Hi everybody,
today's interview is with Meiya, from BoxDesignStudio on Etsy.
It offers handmade gifts from natural flowers.
Here she tells us about herself. Thank you for sharing your story with us Meiya.
I am a landscape architect from Latvia (a small European country by the Baltic Sea ).
I'm 42 years old, I live in the countryside, I have my own garden, 2 playful dogs, 1 cat, and 3 children
together with my husband. I love nature very much, I love to be in the meadows, forests and collect
flowers for my artworks, my Etsy store's motto is "Made in Nature". I grow a lot of flowers in my
garden, I collect, press and dry them and I make epoxy resin suncatchers and lamps with natural
flowers. My idea for the flower items was to capture a small piece of meadow or garden in a piece of
art and to make the flowers flower forever!
Therefore some of my flower lamps are called "Frozen Meadow" and "Frozen Garden" - it's like a piece
of meadow or garden frozen in time! And these flowers will never wither! I miss the flowers very
much in wintertime and I love to look at my flower items in winter - it makes me feel like in summer!
Every flower item is a unique piece of art and the flower arrangements never repeat, so it's a really
unique one-of-a-kind gift for someone special.
1- How did you decide to have your own business (as opposed to getting a job somewhere)?
After 10 years of having a company of landscape and interior design I decided to end my
career as an architect and to switch to creating handmade flower ornaments, suncatchers
and lamps. That was my second start of a new business and required a lot of courage,
creativity and persistence.
The best thing during this time was the support from my family members, especially my husband,
which helped me to believe in myself while there were no noticeable signs of success yet and I didn't
know if my design products will ever be appreciated or demanded by customers.
2-What were the first five actions you took to get started?
* I spent all my free time creating new items and putting all my ideas into real materials.
*I took good pictures of the newly made items and put them into my just opened Etsy shop.
* I also spent a lot of time advertising my shop and items and I participated in Etsy’s Teams.
*I looked for ideas to personalize my items as the option to personalize the purchase is what differs
Etsy from other online stores and it is very important to the customers.
*I actively worked with social media, I put my items on different social networks and shared them in
different groups.
That's actually all I did, making new items took the most time, but I also think that the right timing was
important for such type of product. Covid-19 had just started and people switched to online shopping
and it was also important to express support to dear people by sending such gifts and often people
couldn't meet their close ones in person so they chose to send gifts. But I didn't choose the time on
purpose, it was just a period in my life when I felt like leaving my old profession and I had an
inspiration to start something new- so that there came a sudden demand for online gifts-that was
another gift from my fate.
3-Did you come across with challenges and doubt yourself (thinking am I going to
succeed ? )
There were a lot of challenges, failures, disappointments, risks and falls all the time.
If you want a simple, relaxed professional life without risks and stress and if you want normal working
hours – then don’t start your own business. Having a business means feeling like ‘living on the edge’
all the time. It’s never secure and predictable – you can always lose everything in one moment and
you have to solve crises and make hard decisions constantly.
4-How did you overcome them?
If I examine my business path from the beginning, it seems that there have been more
failures than success, more falls than uplifts, but after about 20 handmade design products,
which I designed and which didn’t become demanded and popular, came one product, which
became a huge success. And after learning and working in such professions as landscape
architecture, interior design, advertisement design, photography and product design I found
myself in the unique profession of a flower designer, which makes my heart smile and which
has made the business successful. So I guess that the key to success is persistence - not to
give up and to continue working on new ideas until the most successful ideas are
determined and you can continue working on them on a deeper level. The tennis training I
took as a child for 7 years added a lot of endurance, patience, persistence and strong will to
my character, which are the essential necessary traits to keep the business running. I think
that it’s also crucial to open your business within a field that you’re most interested in and it’s
important that you love very much what you are doing – then all the challenges on your way
will seem small.
Keeping my mind calm, my thoughts in harmony, overcoming emotions-that's what helped me most to
overcome difficulties. When I had some really hard times both with work and relationships, I started
some spiritual practice, I found my spiritual teacher and that helped me to overcome hard times and to
become a completely different, stronger, happier and better person. (It's important to deal with your
emotions-finding something that can keep your mind calm helps a lot-whether it's sports, walking in
forest, yoga, meditation or breathing exercises- whatever works for you.)
5-Did you invest a lot of money?
At first I didn’t invest a lot of money as I was offering services, which didn’t require to buy
expensive materials or equipment. But later I saved some money to invest it into materials
and equipment to implement my ideas of the flower items. I didn’t always get the desired
result from the first investment – I had to buy more and more materials until I found the
particular material, which could provide the quality I wanted. When I started to get more
sales, I saved some more money to invest into the working premises, advertising and better
equipment. So expanding the business went step by step, it didn’t require to invest a lot of
money at once. But when I look back to the whole process, I have invested a lot of money
altogether, but it took a longer period of time and I always invested a part of the profit into the
development of the business.
6-How do you see the future of your business?
I don’t really have big plans for the future of the business, I like what I am doing right now,
my personal goals are to harmonize my working schedule and to divide the tasks better to
avoid overworking in the future. I also think that high expectations are not always beneficial
as they can lead to disappointments sooner and create unnecessary tension. It’s better not
to get attached to success, money and uplifts as it all comes and goes, it’s better to be
always flexible, open to changes and to make the best use of them when they come for
gaining experience, wisdom and new opportunities.
7-Do you have any advice for people who want to start a business?
I would suggest to choose a business field that you’re interested in and most excited about.
Your excitement and inspiration will give you the strength to overcome different challenges
and even severe difficulties. I also believe that in our path we are given opportunities and
people to support us, we just have to be brave enough to accept them. In any business there
will be risks and we should be able to take reasonable risks to succeed – if I wanted to stay
safe and avoid all risks, which often mean also new opportunities, then I wouldn’t have
succeeded at anything. I’m always trying to maintain the idea that everything happens for
the good even if it doesn’t happen the way I have intended or expected to. Events which
seem as a failure from the beginning, at the end can lead to an unexpected result, often to a
much better one than we could have ever imagined. Try to think outside the conventional
framework – invent new things or invent a way to use commonly known things in a new way
and try to make your work personal to the customers, then you will be able to offer what they
need most and your products or services will become most highly demanded. If your first
ideas don’t work well, don’t give up, but try out other ideas until you will get to know your
potential customers and understand what they really need. If you fall, get up and start anew.
Don’t get attached to success and appreciation, then you won’t have the fear to lose them. If
you lose, again, get up and start anew. Believe in yourself, that you are a unique and
talented person and even if you won’t succeed in something, then you will try something else
and succeed there. Even though some people can be unfair, greedy and cruel, wish good
for others and do good to others (people, animals, earth) – I can see from my own
experience that this world works as a huge mirror, the more good I do to others, the more
this world gives back in return – more love, more friendship, more welfare and more
happiness. Try to stay in a state of loving harmony, then your state of mind will attract
success as a magnet, you will have a better contact with all people you’ll have to work with
and it will be easier to overcome all difficulties. Take all failures as gifts for learning, gaining
strength, building character, better understanding yourself, expanding your consciousness.
and gaining new opportunities. Trust in yourself and your path and associate with people
who believe in you, your skills and talents.
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