Welcome to the first season of our new podcast. Help- I started a business, now what? At the beginning, there are so many decisions to make and so many things to do. It can feel like everyone else has their business figured out. It can also be really easy to compare your brand new starter business to others that are well established. In this podcast, we will talk about all those hairy first big steps that come with starting a business.
Our fourth episode features Livvy Ramos of Fera Fox. She will share a how it happened story. We will talk about how she got her first wholesale order. She will also talk about what she learned from the process and how it’s helping her make decisions going forward.
Find Livvy here on Instagram. Check out the podcast on YouTube, Spotify, or read the transcript below. We’ve even included timestamps in case you want to zero in on one part of the show.
Episode Transcription
00:00.47
Amber
Welcome to the Help I Started a Business Now What aka known as the Now What Show. Today I am here with my guest Livvy and we’re going to do a special how it happened episode. We’re going to get into how we think she got her first wholesale order so welcome to the show Livvy and can you please introduce yourself.
00:25.35
Livvy
Hi well thank you for having me my name is Livvy and I am the founder and creator of Fera Fox and I specialize in textile jewelry mostly statement pieces.
00:34.44
Amber
Okay, tell us a little bit more about what textile jewelry is for those that might not be familiar.
00:44.19
Livvy
Oh well, it can be a lot of different things. I use a lot of Cotton Cord. I’m dabbling in using different kinds of yarns ropes. Just anything that’s more organic feeling. I have been incorporating some metal pieces into a lot of my jewelry and I’m going to be doing more in resin and things like that in the future.
01:14.62
Amber
Absolutely awesome. All right. So now let’s talk a little bit about social media at the beginning of a business, right? Ah, all the things with social media. So can you talk a little bit about. You know you’ve been doing this for a little while now as you were starting to find your social media style. How how would you describe yourself a little bit and how you’ve been going about your social media strategy and style?
01:43.38
Livvy
Oh gosh. Well I think that would start with watching other people’s reels and what they’re posting and I literally took notes I mean I was like these people are doing it right? Let me try to see what they’re doing and if I can mimic it in my own style so you know create a hook use the trending audios. I’ve tried all sorts of different things and some things work out great and some of them are total flops. But that’s how you learn you and now you’re like okay I won’t do that again! I Think as a handmade business doing process videos have been great. I mean every time I seem to make a process video people just really really enjoy that I get the most engagement I’ll get followers from that. But you know I’m still learning I think I’ll always be learning because it’s always changing too. But I’m just trying to be authentic and maybe try to be funny sometimes maybe try to be informative.
02:56.64
Amber
Absolutely, you’re a business owner that’s learning now. How long have you had Fera Fox- tell us how long you’ve had your business?
02:59.48
Livvy
So I am no expert but I’m really trying yeah well actually Fera Fox started as a totally different brand. It started as a print on demand clothing brand.
And I did that for about eight months and it was just not working out. It was it just did like I couldn’t get my hands dirty because I was just drawing and I wasn’t actually creating anything. So once I decided to do jewelry I wanted to keep the name. And so Fera Fox has now been a jewelry brand for about a year just a little over a year.
03:45.20
Amber
So you know what it’s like getting in the trenches building it from scratch just getting started getting to make all the decisions.
03:47.98
Livvy
Yes, yes, yes yes and I definitely learned that like 1 year’s not very long for a business.
03:57.31
Amber
Yes, you haven’t even had a chance to see what is seasonal or cyclical or or anything yet. It’s really just still trying to get all the baseline figured out.
04:07.47
Livvy
Right? and like figure out like what is my brand- you know who is it for and you know what is its voice and I’ve been learning that over this. You know past year and getting it’s getting there.
04:27.19
Amber
Absolutely so now tell us about one of these social media postings you had that got some of your best traffic ever and then the wholesale message that followed up with that. So tell us more about that.
