5.02.2024
It Started with a Rollercoaster...
4.24.2024
THE TINY CLOSET LINE: Things I'd do differently if I started today...
For weeks, I’ve been trying to squeeze in any moment I can find to write. After years of being so consumed with creating Content! Marketing! and Sales!, It’s only now become obvious to me that I’m needing more than a moment to switch my focus toward a more contemplative, long-form style of sharing. Your girl is rusty.
Going back over old archive posts from 2012, during the first few years I was blogging about style, it got me wondering what I’d do differently if I opened my shop today... This week, I was able to carve out a little time to write up a fun list of things I would do if I started The Tiny Closet shop today, knowing what I know now. 1. GET AN ACCOUNTANT - end of list. Ha, just kidding.
5 Things I'd Do If I Started The Tiny Closet Shop in 2024
1. I'D KNOW HOW I WANT TO SPEND MY TIME
When I was first starting out, I received a lot of questions from people who admired what I was building. A fashion designer, retailer, blogger! It seemed to them (and to me as well) that all I'd be doing everyday was exactly that: designing clothing, keeping my pretty shop site updated, blogging about fashion and selling clothes... In actuality, my days were spent sourcing fabric in dark, dusty, male-dominated warehouses, emailing customers and contractors constantly, making hand-wringing decisions on how much money to spend on any one thing, balancing cash flow on a tight rope, trying to come up with worthy content for my newsletter and social media, and trying to keep up with new season trends, driven by fast fashion. Yes, there was blogging, and designing and keeping my shop site pretty and on-brand, but ironically, I spent very, very little time on those things.Aside from sourcing fabric, which I grew to absolutely love, I was beyond disappointed with my day to day duties. Not only were they not how I wanted to spend my time and life, but they also weren't jobs where I naturally excelled. I didn't shine in bookkeeping, or cut throat budgeting. And sadly, I couldn't stand social media. I should have hired someone as soon as I possibly could to take over those integral tasks so that I could focus on the jobs no one could do like me.
2. I'D SEPARATE & ORGANIZE MY BUSINESS FINANCES
Starting a business today, as soon as the website is live, as soon as the first item is published and visible, as soon as you're registered with the state for a business license or permit, get you a business checking account. Even if it's a separate Venmo or CashApp account. And even if I didn't do any of that, I'd follow a simpler method: as soon as you start making a minimum of $500 per month in gross revenue, get a separate account dedicated to at least, hold all the money together in one place, for goodness sake.
3. I'D MAP OUT A 1-YR WORK SCHEDULE
4. I'D STACK CASH FOR RAINY DAYS
5. I'D ALIGN MY JOB WITH MY PERSONAL GOALS
3.21.2024
This is (almost) 41?
I’ve always been much more of a… “pantser”. Instead of following a carefully laid out path, I fly by the seat of my pants and see where it lands me. I mean, it landed me a business that I started with $50 and an email list. A husband who proposed to me on our second date. It also landed me in L.A., after one night of consideration. Throughout my 20s and 30s, flying seemed great. I trusted the seat of my pants to get me where I needed to go. And when I didn’t know where that was, I trusted it would at least be a fun ride. I was out for adventure and new horizons. I was a doer and didn’t care how exactly things got done. Plans just put a damper on all that.
It wasn’t until about 5 years ago that I started getting very well acquainted with what happens when one doesn’t plan. Like for instance, when I didn’t have any plaaans to pay the IRS for the business I started. Long story short, being a one-note ‘pantser’ at 20, at 30, finally left me exhausted and anxious at 40.
Earlier this year, even with every motivation I had to dedicate more time and thought to setting a plan of action and following through, I was drained to my core imagining putting new dreams to actual pen and paper. Figuring out all that how and what and when - an anxiety-inducing toe-dipping method to adventure, better experienced by just jumping right in. I mean, the laborious analysis you trudge through with dipping your toe. What if it’s too cold? What if you get spooked looking too far beneath the water? Will you end up even going on the adventure at all? Thinking too long about a new endeavor can turn it into a drag…I suppose it’s no mystery why I’ve employed a strictly pantser method my whole life. But at the same time, I’ve become all too familiar with ‘jumping right in’ into unknown waters and missing the faint outline of a shark. A little bit of planning can save your life. Or in my case, my 30s.
While I’m still reinflating myself from the events of the year, I’ve actually been dying to share my life behind-the-scenes of The Tiny Closet after being shrouded in operations the past 8 years. I’ve felt a strong pull for a while to share my experiences to those who may benefit from it. My experiences, triumphs and hilarious failures of just being a 30-something, now 40-something year old woman entrepreneur could’ve been a great help to me, starting out (like how terribly you can run a business and still miraculously make money…or like when I scheduled a month off to get a hysterectomy, and went back to work a week later).
Anyway, so where did I leave off? Talking about self care in 2018… funny. I’m just a resilient gal, living her life one day at a time and taking copious field notes. Hope it helps.