We recently connected with Tesia Royer and have shared our conversation below.

Tesia, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you come up with the idea for your business?

My business was born in a time of need. Prior to this my husband was the sole provider and unfortunately lost his job. This was such a scary time for us, we sold our home, downsized our lives and moved into an apartment. During this time, I was trying to juggle all of the changes going on in our life as well as big changes happening with the dental office I was with at the time.

I’ve always been a list maker but needed something more. I decided to buy a planner that I could organize all of my thoughts and responsibilities. In 2014 there were planners of course but I didn’t want just any planner, I needed it to be cute! I was dreaming of stickers that I could use to help celebrate the mundane things as well as the exciting times in my life. Who doesn’t want a cute little trash can to mark putting out stinky ol’ trash?

At a time when I really shouldn’t have been spending money I went out and bought a Silhouette cutter and started designing my own stickers. I had no idea if it would work but with the support of my husband we took a leap of faith. I listed what I had on Etsy, and it just took off! At one point we were running over 20 silhouette machines in our little apartment. I had taken over the entire living area and bedroom with things for the business and my family from Hawai’i were even flying up to help any chance they could.

I found an office space, upgraded our equipment and 10 years later we are fulfilling tens of thousands of orders a year!

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

It’s actually quite funny because I never thought of myself as an artist. I loved to doodle in my notebooks growing up and make silly little flip animations using stick figures but that is about as far as it went. When I started my business I was looking for cute little critters and icons that I could use in my planner but nothing really fit my style and tastes.

Perhaps it was the confidence that my family instilled in me growing up, or maybe just my overwhelming amount of stubbornness, but something inside of me knew that if I tried and practiced my craft, I could make it into something that I could share with others! With no prior experience in digital art, I jumped in headfirst and with a lot of hard work and maybe a few curse words, I learned how to use Adobe Illustrator and now use it exclusively for all of my art.

We offer adorable little stickers printed in house on a matte removable vinyl. Having the ability to pick up and reposition your stickers is a game changer. Plans change, your stickers should be able to move along with those changes!

I feel like I have grown so much with the planner community and without them I wouldn’t have been able to reach the milestones that we have. We did a collaboration with Michael’s Craft Stores and were featured in over 1200 of their stores through the US and Canada. Sweet Kawaii Design is our baby. My husband and I, along with our two employees, give it our all each time we come into the office to make sure we are offering a product that will bring joy and hopefully a little peace to whomever is using them. I take care of 100% of our customer service and social media, I love feeling connected to our customers. These people are not just our customers, but my friends and overtime the relationships I have formed with them have become some of my best friendships.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

We manufacture all of our stickers in house. When we first started it was just with one silhouette cameo which if you’re not familiar with is a personal use crafting machine designed to cut stickers and other types of thin media. It worked great when we first started but we quickly outgrew them, we were using over 20 at a time at one point! I had no knowledge of this industry so that is where the internet came in. After a lot of research we landed on an option that worked for us.

While the initial startup costs for the machines were high, I knew that keeping manufacturing in house would allow me to keep costs down. We print on demand and are able to pivot quickly if a design isn’t as much of a success as I thought it would be. If we worked with manufacturers I would be sitting on inventory and that is something I did not want. Trends change so quickly and having the ability to change with them is a total game changer.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

Prior to starting Sweet Kawaii Design, I worked at a dental office and my husband was a pharmacist. While my husband was between jobs, SKD was born. I worked full time at the dental office, and for several months, I would work there during the day and moonlight as a sticker maker. It was an incredibly scary decision to let go of a job that offered stability, but I’m so glad I did! We really came in at the right time. Instagram was in what I like to call it’s, “golden era” where timelines were chronological, and my reach was completely organic. Influencers on Youtube were featuring us in their videos, and the planner community was just about to explode. It really was the perfect time for us to enter.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.sweetkawaiidesign.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sweetkawaiidesign
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sweetkawaiidesign
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/sweetkawaiidesign
• Other: Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/348457068841806