We recently connected with ABEL MARQUEZ jr and have shared our conversation below.
Hi ABEL, thanks for joining us today. Looking back, do you think you started your business at the right time? Do you wish you had started sooner or later?
If I could go back in time I would have started my business a lot sooner I started my business September 28th 2020 but I’ve been engraving since I was 18 years old I don’t think I would change anything about it because throughout all the good and bad experience I’m here because of that
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I started Marquez Engraving’s 3 years ago September 28 2020 but I started off by watching my dad hand engrave lowrider cars windshield or any person that would like a custom image on the rides when i was 16-17. He would do any image they would like using just a dermal engraver. So I took interest in that I started doing it when I was 18 when I finally was able to get my own dermel engraver. Once I got my first car I started engraving my back windshield by hand a few of my friends that are in the car scene would be impressed so I would do work on their vehicles then from there I decided to start pushing on other things that I would be able to engrave so I started engraving mirrors for peoples homes. But I would add LED lights so when they would turn it on you would be able to see the image but still be able to see your reflection so from there that’s how things started for me I started doing glass mugs for car clubs bike clubs but sometimes it would be too many orders just for me and I still had a full-time job so I decided to invest in a laser engraver which really helped a lot but I still had to learn everything about it from power source,measurements,the programming, the setups,the speed. So now I was able to do portraits on mirrors with very very good details. Once people would order for me they would ask if I had a Facebook page and I would tell him no I wasn’t a big social media person but after a lot of people asking me that I made a Facebook page then that’s when I started getting more and more orders which now I could do LED mirrors, wood burnings, glass mugs, stainless steel tumblers, with any image they would like from there favorite NFL team to favorite horror characters or anything family friendly .I’ve done from happy family portraits to memorial portraits once I’m able to do the images for the makes me feel happy that I could make them happy some of my work comes with its stories some of them happy some of them not, the memorial ones are the ones that get to me sometimes but I’m happy that I’m able to keep their memory alive with my work for there family’s that contact me
How did you build your audience on social media?
First I started doing small orders and just putting pictures of it on Facebook for fun a lot of people started taking notice and started putting orders so a lot of people ask me if I had a business page I would tell them no but then I slowly started making small business through my personal page that’s when I decided to make my business page Marquez Engravings from there it took me a couple months and decided to do an Instagram which got me a few more customers that I never had on Facebook I made a tiktok channel and usually just keep posting on all three pages the more you post the better your page does
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
What’s most rewarding is that I’m able to make people happy through my work whether it is from them ordering happy family portraits or memorial portraits of the loved ones I am always trying my best to make them happy through my work
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/invites/contact/?i=1dtjiaopq15tr&utm_content=m7n6l2z
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarquezEngravings?mibextid=ZbWKwL
- Other: I am also on Etsy under Marquez Engravings
Image Credits
Abel Marquez jr