10 things I’ve learned from starting my art business

It’s been 6 months since my little business adventure called Dabel Studio began. Like any adventure, you begin with a destination in mind, but you never know what will happen along the way. Since I like to write, I thought it would be fun to start documenting my journey and hopefully provide something interesting or useful to others. Welcome to my first blog post!

Before I get ahead of myself, I have to back up for a minute for those who don’t know me and tell you how Dabel Studio came to be. It all started with me quitting my great paying job because I was incredibly burnt out after 25+ years in tech. When you start worrying you’ll have a heart attack from the anxiety and stress and your family, and even your therapist, is telling you to quit, you realize it’s time to make a change. 

As you can imagine, figuring out what to do next was kind of a big deal. Like where do you begin? My brain would bounce between ideas like a pinball and then sabotage each little spark of a dream with self-doubt and fear. That’s when I’d tell myself that I could always work at Crate & Barrel because who wouldn’t love a discount there?

To find something I enjoy doing, I didn’t want to agonize over the choices and realized it really was as simple as picking one to start with first. So I chose to open my own design studio which lets me try on many creative hats to see what fits. And if nothing fits, there is always Crate & Barrel.

So now that you know the backstory, here’s the 10 things I’ve learned from starting my art business:

1. Have an experimental mindset. Don’t worry about choosing the best idea or having the perfect plan. Instead, pick something to do and just do it. Then step back, quickly reflect on what went well or not so well, and use those nuggets of knowledge to figure out what to do next. As a recovering perfectionist, embracing mistakes and taking more risks is something I continue to work on.

2. Leverage your strengths for easier wins. Starting out, do something in your wheelhouse so you can quickly feel the adrenaline rush of accomplishment. While I’d love to use other art mediums in my work, I knew it would be easier to focus on graphic design which freed up some brain cells to tackle things out of my comfort zone, like setting up an online store. I’ll save my venting about how ridiculously hard this was for a future post.

3. Find an unblocker. As a solopreneur I miss getting opinions from co-workers. My solution was to find a trusty person to be my go-to unblocker when I am mired in indecision, which happens more than I care to admit. My Chief Unblocker is my abundantly patient husband, who knows nothing about art or design yet is usually spot on.

4. Make a lot from a little. I’m never short on ideas, but always short on time so I tried to make fewer things that have the potential to make more variety of things and save me valuable time. I recently took classes from Stacie Bloomfield and Cat Coquillette, two successful artists who opened up my eyes on how to take this further with surface design, licensing, print on demand, and more.

5. Get direct feedback from customers. My first big business goal was to sell my art at a few Saturday markets in Seabrook, Washington. Getting sales was great but it was even more awesome to hear people’s comments, learn about what they’re planning to do with their purchases, and get their ideas about what I should offer. The compliments are a nice confidence boost too! 

6. Slow and steady grows your business. It’s not like Field of Dreams where if you build it, they will come. I was so excited to get my online store launched, get my products on Instagram and Pinterest, and then nada — cue the sound of crickets. Like many creative introverts, I’d rather do anything else than put myself out there and play the difficult game of standing out in a worldwide competition for attention and customers. But then I heard Stacie Bloomfield say “slow growth is good growth” and it was like a reassuring hug telling me it’s okay, these things take time, you can do this. Her motto reminded me of the Aesop’s proverb of “slow and steady wins the race” which means the best results come from consistent gradual progress rather than expecting immediate results. As long as I keep plugging away, I’ll get there. 

 7. Know how to see trends. For me, keeping up with the trends always felt like a slippery slope that would lead to more copying and less creativity so I’d tell myself who has the time? But then I took Cat Coquillette’s design trends class on Skillshare and I was reminded that following trends isn’t about drooling over some up-and-coming designer’s work you like, it’s about seeing the commonalities across the arts in color, pattern, motifs, typography, etc. Knowing elephants or the color apricot are trending gives you an opportunity to create something that has broader appeal while still being something uniquely you.

8. Budget twice the money or do half the things. Even though I budgeted and tracked my expenses, I realized my excitement for making things meant doing more and spending more than I planned. Usually doing more is a great thing, like how productive! But when you’re not making many sales starting out, it’s a reminder to slow down and make hard trade-offs to someday break even and one day make a profit.

9. You’re not alone! There’s a lot to learn about selling art online and I had no idea where to begin. Using Instagram and Google, I started following people doing what I’d like to do, reading their blogs, and seeing who they follow or collaborate with. That led me to discover a variety of free classes (check out Stacie Bloomfield) and paid classes (get a Skillshare subscription) from many successful artists and designers. Coming from the competitive world of tech, I was surprised at the sense of community and “we all rise” attitude from everyone and how contagious that spirit can be — which is one of the reasons I’m writing this post to hopefully pay it forward.

10. Understand your creative DNA to define your style. For most of my 25-year design career, I worked within corporate brand style guides which meant I didn’t really know what my personal style was when I started Dabel Studio. I thought no problem, I’ll figure it out as I go along. Then after my last market, it hit me that while I really like what I made, I wasn’t sure it was quite me. Luckily I stumbled upon a Skillshare class by Andy J. Pizza called “Find your style: Five exercises to unlock your creative identity”. It showed me how I can identify the influences, experiences and sparks that form my creative DNA to help me create a one-of-a-kind signature style. 

Overall I'm really happy where I'm at with Dabel Studio because no  matter what, the real accomplishment so far is learning from other amazing artists and designers and discovering who I really am as a creative person.

I’m taking the next month to work on #10 and will share the process and results as I go with more images and less words!