We were lucky to catch up with Myranda Roberson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Myranda, thanks for joining us today. How do you feel about asking friends and family to support your business? What’s appropriate, what’s not? Where do you draw the line?

I always felt a little awkward asking for support when I first started everything to be honest. More often than not, my boyfriend would be the one to randomly tell people “Oh hey my girlfriend makes custom coffins! Show ’em babe!”. I guess I sort of felt like it was bragg-y or maybe people wouldn’t really care. But the more I showed people, the more I spoke about what I do and showed my own excitement and pride in it, the more the entire business and its following grew. My own confidence in what I do started a domino effect and suddenly people really did want to know more and there was more support than I ever imagined. I like to tell the story about how before I ever started Bat & Fae, I brought the idea to someone important to me and he turned it down and said it would never be worth the time. I started up anyway and eventually needed some help and a new set of eyes, and my boyfriends dad actually took a massive interest and now he’s my right hand man with anything coffin related. He takes a ton of pride in it the same way I do and he’s incredibly talented. I truly never imagined he would be the one I lean on when it comes to these beautiful custom pieces being so well made, but here we are. And it never would’ve happened had I not been confident enough in my own work to ask for the help. I’m so thankful for every bit of support and when I say that the success is only because of the people that supported me this whole way, I truly mean it.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I started Bat & Fae Witchery just a couple of years ago. I grew up fascinated with the weird, dark, unique décor and the stuff you can’t just find online easily. Once I lived on my own and got to decorate my space the way I wanted, I realized this type of décor and aesthetic is very expensive and very hard to come by. Years went by before I ever realized I could try and change the ability of this stuff to be easily obtainable and very quickly after that, Bat & Fae was born. I wanted to create a shop where anybody could get the kind of things they needed to make their space feel comfortable. I’m a firm believer in making your home a place you genuinely want to spend time and always feel good in, and sometimes you just don’t have a ton of extra cash to make that happen. Bat & Fae has been a place where people go “Hey, I want a coffin shelf. How much is that?” and we can make it happen. And it’s also been a place where people have said “Hey, I have this space in my house and I have no idea what to put there but I know what vibe I want and here’s my budget” and we’ve created some of the most incredible, personable art for them. I like furniture to be functional, beautiful, conversational, and it needs to last a long time. The coffins we make are nearly indestructible and with each coffin, I try to work within budgets. I have a typical price point that I start at and based on budgets and customization, I work within the price range in whatever ways I can. Coffins really brought Bat & Fae to life, then I got into crystals and that’s been really fun too. Most of the crystals I have aren’t crystals I feel other shops will have but I also price them almost exactly what I paid for them. Inexpensive, beautiful, unique, and easily obtainable. I tried to make a place for people who needed all of those things and so far, I’m super proud of how much we’ve been able to do for our customers.
I really like to do customs. I’ve enjoyed seeing how each piece of furniture is really an art piece and very specific to each customer. It’s so interesting to see how each piece has almost its own little personality.
I’ve said it before but I think Bat & Fae has its own persona and life force outside of myself. I try to guide it and control it but watching it come to life and become this incredibly beautiful entity has been so wild.
I want it to be a inclusive space. Bat for the dark and weird, Fae for the bright and unique. It’s a space for everyone, and I try to convey that if I don’t carry a product someone needs, I can and will get it and provide it at an affordable cost as best I can.
It’s been a really cool journey to see people obtain a comfortable, decorative space in their homes in a customizable way that isn’t going to break the bank. I really enjoy it!

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

Building your audience is such a hard process sometimes. When Bat & Fae was first born, I think within 2-3 posts I began to get super discouraged. Personally, I had this idea that I thought was super unique and different and once I made it public, I thought it was going to blow up. It did not blow up. I posted a few times but I didn’t want to be annoying so I stopped and got way too upset that people didn’t seem to want what I had to offer. It took several weeks before I posted again and an old friend of mine saw the post and him and his girlfriend were in love, immediately. They were the very first customers I had and their coffin is still my favorite, to this day. The social media algorithm is HARD. Mostly, it doesn’t work in our favor. Marketing your business and yourself can feel like a full time job, especially if you already don’t spend a ton of time posting on social media. It took me a really long time to learn that your posts probably aren’t annoying anyone and the people that would be interested might just not be seeing it. Growing your reach and getting the word out is going to take some time but my advice for anyone starting out is do not stop posting. Keep posting and sharing and asking people to share your posts as well. Eventually, the person that has a way bigger reach than you do is probably going to share your post and their audience might have tons of people that are interested that might not have heard about you otherwise. Just keep swimming!

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

I had a hard time understanding that originality IS a big selling point. When Bat & Fae was first born, I had this thought process of “Well that business is making a ton of sales on that product so maybe we should do that too”. A lot of the businesses I compared myself to had products I probably will never know how to have and sell properly and it was months before I stopped feeling like I had to be the same as every other oddity shop and realize that a massive selling point within oddities, is how each shop has something that the other does not. I haven’t seen but maybe one other shop that does custom coffins and it quickly became our trademark. I wanted to do a full on Witchery and just have the coffins as an option since I enjoy making them so much but after probably a year or more, I finally realized that coffins ARE what sets us apart from other oddity shops and the crystals and candles are OUR extras. And honestly, I’m really thankful it happened that way. I love what I do and it really never feels like a job.

Contact Info:

• Website: BatFaeWitch.com
• Instagram: @BatFaeWitchery
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BatFaeWitchery/