We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Andrea Krafft. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Andrea below.

Andrea, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

I ventured into the website design and graphic design world when I was 13. By mother had a swimwear boutique in Miami and I absolutely loved working in the store with her (this was my introduction to the world of entrepreneurship.) About a year into having the boutique, e-commerce started to gain popularity in the swimwear world so my mom became curious of launching a website. She opened a Yahoo Sitebuilder account (OG website design builder) and she asked if I could help her. I was always naturally techy – so I happily took on the challenge. Long story short, I built the website and we launched with just a few products. The timing coincided perfectly because a Sports Illustrated swimsuit magazine came out around the time we launched and were the only company carrying a bikini worn by the cover model. We received about 100 orders in one day and started to realize the power of e-commerce.

So managing her e-commerce became something I loved doing and always learned from other websites, YouTube videos, etc. We eventually upgraded to Shopify and I became in charge of her digital presence including social media. This was my core job all the way through college. We would always get questions about who designed the website and did the Instagram and I would say it was me – so I started designing websites for friends and family.

Throughout college I ventured with becoming a yoga instructor, worked at Lululemon and then began doing the marketing for a yoga studio. Somehow marketing and website design was something that I always fell back into. Because I was always being asked to do websites/graphic design for people I decided to just created my own website for my services to see what would happen. I sat with my mom at my desk and brainstormed the name “lemonade hype” – lemonade for “squeezing creative juices” and my mom came up with the name “hype” because I told her I wanted something more unique than just the word “creative or marketing”.

I had my good friend help me draw the logo (she later became my first full-time employee!), I designed a simple website in one day and then I made a post on Facebook “announcing” my new business. The next morning I woke up to a message from an acquaintance telling me they were looking for a marketing service and that became my first “real” client on retainer. This client allowed me to properly step into the business full-time.

I always have had a meticulous work ethic and even if I didn’t “know” how to do something, I always figured it out. I really feel like my passion for design mixed with my work ethic allowed me to offer a great service that kept people coming back.

Andrea, 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?

This is pretty much the previous answer I said but I’ll elaborate:

What sets my agency apart from other clients is our modern aesthetic (we honestly just have really great aesthetic) and we have outstanding client services.

One of the most common things I hear from new clients or referrals is that they stopped hearing from their web developer or that it would take weeks to hear back and that they wanted to work with a reliable team. Which we offer.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

I funded the business completely on my own. I didn’t start with “capital” – my time was really my initial investment. Because my time/work is my service I completely dove in to my work. I’d go to sleep at 2/3am and would work 14 hour days when I first started.

Once I was making enough to “live off of” I started to see the additional income as opportunity to grow. So I was started hiring freelancers to help me take on work that I couldn’t do on my own. I couldn’t say “no” to great opportunities, almost to a fault ;)

Once I had enough business, I hired my first full time employee and then so on.

I never took out a loan and spent more than I was making. But my time was truly the initial investment.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

In my first year of business I had a great, loyal client who was paying me a great retainer that allowed me to “live” comfortably. However, they started wanting me to be available “full-time” and feared that me talking on other clients would take away from their work quality. They were seeing me post the other projects I was working on and didn’t like it.

So I was put in a position of having to decide if I should stay with one really good client or take a chance on myself to grow.

I did the numbers and figured out how many websites I had to build every month in order to make the some income. I told myself that I could hustle and make it happen.

So, even though I was really scared to lose this secure income, I notified the client that I was going to focus on growing the business and take on more clients and that if they didn’t feel comfortable with that, it would be time for us to part ways.

They said they really wanted a full-time employee, so I went “on my own.” I hustled around town and went door-to-door to pitch my services to businesses. In the first month I made double what my previous retainer once.

And that’s when things got fun and I created the space for the business to flourish.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://lemonadehype.com/
• Instagram: @lemonadehype
• Facebook: @lemonadehype
• Linkedin: @lemonadehype