We were lucky to catch up with Ysabella Bland recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Ysabella , thanks for joining us today. Do you take vacations? Why or why not?

Going on vacations never scared me until starting my business. Knowing you’re the only person that can run your business the way you want it, and that people don’t want to see anyone else running it except you. When your brand is built on your personality along with your products, it becomes difficult to just hire someone while you’re away.

Personally, I didn’t take my first non-business vacation until I had confidently built my customer base. For me, this was one year after launching. I don’t think there is ever a “right” time to take a vacation, as you will most likely never feel ready, but burn out can take you out of your craft forever which is something to take into consideration. If you continuously put off vacations and self care, you will learn to do this subconsciously and you will no longer feel enjoyment from work when it consumes your life. Once I noticed this happening to me, and that I was neglecting basic necessities like meal time or socializing, I knew I needed to take baby steps towards a vacation.

Going on a vacation doesn’t have to be grand, it can be a day trip or even just a self care day. As long as you commit to not working in any form (yes this includes social media posting) then it will be effective for your mental health and the growth of your business.

Before taking a vacation, analyze your confidence in your customer’s loyalty, your mental health, and overall how realistic it is for you to take a step back. Being an entrepreneur definitely includes delayed gratification, you will not always be able to take breaks when you want/need them, but understand that there will be no business without you! Take care of yourself as you are the only one who can pour into your business with exactly what it needs.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I started Eleven Entities when I was 18 years old, and I am now 20 years old. Initially, it was never meant to become my full time job but I am so grateful it did. I was going to college at 16 years old for psychology, but I had never explored anything other than the traditional path of school. Graduate, get a degree, graduate again, and work a 9-5 job. I became burnt out and had been for years, so I decided to just try a little side hustle. I started with just selling crystals, then diving into other items like candles, merchandise, incense, and hand made jewelry. The crystal industry became super saturated shortly after I launched, but over the last two years I think it is definitely slowing down due to economic hardships/inflation.

Something unique about my brand is that I am extremely involved as a person with it. I am constantly sharing my personal life and other content to keep customers connected to me as a person, not just my products. I create meaningful connections with all my customers, where my intention is to make my platform feel like a safe space where everyone is valued. I am most proud of how many people I have reached and how many different places/countries I have shipped to! It is so fascinating to hear how others found my social medias/why they purchase from me. Crystals have become something that brings people together. No matter what they use them for, everyone is collectively joined in a restock of mine, a live sale, or even a Gem Show in a different state. We are all there for one common love of crystals, and I think it is so beautiful to have community in a world that can feel very detached. I am extremely proud of the community of individuals I have on all my social media platforms, they contribute to my love for my brand!

If you have never shopped with me before, I am an online crystal shop and do frequent restocks via my website and instagram! Every crystal is hand picked by me, and each order is packed by me as well with love and intention. Some crystals that you’ll see on my site I have traveled over 15 hours to source in different states, and brought them all back home safely. There is so much hard work and care that goes into picking out these minerals and I would love to get them in your hands!

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Since I was 14 I had always taken social media seriously, as if I already had a large following. Having this mindset instilled in me helped me make that dream come to life. My tiktok was the first to blow up, I blew up for sharing my love for crystals, manifestation, and journaling. I hadn’t yet started my business, but after gaining 7,000 followers in a week I decided I needed to take advantage of having so many eyes on my account and I launched Eleven Entities weeks after. This is a great example of how I found my niche. I had no clue anyone would be interested in crystals like me, so I only posted for fun to see if anyone would like that content. Once I realized there was a community for it, I decided to make the move to invest into a business.

I got extremely lucky and had my business blow up within the first week of launching, bringing in hundreds of orders the first month! While it is hard to suggest how to make content because of the ever-changing algorithm, I know that posting consistently helped a ton. I posted handfuls of videos per day before one of them took off and changed my life. It is important to not stop posting once you have that traction on your account, as overwhelming as it may feel.

If you haven’t had luck going viral yet, stop making content that you think people would like. I know it sounds crazy, but the content I genuinely put no thought into went the most viral for me. Sometimes we put way too much thought into an app that was originally built on short form videos like TikTok! Most importantly, if you haven’t gone viral yet: do not stop posting!

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

I never intended selling crystals to become my full-time job, nor did I think it was possible! I think most people wonder when is the right time to put your all into your business and leave your 9-5 job. I also wondered the same thing, but I had previously quit my restaurant job before starting my business unintentionally. I think having stable income would’ve helped alleviate the stress of investing money into my craft, but at the same time it limits your mindset. If you stay with a job forever, you’ll crutch onto it and you won’t push yourself to make your business become your main income. I believe you’ll know when the right time to leave your corporation is, when it becomes too much to handle and takes away from your craft then it is negatively impacting your growth in my opinion.

Scaling it was never intentional either, I was very scared of change but I was growing so rapidly I needed to grow with it. I spent 10+ hours a day working from my bedroom. I had packing materials and inventory filling the room. I would wake up with tape and bubble wrap stuck to me, and I would just sit in the middle of my room and cry from the lack of space. It began to affect my growth so I needed to expand. I quickly invested into an office and from there was able to balance work/life. My key mile-stones of scaling were definitely hitting six figures in sales within 6 months of launching. After that, I had my first full year of sales and hit six figures again! This was when I knew that I could really make this happen and have it become a stable lifestyle.

Contact Info:

• Website: elevenentities.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/elevenentities
• Facebook: facebook.com/shopelevenentity
• Youtube: youtube.com/@ElevenEntities