R2RB Podcast - Indie Artists and Women Entrepreneurs Chronicles

Sarah Charbonneau - Side of Sass Designs

June 23, 2022 Debra LaMotta
R2RB Podcast - Indie Artists and Women Entrepreneurs Chronicles
Sarah Charbonneau - Side of Sass Designs
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Show Notes Transcript

In this episode, I had the pleasure of interviewing my daughter, Sarah Charbonneau, owner of Side of Sass Designs.  Sarah discusses the early years of starting her business with beautiful crocheted items.  From there, Sarah continually kept on creating and those creations are now part of Side of Sass Designs.  Sarah has created t-shirts, pens, pendants, and key chains, but just not ordinary t-shirts, pens, pendants, and key chains, she has taken these items and has put her side of sass spin on them.  From juggling family and running a business, to working sometimes from early morning to late at night,  Sarah shares how she puts it all together to make it work.

We also enjoyed some mother and daughter moments.  Grab a cup of coffee or glass of wine, sit back and enjoy!

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Hi, I'm Debra LaMotta. And this is Woman's Entrepreneurs Spotlight. I believe that every woman entrepreneur has a story to tell. When we share our stories, we can help the next woman who's starting their own business, or even help someone who has been at it for a while. I hope that you can find your takeaway from these stories to help you in your journey of being a woman entrepreneur.

Hi, I'm Debra LaMotta. And this is women entrepreneurs' spotlight. And today I have a very special guest Sarah Charbonneau from Side of Sass Designs. Good morning, Sarah.

Good morning.

And how are you doing? Tired. How are you? Not bad, not bad at all. Well, Sarah not only happens to be a special guest today, but she also happens to be my oldest daughter, number one daughter out of three. And there's also a son in the mix. So I'm so happy to have you hear me too. All right. Well, let's get started. There are two questions that I like to ask my guests to get us warmed up. And the first one is if you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

So I know that you asked this question. And I pondered upon that. And honestly, I don't really care where I live, just not a city. And I would want it to be warm. Other than that I just something slow and country and just nice people, I don't care where it would be in the world.

Right. And you are already living in the South, you have already kind of picked a place that is like that.

What is, you know, my grandmother say? Low and slow?

Yeah, that's right, lower, slower.  So the further you go south, the lower and slower it gets, which is fine with me also. 

All right. So what advice would you give your 16-year-old self? Not that that was too long ago. Well, well, I am turning 40. So there is that? I know, it seems like just yesterday, just like yesterday, I'm not getting older.

As far as business-wise, regardless of whether you want to start your own business. But as far as wanting to what do you want to do in the world? I know, it's hard for a lot of people to follow their passion when just having to make a living. At the same time. If you have the opportunity, absolutely go out and seize that. I mean, the worst that can happen is that it goes absolutely nowhere. This was not my first venture out and with, you know, starting a business of any sort, there were a lot of times that things didn't go anywhere but just had to keep going. If you do have just a regular nine to five, even just doing a side hustle that just kind of name and a hustle. But just even like a side something to ignite the passions to give you kind of as it feels like that purpose in the world, you know, right? And not give up. I mean, you have continued to push yourself to keep recreating yourself and your business.

I started off doing, I wanted to get into T-shirts and that kept leading to other things and other things. I'm probably going to dabble back into T-shirts, I kind of saw something that sparked my interest and wanted to give it a try. That led to my first viral video. And it wasn't just a little viral. It was 16 million views viral. But that also led me down another road of including just items with resin. And I really enjoy that until recently. I still enjoy it but you know, try to figure out what's going on with my stickers.

But let me bring you back to the beginning of where you've started. What was the first item that you started producing?

Oh, goodness, I actually was on Etsy, almost right at the beginning of Etsy. I don't remember when Etsy first started out, but I did try selling crocheted items back 15 years ago. I tried doing that. Now I will say I was very new to the game of crochet. But I did think that my items were just the bomb. Looking back I realized I was a little too. But you also have to it sucks that you know I really loved the crochet. But selling those items. It was hard because sometimes you do come across something that maybe doesn't have a huge market. But now looking back and the years of experience that I do have there are other avenues that you could explore around a passion. I could have gone the route of doing YouTube tutorials. I could have gone the route of doing crochet patterns, right? There's always I feel like there's always regardless of your passion you couldn't you could be still into Pokemon cards. Exactly. What are you going to do with that? I don't know much about Pokemon cards. But you could start a YouTube channel and talk about the cards and like I'm assuming you know, the specialty card.

And that's what they say they say to take a passion. And that's what you could run with and develop from even before your crochet. What prompted you to even want to start your own business?

