Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Aaryn Turner. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Aaryn, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career
Many of us were raised on the motto, “Go to school to get a good job”, however that could not be any further from the truth. I attended one of the top public universities in the country and took home $800 every two weeks after graduating. Living in the DC metropolitan area , and being up to my eyeballs in student loan debt, that was nearly impossible to live off of. When I graduated, I ended up taking a job that had nothing to do with what I studied, because honestly at 18, who the hell knows what they want to do for the rest of their life. I was always a creative, but in many spaces I occupied, there was no celebration for the arts. There was no space for discussion on how being a creative can grow into a fruitful career. There needs to be more exposure to kids as early as high school of other options outside of college. There needs to be a moment for them to be able to discover who they want to be that is not so cost demanding because that is not accessible for all. There are many young individuals with creative minds or have other skillsets that can take a different journey than college. What are we telling our youth that they can only be successful or only matter if they take a traditional path in life? I also feel college is too expensive of an investment to be pressured into at such a young age. It wasn’t until I was 26 that I knew what I wanted to do, and I could then make a decision if going back to school was worth it or necessary. In my case it was, but I can’t help to think to myself, how could I have come to this career decision sooner? How could I have been given more education of career paths that were not the typical 3 categories where I didn’t have to make such a costly mistake? There needs to be no more “go to school to get a good job” and more “what are your interests, and how can you explore that interest to come to a career”.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
As I mentioned, I’ve always been a creative. My family immersed me in performance arts such as dance and piano, and visual arts at a very young age. I attended wonderful schools right outside of Philadelphia where those interests were supported by classes and courses that allowed me to dive deeper into those interests, but they were still always treated as extracurriculars or electives. More than 15% of my graduating class (of 42 people) attended an Ivy League college post graduation. Almost the entire graduating class studied a form of science, engineering, law or business after graduating. The academic environment of all of the institutions I attended were all intense and rigorous. I followed in those same expectations and studied criminal justice and minored in Spanish at the University of Maryland where I hoped to continue my studies and become a bi-lingual lawyer. Senior year of college I decided not to take the law path after prepping for the LSAT. It was not for me. I ended up taking a sales job right after college. That sales job led to another which led to another. I hated every job I had after college. The reality was I needed to do something I loved to do and sales was not it. I needed some creativity. While there was good money in it, and I was good at it, the “sunday scaries” were more like the mon-sun scaries”. I still needed money to support myself, so I had to work the crappy sales jobs. In the interim, I opened my online boutique “The Pretty Shop” in 2018. It was my spark of happiness in my life. I made relationships with vendors in LA, and would order ready to wear outfits and display them on my site. I would have photoshoots to make them desirable to purchase and would sell out as soon as they hit the site. It started off small and grew over 4 years. I participated in pop up shops, I then started to travel to LA to pick the seasons looks ahead of time in person, and my order numbers started to BOOM! I learned so much of running my own business. I learned the skills of budgets, marketing campaigns, buying, designing, and more! The pandemic was a scary time, but a great time for my business. I moved back to Philly (where im from), and was able to focus more on my boutique. Like many during the pandemic, I lost my sales job. It was scary, but it allowed myself to see what it would be like as a full-time entrepreneur. It was stressful, but it was great! I knew entrepreneur life was ultimately the life for me. My interest for the Pretty Shop started to shift when I got my own apartment in Philly. I hired an interior decorator to decorate it because for once I just wanted my apartment to be fully furnished. I found myself picking most of the items that went into my place. While I took many of her ideas, I realized I too had just as many if not more. Family & friends that came to visit admired my space so much, they would throw the idea around that I should offer decorating as a service, thus Studio Moxie by Aaryn was born. It was easy to convert over to a decorating business because I had years of practice with The Pretty Shop, and created such great clientele relationships. All of my clients today have purchased something from me from when I had my boutique. I was still in between jobs as I was starting up my decorating business. I legit applied to over 600 jobs in the 7 months that I was unemployed. I took decor jobs and nannied to live. I was feeling a sense of helplessness. The job market was trash and I still needed money. I could not understand why I was not getting ANY job offers, even from the ones where I made it to the last round of interviews. One day God made it so clear why. You know you have found your passion when you lay in bed at night obsessing about it. I was doing some research on some of my favorite designers and wanted to know what made them so distinct? Many of them honestly went to school. I came to the conclusion I had to go back to school. I wanted to not only be good at what I do, I wanted to be the best. I needed more training and education. I applied to Drexel’s Master’s in Interior Architecture and Design program and got in! It was meant to be and even simply more perfect that it is in the top design schools in the country. This brought to light why it was not meant for me to work anymore jobs that did not serve me, that I had to pursue my passion and take my business to the next level. What I want my potential clients to know about me is that I put them first. I want them to have the best, experience the best and to never settle for less, so I make myself that best option for them. my golden rule in business that had made me so successful in both of my businesses is “treat your clients as you would want to be treated as a client” and with that golden rule, any and every business can be successful!
Have you ever had to pivot?
I loss my job and no jobs was coming to be anytime soon. Due to the economy I lost my job twice, but the last time was the scariest because over a 1/2 of year went by and I still had no stable source of income. It was scary. Unemployment was running out, savings was gone, and all I kept getting was your typical “it not you its us” rejection emails from companies. It made me very depressed and made me feel so helpless because I do my best to always have it together. Outside of my business, I dove into other means of making money. Someone bought up the idea of nannying and I was able to get a couple of families that supported me full time. I was then making more as a nanny than I was working my previous 9-5. Not being distracted by jobs that were not fulfilling me allowed me to pour my energy and attention into discovering what was. Everything started to fall into place after that. It sounds cliche but life really will work out and unfold as it should, even when it doesnt feel like it will.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
I was blessed that my family started me out with $1200 to start my business. That went fast especially because I had a business where I had to buy the product upfront that I was selling. My best advice is marketing at the RIGHT places to make that stretch. For those selling a product, think of where is your audience? How can you get in front of them? Is it IG ads? is it popup events that you have done your research on? That research is important. Understand the amount of people you are getting in front of before you invest? Word of mouth will always be your biggest wave of clients, but additionally how can you reach greater for less money?
Contact Info:
- Website: studiomoxiebyaaryn.com
- Instagram: studiomoxiebyaaryn_
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aarturner/
Image Credits
headshot by @enicul.art nursery shot by @silentknightstudio