We recently connected with Emily Benson and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Emily thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

My main passion in life is animals. I knew that growing up I wanted to work with animals in some way. From taking an internship at a wildlife rehabilitation center in college, to owning my first dog, and then adopting my rescue cat during quarantine, I knew that animals were my future. Bouncing from job to job in my early 20s, I knew that a 9-5 job just wasn’t for me. I want to be my own boss, work on my own time, and create my own products. Dreaming of starting a business, I tried out a few different brand names that just didn’t quite work, or fit my standards, to who I was, and who I wanted the world to recognize me for. It took me a while to figure out a name that would really stand out, and that represented who I am as a person, and a name that might influence people with similar interested to check out. Which therefore drives the audience I have to my website, and social media account. With the new passion of running Oh My Paws Boutique, I quit my past job as a medical technician at an assisted living facility to pursue that dream. My passion is animals, especially dogs, which is where my brand name came from. Oh my paws boutique. At the same time as starting up my business I do rover dog sitting full time, to help with the start up costs of a small business. Once I found the perfect name, I applied for a business license, and started searching for brands that sell wholesale, that match my aesthetic, and dream vision of my business, and future products. I slowly started creating my own products, but rely heavily on the ones I purchase wholesale for my main income off of my website. I knew that this leap of faith was worthwhile, because I knew I had the dedication, perseverance, and motivation to create a successful business. I already knew the basics of shipping, promotion, inventory, and more, as I have been a clothing reseller for about 5 years now, I started this endeavor while still in college, so I knew what it took. While creating this small business Oh my paws, I still have many other side hustles, or sources of income. My main ones are rover dog sitting, reselling clothing, shoes, and other items, and creating oh my paws.

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 name is Emily, born and raised in Washington State. I am a 25 year old with a strong passion for working with animals. I also have Aspergers, which makes it hard for me to make friends, therefore i turned to the online world and found many friends who also are interested in small businesses like I am. Many of them already have their own, and create items that influenced me to start my own business as well. I have had many different career dreams, all consumed around the thought of making a better life for animals. Right now, I am a rover dog sitter, and living in a small town, my dream is to open up a local dog boarding center. But for right now, I just watch dogs in my own home, or in the owners. While also dreaming of having my own business, and creating the content I sell, I was inspired by so many online small businesses that I follow on instagram and tiktok. Through college, I was vegan, which was my way of making a better life for animals at the time. Then I had an internship at a wildlife rehabilitation center, where I helped sick and injured wildlife be able to safely return to their nature habitat in the wild. Now, I dog sit, and make sure that animals are well taken care of while their owners are out of town. With this small business ran from my home, my dream is to start up a local larger dog boarding facility where I can watch multiple dogs at a time. Then, my passion for running a small business, creating, crafting, and showing my work to the world, is where my boutique store sparked. With this store I provide people with stickers, stationary, apparel, candles, keychains, earrings, and more. I am most proud of creating these small revenues, to eventually create my dream job. Last year I dabbled in the thought of making my own candles, and then this year I was inspired to start creating clay earrings. My boyfriend bought me a cricut last year for my birthday, which was untouched for a very long time. And then randomly I got the urge to start making apparel, keychains, and other products with my cricut. That sparked my creative side to start thinking about what I am going to do with all of this inventory that I am making. Why not share it with the world, and create another source of income for myself. I also found an amazing community of animal loving individuals.

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

Starting off as a small business, I posted daily to Instagram, and then eventually created a tiktok as well. The best advice for creating an audience is to be yourself, make your posts personal. You don’t want to just post about your product, and hope that someone buys it. You want to create a community that also has the same goals, views, passions, and love as you do. If you are new, run some sales to get people looking at your website and your products. Post about what you do everyday. Make reels for instagram and also post those on tiktok. Go live on tiktok so that people can see who you are. They can start to love you and not just your product. They will start to want to support you. A great way to get people excited for your product is to prompt launches on your instagram. For example: “new earrings launching saturday 1/25 at 5 PM PST”. That way your followers know to come back to your page on that day and time to purchase the items you have been showing them for the past week. Make packing videos, and behind the scene videos, alot of people enjoy watching those. Use hashtags on both instagram and tiktok that represent your brand, and the products you are sharing in that video or post. Follow other creators and small businesses that share the same niche. And most importantly share your story, let the audience find you, and get to know you as a person.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

I sell on a site called shopify. You get to choose a theme that represents your brand, and then transform it into what works for you. There are many different ways you can set up your own website. I also purchased my own URL through shopify. The pros of using shopify is that you can customize your website how you want, and list as many products as you would like too. You can easily separate products into collections to organize it for your customers to find everything easier. Another pro is that you make all of the earnings from the sales. Cons of shopify is that there is a monthly fee, and you have to do all of the marketing to get people to your website. Another website I sometimes use is etsy. Pros of etsy is that there is already an audience, and people are searching for products everyday. Cons is that it is hard to list on their website, there is a fee for every listing you create, even if it sells or doesnt, and you have to use keywords that are hard to figure out which ones to use to get the most views. Also a con of etsy is that they have fees that take away from your earnings

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ohhmypaws.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ohmypaws_boutique/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ohmypawsboutique