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

Stephanie , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Almost all entrepreneurs have had to decide whether to start now or later? There are always pros and cons for waiting and so we’d love to hear what you think about your decision in retrospect. If you could go back in time, would you have started your business sooner, later or at the exact time you started?

This has been a question that has popped into my mind frequently over the years. I honestly feel that Emily’s Marvels would not be what it is now if I had started it later. A big reason for that is because of the pandemic. When it hit, it didn’t just hit the state of Florida, or even just the USA. It hit the world, hard. It was rough enough to not be able to do any in person events or conventions because that’s where, at the time, my sales were coming from. I had to come up with a new strategy and thus EmilysMarvels.com was eventually created.

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?

Emily’s Marvels was, for me, born out of necessity. I was living with my family at the time and my father had gotten sick. I needed a quick way to make money. Being a sales person is what I know how to do and pop culture was always my passion. I have a mentor who guided me through my first couple years of the process. He advised me on some do’s and don’ts, reminded me to keep my morality, and how to go about keeping an eye on current trends. I started out with all sorts of new licensed pop culture merchandise. Home items, clothing for adults, jewelry, ect on EBAY. Now I travel all over Central Florida to events, conventions, and have my own website EmilysMarvels.com where I still sell licensed pop culture merchandise. I started with just myself, to now it being a family business. I proudly hold onto my morality and don’t nickel and dime people. EM is for big kids at heart.

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

Contrary to popular belief, Emily’s Marvels does NOT manufacture anything we have available for sale. All of our inventory is officially licensed to that specific brand.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I’ll be the first to admit it. Building a social media following is very difficult and time consuming. Needing to find the time, continuously post, and planning content is a lot. That is most definitely a challenge for me because I run by business from home while raising a family. I try my best to make time daily to post on Facebook and am always posting content of events I am going to or are at on our TikTok. The Emily’s Marvels fb currently has 336 likes and 375 followers. 228 followers on TikTok, and 748 on Instagram.

Contact Info:

• Website: EmilysMarvels.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/emilysmarvels
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/EmilysMarvelsShop
• Other: TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@emilysmarvels