We recently connected with Jackie Osborne and have shared our conversation below.

Jackie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

When I started RatherBee, we were in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. My husband, Banks, and I had moved to Knoxville in May 2022 after we had both just graduated college and gotten married. I thought it would be a breeze to find a job as a graphic designer as I had the experience and knew that I had the eye and the skills for it. However, it quickly become clear that it wasn’t going to be easy to find a job. I submitted well over 100 applications, but the world was so unpredictable at this time and no one was hiring. I knew that I didn’t want to go back to a retail job that I didn’t enjoy and so I spent a couple of months making improvements to our house and exploring the city (the best that I could during the pandemic).

Late June was when I really started pondering the idea of opening my own online store and, in no time at all, my shop went live on July 2, 2020. I started off by making decals and wooden signs, but in no time at all I was going to my husband talking to him about laser engravers. I just had a feeling that it would be the next step for my business and would allow me to make so many different items. Of course, a laser engraver can be a pretty big investment and we didn’t just have the money to drop on it. So, I did something that I highly don’t recommend — I opened a credit card and bought a laser. I started designing files to make before the machine ever arrived. I knew I had to pay that money back because I refused to let myself fail. Thankfully, I was able to reach out to local businesses and they wanted to stock my products. By the end of 2021, I had made back the money and then some.

Jackie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Hi! My name is Jackie and I am an entrepreneur located in Knoxville, TN. I started my business, as many did, in the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. I had finished making repairs to a house my husband and I had recently bought and since no one was hiring during this time, I needed to find a way to fill my time. What began as a shop making decals and signs, has turned into making stickers, plant stakes, ornaments and magnets of all kinds!

I make products that make me happy, and I hope that they can do the same for others! My favorite product is our plant stakes. They’re a cute, decorative, little sign to put in your plant pot with different sayings such as “she bought another one” or “I’m rooting for you.” I also really love our ornaments, specifically the “Tennessee Volunteers” and sarcastic “I’m only a morning person on Christmas.” We also will do custom orders as well, whether that means you want a specific city on a magnet or ornament or another business is looking for ornaments with their logo on it. One of my favorite projects is from last year with Nothing Too Fancy where we got to make an ornament that looked like a little t-shirt with their logo on it. It was a fun project and it definitely encompasses a lot of what they do!

While I see how much my business has grown over the past 2 years, I find it easy to be down on myself and compare myself to others. One of the best things that I have done for myself and my mental health is making a notebook of accomplishments. Big or small, I try to write them all down. Here’s some of the things that I am most proud of: I got creative licensing for different Universities. Atlanta Market approved me and my business to come present at their market in January 2023. I launched my own website!

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

I have shared a little bit about this on social media, but there’s a twist that some people still don’t know.

If you know anything about laser engravers, they’re notorious for creating little fires. Typically, it’s nothing that really ignites into even a fire that reaches 2 inches high as they have air assist as a safety feature which blows out the fires. I had read online and in Facebook groups time and time again to never leave your laser unmonitored. My lasers are located in a separate room and so I keep cameras on them that I keep pulled up on a screen in my office. On this day in particular, I need to cut one single plant stake to finish an order. It was a Sunday morning, I was supposed to be at my church early to learn about our production team and so I set it to engrave and cut and forgot to put the camera on it. Typically if I can’t watch it, I will ask my husband to watch it for me. I had stepped in the shower for about 15 minutes and well, no camera on the machine meant that neither of us were getting notifications about movement in the machine. Within that 15 minutes, a fire had ignited and melted the top part of my laser. It was in the middle of my first busy holiday season and I had to email all of my customers to let them know that their orders would likely be delayed. Thankfully, we only had to replace the lenses, a few belts, the covering on the top and a few other things.

You would think I had learned, wouldn’t you? Yeah, no. Only a few weeks ago, the air assist failed on the same machine and I had forgotten to ask my husband to watch the machine for me. I was out running errands and I got a call on my way home that the machine had caught fire and he said “It’s really bad, worse than before.” Surprisingly, I didn’t panic and just drove home and walked inside. I had hope on the drive home that he may be exaggerating and that I would have the materials on hand to fix it. I looked inside and so much of the machine was melted. The machine would no longer turn on and it was charred all on the inside. Thankfully we were able to purchase a new machine and upgrade to a more powerful laser. I have also invested in camera holders so that the cameras will constantly be on the machine.

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

When I was still trying to really get the business up and profitable, before I even had the lasers, my husband and I were brainstorming different ideas. One of which was contacting local businesses and seeing if they would want to stock our stickers. We did some research and found a couple of local businesses. I was too scared and didn’t know what to say so my husband called up the stores for me pitching our stickers to them. “They don’t take up much space and they’re an easy impulse purchase” he would tell them. After getting a bunch of “I don’t think they would do well here” or “I’ll let the owner know” we finally got our first yes! Lisa at Nothing Too Fancy was the first person to take a gamble on us. They are also still one of our best clients to this day. Every one of those phone calls he made was well worth it just for that first order that has turned into many more.

Contact Info:

• Website: shopratherbee.com
• Instagram: ratherbeeinnc
• Facebook: ratherbeeinnc
• Other: Tiktok: ratherbeeinnc

Image Credits
Jane Lee