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

Hi Allison, thanks for joining us today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

Starting Warewulff ended up being kind of a fluke. I was not planning on starting a business at the time. I have always been into fashion, clothes, and jewelry. The business side of me has always taken my passions, like fashion, and found a way to make money from them.

During quarantine, my friend and I were bored so we learned how to make necklaces. We had all of these designs in our imagination, but could not buy them at a store, for they were our original designs. We made the necklaces we had designed and wore them. Every day on Tik Tok, I’d get asked where my necklace was from.

A light bulb went off in my head and I saw an opportunity. I started making the necklaces in bulk. My first “bulk” set was 14 necklaces, they took me 3 hours to make and they sold out in 15 minutes. I was thrilled – but I had no idea what I was doing.

Fast forward to a week later, I stopped orders once I saw the magnitude of the product and the consumer demand. I knew if I continued to sell in the way I was, I would crash and burn. I took some time to research the business side of this. How can I make a website? How do I charge people? How can I make my processing time faster? How do I buy my supplies at wholesale? I spent an extended amount of time researching. Once I felt like I was confident in the website and my products, I relaunched the company.

My advice to anyone who is starting/wants to start is do your research and know your business, product, and most importantly your consumers.

Allison, 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 Allison Wulff. I am from a smaller town outside of Cleveland Ohio. Since I was little, I have had an interest in business. I used to sit on my iPod Touch when I was 11 and play Hotel Tycoon for hours at a time.

At 16, I decided to take my love for shopping and turn it into a business. Shopping everyday can’t be so bad if I am making money off of it, right?

At 24, I still resell clothes on Depop (@Alwulff). I started Warewulff during quarantine and I have loved making it grow. I have resold clothes for a while, but sourcing products, and launching a website was a different avenue from what I was used to.

Educating myself more on the structure of business is something that will guide me for the rest of my life. Not only gaining more knowledge but learning self-discipline also paved a path of success for me. I work a full-time job, as well as run Warewulff, my Depop, I am in graduate school and I have another side gig on top of that. I am busy, but I have learned to be busy with all of the things I truly love. I always say, no matter how hard you work, if you love it and have a passion for it, then it will never feel like work!

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

Building an audience on social media can feel frustrating. However, I believe there are two approaches to be taken.

The first approach being, if you are the face of the product, or using an influencer. For example, Warewulff is jewelry that I personally wear everyday. With that being said, if I am on Tik Tok making a video, my face is in it, as well as my necklace. Thats why it is important to remain authentic and just be yourself. I do not push out my jewelry on my personal page, I do not want my followers to feel like they are constantly being asked to buy something from the brand. Gen Z does not want to feel like they are being asked/told to buy something.

The second approach, would be showcasing a product on an instagram or Tik Tok page. My best advice for this is make sure any content is clean and follows your branding. Post short videos if possible, most of Gen Z (myself included) has the attention span of a squirrel! Work around that, post short videos, gain the attention of your audience at the start of the video, use trending sounds and have fun with it. Also, aesthetic is huge, which in business is known as branding. Follow your brand, if your brand is fun, and bright colors, don’t post dark and dull pictures.

Do you sell on your site, or do you use a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc?

I sell my products on Shopify. I have tried Etsy, and to be honest, I was not a fan. It all felt very confusing for me even after a little bit of using it. I recommend Shopify to anyone because it is very clean cut. I can also see a lot of business details that I am not sure if you can see on other platforms. For example, if I launch a product, I can go to a live view of a map and see where my consumers are shopping from. Getting started on Shopify was a little confusing for me at first, but again, it was all new so of course it would be! There are a lot of Youtube videos that will guide you through starting your own Shopify account as well as shipping and every other issue you could encounter.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://warewulffcs.myshopify.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/warewulfff/
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@warewulff