Hello everyone! Can you believe July is almost here?! I thought I would share my journey in starting my business. I’ll talk about what I learned about my past business and how I started my current business now. This blog post is a long read and more in-depth. So I did film a video on my YouTube channel that you can check out here or watch the video below.
In my last blog post, I mentioned that I started a business called TesMade Creations. I make handmade hair scrunchies, hair scarves, headbands, and more. My business name is pronounced; handmade creations. The word “Tes” is how you write the word “hand” in the Hmong language. I didn’t want to write the word “handmade” as my business name since the word handmade is often used. So I decided to write “hand” in Hmong instead. Before TesMade Creations became TesMade Creation, it was called LT TesKnits (hand knits). LT TesKnits was the first business that I started. My first business was very similar to what I do for TesMade Creations now. Before I get into how I started TesMade Creations, I’m going to share the back story of my first business and why it failed.
Back Story of My first business & why it failed
Back in the late summer of 2016, I started a handmade business making knit beanies, headbands, and scarves. I was introduced to knitting by my second older sister when I was in middle school. As soon as I know it, knitting became a new hobby of mine. At the time, I wasn’t good at knitting but I enjoyed learning how to. Even if I never finished the project I started. My mom started learning how to crochet from a coworker and by watching my mom and watching YouTube videos, I picked up crocheting as well.
After high school, I didn’t get to see my friends often, so I knitted some of my friend’s scarves as Christmas gifts. Later, I started an online internship and wanted to keep busy when I wasn’t going to class or doing my internship. I thought about starting a side hustle and thought about knitting. I gather some ideas on what I want to make and went yarn shopping and started knitting. I kind of went all-in and took some product photos with little time and promotion. You can say I rush into things with very little money and research on how to run a business. I launched on Oct 3, 2016. With very little promotion, my business didn’t see the day of light. I’m not upset that my business failed. I learned that at that time, I didn’t know how to promote it properly. Although I didn’t make a sale, I did it because I truly enjoyed knitting and crocheting and I was ok with that.
Learning how to sew
I owned a sewing machine for a few years and only took it out to sew a few small projects. I never understood how to sew a straight line or how much pressure to put on the foot paddle. I was always nervous/afraid of messing up. I tried watching my mom a few times and asked her to teach me, but my mom didn’t know how to teach me herself other than just putting the fabric in and press the foot paddle to sew. I watch a few YouTube videos and remembering it wasn’t much help. I didn’t officially learn how to sew until during the pandemic.
Around last year from May to June, my sister told me that she wanted to start her business. She started learning how to sew. My sister was the one who taught and guided me on how to sew. The two things my sister told me when sewing was to guide the fabric through the machine and follow along the edge of the foot paddle. When my sister said that, it was like a light bulb went off in my head. In all the youtube videos I watched in the past, nobody ever mentioned that once. Thanks to my sister, I now know how to sew. Also, I think I tend to overthink things and make it harder for myself when sewing was never that hard to learn.
After practicing, I got the hang of sewing by the end of June. I knew that I want to make clothes, but I wanted to start on small projects first until I felt confident in my sewing skills. I was thinking of some product ideas and thought about making hair accessories. Wearing hair accessories was always my go-to when I was younger, so I decided to do just that. My sister and I designed a pattern and got it printed on fabric. I bought a sample to see it in person and make a sample of a scrunchie and headband. When I made the scrunchie and headband, I had a few trials and errors. When I got the scrunchie and headband to look a certain way, I was happy with how they turned out!
Rebranding & Creating TesMade Creations
From July to September, I did a lot of research about running a business. On top of that, I was working part-time at my job and helping my sister on the back end with her business. At this time, I was debating if I wanted to start back up my first business and rebranding it with a different name with the same meaning. When helping my sister with her business, I started looking at fabric with her every time she went fabric shopping. Since Halloween was coming up, I got a few pre-cut quart fabrics with fall and Halloween prints. I decided to make scrunchies as my first product for my new business and went on from there.
The Launch of TesMade Creations
I launched my shop on Etsy on Oct 14, 2020. I wanted to build an audience first, so I knew opening my shop on Etsy; I would get a better chance of getting my business seen and know. I promoted to my friends and families on my social media accounts. I didn’t expect to get a sale on the first day of launch but I did and I’m honestly grateful!
After my first scrunchies collection launched, I worked on my next scrunchies collection. I wanted to incorporate using scarps/secondhand/deadstock fabric to make scrunchies instead of buying new fabric. My mom was kind enough to give me her scarp fabrics. I was able to upcycle the fabric to make scrunchies out of them. From there on out, I released small scrunchies collection throughout the holiday seasons. Since the rebrand of my business, I now have a store website and expand my product range to hair scarves, headbands, and more.
My Future Plans for My Business
There’s so much I want to do for my business! But I’m taking it one step at a time. My plans for my business are to continue to grow my business, add new products, and hopefully expand my shipping to worldwide shipping. I still have a lot to learn and will continue to learn to improve my business.
I hope you enjoy getting to know how I started my business and found it somewhat helpful. You can follow my journey as a small business owner by subscribing to my newsletter or on any of my social media. If you have any questions about starting your own business, let me know in the comments below. I will do my best to answer them.
Thank you for reading!
