We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Stephanie Peters. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Stephanie below.

Hi Stephanie, thanks for joining us today. What do you think it takes to be successful?

Before anyone can become successful, they need to define what success looks like for themselves. The noise of our culture says many things about success, from business titles to a number on a paycheck. But does that matter to you? What do you care about? For my husband and I we started with this question, “what does a successful day at work look like?” For us we have two jobs, one that pays us a paycheck and parenting our 3 young boys. So a successful work day includes taking our kids to school and picking them up, being at their practices/games and feeding all their friends that come over after school to play.

Answering this question, brought clarity around what we wanted and what we valued as a family. Then we began working our butts off to figure out what could bring us that kind of freedom. We realized quickly that success for our family meant creating more time in our day. Time was more important to us than money.

Once you define success, I believe the other two components for success are humility and learning from failure. Every successful venture we have accomplished took us asking questions and learning from others who had more knowledge in that field and learning from failure. I’d venture to say that every successful person I know took what they learned from failure and learned from it. They saw failure as an avenue for growth and put in to practice the advice of those who were ahead of them.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a wife, mom, entrepreneur and co-founder of Duncan & Stone Paper Co. that creates timeless keepsake journals that connect generations. I originally got my undergrad degree in Kinesiology and my Master’s in education but never ended up teaching. I got married and had our first child shortly after and I became a stay-at-home mom. I quickly realized I was creatively bored and had big dreams that could only be accomplished by replacing my husband’s salary. With my entrepreneurial spirit, I started testing business ideas from creating household decor in my garage that shifted into learning about investing in real estate. I am a self-starter and love taking on a project that is over my head and might seem crazy to other people. After a house flip, real estate development of several lots, becoming a landlord and moving 4 times in 2 years with young kids, I had taken a short break from real estate after my third son was born. During this time, I saw my best friend’s creativity and the struggle financially her family was facing. Sarah and I had been doing life together for 10 years and had all 3 of our kids within months of each other, so I was very aware of her strengths, talents and all the knowledge she had that she wasn’t quite confident in. We sketched our business ideas on the driveway with sidewalk chalk during play dates and we felt confident that it would work, but we had no idea how to get it started. Sarah had the creativity, and I had the grind to figure out the “how to” of all the things we didn’t know about. In October of 2019 we laid out a business plan on a cardboard box with our husbands of what we needed to do over the next year. By February of 2020 we had product live and sold our first journal. As the world shut down through covid, our business took off as people moved to online purchasing and more time of reflection at home. By January 2021 my husband quit his full-time job and now uses his knowledge to grow our brand. It has been the craziest journey and the biggest blessing to have a brand that provides for our families and brings generational connection to our customers.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I have pivoted so many times in my life. Some people see pivoting as failure, but I see it as learning more about myself and each phase taught me something that built into the next. I got my master’s degree in Education, and I had the intention of coaching volleyball and teaching health and PE in Jr High. I was married 3 months after I graduated and the first summer of our marriage we served in Zambia, Africa. We came back to the states in late August and getting into a school as a new teacher was nearly impossible. So, I pivoted into working for a local non-profit which I loved. I learned a lot about myself, our community and met Sarah, who 10 years later would become my business partner. I later pivoted to a stay-at-home mom, tried several hobbies as businesses, invested in real estate before circling back to working with Sarah again to start Duncan & Stone. Each pivot added to my resources of knowledge, confidence and financial growth that positioned us to be able to start Duncan & Stone.

How’d you meet your business partner?

In 2009, Sarah and I met while working for a local non-profit. We were both recent graduates with Master’s degrees in Education with no intention to teach, had been married for less than a year and we were both learning how to be an adult. Sarah and I were the main people in the office on most workdays, so we learned how to work together quickly. I was technically her boss, but it was more of a team effort. We realized that we balanced each other’s strengths and weakness and we also enjoyed hanging out. Sarah struggled with infertility for a year and when my husband and I got pregnant, she ended up getting pregnant a couple of months later. It would go on to be a running joke that she couldn’t get pregnant unless I went first, and without planning it we had all 3 of our kids within months of each other. So, before we became business partners, we had 2 years of work experience together and another 8 years of friendship.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.duncanandstone.com
• Instagram: @duncanandstone
• Other: Etsy: DuncanandStone Etsy Link: https://www.etsy.com/shop/DuncanandStone?ref=shop_sugg

Image Credits
Duncan & Stone Paper Co.