We recently connected with Jenna Holtschulte and have shared our conversation below.

Jenna, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

My second child was heading off to kindergarten soon, I was just a stay at home mom and working with a friend creating hand lettered signs on the side. A local carpenter and entrepreneur, Brian Lee, was renovating a large building downtown on Main Street and approached my husband and I if we would be interested in putting something in the soon to be renovated space. It all quickly snowballed from there. I knew I always wanted to own a small gift shop and had looked at a few random buildings in nearby towns over the years, but it never really felt like the right timing or space. This time was just instantly different. Brian was really awesome at cheering us on and physically making this little dream come to life. I always knew that old blackboard had to be the center of it, so Brian gave the space some “old school” touches and it all just came together so perfectly- it truly felt like it was meant to be.

Jenna, 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?

Hi! I’m Jenna Holtschulte, owner of Blackboard Mercantile! Blackboard is a little retail shop smack dab in the middle of our charming hometown, Hillsboro, Illinois. It’s been a life long dream of mine to own a retail space were I can let my creativity run wild. I’ve been a lover of hand lettering and doodling ever since I was a little kid, drawing on a slate blackboard that hung in my Grandmother’s basement. My family and friends have always been my biggest fans and even supported my craft growing up. I would personalize anything from gift bags to school binders and notebooks for my friends in college. Having that kind of support really fanned a flame in my heart that something so small really could turn into something big down the road. I worked as a staff accountant in hospitals right after college until I had my second baby, before becoming a full time stay at home mom. When I was home all day with my two kids, that’s really when I really started dreaming up all the fun things for this shop. I researched product, home design and pinned retail spaces in any free time I had. I also teamed up with a friend and started a hand lettered sign business and did local vendor markets. We made more signs than either of us could’ve dreamed of. My hand lettering improved tremendously and all the support we received was like gasoline on that flame! My brain ran wild with all the things I could do in a retail space. A couple years later, and a newly renovated building in our downtown became available, Blackboard Mercantile was born. We are coming up on year four in business, and while it certainly hasn’t been a walk in the park, I have been so grateful that this is my job and for all the wonderful customers and supporters!

How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.

We chose to utilize Weebly because it integrates into our Square inventory. We always planned on selling via e-commerce at some point, however starting our business in September 2019, the necessity for e-commerce came quickly with Covid shutdowns. The ease of being able to have our inventory system talk directly to our website, made Weebly an easy and quick decision for us. The state of Illinois shutdown for a few months, and even though it reopened, we were very limited on what we could do with an in person shopping experience. Getting a website up and running quickly really helped us generate cash flow during that difficult time period and it kept our business alive. The platform is a great way to reach customers outside our local network which is a must as we live in a small, rural town. We’ve learned that competing in e-commerce is very difficult from a small business perspective. We are not able to run significant sales, nor do we have the volume to cover shipping fees for our customers and stay profitable at the same time. However, it’s been an ongoing learning process and we’ve figured out new things, like implementing a flat rate shipping policy and learning about SEOs, to create a better online shopping experience.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

One of the mainstays of the shop has been our on-the-spot personalization. That was truly one of the key drivers for me to open this business. Hand lettering has always been a hobby of mine ever since I was young and growing up, I would do small hand lettering projects for friends and family. Anything from personalized college notebooks and binders to baby shower gifts. Our shop name, Blackboard Mercantile, is derived from where I learned my love of all things hand lettering. I thought it was so neat to have a real slate chalkboard and I remember spending a big chunk of my childhood learning how to letter on it. I always knew it was something I wanted to do on a larger scale someday. Being able to combine a gift shop with a hand lettering hobby has given us a lot of opportunity to provide a unique twist on personalized gifts. Personalization always adds an extra layer of thoughtfulness and uniqueness and I think that’s really what has separated our shop from others. We always have a variety of in stock items that can be personalized same day, as well as allowing customers to bring in any item that can be written on. It’s really built up our clientele for repeat customers as well as new customers and it’s truly the piece that I love the most about running this shop!

Knowing how hard it is to be successful in running a small business, I’ve made it a goal to try and help out other small businesses! Over the past year, we’ve made more of an effort to host other small businesses to pop up in the shop. It’s drawn in great crowds and has led us to some of our most successful sales days.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.blackboardmercantile.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blackboardmerc/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Blackboard-Mercantile-910083726006721