We were lucky to catch up with Kristina Horan recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kristina , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s the best or worst investment you’ve made (either in terms of time or money)? (Note, these responses are only intended as entertainment and shouldn’t be construed as investment advice)

The best investment I made in my life was the risk to start my business. I decided to quit my 3 part time jobs when COVID hit and refocus all my energy into launching my website design/graphic design business. I always wanted to find a way to offer something into the entertainment industry vs. being the actor that had the “pick me, choose me” energy and finding my angle through doing Website Design and Graphic Design for clients mainly in the entertainment industry was an avenue I saw for myself. So, after 1 year of being a 1 women show in my business, running my business on the admin and marketing end as well as simultaneously designing, I was able to be full time and move to a 1 BR in Manhattan. Knowing that you are always worth the investment will forever be one of my biggest life lessons and something I will never question as both my business career and my acting career grows.

Kristina , 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?

How I actually got started in this industry is a really interesting story. I have been doing website, design and graphic design as a hobby for about eight years. I’m completely self taught, I was a bit of a techie in college while I was studying musical theater. I began designing websites, doing graphic design and teaching myself code just for fun. I just did it in my downtime and didn’t really tell anybody about it. But when Covid hit, a good friend of mine, who is also a professor at NYU and Julliard, reached out to me, asking if he could use my Actor website as an example in his business of acting class that he taught at those two universities. When he did the class he ended up giving out my name to the students and all of a sudden I had a wave of students reaching out to me to do an actor website, and that is literally how my business began. I always knew I wanted an angle into the entertainment industry outside of just being an actor who had that pick me choose me energy. Since I don’t find myself to be a strong writer. I have also provide my services on the pre-production end for producers when they need graphics, pitch decks, one sheets and anything for an EPK.

The services that I provide are website, design, graphic design, and brand development. Although my focus is on clients in the entertainment industry, I also design websites for people in all other types of industries, such as government organizations, bridal, real estate, etc..

The main problems that I solve for clients is how to articulate their brand identity and brand messaging in a visual way, create an aesthetic that will attract and convert the right audience and community of people they want for their brand and also how to make client conversions easy on the client end, and also seamless on the business and so that way they are as hands off an automated as possible.

The biggest thing that sets me apart from other designers is I am very heavy on the brain development end. Although I sell templates for clients on a budget, the main services I offer are premium, customized websites, graphic design products, and brand identity sessions. I truly believe from doing this for eight years that that is the main foundational component that enables the success of a company, and sets them apart from the thousands of other businesses within their niche.

There’s a lot that I’m proud about in my business, but I would say one of the things I’m the most proud of is knowing that I have, and will continue to change peoples lives for the better because of my approach to building out the main element that they need in their business in order to grow, which is a functional website that has a strong brand identity illustrated throughout. I’ve always wanted to find a way to provide value to people’s lives while still providing value to my own and this type of work does that for me.

Although my main goal in life is my career as an Actor and Filmmaker, my business is the foundation of why I can have the career that I do because of the time flexibility, but also because of the way that it fills my happiness and value in my life vs. sucking the soul out of me like some actors jobs (for a lack of better words!) And I can only hope that as my acting career grows, my business will continue to grow alongside it and become more known amongst the Entertainment Industry as being the “go-to company” for web, graphic and brand development needs.

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

A lesson I had to unlearn is that it’s not always true when they say it takes a village. Because especially in business, sometimes you are your village, and that has to be enough.

It can be very scary starting a business because you have to be your own one woman show for a while if it’s not realistic for you financially, to hire a bunch of people to do the other areas of your business that you’re not savvy in. Sometimes you have to dedicate those work hours to teaching yourself how to run your social media, do your ads, outreach, generating new leads, etc. But the biggest lesson I learned is that it is doable, if you have the motivation, band with and are super clear on your WHY for doing this in the first place.

A sub lesson to this is that you can’t be a perfectionist. For a whole year I was sitting on creating an online course because I felt like I needed so many people to help me do it, in order to get it right and have it be worthy when I released it, and I finally came to terms recently that it’s OK if it’s not my version of perfect but if it holds value and provides resources to people who need them, then just getting that information out there so people can begin learning is paramount. It’s also important to just do it so that I can also glean how to be a better online course creator and continue holding my craft on how to teach people.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

This is a very personal story that I haven’t ever really shared publicly, but before starting my business, I made well under $20,000 a year. I was fortunate enough to be in a situation where I didn’t have to pay for the roof over my head and just focus on my acting career out of college , but then there was a major sudden event that happened in my life where I didn’t have that the comfort in living that way anymore and I had to figure out how can I have a career that is sustainable for me, but also allows me to still pursue my art and craft as an actor and Filmmaker? So for me working to build my business to be something sustainable for me for the entire year of Covid was really a fight or flight scenario. And I’m not the kind of person who chooses to flight!

On top of that working towards a goal of living in Manhattan was also a massive undertaking given that I didn’t have past three years tax returns to show and finding an apartment on your own in Manhattan is extremely competitive. Looking back I’m so proud of how far I’ve come from making what I did a year to almost hitting the six-figure mark last year in my business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kristinahoranwebsitedesigns.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kristinahoranwebdesigns/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristina-horan/
• Other: https://manage.wix.com/marketplace/wix-partner/kristina-horan