that first moment of realizing that someone valued my work enough to PAY ME FOR IT! Oooooweeeeee that was a wild feeling. So when I decided to give printmaking a try on our dining room table (which was just about six feet from my bed), I began to wonder, would other people want this print? My first carving ever, I made a raccoon sitting atop a trash can, dreamily staring at the moon. I entitled it “Trash Panda Wishes,” the OG. I threw up a photo on Instagram Stories with the caption: “Let me know if you’d be interested in this print!” And. I. Was. STUNNED. So many people reached out that they wanted my wishful furry friend. So I charged $5 per print and made about $80, which was a really big deal for me. I will never forget printing and packaging all of the requests on the floor of our apartment, feeling as dreamy as my little trash panda. This was my first business “high”, I got a small smackeral of a taste and I was HOOKED. I didn’t know what exactly it would look like but I saw the a glimmer of hope that my creative passion could create income. I started getting more and more commission requests, and I finally launched my own website, another high in the books! I consider that launch, which is January 27th, 2019, to be the official birth date of my business. Now I have a little breakdown of my highs and lows running my business year by year:
Year One:
Launching website = High
Creating my own logo = high
Learning the hard way about the proper way to make prints = Low
Discovering I love painting birds = High
Moving home and doing art full time = High
Starting a creative challenge to personify/mimic my paintings in photos = big ol’ silly high
Doing close to 50 watercolor commissions = High and low
Most of my first year of business was one big high, with the sprinkling of lows to keep me humble. The commission load became a mix of high and low because I was so grateful for the work and the opportunity to create people’s visions, but I had no time to create my own visions. I had not set up healthy boundaries for myself, and in “baby business stage,” I felt that I wasn’t allowed to turn down any opportunities. I realized if I wanted this to be sustainable, I had to do what was best for me as an artist and business owner. So I went into year two with my commission books closed.
At my studio/office I shared with my sister.
Year Two
Choosing to only make art I felt inspired to make = high
Dealing with the ever changing algorithm of social media = low
Filing for my LLC and making A Wild Thing’s Art Ltd. Co official = big HIGH
Learning about quarterly sales tax and other tax things = vomit inducing low
Falling in love with sharks and swimming with two of them = Monumental High
Starting Grad School for art = high and low
Year two was a wild ride, honing business rules and practices, fighting with self worth and social media, moving to a new state, balancing grad school expectations and my art business, it was all a bit chaotic. There was still so much good that came from that year but also a plethora of times that were very overwhelming. Being a solo entrepreneur is exciting but very lonely, and when the lows come it feels like a deeper blow because you can’t blame the marketing department for a failed post, or customer service for forgetting to email a customer, it’s all on your shoulders, all the time. I hadn't found a good business community yet, and though the support of family and friends was tremendous, it could be hard to explain what I was struggling with. All I really knew was that I needed to be patient, that this was going to be my own race and I would run it my way.
Year Three
Doing a local Bozeman market and starting to find community = HIGH
Trying paint carving for the first time = Delightful High
Finding new purpose in conservation based art and sustainability = high
Raft guiding on a new river and selling my rafting hat to almost the entire staff = paddle HIGH five!
Rebranding my business and website = a tedious high
Learning to make surfboards = Hell yeah kind of high
Gaining traction on social media = false high
Losing all traction on social media = a deep low
Almost quitting grad school = a mentally chaotic low
Starting the blog = vomit inducing high
Three years in and my third year was the toughest by far. It was a year that felt like every big step resulted in two steps back. As you can tell every high and low was heightened in some regard, nothing was casual in year three. Truly the worst of it was social media. I would start to figure out instagram, a platform that generates 90% of my website traffic, getting up to 30K views on reels and then suddenly, I could barely scrape by to break 1K. The stress and expectation to be constantly present for the sake of my business was exhausting and horrible for my mental health. Thankfully, outlets like raft guiding and skiing forced a disconnect from it so that I could reset. I knew that instagram was not sustainable for my business and that I needed other means for folks to find my work. Which is what led me to finally start this blog and put more focus on SEO and Pinterest.
Which brings me to my goals! I was driving back to Montana from Texas after visiting my family over the holidays, that meant I had about 26 hours of driving ahead. I had just taken a free Pinterest course by Jenna Kutcher and decided to listen to her podcast The Goal Digger Podcast. And by listen I mean binge 24 hours of it. Seriously, if you are a business owner, you have to give it a listen. It gave me the renewed drive I needed to give my business 100% again. I felt like a sponge just soaking in all of the information, conversations, and topics I have had in my head. I got back to Bozeman and felt STOKED to plan out this fourth year of business. I am a very private person, so I have never been one to tell people when I am struggling, or share what my dreams and goals are because if I fail, then it is my secret. But I am realizing the power of accountability and manifesting what you want, so here we go:
Goals for Year Four:
-To create multiple avenues to reach my audience: Pinterest, SEO, Blog, Mailing List, Instagram, etc.
-To blog at least once a month
-To launch my first online course
-Invest in my business and maker community
-To build a brand and art practice that educates, encourages, and brings joy.
-To paint a mural (a life long dream of mine)
There you have it folks, I put it out into the ether; I hope you help me stay accountable to these goals. Looking back, even with all the highs and lows, I wouldn’t change a thing. I am so grateful that this is what I get to do, and that I get to learn and get better everyday. Six year old Morgan who hosted “art galleries” at big family events and charged my family a quarter a painting would be so proud of where I am today. Big thank you to my family, and every single one of you who has made this dream possible, I am so grateful for my pack of wild things. Cheers to three whole years!
