We were lucky to catch up with Chinwe Oparaji recently and have shared our conversation below.

Chinwe, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

As an artist, I have found that one of the most fulfilling and most accessible ways to share my work with others is through an in-person craft festival or market. Being able to positively impact a potential customer or an admiring passerby through my work is a truly special moment.

However, finding the places to bring my artwork to can be one of the largest struggles. Deciding to be a vendor at a market comes after hours of scouring Instagram accounts, various Facebook comments, different websites, and maybe a Discord blog. Sometimes, it unfortunately takes a few really bad markets to learn by experience. With so much scattered information, it’s hardly an easy task to figure out where to go.

That’s why the team at The SMILE Market is working to be the source of truth for in-person art markets and events. Artists and craft event coordinators should be able reliably communicate with each other in an accessible, consistent, and up-to-date way about their events.

With our Catholic faith at the core of the business values, we have a vision to ultimately enable artists that have a desire to bring our culture closer to God. We know that art is a powerful tool that reflects culture while at the same time defining it. I believe that we can help make this happen when we enable potential craft market coordinators to find the artists they are looking for, while giving artists the suitable information they need to decide to be a vendor at an event.

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.

Hello, my name is Chinwe Oparaji. I am a software engineer, designer, and founder of The SMILE Market. I am also a somewhat recent Dual Degree graduate from Boston University in Graphic Design and Computer Science.

The SMILE Market at its inception was my Etsy shop where I sold handmade greeting cards. When I got to university, however, I noticed the common anxiety makers have about selling their work, particularly at in-person events. Since then I, for the past few years, have been working to connect good artists to good markets.

The SMILE Market is currently building our first app, MarketFinder. We like to call it “Yelp for craft markets”. We allow artists to find and review different markets, conventions and shows. We also make it easy for event coordinators to manage the logistics and easily communicate with vendors for their events.

How’d you meet your business partner?

I met my cofounder, Francis, at a Catholic young professionals conference. He is also a software engineer and I basically pitched the idea to him, along with a couple of other conference members, during one of the lunchtime breaks.

By the end of the conference, he said he was interested in the idea, but was more focused on other career moves. However, after doing a couple of remote coding sessions and one more in-person meeting with him, he was on board to be a cofounder and it’s been so great to have his tech and business expertise as we build together.

Go Francis!

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I think the multiple pivots in The SMILE Market could demonstrate this.

Before working on MarketFinder, I thought I wanted to start a non-profit. After experimenting with the idea, I realized how important my values were in creating a business. Afterwards I tried to start a faith-based art shop. After starting this, I interviewed potential customers and the artists I worked with and, after their feedback, realized that this was not the best way to be supportive to them nor was it sustainable for myself to maintain.

After this, I decided to start applying to some accelerator programs to help the growth of the potential business. It has helped tremendously to lay down a clear plan for my ideas through these applications. After multiple rejections, the team finally got into a few accelerators that helped us build a concise idea about MarketFinder— something I had only vaguely envisioned before.

All throughout the way, I have learned so much in the craft market space. As I have gained more clarity, the company has evolved, but the goal to build this business has not wavered.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thesmilemarket.co
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesmilemarket/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chinweoparaji/

Image Credits

Julia Gridley
Caden Jazdzyk