We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Emily Maione and Taylor Straeche. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Emily Maione and Taylor Straeche below.
Emily Maione and Taylor Straeche, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
Although we seem like the happiest company ever the start of our company wasn’t that, not in the least. It all started on August 22nd, 2018, it was a normal day, my daughter, Octavia and I just spent the day at the beach, my fiance, Taylor came home from work and we went on a walk. I was 9 months and 1 week pregnant at the time, it was such a beautiful day, almost too beautiful and calm. I sat down to rest my feet in bed while Taylor cleaned up and Octavia played, I was scrolling social media and saw a message come in. This message stopped my heart, and my lungs, all I could do was scream out and cry. Taylor ran down to our room to see what was wrong. That’s when I looked at him and said “Jill’s dead”. Neither one of us could really comprehend what was happening, but it was true, and she was gone. 5 Days later on August 27th we laid her to rest and saw her for the final time.
Two weeks following her funeral I gave birth to my son Finnley. After the loss of one of my best friends and natural pregnancy hormones, I found myself in a very dark place. I felt no future, no past, no connection or care. My heart wasn’t here, it was in a million broken pieces. I found myself needing more. I needed something for me, something that I do outside of the housework and family life, to spark joy within myself. I always loved to be creative so this lead me to the path of getting our very first machine. I got that machine to just create fun stuff with the kids, for myself, house decor, and gifts.
Flash forward a year later we had 2 machines, and two printers and were operating a side business inside of our small two-bedroom home! I finally had to create a company name, I sat for a long time thinking about why this started, why did I start doing this? I answered my question- for happiness. I was always called the happy girl, the smiley girl, everyone knew me by my happiness. Having lost that feeling of happiness I started a journey to rediscover it, together as a community, with all of you. On May 20th, 2020 Happy & Co was born.
On April 21st, 2021 our son was diagnosed with autism, from that moment on we needed to change everything in our lives. We had to slow down a bit, we had to really focus on him and make sure he was getting the help he needed. Making sure we could learn as much as possible to help because, let’s face it, the funding in Ontario is nonexistent. This really solidified the idea that we needed to work for ourselves, our family had to be our priority and we needed to start now. Taylor pushed and helped this business so much, in January 2022 he left his job at a private golf course to start a storefront with me. We achieved the dream and our store opened on March 28th, 2022!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Emily, I am 31 years old and started this journey in 2020. My husband, Taylor, 30, and I actually attended college together, we went into marketing and advertising design. This really helped us launch into this business. We are trained to work with so many programs and create designs endlessly. We have the ability to create logos, professionally, not with Canva! We had the ability to create marketing plans, our own advertising, and our own original designs. We didn’t know it but the path we took led us right to owning this company!
We service such a wide range of customers, whether people want 1 item or 100 items we can help you and have items to serve everybody’s needs! We create a lot of logo work which we then can apply to clothing and drinkware, decals, stickers, backdrops, and banners! We can provide printing of any design on a variety of items such as clothing, drinkware, stickers, wall decals, banners, backdrops, ornaments, keychains, acrylic signs, pillows, table clothes, hats, socks, and even more! We also create custom decor for any event. For events, we provide table lists, menu prints, plate settings, welcome signs, favour tags, and stickers, centerpiece toppers, cake toppers, signage for tables, cards, games, digital files, and more!
We love the ability to create cohesive event decor for our customers! We have been told the ability to order everything in one spot has helped them enjoy their event so much more, which means the world. We have a motto at Happy & Co –
happiness first, payment second. We actually accept payment upon pick-up for most orders, and for bulk orders, we only require 50% down. Why you ask? We want people to feel comfortable with their orders. We want people to know we care just as much about this order as you do which is why you’re not paying a cent until you see a finished photo and pick it up or have it shipped! Happiness comes first! We saw the need for people to be able to order items and pay later, we saw the need for people to know their item is what they want, that they’re happy and love it before they pay. We have a lot of surprised first customers and a lot of happy returning ones!
We create every design and item in-house, from your brain to our design suite together we create all of your amazing ideas with our own two hands. It means the world to be trusted with so many amazing items, gifts, event decor, and company merchandise. This is why we want to ensure every piece of the graphics used are print quality, high resolution, and will have a beautiful finished result. We also pride ourselves in the fact that our clothing isn’t Gildan or a stereotypical brand most companies use. We actually source them ourselves and spent over a year choosing what apparel we would offer! We offer a variety of clothing and accessories in endless colour options! From men’s and women’s fits to unisex and children’s, we have something for everyone! We offer inclusive sizing up to 5XL on every item possible and work hard to expand that every year!
