Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Katelynn Sawyer. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Katelynn , thanks for joining us today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

The name Asteria Sol Creations comes from my love for space and the stars. When my boyfriend Tim and I were coming up with a name for our business, we wanted there to be some sort of personal meaning behind the name. Asteria, In Greek/Titan mythology is the goddess of the stars/shooting stars and is often depicted wearing a crown of stars. Sol means sun, and we knew we wanted a sunflower in our branding and logo design.

Katelynn , 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?

My name is Katelynn and my boyfriend is Tim and we launched Asteria Sol Creations at the beginning of 2022 in order to have an outlet for our creativity. We had been discussing the possibility of starting a business since 2020 and finally put some actions behind our ideas. Tim has always been a woodworker and grew up watching his Dad and Grandfather in the garage working on various projects most of which included woodworking to some degree. I told Tim that I needed to find a creative outlet, and he told me that he needed less plants in mason jars propagating around our house (true story, haha!) and we came up with a plan to start making wooden propagation stands. Tim and I spent a ton of time in the garage figuring out the best way and I had many skills to learn. We made a handful of propagation stands that we were really proud of and people loved them so we made more and started making other handcrafted wood products and here we are!

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I started with following friends and family and asked them to share our page. I knew that getting the support of people in our area was imperative and we wanted to gain some local recognition. It’s also always much easier to get friends and family to share your page than complete strangers! The next step was to figure out WHO I was marketing to and WHO I wanted to follow my page. I needed to make sure I wasn’t just getting meaningless likes and follows. I needed people to stick around which meant to create my content for the people I wanted to see it. I then set a goal to post 5-7 reels a week on Instagram and study the engagement to figure out what days and times my followers were most active. It’s gotten us an average of 4 followers a day since launching our Instagram on 1/1/22. It doesn’t seem like a whole lot, but I promise it works. It’s also very important to engage with your followers, it helps them to realize you’re a person and not just a brand or company.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Hands down, word of mouth. Having an awesome product or service will only get you so far in todays market. With inflation and rising cost of living, customers need to know their hard earned cash is buying a quality product or service. Getting ourselves out in front of people so they had the opportunity to look/see/feel/touch gave us the boost we needed. It allowed locals to find us, purchase our products, tag us in their stories and leave reviews! Once there were a few reviews on our page, it became easier to make online sales. We will continue to pop up and engage with our customers at local businesses and markets because we believe that in person interactions and connections are priceless.

Contact Info:

• Website: Etsy.com/shop/asteriasolcreations
• Instagram: @asteriasolcreations
• Facebook: @asteriasolcreations