Business Mistakes I Made (Thankfully)
Hi! I’m Deanna, the founder and creative director of Skye Creative.
I’m also the founder and designer of another business I started in 2015—Cordially, a custom invitation and event stationery company.
Starting two businesses is not something I ever expected to do… and the whole process involved making many mistakes along the way, which also taught some extremely valuable lessons. I’m sharing those lessons here, with the hope that they can be helpful to you too!
1 - Trying to do too much at the same time
If you’re a working mom (especially if you survived the pandemic quarantine and homeschooling) then you know the level of craziness that happens day in and day out. When I first started Cordially, I only had one baby but even then, I kept trying to work non-stop throughout the day even when he was awake and wanting to play. It drove me crazy, stressed me out and at the end of the day I was only giving my 50% to either of them. It was a game changer to figure out a schedule where I could dedicate my full self to each one at their own time. If you’re not a parent, same applies for everything else that you do for fun - definitely carve out some “me time” but don’t try to juggle business and pleasure at the same time.
2 - Never investing in the help I know I needed
Let’s face it, running a business is expensive. And most first-time business owners do anything they can for budgeting including sacrificing what could actually be more beneficial in the long run. I never took the plunge to hire the help that was required for a larger volume of success. Had I not spent so much time on emails, estimates, and minor editing requests - I would have had more time to be inspired, create new designs, make new offerings, and reach my target audience.
3 - Spending time and money on my business without clarity
There was a point in time that I felt my next step was to start my own stationery line. I thought I had a dream of owning a store front but I knew that would be too much overhead, especially as a one-woman ran business in Los Angeles. I decided to travel to New York for the National Stationery Show to get inspired on creating my own catalogs and sending them out to wholesalers. I spent countless hours researching, learning, watching tutorials, making contacts, building a shop site… only to realize that I hadn’t been clear on what I wanted as an outcome. Was this my truest passion? The part of my business I wanted to focus on? Switching gears from service to product? Dealing with showrooms and unknown inventory production and sales teams was not necessarily my calling, as much as I loved designing my stationery line. I would recommend imagining reaching your goal and asking yourself what your daily life would be like and whether that is what you hope for yourself!
4 - Confusing my clients with my homepage
As a result of that stationery line pivot, I decided it would be best to make the homepage of my website be focused on my stationery front and center. All of my custom invitation clients, primarily those looking for sophisticated and luxurious wedding invites were getting thrown off. Over time I realized that I was getting less and less bookings for my primary source of income which was invitations!
5 - Not narrowing down on my offerings/expertise
Also on my website and social media, I tried to focus on three categories - invitations, stationery and branding. It was obvious to me (several years too late) that my branding was not positioned well at all. While invitations and stationery worked hand in hand, most of my clients were not as aware of my branding offerings - especially based on the content that I was creating on my social media. Fast forward to the repositioning of my branding by the creation of Skye Creative! This allowed me to keep my (separate) niche markets on their own and have my messaging speak to them directly!