We recently connected with Victoria Hegert and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Victoria , thanks for joining us today. Let’s kick things off with a hypothetical question – if it were up to you, what would you change about the school or education system to better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career?
I worked as a fourth grade teacher for three years post graduation from college, before I began Law School. In my time as a teacher I worked with students from the most underserved neighborhoods in Orlando. A number of my students were homeless and resources for students and their families were present, but there was not enough to meet the need.
Something I took for granted as a fourth grade student was that I showed up to school with food in my stomach and after resting in a place I felt safe. I did not have to fight with the ache of an empty stomach, or fight my heavy eyelids to remain open in an attempt to focus on what the academic lesson required of me. My basic needs were met allowing me to zealously explore and learn with minimal issue. I think that something that the educational system could improve upon is remembering and prioritizing the needs of students as people before hammering lesson objectives and standardized data. Ensuring that students have their needs met should be just as important to the educational system as teaching math, reading and science. An increase of social emotional centered learning would help students soak up as much as possible from their classes and hopefully carry that education forward into their lives and eventual careers.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I graduated from the University of Florida and took a position working as a Corp Member with the nonprofit Teach for America. I worked as a fourth grade teacher for three years and then transitioned to being a Law Student.
In the summer between starting Law school and finishing my time as a teacher I started a Hat company, Hat’Achik Inc. While traveling to Ecuador I found these beautiful handcrafted Hat’s made by native artisans. All of the materials were sustainably sourced from the mountains and the quality was very impressive, unsurprisingly since this is a craft that had been perfected for generations.
I love the confidence a good accessory can give and am passionate about sustainable clothing and businesses. So we created two collections of hats a bold collection and a neutral collection. I began building a website, brand, social media presence, and organizing and executing photoshoots and branding materials. The launch of our collections was very successful and after just a few months we had sold out! Currently, I am a law student and am finding that to be a black hole for my time. Although Law school is my main focus as this time I am still working on organizing the next collection launch. I hope to continue to grow and learn as an entrepenuer after I complete Law school.
We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.
As I mentioned, I decided to start my small business between a major career transition. I had about three months to work on it full time since I had finished teaching in May and my law school classes did not begin until August. During this time I was consumed with getting the brand and website concrete. The plan was to launch once we got 1,000 instagram followers and while getting there was difficult it was a huge milestone for the business. Other notable milestones were Launch Day, and seeing that first order come in, that was so exciting!
How did you build your audience on social media?
I knew that building excitement was CRUCIAL for our success on Launch Day. I figured if 1,000 people had hit the follow button on instagram that meant at least 1,000 people knew we existed and maybe some of those followers would see our posts and anticipate our launch day. To build that following I found three things to be important. The first was the quality of the content I was posting, the better the images the larger the audience. The second thing was finding a community of hat lovers on Instagram and building relationships with them. The last was patience and consistently posting, it takes time to build a following and setting small goals was helpful to stay positive on the journey to 1,000. Once we had 1,000 followers we announced a launch day and then the website went live to take orders on that day.
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Victoria Hegert