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

Alright, Danyel thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One of the most important things we can do as business owners is ensure that our customers feel appreciated. What’s something you’ve done or seen a business owner do to help a customer feel valued?

So, when running my business I try to keep aspects of my orders as personal as possible. I incorporate those ideals in my packaging and when I’m sending messages and thank you notes. One of the best things I’ve ever done was the big sticker haul and christmas gifts for my monthly members. No matter how little or how big they donated, I wanted to make sure that everyone recieved something. Plus, some of these members supported me before I was even able to actually mail out items. Now I have it set up that if you’re a specific tier, you get monthly mail or as I like to call it “Potatoe Mail,” because they are of the Productive Potatoe tier.

However, before that, I wasn’t able to send anything at all. There were a few people that just donated and supported me monthly. So, when I was finally able to acquire enough funds to do monthly mailing, I made sure all those who had started supporting me monthly or did in the past and couldn’t anymore, recieved my first set of stickers in a big sticker packaging I did. I also contacted each one of them individually and specifically asked what particular special sticker they wanted just to make sure they were getting something as personal as possibe. Following up the Christmas after, I contacted each of them individually again, asking for their favorite colors and incorporated each of these colors per person so that it was distinctive and unique to them when they recieved their December monthly mail.

These members in turn became customers and also spread the word about my upcoming business (when the shop was still up and coming, now it is open of course). And when my mini shop eventually and officially opened, the first day was a huge success because I made that personable impression with my members/customers. I began recieving encouraging messages from brand new customers about how much my art, stickers and prints bring them joy, how their siblings found me and recommended me, how their kids watch my videos for inspiration or because my videos are bright and bubbly. And every one of these people became customers. Now, each returning and new customer that I get, I want them to know that I know that not only are they a huge supporter because being a solo creative trying to run their own business is extrememly hard and exhausting at times, but also that they are remembered. So I put personal extra thank you’s on notes and I make sure that those who supported me either through the shop or monthly are the first to know about specific things before the generally public. I don’t take any type of support I recieve for granted.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Funny enough, I majored in English back in college and graduated as such with a Creative Writing certificate and a minor in Art. I never planned for art to be my main target nor did I not plan on being a permanent writer. I actually had no idea what I was going to do with my English degree after I received it so of course the first thing I did was dive into some work. I found part-time jobs in the digital and creative marketing career and took those skills to become a freelance in social media marketing. I truly did enjoy creative marketing and social media managing for clients for a while and assumed that was the path that I wanted to be on as a career. Plus it “made sense” seeing as I graduated with an English degree and had a creative writing certificate. How much more creative writing could I get right?

But then the more I went into it, the more I realized just how exhausting it was to keep up that balance of love and hard work ethic for this particular career path. And, when you’re working freelance, clients are going to be picky, they are going to go back on their ideas, and there are even times when their responses are going to be super delayed. I found myself extremely bored during those times and delving into art as a peace of mind.

However, the more I delved into my art and began to show it off on social media, the more attention it started to get until it was actually my sister who suggested I turn it into a business. She said, she could see me loving this business direction a lot more than my current one. That and via my current part-time and freelance jobs, I didn’t get to venture past digital marketing skills. I’m a person who loves to learn different things all the time, and I couldn’t do that in my current standing.

So with the support of my family, my sister, and even my friends, I got out of the part times and social media freelance and began working on starting an art business. So I started with commissions course, as most individual artists do, while changing the direction of my social media marketing freelance. While doing commissions, I took some online classes on designing and started to practice web designing on my own. I turned the social media marketing freelance into a general web design and creative direction freelance that could accommodate areas of social marketing in a small niche, but it was particularly focused on web designing for new entrepreneurs, those wanting to change their audience focus, or those who just didn’t know where to begin. The designs brought out the individual’s personality, their brand goals, their brand story, and what services or products they had to offer. Meanwhile, the art commissions varied from regular portraits to stylized pieces, to new music artists wanting a particular look for their song cover.

I switched back and forth between these two paths of work to help fund my ideas for my eventual art business. To emphasize, art was always something that I loved and did for fun. It wasn’t something that spontaneously erupted from after being bored with my digital marketing work. I just never thought that art could possibly become a business as most young individuals in my era did. But even during college classes via my art minor, my art professors would try to encourage me to go professional because they loved the pieces I came up with and always said they saw me being some big-time artist. I truly loved my professors and they were great motivation when I needed it. But, even after graduating I never actually thought that that could come true.

Needless to say, all that hard work paid off and I’m here where I am now.

My current business theme in general was, of course, inspired by the famous “kawaii” theme that a lot of people know. However, people are often surprised to find out that this theme, or rather look, wasn’t what I started with. I was actually quite invested in human bone structure, dance culture, etc. And during my college art days, I would create pieces that displayed such. One of my most popular pieces in college later became a book cover for the short stories and poems book/magazine of said college. That piece was from a series I did as a senior art project called “Through the Skin” which incorporated contemporary dance and the human bone structure. It was my favorite series to have ever done.

