We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Abbey McGrew a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Abbey thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Going back to the beginning – how did you come up with the idea in the first place?

I always knew that I wanted to be a graphic designer, but I never planned on starting my own design studio. I went to college for design and I assumed that after graduating, I would get a job at a cool agency or a magazine. But life took a sharp turn when my fiancé got an offer to move overseas for his job and asked me to come with him. It was a total whirlwind – we planned our wedding, got married, graduated from college AND moved to Australia all within a month. And with all of that excitement, I didn’t even have time to think about what I was going to do for a job once we got there. I spent the first few weeks applying for any design job that I could find, but quickly learned how difficult it is to get hired when you’re on a tourist visa.

Eventually, I accepted that if I wanted to have the freedom to travel and live abroad AND do design, the option that made the most sense was to start my own design studio. I felt totally unprepared and unqualified, but I decided to go for it and if I failed (which I was certain that I would), then I’d figure out something else to do.

But here I am, almost 8 years into building the business and I’m so grateful that I was forced into entrepreneurship the way that I was! I really don’t think I would have had the courage to do it otherwise.

Abbey, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m Abbey McGrew, the founder of Wayfarer Design Studio. We work with visionary e-commerce founders that want to break out as a fresh new voice in their industry. Many of our clients are launching an innovative
new product that takes a different approach from their competitors. Because of that, they face unique challenges to not just stand out, but also educate customers on why this new type of product is a better solution.

That’s where we come in to help them design a brand, packaging and web experience that communicates their values and celebrates the story behind the product.

We call our approach to branding “heart-led design” because to us, that’s what really makes a product stand out and attract loyal customers. Branding that isn’t just pretty or trendy, but has heart and purpose behind every detail.

I genuinely love design. But what I love even more about my work is that I get to meet and support business owners who are doing really cool things. Like our client, Caftari, who is bringing science and luxury fragrance together with scents that are formulated to target different neurotransmitters in the brain. Or Comia, who is going to completely change the breastfeeding with their smart pillow. And BeautyGarde, who has already made a name for themselves with their vegan, cruelty-free nail polishes.

I just love working with people that are trying to do things different and better!

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

Instagram has always been my main way of marketing my business and attracting clients. BUT social media (especially Instagram) is a paint point for a lot of small business owners right now so I think it’s important to share the full context of how it’s worked well for me!

(1) I started marketing my business on IG back in 2016 when the app was completely different than what it is today. Nobody was talking about the algorithm back then. Reels and trending audio weren’t a thing yet. It was just about sharing photos, commenting and hashtags. It still wasn’t easy, but growing your account felt a bit more simple and straightforward than it is now.

(2) It took me 4 years of posting almost every day to get to 10k followers. And my growth since then has been a roller coaster! Even though I have over 32k followers now, some of my posts barely reach 10% of them. And the hard truth about followers is that people are just following too many other people now. Even if you gain more followers, it’s still going to be difficult to guarantee that you show up in their feed if they are also following 1000+ other accounts.

So if I could give any advice, it would probably be this:
– Don’t post just for the sake of posting. That content rarely does well. Focus your energy and effort on posts that you’re actually excited to share.
– Assign a content category to certain days of the week. For example, on Mondays I always post something that’s meant to be inspirational for my ideal client. Tuesdays and Fridays are client work. And Thursdays are educational content. Having those daily themes makes it easier for me to plan out content and come up with ideas.

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

A few years ago, my business Instagram got deactivated for about a week and I almost didn’t get it back! Years and years of content and building a loyal audience just disappeared and I had no idea why. It was really scary, especially since it’s my main source of attracting clients.

I had to file a claim through Meta to say that they had wrongly deactivated my account. I was googling all the tips on how to get an account back and the chances seemed pretty slim. I feel like I went through the 7 stages of grief during that week.

But after lots of emailing and begging and constantly refreshing my profile, I got it back. And the funny thing was that Meta wouldn’t even tell me why they deactivated it! But my hunch was that my account got flagged for being synced with Tailwind. I had been using Tailwind for my Pinterest marketing and synce my IG account to it as well, but never used it to post anything. But I learned that some of those third-party social media scheduling apps aren’t approved by Meta and can cause your account to be flagged as disobeying their rules. So although the Meta customer service person who I spoke with wouldn’t confirm that was my issue, it seemed like the only possible answer to why they deactivated my account.

I immediately deleted my Tailwind and thankfully haven’t had any issues since then. So if you are currently using a third-party app to schedule your Instagram posts, make sure it’s approved by them!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://wayfarerdesignstudio.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wayfarerdesignstudio

Image Credits
Headshot – Bacon Studio