We were lucky to catch up with Dave Blake recently and have shared our conversation below.

Dave , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Being a business owner can be really hard sometimes. It’s rewarding, but most business owners we’ve spoken sometimes think about what it would have been like to have had a regular job instead. Have you ever wondered that yourself? Maybe you can talk to us about a time when you felt this way?

Oh geez, this is a daily thought for me these days. Running a company can be very rewarding, but mentally it’s a 24/7 job and that’s exhausting. Not a hour goes by I’m not thinking about something I need to do or how to do something better.

If this was a joby-job I would have switched years ago looking for new adventures but exiting a business is something that takes months if not years of planning and months of actual ‘exit work’ – you can’t just give a resignation letter and be gone in 2 weeks.

With that said, those are the bad day thoughts (though it does seem I’m having more of those.) Good days I remind myself I’m master of my own schedule and destiny and that’s definitely worth something.

Dave , 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?

Hi! I’m Dave and the Owner of Spirit Pieces memorials, we make glass art and jewelry from the cremation ashes of people and pets. We help bring closure and relief to those who are grieving as we provide them with a physical token of their loved ones and a connection to memories.

We’re online and the first multi-artist and multi-material provider of memorial art and jewelry. As we work with multiple artists we’re able to offer much more range of products than single providers.

Our focus is to bring art and beauty into the death and dying space.

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

In many ways Spirit Pieces was a pivot. Prior to moving to it fulltime in 2016 I was a product manager in technology. Unfortunately technology isn’t known for being accepting of older workers (when I say older I’m talking 40) so I already saw the writing on the wall.

Back then Spirit Pieces was more of a side project I did while working full-time, but then I got laid off so it became my sole source of income. Initially it didn’t match my salary I was making in tech but I did see the potential so decided to ride it out for at least 6 months. Fortunately it worked out, but very easily might not have so I consider myself lucky every day.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I’m not sure at this point how much of this is relevant, everything seems to change every 6 months. But back in 2016 Facebook was in much wider usage than today (much of the traffic has moved to Instagram/Tiktok.) back then it was just posting day in the life pictures and a few pictures of our Spirit Pieces being made. This got a fair amount of attention (even then not a lot of businesses were utilizing FB) and it certainly juiced the growth of the company.

Now, today, 2025 it seems I am indeed starting over. Right now I’m testing out production videos along with little stories about the deceased and posting them on TikTok and Instagram. At the moment motion is slow but I could see how it would work, and several competitors are having luck with this approach. Hope springs eternal.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.spiritpieces.com
• Instagram: @spiritpieces
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spiritpieces
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@spiritpieces9999

Image Credits

Dave Blake