We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Giovanna Jaspid a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Giovanna, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s jump right into how you came up with the idea?

The idea came up while working on an interior renovation project. As part of the services I had to choose decorative elements to furnish the space. When it was time to choose the decorative pillows, I hired my mother to sew custom unique pillows using designer fabrics that were specifically chosen to give a unique look. It felt so great to be able to work with my mom and put her sewing skills into my projects. The pillows we had created turned out beautiful and other people/future customers noticed them.
We created more pillows just to test the waters and put them up for sale online, these had a great turned out and it showed us that doing custom pillows had great potential for us.
I continued growing my pillow inventory as a side hustle while working full-time at architectural firms, it wasn’t until 4 years later that I decided to put my full energy into my own business and officially open up Jaspid Studio.

Giovanna, 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?

Jaspid Studio is a creative growing company that makes custom pillows for commercial and residential projects. I graduated with an Architecture degree and always enjoyed working in creative environments, my mother is a seamstress and along with a team of seamstresses they make all the pillow covers in Miami Florida.

The company started while doing interior renovations that needed decorative pillows. From there our pillow shop has grown to more than 200 fabrics in stock and we ship world wide so everyone can enjoy our products.
Our customers appreciate that we can customize pillows to any size, fabric and any details they may want to add.

We are constantly looking and purchasing beautiful fabrics and designer fabric remnants to have in stock for our pillow shop and also take in custom orders for decorative pillows and other products.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

I started my custom pillow business as a side hustle while working a full time job as a junior architect. I designated a small area in my house to store, take pictures, cut fabrics, answer emails and ship orders.

You would find me most nights and weekends growing my shop little by little. It was not easy, I felt tired but knowing that I was working on something that was mine, filled my heart with passion and gave me the energy to continue.
Every time I would put a little extra effort more sales and customers will come. I knew that if I did this full time it will grow to so much more.
In 2016 I made a plan, saved as much as I could and gave myself an exact date in the calendar when I will no longer be working for somebody else and will give my own business a try. It was the best decision for my business, my family and my mental health. We are now in 2022 and just opened up our own space!! that’s right, no more little office in my house now the shop has its own location in Miami Fl.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Great quality and Good customer service. Most of my customers are repeat customers, they receive our decorative pillows and appreciate the details, the time that went into making it for them. We iron, clean the lints, make sure there are no smells close to the fabrics and carefully package our pillows for shipping. Most of the time I try to have some type of communication to let them know we are working on their order and to let me know if they have any questions. if the order has an error this is the time to clarify with the customer and help them choose what they need.
All these small custom details and communication make my customers feel the item is made specially for them.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.Jaspidstudio.com
• Instagram: @jaspidstudio
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jaspidstudio
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/giovanna-jaspid-5b3b0737/
• Other: https://www.etsy.com/shop/JaspidStudio?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

Image Credits
@sashadealmagro_photography