We were lucky to catch up with Ivana Sarasate recently and have shared our conversation below.

Ivana, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

Since I was very little I have always liked design and creating products. In fact, I have had several ventures of all kinds throughout my life. However, I had never found something I was truly passionate about.

When the pandemic started, I found myself working from home all day. Without being able to go out, I needed to find something that made me feel good and helped me disconnect. That’s when I decided to buy new pajamas, something special to enjoy my relaxing moments.

I chose pajamas from a very well-known and expensive brand. When I received it, I was so excited that I tried it right away. However, my happiness was short-lived. In the middle of the premiere, my dogs jumped on me to play and tore my pajamas with their paws.

I was so disappointed and sad. I couldn’t believe that such expensive pajamas weren’t dog resistant. I wondered how it was possible that such a well-known brand didn’t think about pet owners.

That experience marked me deeply. I decided I had to do something so dog owners could enjoy their pajamas without worrying about their pets tearing them.

So I began a long search for a fabric that was dog resistant, but also comfortable and soft. After a lot of research, I found a perfect fabric that met all my requirements.

Using this fabric, I began designing pajamas and kimonos that could be enjoyed by people and dogs. The idea was to create products that were comfortable and safe for both, and that allowed pet owners to spend quality time with their furry loved ones.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Ivana Sarasate, I am 36 years old and I am constantly learning about entrepreneurship! Nobody tells you that it is easy, quite the opposite, but if there is something that I have to value about this journey, it is the motivation and hunger to learn more and more, that is where you really realize your vocation, when you always want to contribute more. In the case of our brand, it began in the search for good quality pajamas to enjoy with our pets, but today it continues in the search for more sustainable materials, organic fabrics, small, conscious productions and lately we are adding products that accompany us to enjoy of moments of relaxation and connecting with ourselves.

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

When I started I didn’t know how to make my product, I took a couple of sewing classes but in the process I realized that it was not the part that I liked, even so I always considered it important to have basic knowledge and be able to handle manufacturing terms with sewing workshops. Finding the suppliers and the workshop that manufactured my products was difficult, obstacles always arise, especially manufacturing in Argentina, where we encounter constant price changes and inconveniences in the entry of imports.
We had to try several suppliers and workshops, this is the most stressful part but also necessary, if you want to grow you must broaden the search and expand the workshops, not concentrate everything in one, this learning helped me a lot.

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

As I mentioned before, I worked in a bank when I started this venture, it occupied my free time, until one day I finally decided to leave my job as an employee to dedicate myself 100% to Grateful, I saw that the clients loved the quality. of the products, but also the prints! I always liked to draw, prints were a way to express myself and highlight my product from the other pajamas on the market.
That’s how I started taking classes to make prints with different techniques and without a doubt it is one of the things I enjoy most when I start creating a collection.
Something that helped me was believing in my designs, seeing the competition is necessary but each brand has its own rhythm, behind each brand are us, people with their own rhythms and learnings.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://gratefulsite.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gratefulsite/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063617274412

Image Credits
Photo productions by Grateful.