We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sarah Oleson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sarah below.
Sarah, appreciate you joining us 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?
I am happier as a business owner, I can say that with 100% confidence. But with that happiness comes a whole host of worries, stresses and responsibilities that I didn’t have when I worked a regular job. Overall though I enjoy, and am proud of, what I’ve accomplished alone and my day to day life is enriched by being a small business owner. The last time I questioned if a regular job would be better for me was when I returned from maternity leave after my third child was born in 2022. I never took time off with my first two children, so knowing it was my last, I wanted to really unplug from my business and enjoy the first six months of my son’s life. I worked tirelessly leading up to his birth to schedule social media posts across three platforms; shoot brand photography; draft and schedule monthly emails; paint, edit and upload new products; and create a comprehensive six month calendar with task reminders so I wouldn’t miss any administrative, marketing or production deadlines. Being able to step away from the business knowing it was going to keep operating smoothly was one of the top five happiest moments in my entrepreneurship so far. Now coming back after those six months? That was tough! Having to start basically from scratch in all areas of my business was nearly panic inducing. And when you work for yourself, it’s all on you. There is no one to share that load, so you have to decide to put your head down and do it. And I found myself having to make that decision every day for a couple of weeks. Was this something I wanted to pick up full time again? Was running this business and raising three kids feasible? Did I want to let go of all that I had built so far? I definitely wondered if it would have been easier to not only go on leave, but also return to a regular job after maternity leave. When you say you own your own business people think “awesome, you’re your own boss!” And being your own boss is amazing, but it’s also exhausting. There is no one to pass the hard questions up to, no one to bounce ideas off of, no one to share the load of disappointment, and no one to grab drinks with after work! You have to wake up every day ready to answer the tough questions, put the time in and do the work. You have to do that with a regular job too, but in my personal experience I was able to physically and mentally clock out most days. Since I opened my shop in 2016 it’s like a little business shadow following me around that I really can’t walk away from – and despite all the long hours, I don’t want to!
Sarah, 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 Sarah Oleson and I came about being a small business owner slightly randomly. Having an Art History and English degree I set myself up to have no idea what I wanted for a career when I graduated from college (insert my parents’ loving “I told you so”). Over the years I worked for a range of different businesses from a coffee shop to historical society, design startup to grocery store, crane rental company to groundskeeping business. After moving to Maryland in 2014 I worked for a design startup where I learned a lot of dos and don’ts about running a business. I left that job passionate about working for myself and building a business I was proud of. The problem? Taking a leap to open a brick and mortar shop terrified me. Also, I was pregnant, so not the best time to overcommit. I was standing in my yard at my mailbox hemming and hawing over how much I paid for the birthday card I was about to mail, when it dawned on me that I should just paint my own. From there the ball kept rolling and Cafe Notes + Company was born. Over the next seven months I devoured as much information as I could and taught myself how to run a business: from creating a mission statement and branding, to accounting and taxes, to web design and photoshop. I taught myself it all. Cafe Notes + Company is named for two dreams coming together, the dream of one day owning a coffee shop and the dream of creating snail mail that is affordable and inspiring. Cafe Notes + Company is an online stationery shop featuring original watercolor designs painted by me for greeting cards, fine art prints, custom stationery, bookmarks and notepads. You can shop an assortment of greeting cards covering birthdays, anniversaries, gratitude, congratulations, get well and many more. You’ll find greeting cards with delicate watercolor designs – usually floral – with sincere messages. I also create funny, pun-driven hand painted little characters that are no less sincere, but have the added bonus of giving the recipient a good laugh. In addition to regular greeting cards, I offer sets of personalized notecards and I sell fine art print copies of my paintings. You can choose between delicate floral prints or bold fun artwork and invest in a piece of art that is brilliantly colored, exceptionally detailed and lasts forever. In 2019 I started painting bookmarks (my personal favorite, other than greeting cards) and in 2022 I took a huge leap and began selling three different sizes of notepads featuring my watercolor designs. My goal is to inspire others to put pen to paper and connect with someone. By keeping my cards affordable, I hope to reach a wider audience that wants to send fun and beautiful snail mail, but can’t justify the price tag of some larger companies’ cards. And I get it, you never know if the card you send will just be tossed and that might be considered a waste. But I believe there is power and positivity not only in the happiness of the person who gets your card, but also in the time you take to think about the person on the other end of the mailbox.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
After a couple of years of running Cafe Notes + Company, the biggest lesson I had to unlearn was who defines success in your business. I approached running my small shop with the mindset that I had to constantly be growing in every direction all the time to be successful. I was definitely failing to meet those standards. Obviously you want and need financial growth, but there is also the pressure of seeing your social media numbers increase from month to month; constant new material and products in your shop; developing new avenues of revenue like markets and fairs, evergreen digital products and collaborations. And the list goes on and on. I was on the brink of shutting down Cafe Notes + Company so many times when one night my husband said, “just take a break from all of the other things and focus on painting for a while.” And so I did and the world didn’t end. I found joy in my process and business again. I took an axe to my to do list and simply deleted tasks that didn’t serve the immediate purpose of providing quality, affordable products for my customers. I now define Cafe Notes + Company’s success by the comments and reviews I get from my customers. By the stories they tell of the joy in finding stationery that resonates with them. My definition of success is showing my kids that you work hard for what you are passionate about, but you also work hard to find balance.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
I have three kids under 6, my husband has a career and I own a small business. Need I say more about resilience? Jokes aside, I fight for Cafe Notes + Company every day. Some days my best friend fights for me and tells me to keep pushing. Some days it’s my husband, some days it’s my mom. But most days I wake up and make the choice to find time to paint. I stay up late, I get up early, I work while making dinner, I work at piano lessons. I’ve moved my office six different places in our house because we need the space for our family. I adjust, pivot and have become more flexible than I ever thought I could be just to keep this shop of mine going. Any small business owner knows exactly what I’m talking about when I say that to run a business is to be resilient.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.cafenotesco.com
- Instagram: @cafenotesandcompany
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/cafenotesandcompany
Image Credits
Sarah Oleson