We recently connected with Galadriel Olson and have shared our conversation below.

Galadriel , appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

We really cater to the local art community. Aside from bringing in art and craft supplies we know and love ourselves, we also stock the supplies our customers are specifically looking for. Let us know what you need, and we will try our best to get it for you!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

We moved our family from Texas to Lakewood/Cleveland in Feb 2021. We were enamored with all of the wonderful independent businesses in the area! We are a family of artists and so we went looking for the local art supply store and found out… there wasn’t one! We were honestly shocked! There are so many artists here! At first, we just joked that maybe we should open an art supply store here. The more we looked into the process of starting a business and the more we talked to local business owners, the more confidence we gained until opening an art supply store became a reality! We had a soft opening in January of 2022, and held a grand opening that March! We really can’t thank our community enough for all of the support! It is humbling and we feel so lucky to live and work in Lakewood!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I think the biggest thing to unlearn is that you can do it all on your own. You really can’t! Lean on people, let people help you, allow others to share the load… or you will get burned out very quickly! There is no prize for doing it all or for reinventing the wheel. Get to know other business owners. Let them help you with what they have already learned!

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

Social media is tricky! It is pretty essential for small businesses, but, at certain points, it definitely feels like a burden. You can easily become overly worried about it all. And I definitely have sometimes. I think, over time, I learned to just have fun with it. Likes don’t equate to sales. Have your tardigrade store mascot go around the store and tell what they like! Be the weirdo you are! Someone will get a kick out of it!

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.lakewoodartsupply.com
• Instagram: @lakewoodartsupply
• Facebook: Lakewood Art Supply
• Other: Tiktok: Lakewood Art Supply