We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kali Salazar a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Kali, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about how you got your first non-friend, non-family client. Paint the picture for us so we can feel the same excitement you felt on that day.

My first client ended up being kind of an accident! I had started embroidery and making my own tote bags and sweatshirts during lockdown in 2020 while I was at home and bored that spring. One day at the grocery store, I took my hand embroidered tote with me to carry home some of my smaller groceries in. Someone came up and told me how much they liked my tote and asked where they could get one. I ended up getting a text and venmo from them ordering a tote which led to my very first sale. Later in June of 2020, I had so many people coming up to me in public asking where I got my tote bags that I decided to start an online Etsy store called Stitch and Bloom to sell them. I was in college at the time for Marketing/Social Media/Design so I decided to make all my own promotional materials and market myself. My business took off and I gained 2,000 followers on social media in a year! This business that started out as a small side gig became my full time income throughout the rest of my time in college.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Kali Salazar and I am a social media manager/business owner from Springfield, Missouri. I recently graduated college with my bachelor’s degree in Visual and Digital Arts and married my husband shortly after. I love all things travel, chai and photography. I got into my current industry because of the business I started in college called Stitch and Bloom. I made handmade totes and embroidered sweatshirts, beanies, hats, t-shirts and more. I fell in love with the whole marketing/social media process which led me to my current position as a social media manager/engagement editor at 417 Magazine. I love to help people fall in love with whatever I am marketing/promoting by immersing them through intentional photography and videography of the product. What sets me apart from others is the fact that my first full time job was running my own business. Being able to see my dream be built from the ground up was so rewarding and also helped me to learn so much about the behind the scenes of running a business. I had to learn so much about what it meant to cultivate a good team who could help support me and my business. I also learned that it takes a lot of grit and determination to put your brand in front of people whether they accept it or not. Learning how to build a business on my own helped me to understand the importance of promoting a brands ideals, culture, and values to an audience. I am so proud of the brand I built and the community that emerged from my small business. I made so many friends and connections all from a single tote bag and I’ll always be thankful for that.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

In 2022, I had planned and prepped a big Christmas drop for my business, Stitch and Bloom. It included sweatshirts, tote bags, beanies and stickers. I had created a full marketing plan on my own and spent hours collecting content to post on social media once the line went live. I was really excited for it and had big plans with what I would do after it was successful. Despite all the time, effort and money that went into this big drop, I only sold 2 sweatshirts. I was really disappointed and felt like I was fading out and didn’t know what my audience wanted anymore. I took time to think about what to do next and decided to connect with my audience to find out what they wanted more of instead of coming up with it all on my own. I went out of my way to hold polls, interview previous customers and create google forms for people to send in ideas for new merch. Instead of giving up, I decided to incorporate their ideas into my next line in March. I decided to drop the new line during one of my pop-up events and hoped that my customers would see how dedicated I was to their ideas and input. During that pop-up, I sold out completely during the first 45 minutes of my show. I didn’t have enough product for everyone that wanted to purchase items, so we had to start a pre-order list for people to put their name on for my next drop! I was so glad I didn’t give up because of my failure and decided to push forward.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I wish that I had utilized video editing apps like Temply and Capcut earlier to help me create trending Instagram Reels and TikToks. I spent so much time editing each video by myself and these resources would’ve helped me save so much time and provided better overall content to my audience.

Contact Info:

• Website: stitch-and-bloom.com
• Instagram: @stitch.and.bloom
• Facebook: Stitch and Bloom Co

Image Credits
Credit to Kali Salazar (myself)