We recently connected with Taylar Klouda and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Taylar, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
Back in 2019, I was a part time college professor who had recently scaled back at work in order to spend more time with her kids. I had a baby and a toddler and was just trying keep my head afloat teaching theatre design 2 nights a week at a nearby college. My husband and I were always coming up with new business ideas and the idea for The Bows and the Bees was just a “perfect storm” in terms of timing, geographical location where we were living and time in my life. What had happened is kind of a funny story actually. I was living in a suburb of Chicago and it had just ice stormed. My sister was in town for a visit and we were coming home from the store. She was helping get my kids out of the car when my daughter yelled “oh no, mommy!” My sister turned to see me laying in the snow at the end of my driveway, I had slipped on the ice, twisted my ankle, sprained my elbow and both wrists and had a concussion. The doctor told me that with a concussion, you cannot watch tv, go on your phone, read or do any other “focusing” tasks for a week and I just had to rest. So, one night, when we would normally unwind while watching TV, my husband and I were talking about business ideas and he said “hey, you should sell bows.” I thought he was a bit nuts because I thought no one would buy hair bows. But he persisted.
My daughter was 3 at the time and although she loved bows, I had never thought of it as a business idea. So I decided to run a beta test, if you will, in the local moms group to see if bows would sell. I started with about $30 of an investment and put them up online and they sold in seconds. So, I took that $60 from the sale of those bows and invested it all back in to the beta test, and again, within minutes I had sold them all. So I did it again.
At this point, it felt like I had something, so I began to figure out how I could scale this into a real business. I had landed on the idea that there should be a bow shop for girls who were a bit “different” for lack of a better word, than other girls. My daughter was really into dinosaurs and it was impossible at the time to find anything with dinosaurs on it for girls. And so I got to work.
I started the business with one style of bow. It was a small ribbon bow that could be easily done with lots of different prints, plus it was a classic style that could work for any age. I called it the pinwheel and I began to sell it for sets of 4 for $5. The key to these bows was they were durable- you could wash them, step on them, run them through the dryer and they would stay looking new! I think affordability and durability is what really helped move the business forward. I started by selling on a local mom’s group, but as soon as I realized that those were selling well, I felt that I had the proof of concept and I could move forward with making this into a real business.
It wasn’t long before I saw a very huge demand for more common prints like rainbows and unicorns and kittens, so I expanded the concept to include bows for all girls and so the business was born. It has since gone through so many different levels of evolving over the last four years in business, but the concept remains the same- hair bows that are durable, affordable and unique for all!
Taylar, 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?
Although I am a born entrepreneur (my parents always used to say “if you don’t nail that down, Taylar is going to sell it!”), I actually started my career in design for the theatre. I went to school for costume design and technology and got my master’s degree at University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. I’ve worked on costumes for everything from Broadway to commercials to a major motion picture. I’ve worked in different settings from small underground theatres to costuming big name actors, but I really found a passion in teaching during grad school. I taught sewing, painting, dyeing and more in the costume shop during my time earning my Master’s and I loved it, so it was not long after I completed my degree that I began teaching. Plus, once I became a parent, I left professional theatre completely to focus more on family and higher education. So, making bows is cake compared to what my background was in building intricate costumes for stage, and this was an easy transition for me, plus I believe that my abilities sets me apart from so many other shops out there.
My dad was an entrepreneur and he spent his entire life building multiple businesses in the construction industry while supporting his family. I think it is in my blood a bit! I always knew I wanted to build my own business and brand one day and I feel so privileged to have had such great customers who have supported my journey!
In fact, I can tell you the moment that I knew I would be making this my full time job. I had a virtual event selling bows and headbands and it was my very first real big event/sale. It went so well. So many people logged online to support me, shop and offer kind words and that night I stood in my kitchen surrounded by orders and I cried. I felt so thankful at all the support from complete strangers who came out to support me and my new brand! It was overwhelming. And I will tell you what, so many of those customers still are loyal to me, many of them are now close friends and one of them is actually employed with us!
Honestly, there’s a million hair bow shops. But what I felt was that most of them were lacking a few key elements- variety, quality and ease of shopping. I wanted to be sure that I had a ton of inventory always ready to ship and with quality you could trust. Almost all my shoppers are moms and let’s be real here… we are usually on a budget, we want our kids to be cute, but also don’t want to have to plan out outfits months in advance which is usually the case with bow shops who have very long turn around times and operate on pre-orders only. I knew I needed to tap into that instant gratification of ordering and then getting your items a few days later that were used to in our modern society. I also knew that I needed to have great customer service because none of us mamas want to be tracking down orders either! And I noticed that a recurring theme in the small shop world was long turn around times and then moms being unable to track down orders due to slow or non existent customer service. So I knew I needed to be different.
I also knew I was going to need help if I was going to have a constantly rotating selection of bows available at all times. I had never seen another bow shop with multiple makers involved so I began finding other makers who would build items for me. Pretty quickly, I had a team of moms (and one dad) who would make custom items for my shop and always keep my selection current and expansive! It was not long before I became a one stop shop! It feels really amazing to also be able to provide a little extra income to other mamas out there who are just looking for a little income they can make on their own schedules in their free time. Although I have expanded a lot in the last year to have some items manufactured professionally for us, particularly to supplement our wholesale endeavors, all the same parents that started with me making products still work with us! It is funny, but although I used to be the main maker at the business, now I have a skilled team behind me doing most of the making and I have moved into the role of manager. I still make some of the product myself, and I still have my hands on every single thing that goes out the door.
My youngest still is home with my everyday and I still work full time with him between my feet, and although I think that is often my biggest challenge, I also feel very lucky to have been able to be with him every day and still working a job I am so passionate about. It’s exhausting and hectic and so much work. And it is stressful and chaotic at times. But I love that I can always be there for my kids when they’re sick, or can jump out to their school to volunteer. I love taking my youngest to the park and I don’t have a boss to answer to in order to enjoy these important and fleeting moments with the kids. It is a sacrifice, but it is worth every second.
I think the biggest pivot in my business was moving my business off private client/social media and transitioning to a website. I started the business on Facebook and it took off so quickly, that I never developed an e-commerce website. I had already been in business over a year before I began to even consider a website! When I started, I would post things on FB and make albums or I would do live sales on Facebook. People would claim items they saw over several days or weeks and I would invoice them based on their order baskets, which I would have labeled and would add to as needed. The live sales in particular would do very well and I would stay up all night invoicing people from the sales. Honestly, it was exhausting and chaotic but it was working so well, so I kept doing it. Plus, I think I was just still learning what my business was and what it wanted to be and what people needed in terms of shopping. It took me a few months to build my e-commerce website and launch it, but once I did, I never went back! I still did live sales, which still accounted for a majority of my sales, but the website added a much more user friendly shopping experience and a much easier selling platform for me.
For me, word of mouth is so powerful. I rely so much on people passing the word along, since this market is incredibly competitive and highly saturated. There is so much noise, it is hard to break through it!
Other than word of mouth, Google Ads seem to be my best performing marketing that I do.
Contact Info:
- Website: Thebowsandthebees.com
- Instagram: The.bows.and.the.bees
- Facebook: The Bows and the Bees
Image Credits
Pink background photos with balloons by Free Bird Photography