I think from a little girl if I'm being frank, I wanted to be in charge. I still do, like running the show. Yeah, I like being in charge.  I had corporate jobs as well. And life just kind of landed me in a stay-at-home mom position, which no job compares to that. Prior to that I actually wanted to open my own dance studio when I was younger. It was either Broadway or my own dance studio. Now that didn't go in either direction. That's fine. I always knew that there was something I want to do that was in the realm of creativity. 

And you always have had that passion. And just for my listeners,  Sarah might not think that her crocheting, in the beginning, wasn't awesome. But she started out with these designs of awesomeness. And there is one blanket in particular that she has given her grandmother top-of-the-line professional, it is absolutely gorgeous. And one day, I am going to steal that one just to let you know.

 I think that's the other thing that I can say will definitely be cliche, or people have heard it time and time and again. But a lot of those cliches, you know, thoughts or advice that you might hear, do still ring true if I didn't know how to crochet, I wanted to learn how to crochet. So I learned how to crochet on YouTube. But I was determined to learn, we can continue to learn new things no matter what. And it did turn into a passion and it got to the point that I want to learn more and more and more and more.

And you did do that. And then taking the crocheting and putting that together in a small business, then how did you get to Side of Sass Designs and your T-shirts?

Okay, so if I walked through all the ventures that I wanted to try or did try is the crochet. I put that aside, I still crochet to this day. I did do medical transcriptionist and you are pretty much an independent contractor and I didn't enjoy that. Then I moved on to wanting to explore photography didn't do much with that, and that landed me into trying Live Craft Free. And again, I enjoy writing. Because again, there's that creative aspect. I stopped doing that. And then I have an outlet which is creativity. And I came across who inspired me was a company called Hippie Runner. Now if you're not familiar with it, it is very much along the side of Side of Sass Designs, it is adult content and funny. A little abrasive. They started out actually making headbands for runners. That's what they first started out doing. Came up with a certain material that would help you with the sweat and keep you cool. They're actually located in South Carolina. they ventured out into T-shirts. 

Oh, okay.

I always go on the funny side of things. Because that's just how I like to deal with things. But it also that being funny is what bring brings me joy. I like making other people laugh. I like putting a smile on their face. I like to be a little edgy because you know, I like the fact that sometimes people do not know what's going to come out of this mouth. So true. But I have one of my friends. Her mom had a cricut and she happened to just be talking about it one day, and I did not know you could actually do t-shirts with a cricut. I had heard of the machine cricut. I never knew what you really could do with it. That was about four years ago that I was like, Ooh, we should maybe do t-shirts. Well, that never came about so I decided all right. You know what? The kids are all in school. I do have some time and I need to do something for myself. And then that's where I decided you know what? Let's try this t-shirt route. 

All right, and then how did you come up with the name side of sass?

I knew that it was going to be obviously something sassy, funny, and edgy. So for me obviously I needed to put out there alright guys this is not going to be Kumbaya. So I pretty much sat down because I built names before. Obviously sassy. That was one of the verbiages that I came up with was trying to figure out, what would go well, and then we just came across side of sass. Because I also like the fact that yeah, there's a side of me that is sassy but what I possibly may do that I haven't told anyone but maybe two people, I am going to possibly open a second store, which would be the opposite Side of Sass Designs.

Well, we all have many sides to ourselves. And why not do it? That is pretty awesome. I can't wait to see more of that one. Why don't you let everyone at this point know where they can get in contact with you? website email.

Right now my main store is on Etsy. So if you just go to Etsy search Side of Sass Designs, on almost every social media outlet, Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok. On TikTok, I am about to hit 160,000 followers. Wow, a lot of my followers are from TikTok. TikTok has proven to be probably one of the best tools to use. Yeah, Etsy, I would say would be the main go-to which is where my shop is. which there is not much up in there because I'm constantly being sold out. Yeah, I can't we, unfortunately, can't keep items up. If they're sold out.

How has your experience been working with Etsy?

Love and hate, I will be honest, there are a lot of upsides and downsides. Etsy obviously is super easy to start, I know it can look very overwhelming. But if you sit back and take one section at a time of a listing, it's super easy to just fill out. It's an amazing platform to start on to get out there. But then the downfall is, that it is an amazing platform to start off with. And there are millions of people on it. So you can sometimes get lost. So you have to play with that a little bit.

And have you ever thought about creating your own website and selling from there?

Yeah, I have thought about Shopify because  there's the other side of Etsy with the fees and, and whatnot. Because I've driven so much of my own business, it would make sense for me to move over to a platform that I would have a little bit more say in, I have thought about it, but as you know, then there's other taxes and the legal side of the business then comes into everything.

okay, well, I'll be looking. We'll be following you to see what your next move is.  Starting up with Shopify or even your own website to sell from.

