Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sarah Elliott. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Sarah , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

In early 2020, I was wanting a sticker to use for our family to trade with other families when we went camping. I already had some basic design experience so I designed something for us. After getting that initial sticker made, I showed it to my husband and said these life altering words “I think I could sell these.” He agreed that we had happened on a really great quality hydroflask sticker, and the potential for me to design them and sell them was there. From there, I designed a few stickers, and posted them on facebook. My friends, snatched them up pretty quick. I figured I was on to something. I made a few more designs, and I booked some fun art/craft type markets for the coming up summer. Then everything kind of fell apart. The pandemic hit and the whole country shut down. I have to admit, the wind was taken out of my sails pretty quick. The company I had used to make the initial stickers was shutdown to only essential items, so I couldn’t even have more made. All the summer events I had counted on to start bringing in revenue were cancelled.
At that point, I had to pivot and figure out a bunch of new pieces to the business puzzle. First, I had to figure out printing of the actual product. We had to turn to online options for selling, and learn how to market, figure out shipping and so much more.
For the next year we dug in and learned all sorts of new things. We built a website, set up on Etsy, learned about wholesale, and the list goes on and on. At that point we were selling a little hear and there but it wasn’t really growing a lot. Then we (my husband, kids and I) moved to Arizona. That single move would alter our business and put us on a fast track.
Upon arriving in Arizona, I learned first and most important that their markets had opened back up (which was huge because nothing in Minnesota was open yet). Secondly, Arizona because of its weather, has a very long market season. It starts about October and runs through April.
I jumped in to market season with both feet. Any market that sounded remotely good, I signed up. I tried different set ups, made different sizes and types of stickers, took classes on marketing and just refused to give up. As the market season started and went though the year, we quickly realized we had something people really liked.
From there we began to go into local stores. Again, to our happy surprise, we had a product that was resonating with our customers. And that brings us up to present day where we are growing and expanding across the country as fast as we can keep up with.
I can’t say any of it has been easy. But if you are resilient and willing to pivot as needed and dig to learn new things, its possible. Resiliency is the key.

Sarah , 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?

I’m Sarah the artist, designer and owner of the Desert Sticker Co. I am a former teacher, turned stay at home mom of 3. This started as a simple hobby and creative outlet for me. But with the onslaught of the pandemic early on in our business, it quickly became a way for me to bring a smile to people in a difficult time. That simple desire has driven us greatly as we have built our brand.

Desert Sticker Co creates the highest quality stickers, focusing on travel, positive vibes to life up your life and focus on those epic life moments that you want to remember. We want to create that happy feeling every time some sees our products. It might be from a memory of trip to the Grand Canyon with your family or college buddies when you see our Grand Canyon sticker, or it might be from an encouraging phrase like our popular “you can do hard things” sticker on your favorite hydroflask.

We also do custom design work for other small businesses or induvial. We’ve redesigned the Fiesta Skate competition logo and medal for the Phoenix Skating Club. We’ve designed stickers for local clubs, acting guilds, churches, homeschool groups, you name it. We even take designs a person has and turn them into stickers. One of my proudest moments was being contacted by a well known Hollywood actor to take his design and turn it into a sticker to promote a project he had coming up. That was a pretty huge thrill.

We are a small company. But we are one that truly cares about each of our customers and we want them to be happy with everything they receive from us. We like to give that personal, individualized touch. We want to make sure each person, feels cared for and that their expectations are met.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

I laugh when people ask me this! And I laugh hard. Because I am sure we did not do things the “normal” way. At the time I decided to give this thing a shot, I was still teaching. I was only doing it part time, but I was doing it online early in the mornings for kids learning English. I took $500 from my earnings from that job and invested in some stock of my designs. From that point forward, we simply took the profit and reinvested. We reinvested the profits for the entire first year. I didn’t take a single pay check that entire time. While this sounds crazy now, it worked. The business grew and I was able to start paying myself consistently. Like I said in another question – resilience is the key. You have to see the goal and keep working towards it.

If you have multiple revenue streams in your business, would you mind opening up about what those streams are and how they fit together?

While I don’t have other revenue streams apart from stickers, I do have a variety of ways we generate revenue with our stickers and I think that’s worth sharing to other business owners. We started out just online because of the pandemic. I built our first website and that is where we started. At the recommendation to a friend, we added Etsy to our sales locations. From their I turned to a couple of wholesale options, and we added that stream. We continued by adding multiple markets to our streams. We do 2-3 markets a weekend, every weekend during the market season, which for us is 8 months of the year. So this is a large part of our streams. Additionally we added in store options. These are stores local to us here in the Phoenix area that we go into and personally stock. In this way we have built streams that have built our business. Its important to have multiple places that your revenue is coming in through. Never bank on just one thing.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thedesertstickercompany.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/thedesertstickercompany
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/thedesertstickercompany
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/desertstickerco

Image Credits
Credit – Sarah Elliott, The Desert Sticker Company