We recently connected with Lanee Slaughter and have shared our conversation below.

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

In the summer of 2020, I purchased a resin ABC set for my daughter from a resin maker. It is important to me that the businesses I support have value alignment, so I messaged the owner regarding George Floyd’s murder and BLM as we had already established a friendly banter via direct message. After the owner disclosed that they would not be publicly supporting BLM because they were not “political”, I went on a wild goose chase to find resin letter makers that supported BLM, inclusivity, and anti-racism as a whole. This was extremely disheartening – after struggling with this search for quite awhile, I decided to make a set for my daughter. A friend shared the materials I would need to get started and I created my first ABC set for OG. I had no prior experience with resin, so it was a learning as I go process that included watching lots of youtubes!

At this time, I was working as a “mommy influencer,” so I had a small following – my content focused on sharing resources for children’s activities as well as on raising anti-racist children via books, toys, and other recommendations. Supporting Black-owned businesses was also a focus of mine.

I will say that I did not set out to the create a business, I just wanted to make something for OG. I ended up sharing my creations to Instagram in the fall of 2020 and several friends messaged me to ask if they could purchase ABC sets for their children. Honestly I was shocked by their interest!

After persistence from two friends, I decided to sell my ABC sets. It was important for me to be role model and inspiration for others who may be breaking barriers in their respective industries. The mom-owned business/sensory play activity industry is dominated by white women, so in launching my business, I knew I wanted to not only sell a product, but also ensure that inclusivity was at the fore front. I purposefully choose not to separate my personal beliefs from my business because at the end of the day, “politics” determine how we live.

That is definitely what sets my business apart from other resin makers – I have sets devoted to Black Female Leaders, ASL Alphabet sets, sets for Pride. My ABC sets are for everyone especially groups who are often not represented. I’ve partnered with other small shops to raise funds for Clean Water in Jackson and support Abortion Funds after the Supreme Court decision to roll back reproductive rights. As Carol Hanisch penned, “the personal is political.”

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Yes, so I should take a step back here – many people have no idea what resin ABC sets are! Essentially resin is a family of plastic, so it comes in a liquid form and can be poured into molds to create really anything you like. You can add in paint, dye, sprinkles, glitter – it really allows freedom in the creative process. The resin then dries for 24 hours and becomes hard. Resin is extremely fickle so you have to very precise when you are pouring. After pouring, I sand every individual pieces to ensure there are no rough edges or sharp points.

When I launched I focused on moveable (meaning you can take them anywhere and they are individual letters) ABC sets and numbers, but then moved into loose parts which are small tchotkes like dinos, hearts, cars – essentially small toys for kiddos. They can be used as counters or included in sensory play with play dough or used in imaginative play. Most recently, I created serving trays for Christmas that could be used to hold Santa’s milk & cookies.What I’m most proud of is that this was essentially a pandemic project for my daughter that I launched into a creative outlet to share and has in turn impacted other families. I’ve had customers message me that their child learned how to spell their name using my letters. It really is meaningful! I also created custom ABC sets that showcased Classical Indian dancers in one set and Black and brown ballerinas in various letters in another – I love being able to make pieces that are representative of the global majority.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

When I launched my business in 2020, it was November which I now realize is a terrible time to launch a business with the holidays right around the corner. I thought I would have a few orders since this was a brand new business and I only used word of mouth via Instagram to brand, but I ended up being inundated with orders. At this time, my daughter was not in school, so I was also full-time momming and only able to create and pour in the morning before she woke up, during her nap, and after she went bed. There were many days leading up to Christmas where I would wake up at 5:00 am and go to bed at like 12:00 am/1:00 am because I was on such a tight timeline. I was running around trying to figure out the back end of owning a small shop and also handling the product making.

Looking back, I would have limited the number of orders I accepted, but I was just so excited! I was taking orders via direct message as I did not have a website and tracking everything manually in Excel, so outside of pouring, sanding, and packaging orders, I spent a lot of time manually inputting and double checking order information as well as interacting with customers in an interface that is nearly impossible to organize, search, or sort. It was a very chaotic time, but it felt scrappy and energizing at the same time.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

I use Instagram as my main source of branding and communication, so for me, building brand loyalty has been based on sharing behind the scenes of how I create my products, involving clients/followers in the process, ensuring that I create quality products, and showing up as a real person whether that’s via stories or reels.

I have extremely loyal clients and I DM with them all the time – honestly I now consider many of them friends!

In terms of involving clients in the process, I love to use Instagram stories to allow clients to vote on ideas for the next product launch and product names (that’s a favorite actually). The naming challenges are a blast – I open entries for clients/followers to submit names for products. Based on submissions, I create a naming challenge similar to March Madness for basketball, and then everyone votes in Stories and we go from let’s say 32 names to 16 to 8 to 4 to 2 to the final name. I do reserve to pick the final name as the business owner, but it’s still so fun to have everyone involved!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.mamaandog.com
• Instagram: mama.and.og
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laneeslaughter/

Image Credits
Meagan Shuptar