We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Katie Schmitt, Angela Lievanos & Shelly Taylor a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Katie, Angela & Shelly thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
Our journey began at Elementary School PTO, we found ourselves together quite often working on projects; there may have been some over the top Book Fair decorations. Along the way we became friends & really enjoyed working as a team. The seed was planted that it would be fun if we started creating for ourselves & it grew from there. We sent the kids back to school after winter break, January 2020, and had the first business breakfast of CC Meep. The plan was to create wooden rustic home décor items that we would want in our homes, in hopes that others would too. We started selling on Etsy & Facebook Marketplace. It was, & still is, thrilling to have a stranger buy something we’ve created. We are also extremely grateful for the support we have received from our family & friends.
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?
We are a team of 3 women, all moms. We try to upcycle wood when we can, we’ve really have to watch our hoarding of wood. Sometimes a scrap piece is just trash & sometimes that scrap is the perfect finishing touch or an adorable pumpkin. We always embrace the uniqueness of the wood, imperfections and all. Our pieces are painted, not vinyl, we feel paint holds up better. Each piece is handcrafted and we are committed to quality. For all of these reasons, each piece is a one of a kind. We also enjoy working with customers to personalize or customize their order. We know the satisfaction we get when an item fits perfectly in our home and want to share that joy.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
We like to upcycle wood, not only because is a creative way to reuse items, but it also helps with costs of starting a business. Win win. Also lucky for us, we each already had a amble supply of paints, ribbons & other items. A large part of our need is time; cutting the wood, sanding, designing, painting, etc. However, any other items needed we purchased & just slowly grew our product line. We continue to adjust & reevaluate as we grow.
Do you sell on your site, or do you use a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc?
We first began with selling on Etsy & Facebook Marketplace. Later we added a site on Square . Facebook Marketplace started off very strong for us & was helpful in reaching a local market. However, after about a year Facebook changed their algorithm & that has pretty much died off. Etsy has a huge customer base & has been very helpful in being a place for people to find us. That is the positive for us that outweighs the negative of the fees at this time. We are grateful for what they have had to offer with getting our business off the ground. We also have a square site and are still growing driving business to that. Pinterest has been another helpful resource. It’s a wonderful time to start a business, as there are many tools available, tricky part is having to learn how to navigate it to your best interest.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.etsy.com/shop/CCMeep
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ccmeepstl
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ccmeepstl
- Other: https://ccmeep.square.site
Image Credits
Katie Schmitt