We recently connected with Molly Vang and have shared our conversation below.

Molly, appreciate you joining us today. Do you take vacations? Why or why not?

As a small business owner, work is life. Which is why we can’t forget to take breaks once in awhile. And most importantly, live in the moment. I believe it’s essential to take vacations when it makes sense. Make it make sense. Especially if you’re a full-time mom like myself and a sole-proprietor, you will need a vacation. And that’s just a couple of many reasons to take a vacation.

For me, vacations can be short and sweet. Just being in a different environment away from anything work-related can be a vacation. Wearing multiple hats as a sole-proprietor gets exhausting. We should never feel guilty about taking a short break. Taking a vacation helps clear the busy mind and relieves stress. It’s a great way to recharge and come back stronger! Personally, it helps me with my creative side.

A business owner doesn’t have to put everything on pause to take a quick vacation. For what I do, I have to make sure I time my vacation according to what works best for my business while I’m away.

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.

Hi, I’m Molly! And I’m the creator and owner of With Molly Co. My journey started during the summer of 2020 making small party decorations and t-shirt designs for close friends and family. I later fell in love with making designs on t-shirts and that became my focus. I took a chance and opened up my own online business selling apparel, accessories, and stationary items that I make directly from home.

With Molly Co. is a one-woman operation. I handle everything from designing, screen printing, product photography, finance, and shipping out orders. I currently screen print our apparel and totes and mainly focus on minimalistic designs. I also incorporate a bit of simple Hmong inspiration into the mix. I have only a few items that take a little longer to make in-house. These items are made by our production partners. This helps me meet high demand and balance in-house production. I also customize my own screen printing colors for a unique touch.

We have a wholesale shop on Faire, where other small businesses get to sell our products. One exciting aspect of shipping off our homemade items is getting to know where they get to be sold. So far, our products have been sold in places like coffee shops, book stores, other store fronts, and online shops.

Do you sell on your site, or do you use a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc?

Creating our own site has always been part of the plan for With Molly Co. I haven’t made the jump to make my own site yet because what we’re currently using seems relatively effective. We are using Etsy and so far, it provides a platform with simple essential features that works for what we need for now.

Like every online platform, Etsy has its pros and cons. I think Etsy is a good platform for small businesses that are starting up and need a little help finding customers. For us, we just sort of stuck with it after awhile. The platform has existing customers, which helps new businesses find customers easily. Although the pros can be hard to find on other platforms, fees on Etsy have increased and this could impact a seller financially and from potentially attracting more customers as well as new sellers due to the increased fees. It’s affected us and we had to increase our prices, which has made our customers hesitate a little. Another factor that can be risky for sellers is having your shop shutdown by Etsy for confusing and complicated reasons in terms of designs on products. This hasn’t happened to us but would be a factor that pushes us and other sellers to find another platform or create our own. For now, we’re okay with where we are with Etsy. After all, having our own website is a huge part of our plan for the future.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Because my designs have a lot of Hmong inspiration, the majority of my customers are Hmong. And it’s thanks to them that we’re still here. We mainly focus on modern minimal designs that aren’t seen a lot in the Hmong community. Our goal is to create designs on apparel and accessories that can be worn everyday and can be dressed up or to lounge in simply. Which is why our products attract our customers and for customers who want to show their uniqueness through our brand.

Contact Info:

• Website: withmollyco.etsy.com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/withmollyco
• Facebook: Facebook.com/withmollyco