Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Hayley Kruth. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hayley, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

Moxie Made is a boutique branding agency specializing in strategic identity creation for brands of all kinds. Different from a design agency, we like to say we are for the passion-driven entrepreneur who is looking for more than just a good lookin’ logo. Moxie Made places focus on pairing conceptual strategy with attention-getting graphic design resulting in brands consumers can see, hear and feel.

My background is in Public Relations, Marketing and Branding. With this, I have combined the best of all three and created a comprehensive process that is both collaborative and streamlined to help entrepreneurs, small businesses, nonprofits and more present their ideas to the world in a thoughtful and visual way.

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.

Since I was in college, I have been working with, around, or for small businesses. While it was always small in size, the goals and dreams were never short of massive. So to achieve those, most of the time we had to get scrappy. After years of working in the small business sector, learning the ins and outs of starting a business, creating brands, and executing to fruition, I decided if they could do it, so could I. This has been the mindset ever since quitting my day jobs (yes, multiple) and starting my own business in 2019.

Originally from Kentucky, I moved to Charleston in 2020 with my husband, our dog and our bearded dragon, Henry. I had my business doing social media marketing for small businesses but it wasn’t until 2021 that I realized where my true passion lied was in building brand identities for the small and mighty AKA entrepreneurs, small businesses and nonprofits. Through this, Moxie Made was born.

In a nutshell, we like to identify what makes a person or business unique and then strategically and creatively weave that into an identity the person or business can use to stand out and appeal to their ideal target audience.

Moxie Made is a boutique branding agency offering services in brand strategy, messaging, graphic design, website creation and customer experience. We like to say we are for the passion-driven entrepreneur who is looking for more than just a good lookin’ logo. We are the perfect option for those who have seen success in their business but have no branding or DIY-ed their branding and are wanting to level up. We are also great for those smaller established-brands who are looking for a more aligned connection with their target audience.

What has brought me the most pride in doing this now for a few years is once a brand project wraps, my clients gain a sense of confidence and clarity that is a result of them taking the time to do what 90% of other people skip over when it comes to starting a business. By going through the strategizing process and then infusing that into their visual identity, it not only sets them up to move their business forward, it truly excites them. To see this is priceless.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I named my business Moxie Made because of my experience with resilience in life and in business. Ever since I was kid, I have been navigating this crazy life trying to figure it all out along the way. I grew up extremely lucky to have gone to great schools which allowed me to move on to college, and then even a Masters degree down the road. But I soon started to realize the “typical” systematic path of going to school, getting a degree and then settling into a 9 to 5 job just wasn’t meant for me.

If I am being honest, the time in my career when I did have a 9 to 5, I experienced as many valuable lessons as I did toxic ones. While I don’t like to give this credit for launching me into entrepreneurship, it is a very important part of my story and my ‘why’. Every job I had prior to starting Moxie Made I would always deeply invest mentally and emotionally. I was the person who would be your yes gal if you needed anything. I took pride in the companies. I would assume roles and responsibilities just to please. I would sacrifice my own mental health in order to make it happen at the drop of a hat. Until one day I found myself sitting in my living room, staring at my baby blue wall, not being able to talk for 48 hours straight. I fell into a dark depression, somewhere that was unfortunately all too familiar. That was the last time though. Once I put in my two weeks notice in at my last 9 to 5 job, I had never felt the feeling before, but I now recognize it as my moxie — a mixture of resiliency, belief, hope, determination, a little bit of fear, and strength.

I frequently dip into that moxie since starting down the entrepreneurial path and I never see that changing.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

Two resources that I would recommend that changed my entrepreneurial journey and have made the biggest impact is:

Business Class by Sophia Amoruso — A membership-based digital entrepreneurship community and course for founders, freelancers, solopreneurs, creators, and side hustlers. Making the investment to join this program has hands down been the best thing I could have done for my journey to becoming a successful entrepreneur. It has opened doors, cleared my mind, and pushed me out of my comfort zone. It was a huge bucket list item for me to be able to join as Sophia is one of my biggest role models in business.

Finding your cheerleaders — I recently heard this phrase “Finding your cheerleaders.” It means finding the people who will cheer you on, up, and parade you around every single time. This past year I have literally leaped out of my comfort zone and started building intentional relationships with other entrepreneurs. As a solo-prenuer, it is so hard for me to be creative and not constantly second-guess myself. Now by having certain people in my life, my cheerleaders, I feel inspired again and less bogged down.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.moxiemade.co
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moxiemade.co
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hayley.kruth
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/moxiek-llc

Image Credits
Laptop Image taken by Kevin Bianchi