Rachel Allene Backstory Part Two
If you haven’t read part one of the Rachel Allene backstory, read that here.
So, last time we left off with my first set of mugs selling for Christmas of 2015. After those sales, I decided to invest in producing a larger quantity. So, I made two more mug designs and launched them around February of 2016.
After that, I realized that people loved my products and were willing to pay for it. By default, I began to stop pursuing clients for photography. This unconscious decision catapulted me into the world of product shop ownership. I really started to focus on marketing strategies and learning about selling a physical product. I started to think about different products that I could offer besides mugs (most failed).
For me, 2016 was a year of honing in on my style and building a “tribe” that loved my brand so much that it didn’t always matter what I sold. They were supporters of what I did because they were a supporter of me.
I also started to realize that a lot of people were asking me questions about running an online shop and wanted advice and direction. It started to help me realize that there might be another purpose for my business.
From the beginning, I always knew that I wanted my business to be about empowering and encouraging other women. I knew that my products were more than a product. They were meant to inspire joy, creativity, and gratitude in the every day. This mission and vision helped me make decisions to set my product apart from others. I was able to use adjectives and a marketing strategy that made me more than an online product shop.
All the changes and growth were exciting!
At the same time, there were a lot of personal changes in our life that year. We thought we would be moving and had made steps to make that happen. Things changed. We were all of a sudden living in an apartment and I was running a business in a town I didn’t think I would be. During that time, we had the crazy idea that we should buy a house. So we did.
In hindsight, everything that was happening was the exact plan that God had for us. We weren’t supposed to move out of town. I wasn’t supposed to run my business in a different place. And I truly believe that the business growth I saw in 2016 would not have happened if we had to move to a different city. I believe it would have slowed my growth.
We moved into our first home on September 16th, 2016.
On November 6th, 2016, I found out I was pregnant.
And then, a lot of things changed and I started to think about changes in my business.