We recently connected with Cynthia Espy and have shared our conversation below.

Cynthia, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Almost all entrepreneurs have had to decide whether to start now or later? There are always pros and cons for waiting and so we’d love to hear what you think about your decision in retrospect. If you could go back in time, would you have started your business sooner, later or at the exact time you started?

It is intimidating to start a business. When your plan was not in the business world you feel out of your realm and that you will make a mistake and it is best just not to try. Although we did many favors for friends and family we didn’t really know if we could make a business out of what really was just a hobby for us. Eventually, despite not having any background in business, my husband and I decided to take the leap and go for it. We made some investments in to CNC equipment and created a plan. We did our research and talked to our accountant about all the things we needed to get in order to be a legit business and do things right.

Our business officially started March 2020.

Do I wish we would have started earlier? I don’t know. Starting a business during a pandemic forced us to create more of an online presence than we planned which in the end probably has helped us grow. We had to change our whole game plan but it made us become more flexible.

Do I wish we would have had the confidence to start earlier? Yes.
Am I happy that we seemed to find the right time in our life to invest into creating things that we love? Yes.

In addition, it seems during the pandemic people became more aware of how important it is to support local and support small which made us more successful from the start which I am not sure would have happened if we had started at any other time.

Cynthia, 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?

We are a husband and wife woodworking team from a small town in Tonganoxie, KS. For years our friends asked us to make random projects for them, no matter the project we usually figured it out. One day my husband, Matt, started the discussion about turning our hobby into a small business. The idea of starting a business made us both a bit nervous, neither one of us has a background in business. Matt spent a good deal of his work life restoring cars and I’m a school teacher. We did a ton of research on some machines that could work with our strengths and could maybe take our craft to the next level which led us to CNC machines. We were very excited, talked to our accountant and determined how to make our business official. Our machine was ordered, our business was registered with the state, we signed up for our first show and we were ready to go March 2020. Unfortunately COVID hit, all our plans changed. There would be no craft shows, or car shows or any place to sell our work. We adjusted and had to pivot our plans.

We focused on the online part of things. Then decided to created a website and a social media presence on Facebook and Instagram. We did giveaway after giveaway and partnered with other businesses to get our name out there. We didn’t plan to go that route, we didn’t plan to do anything online really but it helped us grow during a difficult time. So now here we are two years later, we have two CNC machines from Next Wave Automation and an Omtech 60W laser engraver.

Locally we are known for making Kansas City themed items and custom signs. We sell coasters, custom wood signs, keychains, earrings and ornaments. When talking to clients we describe our work as tattooing on wood. We start with an idea and begin designing and work with our customers to create the perfect custom project, then we getting to cutting, sanding, painting and staining. It is amazing to watch their ideas to come to life and we get to do so many projects that mean so much to them.

I’d say we are most proud of our car plaques. Clients either have a loved one with a car, usually antique but it doesn’t have to be, or they have a car that has special meaning to them. We gather pictures of the car, draw it out, cut it into wood and then paint the car as seen in the pictures. It is a cool feeling to be able to make such a special gift for someone to give because everyone knows that every car guys wants their car on everything!

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

We started our business during COVID. More accurately we started our business at the same time that the pandemic shut down the world. We had to pivot, we had to change our whole business plan. Our plan started out with going to car shows and craft shows to get our name out there and get people to know who we were and what we had to offer. The shutdown took that away and we had to get ourselves out there on a different platform and that was social media. I’m not a huge fan of social media, in fact if we didn’t have our business I probably wouldn’t even have the apps on my phone. We’ve had to adjust and still need to get better at maintaining our audience but the pandemic forced us to use a different way to get our name out there and it might have been what helped us grow our name so quickly.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

We didn’t have much really and we took a chance and put a $3,000 machine on a credit card. I wanted to throw up when I hit the purchase button. The card was a 0% APR but that didn’t matter. What if people didn’t want to buy our stuff? What if this was a mistake? That is a lot money to put out there and hope to make it back. Once you buy the machine you need other things like bits and a router, you have to pay shipping and you need wood and clamps and all these things went on that same card. We’d sell items here and there and pay the machine off little by little and before we knew it the machine was paid off and it was 6 months after we got it. The demand had gotten higher and we couldn’t keep up for Christmas so we did it again on the same card but with a larger machine, $6k this time. I wanted to puke again. We paid the machine off in February. We took a chance and it worked out, we didn’t know other ways to get funding and we did the best we could to find a way.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.happycamperuniques.com/
• Instagram: @happycamperuniques
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/happycamperuniques