What motivates you?

That's a good question. Thank you. Oh, God, who or what motivates me, I think the creativity I like I said, I started with the T-shirts, and I started dabbling in keychains. I use UV resin. And then I started making pens glitter pens. But again, because my name is Side of Sass, I decided to go ahead and try a little bit of sass I had a set of pens that also went viral. It was 5.0 million views, I think it's up to 5.6 million views. Now I just like to think outside the box,  I will literally have something come to me at like two o'clock in the morning. And I have to get up and write it down. And I like to see it comes to fruition now are all my ideas, right? And go somewhere, absolutely not. But at the same time, I do realize if you're going to be in a business, especially a crafting business, the best way to get out there is to do your own thing and not sit back, you can see where the trends are going.

 Absolutely.

 But we would never have gotten the glitter pen if someone had not sat back and said, Why don't we try glittering this pen. So it's that constant new innovation and stepping outside of the box that I think it's what motivates me. But again, then we can back it up. The basis of the reason I even started it was because for me laughter has healed me so much, it sometimes takes me outside of my head that I wanted to do that for other people. I wanted to make people laugh and realize that it's not that serious, right? Or to at least just put a smile on their face for like a second.

Absolutely. And when you're laughing and smiling and feeling good about whatever the conversation might be, I mean it releases those hormones that do make you feel better. 

What is one of the highlights of starting your own business?

Highlights? I don't know if I would have a highlight at the moment because if I'm being completely honest, it is stressful. I guess one of the highlights is a little bit of freeing and stepping out of your comfort zone giving yourself your own validation of like you can do this.

Well let me interrupt you there because I know when you put up your new pens for your weekday pens, some of the words I can't repeat, but that's okay. That's where that side of sass comes.  I know that you sell out. It has to be such a good feeling( And everybody can check them out on Etsy.) that every time you put up the post that you're going to be restocking, you sell out in a matter of minutes.

Yes, my weekday sold out this past restock, which was about two weeks ago, those sold out again, in about three minutes. I have a long waiting list. We are looking into doing a different color scheme, which I have a feeling that will sell out.

I believe they will sell out too because it's just amazing that they hit the airwaves and they're gone. 

Well, you know, what's funny is also I think people need to also realize that when they are in business, just because you put out a product and it doesn't go anywhere the first time. That doesn't mean anything. I had posted those pens to TikTok three times before they went viral.

That's right. And I've said this, I think in the last interview I did with Lauren from Terpy, Holistics, it's that day, who's on, who's watching, sometimes as you said, the spark is there one day, or it's not there the next day.

 And the minute that the third day when I hit the spark on those pens, it's been sparking ever since. 

And again, if you haven't checked out her Etsy shop, Side of Sass Designs, definitely take a look over there and then watch for the updates on where and when you can order your own set. And you have a weekend set also, is that right? 

Yeah, I added the weekend set since a lot of people that work the weekends, nurses, a lot of health care workers, first responders obviously work the weekend. So basically, the pens are funny, because they consist of Monday through Sunday. And with a little bit of sass,  with cursing,

There you go. And it's all good. Oh, my gosh. So  how do you manage your time? Do you block out time specifically during the week to do your production work? Or do you just grab it when you can? Sarah has and I have, she has three kids and I have three grandkids. And then there's a husband, there's a husband Darryl, my son-in-law. So how do you juggle your time?

I have not figured that out. Usually, when something goes viral, I am working seven days a week, that is something that I am trying to figure out. Because when you're working seven days a week, I would literally wake up at five o'clock in the morning and get going working on the pens. And obviously, as you said, I've taken the kids to school, dinner, groceries, whatever, all that is involved.  I would have to take time out to do that. But I would work on what I needed to work on whether it was shirts, or pens, from about five o'clock in the morning till about 10 o'clock at night, seven days a week. And that is wrong because I ended up burning myself out.

So going forward, have you come up with a plan of how you're going to work your time with your family and your business.

 I'm just going to do ready to ship. I don't take pre-orders anymore. And even if I were to take pre-orders, I now know how many can I get done in a week minus a few because I was obviously working way too much. And I would just work on a set of pens following week I would say hey, about to restock. And I would just restock as many pens as I had gotten done without working the entire week. Morning to night. So that's really how it is. What I've realized is everything is trial and error. You have to figure out how how long is it going to take me to do XY and Z but also scheduling in like, Okay, I'm going work from 6 am to about 5 pm. And that's it. But I've also noticed a lot of small business owners that make something tangible do work seven days a week.

Well, absolutely. And I think maybe at the beginning of a new business, you take whatever time you have to do what you need to do to get the job done. 

