We recently connected with Amanda Christine Harth and have shared our conversation below.
Amanda Christine, appreciate you joining us today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?
I have been able to make a living from my creative work and it’s something I never really thought was possible until the world shut down in 2020. At this point in my career I’ve been a part time entrepreneur longer than I have been a full time one. I was concerned about not having a safety net if I were to leave my full time job. My work at the beginning of my career focus on programming, experiential activations, and workshops on creative entrepreneurship. I got my first financial sponsor three years after I started my business and came out of pocket for the majority of these events. My events always did well, I just couldn’t figure out to make a profit!
I believe me having a safety net hindered my drive to work towards building revenue for my business and after February 2020 I didn’t do it anymore. The last event I organized was a Champagne & Sneakers Party during All Star weekend in Chicago and shortly after that COVID happened. I worked remote for my day job and during that time I developed a capsule collection inspired by home and I started my coffee company. For what ever reason these projects became very successful and I was actually making money, being sought out for more opportunities to grow both businesses, and having a day job was taking me away from the work I was meant to do.
I discovered during lock down that I’m a maker. Through objects and experiences I understood that how nostalgia, daily rituals, and basic human connection made the biggest difference in someones day. I wouldn’t change anything about how I got here today. I’ve created my own world.
Amanda Christine, 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’m a teaching artist and serial entrepreneur. My art practice focuses on the intersectionality of black culture and textiles, mainly denim. I’ve worked with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago to conduct my research and have led workshops on the history of denim, indigo, and quilting. I’ve received grants and have shown my work in several shows around Chicago including Blanc Gallery, Epiphany Center for the Arts, and recently Compound Yellow.
I have two business endeavors; Universe of Harth – a fragrance brand started December 2020 originally under the name At Humans. It was originally one of three products being created for a lockdown capsule collection and we didn’t get to make anything else because people only wanted candles LOL. My products are currently available online and in several retailers in Chicago. Recently I’ve been commissioned to design fragrances for other brands and organizations.
My second company is Monday Coffee Co. – I started this endeavor with my friend October 2020 as an effort to keep people connected during lockdown. In 2021 we partnered with different institutions and organizations around Chicago to reactive their spaces including Soho House Chicago, Garfield Park Conservatory, Retreat at Currency Exchange, and Hoxton Hotel. We’re working on opening our first cafe in Chicago now and recently had a successful fundraiser reaching our goal of $124K. One of the reasons people are drawn to our product is because it’s marketed as a social beverage and our mission to empower our customers to choose how they want to experience their coffee.
How did you build your audience on social media?
Before we launched our coffee brand my business partner and I had a large network of individuals we connected with through artist engagement and events around Chicago. We also wanted our product to look cool and we shot the first photos of our products like a liquor campaign. High flash photography paired with a warm, rich color palette complimented the product and the brand was born. Coffee is not marketed as a sexy product because it’s the same products being marketed by the same people. The first impression to your products are very important and learning the brand aesthetic starts with your idea customer personas. We didn’t learn who our customer was later and I believe if we learned who they were sooner our business might be in a different space.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
Originally Monday Coffee Co. was seeking VC funding to scale our business. We were finalist in a seed round fund for Chicago businesses. We did not get funding from them because we weren’t prepared to scale in the way they wanted us to. The more research we did we realized that at this time VC funds wasn’t what we need to scale our business. We needed to tap into our local audience more and create a consistent opportunity for them to experience Monday Coffee Co. when ever they wanted. So after almost three years in business we decided to open a cafe/lab. We haven’t been able to give the full Monday experience to customers because we were never in a place long enough for them to experience it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/AmandaCHarth
- Instagram: amandachristineharth
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-harth?trk=public_post_feed-actor-image
Image Credits
Photos by Ray Abercrombie, Amanda Harth, Felton Kizer, Aiyana Taylor