04:41.88
Livvy
Yeah, so you know it’s funny I can’t even think what the actual real was that I made but Instagram really decided to push it and I don’t know how many views I got I mean it got you know hundred like maybe 50000 views I gained about 200 followers and not too long after that I received a message from a woman who asked if I did wholesale. I’ve never done wholesale so I was very hesitant at first you know.
05:18.30
Livvy
But I wrote her back and I said you know maybe I’d be interested in doing that. What do you have in mind? She said she wanted to order like 200 of my pieces just right off the bat and I was kind of still hesitant because I was like what if she’s not for real but I did a little research and you know her her jewelry brand was legit and she makes her own stuff as well as buying other peoples and we cut a deal. It happened and she sold out of my stuff pretty quickly and then made another order again. So that was really incredible. That was a big win.
06:00.69
Amber
Absolutely and I think the part of this story here too is you are being yourself on social media. Doing your thing, building your thing and then a cool opportunity showed up it. Every opportunity isn’t about you pushing things extremely hard. You weren’t like I’m going to go out and build a wholesale business and hit 500 retailers and spam everybody it. It grew organically out of what you were already doing.
06:22.68
Livvy
Right.
06:38.85
Amber
That to me is a really important message because the organic things are the things that’ll resonate. That gave you a chance to just work your way through your process, figure out what you wanted that to look like. So I think that was that a key important message to your story and and what you were doing. Has it gotten you to think about doing more wholesale? Are you just going to stick with what you’ve got? How are you thinking about that now that you’ve been through the first sale?
07:11.64
Livvy
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I’ve looked into Faire. That platform that does wholesale and I feel like for right now I’m going to hold off on that making that many pieces of my jewelry at once is you know it’s a lot of work and and I really want to actually create more of ah, a community and you can’t do that as easily by selling wholesale. I’m not saying I won’t do wholesale.
The woman I worked with in particular like I like my relationship with her. If she wanted to keep doing some things I’d probably work with her. But right now I Really want to focus on just creating my own community.
Because I just think that will be more fulfilling. That’s what I always wanted to do you know and then maybe down the road as things you know have become more established then I think I would definitely be open to more wholesale I Just don’t want to put all my energy into that because that can be a real. Energy and time suck and so I So I think I’m you know I mean the the other side of it is that it can be a really great way to make some some revenue. So you know I’m saying that now but I could always change my mind.
08:23.36
Amber
Yes, it really can. So for you that first wholesale order. It’s great. It’s some sales. It’s letting me build a relationship with this person who sure I may very well continue to sell with that person.
08:48.41
Livvy
You do you, right.
08:56.22
Amber
But that you’re taking it more one at a time and it sounds like it’d be more if someone approached you and you felt like it was a fit because you have some other business goals right now? Which is great to know too right? You know it’s like you know what you want to do. But you also know what you don’t want to do in in the early years of business I think that is equally important in in being able to decide that.
09:16.41
Livvy
Right? Yeah and I’m always open to changing you know, changing my mind as I think been good to be open when you’re building a business. You’ve got to learn to roll with things and you know if something’s not working then you know you’ve got a pivot.
09:45.48
Amber
And make adjustments too because the other you know as you said you’ve been in business for a year and you know the economic cycle, like who knows you know if we see a big change in the economic cycle. Oh well. Then I might need to shift or pivot or inch to some different markets as part of that and so just ah, embracing where you’re at and knowing where you’re at right now and that you can do it if you want to as well. I think those are all powerful decisions. Okay, so for those that have stuck with us this far.
10:08.72
Livvy
Um, right? Yeah yeah, oh gosh?
10:16.90
Amber
How can they find Fairfax on all the socials your website etc?
10:26.66
Livvy
Well ah instagram is @Fera_Fox and then on Facebook it’s at the Fera Fox and I’m also on Pinterest at the Fera Fox and Tickt Tock at the Fera Foxx and I also have a website and that is www.ferafox.com
10:44.74
Amber
Fantastic, Well wonderful. Well thank you so much Livvy for joining us and thank you to everyone who tuned in.
Comments 1
Good post. I am facing many of these issues as well..