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

Renee, appreciate you joining us today. The first dollar your business earns is always special and we’d love to hear how your brand made its first dollar of revenue.

Usually when I do an interview I usually only talk about my shop (@eastandeighties) that I own with my sister Sheri and everyone always asks me why I don’t speak on my social media business more? Hey Maven! The funny thing is that I literally just came up with the name last week, I have tried many names but nothing ever fit until I came across it one day searching for something else. What does MAVEN mean??? Well it’s a noun lol and it means an expert or connoisseur. I have always loved social media because of the creative aspect of it and I especially loved Instagram because you could take photos, create shoots and think of cool ways to set up your feed and just be you!!! It was such a good way to have a creative outlet and a voice. Everyone always told me “you should do this for a side hustle to help people do their pages”, and funny enough I was in Mexico with some friends back in 2018 and my friend Annie said she needed help with her Instagram for her salon which she was about to open in Maui. I agreed and that’s how it started…. in Mexico on a beach! She helped me come up with what I should charge and what I should offer and we decided to start when we got back from our trip. And it’s just been word of mouth since!

Renee, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Originally from Michigan now based in Los Angeles with my boyfriend Ken, enjoying life! I work in entertainment doing business management full time, I own two small shops with my sister Sheri – Nashville + Scottsdale, and I have Hey Maven! With Hey Maven I help with curate instagrams – which means I post, edit photos, do reels, fix up bios and highlights. I in a sense help you market yourself in a way where people are attracted to what you offer and who you are as a business owner. I do not offer engagement but I do have a team that I refer my clients to!

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Hands down word of mouth, my love for marketing and helping small businesses.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I love to do the part of the job most people don’t enjoy – posting and creating. Also my price point is more on the reasonable side and for a small business that’s everything!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://itsmerenee.com/hey-ma%E2%80%99ven-social-media
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/renee.waniolek?r=nametag