We recently connected with Julia Kepler and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Julia , thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

I want to talk a bit about how Joyful Tantrum(A Toy Store) came about. I am a spiritual person and one morning I was praying and then pondering how I could better serve my community. I went about my day and as clear as I am typing this here a thought came to my mind that we needed to open a toy store. I immediately talked myself out of that thought by saying to myself, I am not going to create competition for the toy store I love, I am busy enough with Serendipity Road(a gift boutique) etc. However the thought kept coming to top of mind over the next few weeks. I had talked to my husband David about it and he agreed with all my logic. Then the toy store we loved announced it’s closing.

We decided at that point I would do some research on cities and toy stores, in particular downtown’s and toy stores. What I discovered is the majority of successful downtowns have toy stores. As David and I chatted we felt like we should proceed forward and look for a space in downtown and over the next several months we did just that. However there was no spaces available and we had some changes happening at Serendipity Road that needed my attention so I put it on the back burner.

I spent the summer tending to Serendipity Road and felt like I had missed the summer with my kiddos. Serendipity Road now was doing well and I decided to plan a surprise vacation for them. As I was doing that the thoughts of the toy store came to top of mind again. I asked David to reach out to our landlord and let him know if the space next to Serendipity Road was ever going to open up to let us know. Well to our surprise our neighbor wanted out of his lease.

After some meetings, contract negotiations etc we had to make a decision if we were going to move forward with a Toy Store. The summer had been overwhelming for myself and the thought of opening another store was crushing. The kids were away for the day and as I am packing them up for the much anticipated by me surprise vacation, I am venting all the feelings to David. In angst I say “I don’t know why the Lord wants me to open a toy store?” and then I say it again with all the frustration and a bit more volume, “I don’t know why the Lord wants me to open a TOY STORE?” I then I got really still and humble tears start to flow and David Says’”So tell me again you don’t know why God wants you to open a toy store?” In that moment when I got silent I heard Heavenly Father say, “The children of Midland need what you are going to create.”

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?

We are all about building community through investments though creating spaces, job opportunities and building people. In August of 2017 we opened Serendipity Road-a small business that supports small business in the form of a gift boutique in the heart of Downtown Midland,Michigan. Downtown had been struggling for several years and we felt we could do something to help the front porch of our community thrive. Bringing something that would help other small businesses and create a new unique shopping experience to downtown was where we started.

In November of 2019 we opened Joyful Tantrum {a toy store unplugged so you can plug to those you love}. We provide toys, games, puzzles etc so the adults in children’s lives can plug in, build relationships with them and be an asset in them thriving.

The opening really was timely because we all know what was just around the corner in 2020. 78% of parents today when polled say that covid/quarantine had an adverse effect on their children’s mental well being.

The great news is that through play you can help children develop MESH (Mental, Emotional and Social Health) skills to protect them from the risky behaviors and self-harm that are too often the result of their mental distress. This can be done by helping them build their skills through play in these 8 key areas: problem solving, self-regulation, perseverance, self-advocacy, adaptation, cognition, conflict resolution, and communication strategies.

Toys and games that focus on problem solving and perseverance, encourage story telling, present new or increasing challenges over the duration of play, and draw children and their adults to play together help build these 8 skills.

We are here for our community adn are learning more and more everyday of types of toys to carry to help develop these crucial skills for our youth and parents.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

We opened Joyful Tantrum at the tail end of 2019 and just as it was getting any kind of momentum we had to close due to the pandemic. Then reopened under covid restrictions. Getting products in was nightmarish.and you would spend time placing orders to have 75% of it cancelled. Learning how to get product in, in a new industry to me was a steep learning experience. I learned where warehouses for toys were and who to contact in the warehouse.. I learned to ask for instock counts. I would only order what was available in the warehouses and they had to be close to Michigan.

We are now in a recession. Retail across the country is struggling. To be honest there have been many times in the last couple of years I felt like throwing in the towel but then I remember that voice in my family room, “the children in Midland need what you are going to create.” It keeps me going.

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

The near death moment for our business was a huge growth spike in 2021..our sales spiked up over 145% as you read in my resiliency moment I shared it was hard to get product in. We couldn’t get employees hired and trained fast enough and our space was not sized for that increase. We did a lot of scrambling during that time. Reached out to community businesses and were able to get warehouse space. This is how Shop with Moxie was born, our on-line sales platform and additional retail space that combines Serendipity Road and Joyful Tantrum.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Www.shopwithmoxie.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joyfultantrum https://www.instagram.com/SerendipityRoadMI https://www.instagram.com/shop_with_moxie
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joyfultantrum/ https://www.facebook.com/SerendipityRoadMI/ https://www.facebook.com/JOYFULTANTRUMSRECESS/