204: Gingiber – The Art of Business Becomes The Business of Art
Welcome back everyone! This week, Caleb Talley, Jeff Amerine, and Matthew Ward talk with Stacie Bloomfield, founder and artist of Gingiber. Gingiber is a creative company that aims to encourage and inspire others to live their fullest lives through workshops, products, and other areas. In this episode, some of the insightful information you will get to hear about include: Gingiber’s pivot during COVID-19, the process behind creating a timeless product, and the management of quality behind a product. Listen in on this great episode!
Shownotes
(1:39) Stacie introduces her company Gingiber
(4:32) When the hobby turned into a business
(6:47) Gingiber’s transformation during the COVID pandemic
(15:06) Who the Gingiber team is comprised of
(16:42) Stacie’s artistic style
(20:12) Goals for Gingiber’s future
(26:00) The story behind the name Gingiber
(28:16) Stacie gives advice to her younger self
(29:46) Wrapping up
Links
Quotes
“You know, I wish that when I was just a creative with a dream, that I had someone to walk me through everything from building a portfolio, to online marketing, to how to actually find partnerships with great licensing agents and manufacturers. And so I created the course I wish that I’d had 11 years ago.” (2:49)
“There’s this, you know, starving artist mentality that it’s impossible to make money, but I think if you’re strategic, there’s a lot of different ways to create revenue. So one of the things I talk about is leverage your art across all these different revenue streams” (21:43)
The Art of Business Becomes The Business of Art
Founder, Stacie Bloomfield
Startup Junkies got the chance to check in with Stacie Bloomfield, founder, illustrator, and creative director of Gingiber.
Gingiber is a creative company that strives to encourage others and inspire people to live their fullest and most creative life. Stacie accomplishes this goal through the art she produces, as well as workshops and a new online training program.
The company got its start 11 years ago when Stacie was decorating the nursery for her first child. She struggled to find art and decorations for the room, so the former graphic design and fine arts student decided that she would take matters into her own hands. She quickly found an audience online through Etsy’s website, and she soon realized she could widen her target audience to include people who did not have children by expanding her product offerings.
Stacie experienced a surge of online sales when a prominent decorating blog unexpectedly featured her work. It was then that she realized that she could turn her hobby into a profitable business. Two years later, Etsy reached out to Stacie about doing a feature interview on their website for Black Friday. This exciting news came with a warning that most people who have been featured on Etsy experience a significant influx in business. When the feature went live, Stacie sold more product in one week than she had in the previous three years. Thus began Gingiber as a full-time project for Stacie.
As with many other businesses across the world, the COVID-19 pandemic brought a storm of troublesome news to Gingiber. After returning from the notable trade show New York Now, Gingiber’s best trade show to date, they got word that many of their retailers were shutting down. They lost every purchase order they had written at the trade show, and the substantial investment they had made to get there was now lost. With this, Stacie knew that something needed to be done.
The first point of action was taking her workshops, which are typically in-person instruction classes centered around embroidery and watercolor, and film them to post online. She also repurposed a large greeting card order that had been canceled, into a pen pal program.
The most significant change Gingiber made was creating an eight week, in-depth training program called “Leverage You Art Into a Creative Career.” She launched the program a few weeks ago and has already had 500 students sign up for the course. Stacie’s targeted audience is “a creative who is ready to take a chance and ready to go after their creative career, but just needed someone to really show them the way.”
Amidst her company’s recent growth, Stacie said she would encourage her younger self to remember that “the path you’re going to follow doesn’t exist yet. You are going to carve out your own creative, successful path, so just keep going.”
Are you a creative who is looking to take the next step in your career?
Click here for more information on joining Stacie’s course Leverage Your Art.
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