What's been one of the most valuable lessons that you have learned from starting your own business?

I think the most valuable lesson, what I've mentioned before is that you can't just give up because one thing doesn't work. I started out doing T-shirts, just like the rest of everyone. Right. And I tried something new. That absolutely took off. I think the other thing is, as my mom knows that when I get something in my head, I know this part, I do not stop until I've achieved such. This is true. I was determined with the pens to get it out there. Do something with them. And sometimes Yeah, I do focus on Alright, we're going take this to a viral standpoint then I do.

She does. And if you know Sarah, you just have to hold on tight and wait till the ride is over. And she gets there, making us maybe a little crazy.

But that's the whole thing is you have to sometimes, Okay, I have this product. And yet it can be difficult to compete in a market that is oversaturated. Even the pen market, I will be honest, a lot of people are joining in doing pens and resin work and stuff like that, you have to put the work in that's the bottom line, right? If you're going sit back and wait for someone else to come up with an idea, that's not going to work.

No. And I think I've said this to you before, that you can't go in starting a business thinking that you're going to make the first million dollars the next day. As you know, now it takes time, it takes dedication. It's a learning curve. It's a learning process. You keep learning from whatever didn't work prior going forward, adding to your line and coming up with something new. And kudos to you. Because you continue to do that with everything that you have created. Everything this child creates, seems to go viral. And I'm I am very proud of you and what you have accomplished to date because it's not an easy task.

It's not but it also has, it's been an awesome ride as stressful as it has been. Because I have been able to get my creative outlet in. But at the same time, I also am constantly wanting to try new things. So that doesn't really help sometimes.

Well, that's okay. And that's part of your creativity is wanting to try new things. What advice would you give to another woman entrepreneur just starting their own business?

First things first I would definitely do some research. But at a certain point, you need to give yourself that deadline of saying okay, enough is enough. I'm jumping it right because I could have waited probably another year before I hit publish on my first listing on Etsy. I did not know everything, I still know everything I'm still learning. 

It's a continual learning process from start to finish. And the same with your business. You do take the time to do your research, you've learned a lot and you set out or you start to research one thing and I know that you learn many different things from that one search. 

Yes. And I think we all do that. And so with that in mind, one of my goals with this women entrepreneurs spotlight is to create a network of women who can reach out to each other. Did you have somebody, in the beginning, to reach out to? 

Amanda. I've known Amanda since I was Oh God 20. And I happen to message her one day and she said that she was thinking about starting a business I said no way. I'm actually thinking of the same thing. I'm about to buy a cricket as we speak. So she was my go-to as far as how cricket works. I also started on TikTok on doing tutorials.  Help people at least learn how to use Cricut. Other than that one, um, another woman entrepreneur, her and her mom have an Etsy shop, the Female Connection, she really does help as far as the business side. Other than that, I've been just kind of going with it. And I've met a lot of other small businesses through social media, and it really helps to have somebody else that's in the same position as you right. 

And so with that, would you be part of a woman entrepreneur spotlight network, where I'm putting together as you know, other women who are in a business that could reach out to each other and say, Hey, have you? You know, have you had this problem? How did you overcome this? Would you be part of that? Oh, yeah. Thank you. Yes, that has been the answer so far all along. So yes, and I think that's what we all need. We need somebody to reach out to at times because I think I've said this before, we don't always like to ask for help. We always feel we should know the answer. Or that's what the other person going to think of me asking this question. So I want to make it is easier. It has become easier for people to ask for help with the internet with Facebook or whatever platform you're on. So thank you. I appreciate having you as a part of that network. I appreciate you being on this interview with me today. And why don't you tell everybody one more time where they can reach out to you?

Probably the best place to look for me is on Etsy, it's Side of Sass eDsigns and you can shoot me an email there anytime.

Okay. Well, again, I want to thank you. Is there anything else you would like to say to my listeners about owning your own business?

Just do it because I can definitely promise you that if you decide to talk yourself out of it, you will look back and regret it Because the worst thing that's going happen is it goes nowhere, but at least you will know that you tried.

Exactly. And I've been doing the same thing along with you. I call it reinventing myself. Every time I turn around, I'm doing something but it's a good thing. As you know, you keep finding new things to do. So, I am proud of you. I appreciate you. Thank you for today. Thank you to everyone who's listening. today. This is Women's Entrepreneurs Spotlight with Sarah Charbonneau from Side of Sass Designs. And thank you again.  You're welcome.

Thank you for listening to a Women Entrepreneurs Spotlight. I hope you've enjoyed this episode for updates on my next interview, follow me on Facebook at Women Entrepreneurs Spotlight. Until then, keep being awesome!