Lastly, we have earned the respect and loyalty of so many of our customers with communication, amazing quality products, and awards to prove it all! From Entrepreneur of the Year 2022 to 3 years of best print and imaging in Georgina, best gift shop in Georgina and Newmarket and so many more our work just speaks for itself!
Does your business have multiple or supplementary revenue streams (like a ATM machine at a barbershop, etc)?
We had the idea for the store but something we both agreed on was that we didn’t want it to be only filled with our items. Sounds weird right, why wouldn’t you want a store to be filled with your own items?! Well, we both knew this could lead to a loss with items that don’t sell or possibly go out of style, clearance items you’re at most breaking even so we both decided not to fill it with our stuff. We have premade clothing, drinkware, and hats to offer made by us, and a lot of examples as to what we can custom for you. Outside of those items, we filled it with our Happy Fam!
Our Happy Fam consists of small, local companies, that offer the best quality handmade products! From candles and bath bombs to hot sauce and honey we have it all, and it’s all handmade locally! We decided to help these businesses grow and profit, we decided we wouldn’t charge a shelf fee but instead would do wholesale consignment from them and be able to advertise them at the same prices they sell them for on their pages or websites. This allowed us to fill our store without it costing a cent while allowing the businesses to fully profit each month on their sales! Each vendor gets paid out monthly and has the ability to change their shelf design how they please, come in and change items whenever and even leave if it isn’t servicing them.
We profit in a few ways, monetarily from the increase in price we charge of course but there are a few other ways! We have gained business from these vendors, people come in looking for their items and we, 9/10, gain a new customer! From new people finding us on social media to walking right into the store, these businesses have helped us grow, just like we helped them! The last way we profit is by exposure, we often get tagged in restock posts and reels, stories, and on websites as a retailer, people finding you doesn’t have to be hard! Just align yourself with businesses that speak like you!
If I can recommend anything it is open your doors to other small businesses if you have the ability to showcase their work! The partnerships, friendships and loyalty you gain are priceless.
How did you build your audience on social media?
This is one of my favourite questions we get asked. People often ask “Do you do markets, do you have a website, do you do Etsy”? When we answer “no” they’re simply shocked, “Well how do you get followers”?
We honestly just have been ourselves on social media from day one! We never wanted to create this fake personality we constantly needed to portray for the business. That isn’t genuine and that’s what people value on social media, they want genuine honesty and connection. We posted a lot of reels about things that were happening in our lives, stuff we did, and just daily work. We were real and raw. We joked about parenthood, owning a business together, and life in general, we educated about Finn’s autism and how that works in our life. We gained a lot of followers who wanted to see us succeed, we found our people.
We post in an aesthetically pleasing format with a sequence pattern that alternates between products we sell and our Reasons to be Happy, we are currently at number 90! This has helped in a few ways, the first being that people recognize our posts and want to interact right away because they know it’s us. They see our layout and immediately engage, your customers need to be able to pick you out of a sea of fish, so make it consistent. This helps in another way, our Reasons to be Happy has created a community. We post reasons to be happy, with little explanations about how we thought of it. So simple right? YES! That is how simple it is to create content. We wanted to create a space where people who are also on a journey of happiness can see on their bad days there is always a reason to be happy. It is very relatable and simple which means viewers often share to their stories or a friend who needs the reminder.
We often did giveaways 4 times a year with larger prizes, sometimes with other companies, but there are reasons giveaways don’t always work. Do giveaways with people you know, people with real followers (not bots, and it’s easy to tell), and do them in areas local to you or that you travel to operate in. These two things will help you gain actual followers, interested in your items, who live close enough to actually purchase them. If you’re just starting I cannot express how important it is to make that first customer foundation base the area you live or operate in.
Lastly, please, for the love of all that is good, NEVER, and I repeat never, do a follow train! Those are a waste of time and effort. You may gain followers but you now follow 3,000 people, never interact with the right posts because your feed is flooded, and are never shown on their feed for the same reason. I know that number rising quickly looks cool but it does not service you in the future! You want real clients following you, not just other businesses also trying to become Insta famous!
P.S always have confidence!
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/happy_c0/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/happyC0/
- Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@happyand_co
- Threadz: https://www.threads.net/@happy_c0