Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Natalie Estevez Hall. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Natalie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
Prior to founding Balloon & Bash in 2020, I’d spent years growing my entrepreneurial spirit, but quite frankly, the right inspiration eluded me. I had some promising ideas through the years, but none of them felt like ME. When I had my son in 2019, it was truly life-altering. People tell you having a child changes everything and that being a parent is hard, but for me it didn’t sink in until I had my newborn in my arms. I cannot express to you how earth-shattering it was to suddenly feel the full weight of our new reality. Of course, I was incredibly grateful to be a new mom; I loved and was in awe of our son from the second I heard his cry, but brutal post-partum depression began almost immediately.
So here I am, a scared new mom in a wicked depression. Hallucinating from lack of sleep, suddenly feeling so lost in the ether. I wasn’t sure who I was anymore or what I wanted. All I could do was focus on the now and put one foot in front of the other. But the wheels were turning. I was thinking of our present and our future – what I wanted, what our son needed, and the potential of what could be. I’m ruminating, I’m brainstorming, I’m throwing hypotheticals at my husband. After a few months, I returned to my career as a Marketing Manager for a furniture manufacturer, and that’s when I had the realization: this ain’t it. In those months back in the office, I happened to overhear a conversation between members of top management that changed everything for me. One was telling the story of how he’d come to have the same Porsche in two different colors – he couldn’t choose which Porsche he liked better, so he got both (!). At that moment, post-partum, sleep-deprived, no-raise-in-two-years Natalie realized that although I wasn’t sure where I was going, I knew I would not be taking another step toward someone else’s dream
Aaaaannnnddd then the pandemic hits.
Like many others during the pandemic, our lives were turned upside down! Luckily, my husband and I did NOT get laid off, but we soon found ourselves in a 24/7 cycle of work and baby-rearing, all the while devouring Tik Tok and watching online as friends and family discovered new talents like baking, gardening, and even tie-dying. So, although the pandemic forced us all to pause and stay indoors, it also spurred a reawakening of our imaginations that, paired with the “Porsche incident,” kind of primed me to take a leap of faith I’m not sure I would have taken otherwise. During this time, my son’s first birthday rolled around, and given the situation, we opted to decorate our house and throw him a “Zoom” party. This was my first introduction to balloon garlands, which I’d been seeing more and more of on Pinterest, and frankly I was blown away by how easy they were to make and how festive and vibrant they made our home feel! In a time of darkness, these simple balloons lit up our house and they really lit up my spirits too! Soon enough I had a house full of balloons and a computer full of spreadsheets proving this could be something. Based on my projections, I could replicate my take-home salary (and then some) if I did this full-time, and the ceiling of possibilities seemed high. I was so excited in the lead-up to this, since nothing I’d ever considered in the past felt right, and for the first time I’d found something that brought me joy and felt very authentic to me. I had to give it a try. So, I started my Etsy shop on a part-time basis, taking product photos with my phone and doing the legwork at night and on weekends. Soon, things started taking off, and my concept really proved itself! I now work on my business full-time from home and am living the life I always dreamed about, as cliché as that sounds. I have more time and flexibility for my family, as well as the freedom to work hard toward realizing my own dreams and no one else’s. I am incredibly grateful!
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?
Natalie Estevez Hall here; I am the owner & founder of Balloon & Bash, an online party shop focused on premium DIY balloon garland kits. I am the daughter of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, and am an LA native now living in St. Louis with my husband and 3-year-old son. I have a bachelor’s degree in Politics and a degree in Urban Planning, which makes it that much more curious how I came to own a party business! Well, like so many others, it took me quite a while to discover who I was – a journey one can argue continues throughout your lifetime. But I can definitely argue I had an unusually high number of (mis)steps along the way compared to my peers, ha-ha.
