We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jianna Martins. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jianna below.

Jianna, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Being a business owner can be really hard sometimes. It’s rewarding, but most business owners we’ve spoken sometimes think about what it would have been like to have had a regular job instead. Have you ever wondered that yourself? Maybe you can talk to us about a time when you felt this way?

My answer to this question tends to vary each day. Sometimes, it’s hard to say. With the more difficult days, I wonder if this was the correct route to take. It can be hard to juggle being a business owner with your other responsibilities. Especially, in the beginning, when you are the owner, manager, assistant manager, employee, content creator, finance team, PR, everything all at once. With many other jobs, you are typically one or two of those categories. When I envision myself in those “regular” jobs, I find myself appreciating the consistency and stability.

That being said, being a business owner is incredibly rewarding and freeing. The connections, stories, experiences I’ve created and had since this store opened has almost made it all worth it. Witnessing people be brought together who might not have otherwise and I, myself, meeting people I might not have met if I was not a business owner, clears my head of the previous negative thoughts.

I am still unsure if I am “happy” as a business owner. I may have the answer to that question later on. For now, I am proud to be a business owner and proud to be a part of many people’s experiences.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hi! My name is Jianna, a 22 year old small business owner of a store called K-UP! in Savannah, GA! I started this store in 2022, when I was 19 in college and it has changed my life to say the least.

In 2016, I began getting into K-pop. The genre was still very niche at the time, especially in the South. Finding stores, merchandise, people with similar interests in K-pop was near nonexistent. Fast forward to 2018, when I went to my first K-pop concert. Meeting people who were into what I was into made me feel excited, supported, and included. However, those connections were temporary as it was only I and few friends who were fans of the genre back home. Thus, in 2022, I wanted that to finally change. I connected with vendors in Korea and in the U.S. to launch my online store that year in October.

The entirety of my online store was ran out of my bedroom and living room. All shipments, boxing and unboxing videos, all content in general were executed out of those two places. It took up a lot of space to say the least.

Not too long after, I started vending and hosting K-pop events in Savannah in 2023. These events were and still are amazing for meeting new people who have similar interests and tastes that you may not have met otherwise.

At K-UP!, we sell K-pop albums, accessories, light sticks, vinyls, and more! You might have met me at comic cons, cup-sleeve events or any other pop-up events we might’ve had! We provide community for those who may not be able to find it at school, work, among colleagues, wherever. Thanks to our online store, we are able to offer pick-up and delivery options for our customers. This allows for our merchandise to be even more readily available and accessible to the community. Previously, the nearest K-pop store was 3-5 hours away. Now, more of the Southeast can experience affordable and accessible official merchandise.

To give back to our community, we buy used albums and photo cards from our customers! This reduces waste and allows for no longer needed/wanted merchandise to be reallocated to more suitable homes.

We are now working on expanding to bring more K-pop to the Southeast! Stay tuned!

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Tiktok and Instagram were two different strategies although it did not start off the way. On the Instagram side, posting consistently and with purpose was a must. I found it important to not lose your audience’s attention and to keep them constantly connected and engaged. On the TikTok side, it almost felt like pure luck

Our first ever post on TikTok was a boxing video of one of our mystery boxes. Through this video, I made my very first sale. I continued to post boxing and unboxing videos as I realized that might be what my audience enjoys. One day, one of the boxing videos gained a ton of traction. 100k views in less than 24 hours amount of traction. This resulted in many people following our Instagram and we gained over 100 orders overnight.

Boxing and unboxing videos didn’t do as well on our Instagram, so we instead consistently posted inventory updates, upcoming events and pre-order announcements on that end. Building your social media is finding out what works for your audience and sticking to it, whilst also finding ways to expand. All in all, consistency is key.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

Before the opening of the physical location, I was a Paraprofessional teacher. I was able to run the online store and do events here and there at the same time as working. As time progressed, I wanted to get back to my first and main goal, opening the first K-pop store in Savannah, GA. As I started working more towards that goal, I realized I needed as much time as I can get. Thus, I started to take on less shifts as a Paraprofessional Teacher and put more energy in executing the game plan of what it was going to take to open the store. This was around the same time that our social media was gaining a lot of traction. A lot more people were coming to the events and anticipating the opening of the store. I knew from then on, it was time to shift.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://k-up.us
• Instagram: @kpopupsav
• Facebook: kpopupsav
• Youtube: kpopupsav
• Yelp: K-UP
• Other: Tiktok: @kpopupsav