We recently connected with Tiffany Norton and have shared our conversation below.
Tiffany, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?
Owning a business definitely makes me happy! I am very lucky to have found a way to monetize my hobbies, in a way that allows me to continue to find them enjoyable. I have always enjoyed making all manner of things and found it very rewarding for people to want to pay cash money for my creations. I had a “regular job” for 24 years – I was a science teacher, and my business was my side hustle. As much as I always enjoyed it, a point came where doing both was just too much, and running a business and managing employees became a stressor on top of the work of teaching. As a side gig, I sometimes felt like I was drinking from a firehose. My business was growing faster than I could do a good job of keeping up. So, this year I made the leap to making my side gig my full time hustle. Now that I’m just focusing on the business, I have a huge sense of relief, and my stress is much-reduced. I am very much in control of how I spend my time, and where I put my energy. I see direct pay-offs for my hard work. Every day is fun, whether I’m producing product, interacting with my customers, or building community in my neighborhood. There’s much more time for creativity and developing new products. I have time now for critical aspects of business ownership that never made it onto my plate, and it feels much more manageable. Making my business my full time career has made it possible to give it all of my attention, which feels much more measured and under control – which makes it even more fun!
Tiffany, 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?
Juniperseed Mercantile began as somewhat of an entrepreneurial accident: as a chemistry nerd, science teacher, and young mother, I was frustrated by the high premium environmentally conscious consumers like myself were often paying for everyday essentials branded as “natural”. With my science background and family tradition of crafting homemade and sustainable every day basics, I started making my own lotions, soaps, cloth diapers, cleaning products, and other products to keep things affordable and earth-friendly. My mom and grandmother (Oma) taught me to look for what was already available to work with before buying something new. My Oma made her own cleaning products, first aid remedies, clothing, bath and beauty items… She was an inspiration – full of herbal wisdom and folk medicine, and made of grit and girl power. I always just wanted to be like her, so I made as much as I could by hand.
After a few years selling my wares from a picnic basket kept under my desk at school, I teamed up with my mom, Joan, and together we created an ever-growing catalog. From decadent skin treats to simple and effective cleaning solutions to reusable alternatives to everyday disposables, we continued the tradition of thrift and gentle, earth-friendly living passed down from my Oma.
At the beginning of 2018,I decided it was time to expand the business and hired on the essential staff to build the next phase of Juniperseed Mercantile: a brick and mortar store with a visible workshop and kitchen where all our products are still made by hand, and where community forms around shared commitments to DIY making, education, and earth-friendly living. Though my mom and Oma are no longer with us, their legacy touches every part of Juniperseed Mercantile and inspires a new crew of makers, crafters, and would-be entrepreneurs. We’ve all come to the same place of valuing thrift, wisdom traditions, and simplicity for the sake of the planet and of reviving an older, sometimes slower, and more connected way of doing things.
Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?
My most popular product caused a very close call. Buzzfeed featured my Johnny Drops toilet bowl cleaner in an article that went very viral, very fast. I had 250 orders on my Etsy shop almost overnight, and the orders kept coming in. I was making Johnny Drops all day and night and shipping 50 orders a day. Unfortunately, Etsy’s algorithms cause your store to be closed down when you have too many outstanding orders, because it looks like your store is abandoned or something. So I had to ship all of my orders before I could reopen my shop and bring in any more revenue. It was super frustrating. I learned some important lessons from this experience though! I’ve learned to always have more than one way to bring in revenue, and be the sole person in charge of whether it is open or not. And I purchased a very expensive machine that makes 36 Johnny Drops at a time, instead of just one. I am sometimes too much of a cheapskate for my own good. I’ve learned that I sometimes need to worker smarter, not harder. Johnny Drops continue to be my most popular item, but now I have no problem keeping up with demand.
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
I am very inspired by the “lean manufacturing” or “just-in-time manufacturing” approaches to shrinking factories in order to minimize waste. I am very proud to call myself a “micromanufacturer”, and I believe that it is more sustainable than producing on a large scale, contrary to what might seem initially intuitive. In lean manufacturing, we don’t produce (and store) speculative stock. Product is made in response to customer demand, and materials/packaging are obtained locally whenever possible. This allows me to make product in small, fresh batches, with quick turnover, and little waste. I highly recommend the book, The Lean Entrepreneur: How Visionaries Create Products, Innovate with New Ventures, and Disrupt Markets, by Cooper and Vlaskovits, for anyone who wants to learn how to apply these principles to their own businesses.
Contact Info:
- Website: juniperseedmercantile.com
- Instagram: @juniperseedmercantile
- Facebook: @juniperseedmercantile