Umm, what?
If you own or run a business, it’s likely that you aren’t doing something completely, game-changingly new.
In fact, there’s probably almost no chance that you are.
I ran a home-goods business for 10+ years, and I certainly wasn’t the first person to ever do it.
And since I wasn’t the first person to run a business before, let alone a textiles business, let alone a purpose-driven business that supported artisan makers…that means that someone else has been there before me, even in a niche field.
Which means, someone before you has already learned lessons the hard way.
And if you’re lucky, maybe you can learn from them to skip a couple steps and/or hard lessons in your own business journey.
That’s why I’m starting this substack.
I want to be a resource for others who are either starting out in their journey as a product-based business owner, or years into the grind, and looking to build an even better, more enjoyable and more profitable venture.
So if that’s you, I’d LOVE to have you join this fun crew! So please subscribe and forward along to your friends in business:
A bit about my background…
I first got into business in January 2013 while living in Medellín, Colombia when I started Azulina Ceramics.
The whole Colombia thing is another story for another day.
We worked with the wildly talented pottery artisans of El Carmen de Viboral, Colombia, mostly known for painting blue and white ceramics. We had some mild success, got into about 50 wholesale accounts, landed some so-so regional and national press, worked with showrooms in Dallas and Atlanta, but overall, the (financial) results were mediocre.
So like most business owners, I pivoted a couple years into it.
In early 2017 I re-branded and re-launched as a textile and rug company, Azulina Home. That brand fared far, far better, while still sourcing 100% of our goods from small artisan makers in Colombia.
We partnered with the likes of Restoration Hardware, Amber Interiors, Food52, and Jenni Kayne, and our product landed in some of the most gorgeous home stores across the US.
It was an awesome ride that recently came to an end, as it just wasn’t cutting it revenue wise.
I needed the company to profitably get over the $1M mark for it to feel worth it to me, without outside investors or debt, and I just couldn’t make it work.
In the weeks after liquidating and closing most of our operations I took to Instagram to share my lessons learned, and ironically, those posts and reels performed world’s better than any of my old pillow and rug content.
So, alas, sparked the thought that maybe I was onto something.
This is where I get back to the title of the post: Stealing
If you’re in business, it’s likely that the challenges you are up against aren’t new, and if they happen to be things I’ve come up against, I hope I can help you.
I want you to steal my ideas and make them your own, in your own special way.
Steal my content calendar, my tradeshow booth setup, my stockist list, my post-mortem tradeshow notes, my marketing and sales growth strategies, my SEO tips... I’ll be sharing all of that stuff here in the coming weeks and months.
Steal it and put it to use, because I’ve been there before, I’ve learned lessons the hard way, and there’s no reason for you to reinvent the wheel as a business owner.
Just don’t steal peoples designs or IP. That’s annoying and not cool, and illegal in a lot of cases. K??
Here are 2 things I’m stealing (and making my own) as I take these new steps:
Noah Kagan’s 100x Law (I’m going to write 100 substack posts, as inspired by his law of 100)
Marie Forleo’s mantra Everything is Figureoutable