We were lucky to catch up with Annie Rainwater recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Annie, thanks for joining us today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

Coming up with Cosmobyannie and Annie.x.artistry was something I had fun creating! It all started with my Instagram. I saw a lot of my peers going with something such as hair by __ or makeup by __ which is fantastic but personally I didn’t want to tie myself down to one single niche thing. I wanted my business to have the opportunity to grow with my skills. I knew I would always be in the beauty industry and I decided to have my name encompass all things beauty!

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’m Annie, a hair and makeup artist who moved from a small town in Minnesota to come pursue bigger dreams in Atlanta! I provide glam to you on the go! Traveling all over the country for fashion week to weddings or on site for commercial shoots and campaigns. In addition to this I’ve had fun building my online presence in education for others and gotten to connect with many members of the creative community.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

I started this business 100% on my own. I invested everything I had into this and anything I made I put right back into it. I’m a firm believer on investing in yourself and I was taught to always follow your dreams and if you want something done you don’t need to sit around and wait for someone to hand it to you, you go out and you make it happen! I’ve always been a very motivated person and don’t get me wrong there will always be rough patches to get through but to be someone who keeps going will set you apart from everyone else.

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

From what I’ve seen, unless you’re a celebrity to build your social media presence you need to provide value to your audience. This can be done by giving inspiration, laughter, personal growth, life hacks or even home organization. If someone doesn’t get anything from your content there’s no reason for them to stay. For me I found that in education. I enjoy helping others by sharing tips and tricks I have or sharing how I achieve a certain look. Find what you enjoy doing and sharing, if you don’t enjoy it and you’re just trying to get followers people can see and feel that.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.cosmobyannie.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annie.x.artistry/

Image Credits

Mackenzie Benson, Collin Pierson, Sara Hanna, Eric Dejuan, Emily Mathewson, Love is Rad