We were lucky to catch up with Maggie Hathaway recently and have shared our conversation below.

Maggie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Do you take vacations? How do you keep things going – any advice for entrepreneurs who feel like they can’t step away from their business for a short vacation?

I adore travel and adventure, and have always been very proactive about selecting a career path that allows me to have a healthy work-life balance. And that has prompted me to handle my small business differently than many, I believe. I continue to work a salaried job while actively investing in Wild Perla. This has given me the financial flexibility to stress test the different facets of my business (wholesale, retail, licensing, etc.) and decide what business path is most sustainable for my lifestyle and Wild Perla.

Maggie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’ve loved stationery and paper goods ever since I was little. (Lisa Frank, anyone?!) I ended up going to college for advertising and design, and shortly after got the itch to try and brand my own little online shop where I could start selling greeting cards with my own illustrations. My family has Swedish roots, and I wanted to incorporate the bold folk aesthetic of Swedish design into my artwork, so the last few years have been a fun exploration of integrating traditional Scandinavian patterns and elements into my more modern, whimsical illustrative style. After establishing a basic greeting card line, I started expanding my products to include screen-printed towels, art prints, mugs, and stickers. Part of my ongoing mission as a small business owner has been to try and be more environmentally-driven in the way I produce products, print and manufacture, and ship wholesale goods. This same love of nature is the inspiration for much of the artwork I produce, and the themes behind my products. My business currently spans wholesale, online retail, and some pattern/artwork licensing.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I’ve always thought people were instinctively ‘good’ or ‘bad’ at art and design, and that made me nervous to pursue a creative path. Despite the fact that I had a formal academic background in design, I was never a truly intuitive creative, and it took me a long time to really lean into a design style that I was consistently good at and enjoyed. There were many points in my creative career when I considered giving up illustrating entirely, and I often doubted if I was good enough to sell my work to others. (I’m also a struggling perfectionist, which doesn’t help!) I persisted in getting better at my work because I could tell that I was consistently improving and doing more and more work that I enjoyed and felt proud of. Work that I felt was objectively good. It’s an ongoing process, but I absolutely believe that you can become a great designer, illustrator, or artist, even if it takes more work or conscious practice.

Have you ever had to pivot?

For a long time I relied on online retail as my primary source of income for Wild Perla, with Etsy as my highest-earning retail site. That has changed drastically over the last 3-5 years, as Etsy has become quite saturated as a selling market. During that time, I started building up more of my wholesale channels – mostly because there was an increase in interest from retailers looking to carry my products in their shop. That shift came at a good time – as Etsy dipped in profitability, wholesale has become a much more consistent source of income for my business.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.wildperla.com
• Instagram: @wildperla