When I was young, I was ambitious and idealistic; this is what drew me to politics initially. As my journey evolved, I began expressing my ideals through the lens of urban planning, working as a transportation planner for a private consulting firm in San Francisco. But soon I realized that idealism as a profession didn’t suit me at all. I was shocked to discover how unfulfilled I felt in my chosen career; every week was a cycle of depression and personal crisis, and the most generous salary I’d ever earned up to that point became meaningless. Although I felt like an idiot for working so hard to pursue a dream that crashed and burned, the experience helped me realize some important personal truths. I realized I had a lot of work to do, but I knew that my highest purpose had to be finding and getting closer to my authentic self. And in all honesty, this was no easy feat. I felt obligated to my parents and to mainstream society to “be” someone, and really, I felt obligated to myself too. In fact, I knew little else other than to fulfill others’ expectations. So, this was new to me. But in my heart, I knew I had to redefine what success meant to ME, but it would take some time to develop a new definition then get the courage to live it. A few things were certain, though: I knew that I loved being creative; I knew that I was driven by achievement; and I knew that as someone who’s struggled with depression, pursuing and creating joy are super important to me.
Like I mentioned before, my husband and I threw a “Zoom” party for our son’s first birthday in the height of lockdown. Being my first intro I was just blown away – they were so easy and fun. My son was thrilled with his party balloons, and an idea was born.
I started playing with balloons, ordering garland kits from Etsy and Amazon, and I also started researching the industry and observing balloon artists and entrepreneurs online. What’s selling? What are the trends? Who’s buying? What are they getting out of it? Through my own experience as well as my research, I found that:
- Parties are not dead! We were in a global health crisis, yet people still sought out joy and togetherness in often new and creative ways.
- DIY is huge! Whether you’ve got a creative bent or not, making something out of nothing can be so fun and satisfying.
- Kits open up the joy of creation to a huge audience., They invite beauty and creativity into the hands of the willing, and I just loved that.
I loved the idea of making creativity accessible and contributing to the joy of celebration, so I began Balloon & Bash in earnest to serve that idea. I design and curate every color palette in my store and I use only professional-grade balloons and accessories so that my customers can count on a beautiful, high-grade finished product. It’s also important that I keep construction methods simple and prices reasonable. My balloon garland kits come with super simple, easy-to-follow instructions, and the elements of the kit are labeled to minimize confusion. These factors combined are what truly set me apart from the competition. In the end, making premium balloon décor accessible isn’t just about providing kits with premium-grade materials; it’s about empowering the customer to tap into their creativity in subtle, down-to-earth ways.
We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.
I have an Etsy store and I also sell on my website; however, I prefer my Etsy store! I started Balloon & Bash on Etsy before I ever built my website, and it’s really proven to be a fantastic tool for small businesses like mine. They have an insane amount of resources designed to help you succeed in every aspect of your business, from customer service to marketing to shipping. The platform also integrates with a ton of third-party vendors so you can sync your data from other software to the platform and vice versa. The most obvious downside to using a platform like Etsy is that they charge a lot of fees that add up quickly. But the money I spend to be on the platform gives me access to a huge audience of enthusiastic customers that would be really time-consuming and expensive to replicate on my standalone site. As a small business owner, and in life in general, you have to pick your battles. Etsy demonstrates its value to my business and to my daily sanity without fail, so I’m an absolute believer!
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
My starting capital ended up being a mix of personal savings and a personal loan, which I knew at the time was a risky choice. Before I had the idea for Balloon & Bash and before I had my son, my now-husband and I shared a rent-controlled one-bedroom apartment in central LA. Sharing that apartment is what made all the difference in our ability to save; with him being a UX designer and me a marketing manager, we were able to make serious headway on our finances. I socked away money for almost two years with the express purpose of starting a business in the future.
Once we had our family and the pandemic took hold, things started to become unbearable. Rent on a bigger place, family health insurance and daycare were sky high, as were food and gas. So we made an executive decision to leave LA for St. Louis, where my husband had family and where we felt we had a better chance of achieving our goals while we still had some fight left in us. The choice to leave LA allowed me to extend the reach of my financial “runway,” and that’s when I finally quit my day job and leapt into Balloon & Bash full-time.
Although I don’t shout my financial choices from the rooftops, I do think it’s ok to admit what your practical limitations are and take advantage of whatever resources are available, even if it means chancing it with debt. In the end, you’re betting on yourself, so be your own best advocate and take your first calculated risk – there will be more.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.balloonandbash.com
- Instagram: /balloonandbash
- Tik Tok: @balloonandbash
- Facebook: /balloonandbash
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nataliehall/
Image Credits
Maddie K Photography