We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Masha Jung a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Masha, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

Last couple of years have been very tumultuous on the global scale. The world went from open boarders and globalized economy to full enclosure in 2020 and back to travel with added difficulties of the misplacement and migration trends caused by world conflicts externally and local shifts resulting from the post pandemic circumstances. Just over nine years ago it was a completely different story. It was fall of 2013. I graduated college with MFA in spring, spent summer enjoying the time off and got a freelance job in ad video production as a set designer in September. My goal however was to produce a grandiose ballet/dance show that I envisioned opening on the biggest opera house stage in my home country, Ukraine.

I had a plot in my head. I found a great script writer to write the play. Another extremely ambitious person helped with the music for a teaser video. A couple of dancers I chose also agreed to help and try for the roles. I used the filming crew I met at the advertising job to shoot a three min video and spent all the money I made working and all the time I had to sleep to finish it.

The night at work turned into day and my plane from Kyiv to New York was leaving in five hours. Until then I had to return a giant flat screen TV to the store and explain why it was missing all the cables that came with it originally. Otherwise we wouldn’t get paid for the shoot we worked on last week. Not sure if it works the same way here but in Ukraine when filming anything we would just buy all the items we needed for a scene in stores, use them for a day and return back to the stores the following day. This helped to minimize the production budgets. That TV was about $10K. I’m sure whoever sold it was not happy to give up his commission but I was in a rush and would not take no for an answer.

A couple of hours later I was on a one-way 12 hour flight to the US holding on to my flash drive with the ballet teaser, a folder with the script and a total of $200 in cash (bonus I got for successfully getting rid of that TV).

Nine years later my life has absolutely nothing to do with film production or ballet. That play had never seen the stage and I am on the opposite side of the country from NY (fortunately).

That risk of dropping every last dollar, leaving my country in search of partnership opportunities and a chance to realize a very ambitious project created a huge point of reference. Anything after that didn’t seem like a risk at all. Starting my life from scratch in Arizona felt like a very casual ordeal.

This really helped when starting my business. I didn’t have a rush and anxiety related to launching it. It was just another project that seemed fun and challenging enough to be worth the time spent on it. I think this approach also helped to not build high expectations and calmly move forward with every step. Just like going on a hike :)

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

At my company Couloir [ART.] we design, hand-print and ship custom drink ware and merchandise for brands that value sustainability. We are based in Phoenix, Arizona. As of now we collaborated on projects everywhere from Iceland to Hawaii. The one thing that always mattered most has been creating one-of-kind designs and committing to selling only reusable products that would aim at reducing trash in our nature.

I have always worked in arts and graphics industry so that direction was a no-brainer. The idea to apply that to custom merchandise production came during a camping trip to Yosemite with my friend who came to join me from London. The camper van we rented to get around included all dinnerware and other supplies. However thoughtful they were outdoors doesn’t go well with thin ceramics. We broke every single piece we had by accidentally dropping the box of dishes they packed for us on day one. Since then we had to default to the paper plates and cups. This produced trash plus inconvenience.

I thought how cool would it be to have the classic enamel cups and plates? They are light, look nice, don’t break and are non-toxic. And then I imagined adding some art to inspire those future adventures. I emailed the owner of the campervan company a month later telling this story and scored the first client! I designed a few illustrations picturing various sceneries of the areas where their company was located and found a way to print those in bulk on the camp mugs.

It was a business that started in a garage. If you ever lived in AZ you should know that working in a garage here is a commitment. With the summer temps reaching to 120F this was no joke. We are not Amazon just yet but fortunately grew to have a nicer office/studio and a great little team. We print various items from tee-shirts to water bottles. This year we started working with a number of National Parks including Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and Glacier. We try to stay true to original natural roots and the spirit of adventure. We use unbleached recycled packaging for shipping and donate part of sales to natural conservancies. Our tee shirts are made from recycled water bottles and organic cotton. When we make candles we use essential oils and sustainable virgin waxes.

I truly hope that having a reliable product with inspiring imagery can help more people enjoy and appreciate Nature.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

One of the core lessons I learned was nobody ever owes you anything. If you lend money only do so if you are comfortable never getting them back. Same with the business funding. During my first naive trials in the art field I always assumed somebody has to invest starting capital. I always believed in “do it great or don’t do it at all”. This approach was out of personal incompetence and laziness. The result was mainly “don’t do it at all” and blame the system.

Bootstrapping was the best choice for me with Couloir. This was never a very ambitious venture. It started out of a fun camping trip and that’s exactly how I perceived the business itself. I started small (very small) and explored where it can take me. I invested in very basic initial printing devises (massive research was a key to not overspend) and tried to acquire paying customers before I injected any more cash. This helped to be profitable year one. Even if profits were so small I basically worked for $1 an hour.

Looking back I learned that budgeting would’ve been even more helpful. For the first two years I only tried to make sure the bank balance was positive and held fingers crossed that my expenses on blanks and job supplies will be covered by the upcoming sales. After getting a book on Financial Accounting (however boring and intimidating it was to read) I realized how helpful budgets can be. With that you are proactive and plan your expenses before committing to them. So if you are trying to decide if you should spend this amount on ads or content creation you first check if your budget allows it or if it was best to wait a month as you have to purchase something else first that is more essential.

Staring small helps to avoid expensive mistakes and gives you time to learn what works best. My initial capital came out of a single paycheck from my part time job at Lowes that I took for a few months. Three years later my company pays for a couple of employees, an office rent and a possibility for me to spend most of my day with my kid.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

I love reading. Having kids makes that harder but audiobooks help a lot. I read most of the entrepreneurial “must-read” list. But I think that the most useful and memorable were these books: – From Good to Great
– Good Strategy/Bad Strategy
– Think Fast and Slow (very hard to read as it it extremely monotonous but also very useful and revealing)
– Delivering Happiness
– 10 Days to Faster Reading
– The Alchemist
– Jump (by Larry Miller, Laila Lacy)
– Greenlights
– Let my People go Surfing
– Start with Why
– The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
– The Value Trail

Contact Info:

• Website: www.CouloirArt.com
• Instagram: @Couloir.Art