We were lucky to catch up with Sunset Cement Concrete Artist recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Sunset Cement thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s jump right into the heart of things. Outsiders often think businesses or industries have much larger profit margins than they actually do – the reason is that outsiders are often unaware of the biggest challenges to profitability in various industries – what’s the biggest challenge to profitability in your industry?

Being a business, one may assume that we can purchase our supplies at wholesale, cost or discount pricing but being a small business this sometimes is not the case. Managing cost is a skill we have to learn along the way. For a long time, as a business owner, we feel excited that we are breaking even or just having fun and enjowhat we do. To keep the business alive, we had to manage what we make with how we want spend this money. Some of cost we often forget about are packaging and shipping. Especially during covid times, a big part of the business was online.

Sunset Cement , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Sunset Cement was born at the start of covid. My name is Yien the founder and creator. I had always wanted to play with concrete. It’s a dirty craft if you didn’t know. Finally during covid, I had a new living environment that gave me this new opportunity. Everything was closed and basically only your hardware store and your grocery store was open.

I started with making planters with your basic yogurt container and Tupperware.
This was super addicting and alot of fun.

Soon enough, I had to think about how I’m going to be able to keep this fun craft going, hence I started selling my creations online.

Besides managing cost, marketing your own work is one of the hardest thing that I had to learn very fast. There is no easy answer and no one can really teach you this. Social media, prints, parkaging, local markets are just a few things I had to do to build the business. I am forever grateful for my family and friends with their endless support.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

I started in the concrete art venture during the COVID pandemic. It was a weird time to start a business since everything was online.
I feel that it was a bit hard to showcase my products without your customer touching and getting a good feel of the product.
I quietly sold my work online with a little traction. But when the world, mid-pandemic, started to open up again and art markets were allowed, that was when I started to see how impactful when my customers were able to hold my work in their hand and see the colours and texture in front of them.

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

For my type of work, the best way to showcase my work are at the shows and markets. I feel that my customers get a better understanding of my work when they can hold and see the colours and textures in person.
Photography is new to me and I am learning how to take better pictures to show my work but in someways no matter how great your photography skills may be, it can’t beat seeing something in person.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.sunsetcement.com
• Instagram: @sunsetcement
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/sunsetcement