We recently connected with Keida Dervishi and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Keida, thanks for joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

I started my company at 19 years old from a simple idea of a gift. Going back to 2021, I started searching for a present for my mom’s 50th birthday almost a month in advance. Ever since I was really young, I was all about surprises and gift giving. At 10 years old, I remember the countless times I’d prepare my mom “dinner” (fruits that I turned into animal shapes from Youtube tutorials), clean and decorate the entire house with DIY decor before she would come home from work. I think that gift giving has been my love language all along.

I knew that my mom’s 50th birthday was a huge milestone and I wanted to make sure she felt extra special. So after a couple of weeks of searching for gifts, I got tired of coming across the same boring ideas that came up online like getting your mom flowers, or a necklace that says “mom”; or even a t-shirt that says “I love my mother”. So then I thought of the idea to take a photo of me and my mom, outline and embroider it onto a sweatshirt as a gift. I experienced the sight of seeing my mother cry for the first time receiving this present. I quickly realized how a gift with a personalized touch, can make someone feel so special. Only 4 days after we launched, we went viral and totaled 5,000 orders in only a few days and history was created.

Keida, 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?

Well, actually being an entrepreneur wasn’t my first dream. Since I was 9 years old, I had a passion to connect with people and I channeled that through performing on stage. I remember audience members coming up to me after shows saying I would give them goose bumps or made them cry with the song I sang. That’s when, for the first time in my life, I understood I can be a source of influence on others, fueling my confidence and comfort for being public.

As my parents were building a small retail business in Albania, spending my time away from entertainment, I would attend every business meeting my parents would have. There would be 20 adults in training and me, a 9 year old kid who would sit right next to my parents and take detailed notes on everything they were saying. Clearly, entrepreneurship has always been a passion.

My dad has rooted for me to continue being in the entertainment industry but my mom would always push me to be in entrepreneurship. She would always mention how the music industry is a “very harsh path to go through” and forever has pushed me to be my own boss so I would never be controlled by anyone.

No matter what, my mind has always been in entertainment, that was up until 2020 when Hollywood practically shut down from Covid. I had just graduated from high school and had nothing to do. That boredom was the fire I needed to start my path as an entrepreneur. I began building small businesses on platforms like Etsy and Depop. I sold clothing, phone cases, swimsuits, jewelry and more. In the mean time, a new app named Tik Tok was starting to become very popular. I started seeing lots of people my age buying embroidery machines and creating cool designs. That inspired me to buy my very own embroidery machine. My first ever embroidery machine was this small $300 Brother machine. I was so excited to use it that I learned how to use it just one day through YouTube tutorials.

Soulmate Customs is a online personalized gift business where we take people’s captured memories and turn them into embroidered or engraved gifts. The super cool thing about our business is that it’s for anyone and everyone. Any age, gender or occasion. Our gifts range from anniversary, baby showers, bridal parties to grief gifts for people who are experiencing or have experienced tragedies such as illnesses, automotive accidents and more.

Seeing all of the incredible stories we get from customers on the daily has inspired us to open a non-profit organization to help customers with medical bills or promote the Gofundme’s they set up for their loved one’s.

I am most proud of accomplishing success as we head into our 3rd year of being in business. It is a known fact that unfortunately, most businesses fail within their first year and seeing that not only did we pass that milestone but have continued to succeed has been incredible. I’m not going to lie, It has been an immensely hard journey solving the hundreds of problems to face on the daily but it makes me so proud that we were able to overcome every challenge we’ve faced and be here where we are today.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Unlike most companies, our entire business model is based off of social media right now. As I’ve talked about with everyone I come across, we are so blessed to be in an era where social media is booming. We are at a time where it is the easiest to get followers. And building a large social presence is not even impressive anymore. It is what you do with the people who support you that matters. Social media platforms are incredibly addicting, you will either let them take advantage of you or you will take advantage of them. If you do choose to leverage social media, you will be able to grow more than you will ever imagine. My biggest secret to success is consistency. And by consistency I don’t mean posting 1-2 times per day, I mean posting at least 5-8 posts per day. I have always been scared of “spamming” my followers and was afraid that people would unfollow me. But then I learned that firstly, the people who would get bothered by your posts are the people who would never have purchased your product anyway and secondly, 90% of short form content is catered to a new audience rather than your own followers. So be fearless and start posting .

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Buying a ton of inventory before you know if your product is a success. One of the mistakes I’ve made in business before starting Soulmate Customs was purchasing wholesale clothing for an online boutique I was creating and overstocking it. I hadn’t even launched yet and had no idea if people would like what I was selling. I had to learn the hard way that first you need to promote your business/product with minimal inventory, market it and then purchase based off of volume or a strategically estimated volume. So now at Soulmate Customs I make sure to purchase only a few sample pieces to show off the product and purchase based off of how many people are ordering.

Contact Info:

• Website: soulmatecustoms.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/soulmatecustomss
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/soulmatecustoms/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5kfjXIpWond6qF7G4t489w
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@soulmatecustoms

Image Credits
Erik Pel