We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tiffany Tanasse a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Tiffany thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.
Opening a storefront at 57 years old felt like taking a huge risk. This isn’t my first career, or my first business, and I’m beyond midlife in age. But I knew in my heart of hearts I had to push go! I want to thrive in this chapter of my life. I don’t want to look in the rearview mirror and wonder what it could have been like. I’m here now. I’m in it. I’m so glad.
Not only am I a business owner, I’m a creative and a maker. I produce the goods I offer in the studio and store. I had been operating my business online the previous 4 years, but taking the leap to brick and mortar is another level of risk both financially and emotionally. I felt really vulnerable putting myself out there in the beginning. I already feel the rewards and returns in building community and relationships with in person customers. It’s very satisfying.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I opened Test Patch Studio to bring a little joy and color into our lives, yours and mine. It’s my intention to delight people with gladness, wow, and surprise. I create designs on the brighter side. It is my absolute pleasure and desire to create a positive, uplifting experience for others to explore, shop, enjoy and feel inspired.
Test Patch Studio is a fresh boutique presenting paper goods, gifts, handbags & pouches, throw pillows, home goods and more. All feature original designs, and playful style. I’m proud that they are all hand made right in the studio. Everything is one of a kind, or limited editions, which drives us to continually engage in new creative art projects.
We design items for the home that elevate spaces. We breathe life into your homes. Creating attractive homes and spaces brings joy and invites gathering friends and connecting over a meal.
At Test Patch Studio we believe in living with art and color, giving fresh flowers and handwritten notes. That’s why we design greeting cards to share, and connect with one another. Paper should come alive with texture and color. Wrapping paper adds the final wowza on any gift.
I often get the question, “What is a Test Patch?”
A Test Patch is a scrap of canvas or paper testing a color palette. Cut up, they become beautiful pieces of art on their own. In the case of our family tradition, we often paste a “test patch” onto card stock and use it as a birthday card or handwritten note. This act inspired the name, Test Patch Studio.
I grew up with artistic inspiration at the heart of our home. A prolific and extraordinary artist, my mom, filled the walls of our childhood home with large, colorful abstract paintings. My dad worked with wood. He always had a vision for any piece of lumber, or rustic scrap transforming it into a perfectly proportioned object of utility and beauty. I was dragged into museums as a mid century kid growing up in the seventies in the San Francisco Bay Area. The art found its way into my bones.
And now, I want to share the art and share the beauty. Test Patch Studio emerged in my mid life. As one woman standing in wonder of creative peoples, generations behind me, and right here in front of me. I feel compelled. I can’t wait! Share the art! Share the color! Share the beauty!
Most of the artwork incorporated into designs are new works created at Test Patch Studio, while some are from family archives and reinterpreted. It’s these creative acts that drive us.
Most recently I opened a studio storefront in the Tumater Craft District, in Tumwater, Washington– light and airy, the perfect place for an artisan to make and showcase their work. I invite you to come have a look and feel.
Enjoy!
Any fun sales or marketing stories?
The odds were stacked against me. My VERY favorite marketing story / lessons learned happened back in 1999 when I owned my first business. I invented and manufactured a plush kid toy called “The Daddle”. It was a saddle for parents to wear and kids to ride. Like playing “horsey.” The parents strapped on the Daddle like a back pack, got down on all fours and the kid jumped on the plush saddle and took a ride. It had stirrups and a horn strap to grab onto. It was super cute. At the time, I was a stay at home mom making Daddles out of my home garage. The odds were not in my favor marketing this beyond my playgroup friends and local markets. But I was enthusiastic and determined to find a way to get this off the ground.
It was the wee beginning of eCommerce and most people were afraid to purchase online with a credit card. Amazon.com was very new and had just come up with a section on their site called zShops where merchants and mom and pop shops could sell their wares. So I posted my product on zShops and also drop shipped them for a large Equine mail order catalog called Valley Vet Supply. I kept sewing them up in my garage. I shipped fast– the second I received an order and included a handwritten note in each box, delighted to get a sale. Little by little I gained some traction– selling one daddle at a time.
One night I got a call from my brother in law who screamed through the phone “The Daddle got on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno!” I thought he was joking with me, but was not… I ran to the computer to find A LOT of orders! Jeff Bezos was Time Magazine’s Man of the Year in 1999 and was a guest on the Tonight Show along with Martin Sheen. He brought the Daddle along with two other products, Gus Guts (a plush educational toy) and a giant wrench to the show to promote his zShops.
Needless to say, I could no longer make Daddles in my garage fast enough. I had to find a way to get my product manufactured. Amazon.com marketing department called and told me to gear up for sales, because they were using the Daddle as the poster child to promote zShops. I was living in the SF Bay area at the time. With much persistence, and leveraging what little we had financially, I successfully found a way to have the Daddle manufactured locally. And we geared up.
Shortly thereafter, the .com bubble burst in early 2000 and all of the tech companies took big hits including Amazon.com and many didn’t make it. Amazon.com laid off 30% of their workforce, and we never heard from them again.
Lots of lessons learned: First, cool and super fun marketing to find your product on the Tonight Show. Next, great lessons learned in reacting to level up manufacturing and the business. Met wonderful people and lifelong friends and contacts. Learned to pivot and diversify the business to survive. Learned not to count on “a flash in the pan” marketing to carry us through. This was 24 years ago and three businesses ago. The lessons learned were a priceless bank of experiences. I wouldn’t change a thing.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
I am distilling from all the lessons I have had to unlearn into these three ideas which have become the model of how I have learned to live my best life and business. At first they may sound trivial or trite but I’m deadly serious. Whenever I bump up against anything in business or life that needs attention, I go back to these three things.
Let your light shine.
To me this means being your true authentic self, doing what you love no matter what. Being who you are no matter what. Doing what you do the way you do it no matter what. Just let your own light shine.
Be your best.
Am I being my best? If I’m really giving it my best, I’m good.
Don’t shrink for anyone (including yourself)
Don’t shrink for all the voices internal and external who say you can’t. Don’t shrink for anyone. Let your light shine.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.testpatchstudio.com
- Instagram: @testpatchstudio
- Other: [email protected]
Image Credits
Alice Malia Photography