We were lucky to catch up with Deanna Silverman recently and have shared our conversation below.

Deanna, appreciate you joining us today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

After my Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer & eventually passed away from the disease I knew I wanted to get into Medical Social Work to help families going through really tough times. I graduated in 2012 from The School of Social Work at USC with my Masters Degree and quickly found myself working in a few hospitals in Southern California. While I loved working with the public and feeling like I was making a difference, I quickly realized how much I disliked working in a field that had a lot of micro managers, bosses that I didn’t connect with and Administrators that had priorities & goals that were not aligned with my own. It felt like I had hit several walls & I was on an uphill climb in my attempts to really help people. One thing led to another & I started an Instagram page in 2014 under brand name @HilariousHumanitarian in an effort to create a community of like-minded individuals that were seeking humor & solidarity in this crazy world we are live in. Life is stressful & I wanted to give people an outlet or a temporary escape in their daily lives to visit an online community where they felt less alone, understood & validated. The risk I took came about 6 years after I started my Instagram page. It was to pursue a dream of mine I had for many years even prior to starting my Instagram account and that was to open an online gift shop for left-leaning weirdos like myself to find gifts that really spoke to them and their core values. In addition, I knew I wanted to curate products for my store that came from other woman-owned small businesses in the United States that way I could have the opportunity to continue to support other women while also supporting and building my gift shop business.

Prior to this I had never been self-employed and I certainly had no clue how to open and operate a gift shop business. The risks I have endured along this journey includes many many many factors including financial, time investment, emotional and sometimes my sanity to name a few. For as far back as I can remember I have always had an entrepreneurial spirit but never took that leap into full-time entrepreneurship until deciding to go in this direction & it has taught me more lessons about myself (good, bad & indifferent) than I can possibly describe. What I can say though is I have finally reached a point in my life where I fully understand that virtually everything is a risk and that doesn’t necessarily mean something we need to fear. It’s a risk to be self-employed and it’s also a risk to be employed by someone else. There are no promises in either direction we choose to take, however, there is also an abundance of opportunity for learning, growing, exploring, remaining curious & putting yourself out there that can definitely serve us in a positive way for many years to come even when your current job no longer exists. For me I just decided that I no longer wanted to live my life wondering “what if” and instead decided to take the risk, open my gift shop and see how far I could take it.

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

My family and I live in Ventura, CA and our gift shop truly is the definition of a small business. I started packing orders at my kitchen table, then moved to my bedroom, into my master closet and eventually converted our garage into a fully operational inventory room & packing station with Sam who is our fantastic order packer & organizer extraordinaire. My husband is my right-hand man & self-proclaimed IT nerd for Hilarious Humanitarian and in addition to being business owners we are also parents to our children ages 1, 3 & 6.

I am also extremely proud and honored to curate and stock my shop’s shelves with hundreds of brands that are primarily women owned, LGBTQIA+ owned and BIPOC owned. I wanted to create a space filled with beautiful things that can’t be found in big box stores. If something doesn’t have the triple H’s: Humanity, Humor, and Heart, then I don’t sell it. In addition to the work I do as a gift shop owner, I continue to post daily content on my Instagram platforms to stay connected with my followers and customers. I have also dedicated a portion of my sales on various occasions to local & national non-profits that are doing really important work for the communities they serve. I am a gift shop owner now but I will always be a Social Worker at heart & this is something that I want my customers to really feel every time they spend their time and hard-earned money purchasing gifts & cards from my shop.

We’d love to hear about you met your business partner.

My business partner is my husband, Dan. I share this information because I want to encourage other inspiring business owners to try & surround yourself with people who are supportive of your dreams & want to see you succeed. Whether that’s an intimate partner, business partner, friend, mentor, fellow artist etc. I think it is really imperative to be close to those that have your back & are able to give you feedback that helps you make decisions for your business. Ultimately, I do feel like everyone should trust their own gut and follow their heart but I also see the benefit in not closing yourself off to others that want to be supportive of you in the best ways. Even having someone to bounce ideas around is very helpful. I always encourage people to also join local or online business groups to see what they are talking about & see if there is anything you can learn from someone else that has been in the self-employment world.

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

While I was working as a Social Worker & was an employee at a company/non-profit I worked on my free time building my online community and network of people I knew would eventually be the same people I would market and sell to, in addition to collaborate with. I want to be super clear that this approach must come from a place of integrity. For the first few years I was running my Instagram accounts, I had no idea that the idea of having a gift shop was one day going to be a reality for me. All I knew at the time was it had to be a priority to put in an enormous amount of time and effort to cultivate these relationships and nurture them. I still maintain this perspective till this day & I am confident that the way I have treated my online community directly impacted the success of my online business. If you are good to people, they will be good to you.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.HilarousHumanitarian.com
• Instagram: @HilariousHumanitarian
• Facebook: www.Facebook.com/HilariousHumanitarian
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deannasilvermanlcsw/
• Other: Email: Deanna@HilariousHumanitarian.com