Because of this, my venture into the art business actually started with very dark artwork, some that truly expressed the depression that I was facing during that time. They were big-time emotional pieces. Then as I started to change, it migrated into “brown” themed art that started inching a little closer to that “cute” look I was getting interested in, and eventually the bubbly art that people see now.

I went from being known as “The Sarcastic Artist” to “Create-O Potatoe.”

There’s actually a Youtube video I created that explains my name change and the journey I went through to discover that name change. “Create-O Potatoe” is a funny combo of my extreme love of potatoes, how I still love to be a couch potato sometimes while working, and the creative ideas I get while just being said couch potato. It’s a fun twist on my personality and is definitely a language that began to show through my art.

I do personally go by “Dannie the Potatoe” or “Dannie” for short so my followers would just address me as Dannie.

My brand is focused on bright and vibrant colors, is young audience-friendly, and is loosely inspired by themes like “kawaii,” and “magical girl.” This tends to show through some design choices that I make for particular pieces. Create-O Potatoe is also represented by three characters; Productive Potatoe, the face of the brand, Sarcastic Bear, one of my original character ideas derived from my “Sarcastic Artist” name days, and Tator Tot, the little sibling of Productive Potatoe.

Each character is based on my personality. Because I tend to talk and joke in a sarcastic tone, I created Sarcastic Bear who has a general one-only expression. They don’t like to be bothered when working and when they do get dialogue, it’s typically something sarcastic or annoyed. Productive Potatoe or Potatoe, for short, is my very productive spirit I have when working. Potatoe loves to be excited, loves to get things done, and can be found in a book or having a self-care day. Then there’s Tator Tot, and Tator Tot was created as a cute idea by one of my very good friends who has twin daughters. She thought it would be so fun and cute to have Potatoe with a younger sibling since he daughters loved my work so much and I also thought that was a great idea seeing as I have younger siblings. Tator Tot is always excited and interested in new things and when you do see them, they’re typically attached to the hip next to Potatoe.

My business sells stickers, prints, and pins. But I’m getting to the point of selling keychains, and icon themes, and eventually, I want to adventure into more merch like pop sockets and plushies. Things like that. One step at a time though!

When people see my work, I want them to get excited and feel bright inside. As someone who grew up in hardships and long moments of poverty, I know what it’s like to have that sunken feeling of what is life going to be? And as someone who still battles this feeling from time to time, I want people to be able to come to my art and be inspired, be happy, be content even. Just be able to harbor a feeling of “ah…this is nice.” Even if that means just looking at my art.

It’s one of the reasons I also make videos. Some are to help, some are to inspire, and some are just to show what I go through when working through my business.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

I started off really small in terms of equipment buying for my business. I would find deals on good print paper, coupons, etc. And as for my stickers, I compared and contrasted manufacturers that could make my stickers come to life without digging a massive hole in my wallet. This took a couple of months of going through different businesses to see what would work and what wouldn’t. Much of my funds to get this done came from commissions and the freelance web designing I was doing. A couple of pieces of my equipment like my iPad were a gift. But for items like my printer, my MacBook, my Yeti microphone and my shelving I use to store my inventory, I had to slowly work up the funds. I typically waited for a sale of each of these things where I knew I could make ends meet. The MacBook and the printer were the biggest purchases. And that was months of finding models, putting together price points, etc. I also started to offer up monthly memberships as a donation to my business and a good chunk of funds came from that as well. I would offer commission discounts, digital wallpaper and updates. So before I was able to send people stuff physically, I did everything digitally to start my funds out.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Being genuine with your focus audience is the best way to build up your reputation in the market you’re aiming for. I know it sounds a little cliche but I always focused on making sure anyone who supported me in any way was truly appreciated and know that they are remembered. Let this be, writing an extra personal thank you note on a sold item, making sure people had good deals with things I was selling. Even in my commission and freelance work, my business model was working around the client’s budget and I always vocalized this with my clients. Specifically, because I knew the audience I was targeting were those just starting out or changing things from scratch. I didn’t want them to feel overwhelmed with yet another thing. As for my members, I provide them with a permanent downloads discount on anything digital that I sell. These acts, in turn, aided me because a lot of my recognition is spread through word of mouth before I even get to advertising. That I’m willing to strategy and genuinely help the client/customer instead of bombarding them with prices.

Contact Info:

• Website: createopotatoe.carrd.co
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/createopotatoe/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/createopotatoe
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/createopotatoe
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@createopotatoe
• Other: https://ko-fi.com/createopotatoe https://pin.it/cbg18z9