Katia From KOGDI

Squeaky: Firstly, tell me about yourself and your business! 🙂

Katia: My name is Katia. I love bright colors, nature, animals, and derpy creations!

I have been creating, crafting, etc. since I was a little kid. As I got older, I really wanted to find a way to share my creations with others and make life a bit happier.

My mission with KOGDI is to bring a bit of brightness and support to how hard life can feel, by sharing my handmade crafts, squishy support plushies, and fun artwork. I am so incredibly grateful for all of the support from friends, family, and customers that find my work! The best part of every interaction is watching others smile or fall in love with the creations I make.

Squeaky: What did you first start making out of all your products? What is your favorite product to make?

Katia: When I was around 4 to 5 years old, my parents bought me Play-Doh and I started creating mini food items. To this day, my favorite things to create are miniature clay food and creatures! However, I do need a lot of variety in materials to keep my brain motivated and inspired!

Squeaky: What inspires your creations?

Katia: A little bit of everything! Sometimes when I am feeling down or stressed, ideas of cute or funny characters come to mind to help me cope with those emotions and I try to doodle them or write them down for future creations. Then, when I am having happy moments, I usually get inundated with little puns or jokes, or ideas that I also want to make! Food and drinks also inspire me, and most importantly, sharing moments and ideas with other creatives!

Squeaky: What is your production process for each product?

Katia: I typically try to draw a quick version of what is in my head onto paper so that I can better visualize if it would look good in real life, or if it just looks good in my head. Once I do that, I try to figure out the best way to create it and what material it would be most effective in. Would it be a great sticker, print, sculpture, crochet plush, etc. After that, the fun begins! I gather my materials and supplies and begin to make prototypes until I find the perfect representation of the idea, and sometimes create multiple!

Squeaky: How do you balance doing multiple creations/types of products?

Katia: Honestly, this is probably the trickiest part of running a small business and doing different vendor events. It is hard to balance between what you feel like making, or are enjoying most at a given time, with what your customers want to buy. I try to keep at least a little of each main category of crafts that I make, but sometimes I go a little wild and binge making plushies or clay jewelry to the point of filling my entire table for a show with mostly one type of craft.

Squeaky:  Is there any type of product you want to branch out to?

Katia: I am currently branching out more into stationary items and am SO EXCITED!! I am a huge stationary, planner, and bullet journal nerd and I love the idea of creating my own designs to share with others! There are just endless possibilities and ideas for fun themes, characters, color schemes, etc! I also hope that stationary helps to bridge the gap between my art and crafts ideas so I don’t only get to share 3d creations moving forward.

Squeaky: What do you recommend is the best way to build a community for your products?

Katia: I think social media is a very useful tool, but honestly it is very inundated with so many creators that it can feel a bit discouraging at first when you don’t get much engagement or have trouble finding your community (at least it was for me). The best way I have found new friendships, created fun memories, and built a community has been through in-person events. I know it can be hard to start, but even just attending and starting to talk to or connect with the vendors you liked via the show or social media is a great start! If you do want to move toward vending yourself, you don’t have to do anything expensive or fancy. I started out with just saving money up slowly from my full-time job until I could afford a small artist table at an event. I took my creations, some display items my dad and I built at home, and some baskets from the dollar store. It was such a small display, but it filled my heart and soul so much! I absolutely recommend finding a way to share your creations in person at least once!

Squeaky: How do you balance making enough products for your store and for shows?

Katia: This is an ever evolving challenge for me. Because I am a sole creator, many of my arts and crafts take me hours to days to start and finish. While I truly enjoy these processes, it becomes very tricky, and sometimes overwhelming, to create enough items for a show and an online shop or consignment spaces. It is such a wonderful problem, and privilege, that so many people have loved my creations and supported my work, but I am still trying to figure out how to find a good balance of maintaining the handmade aspect of my business while having enough stock to give everyone a chance to buy a buddy or a piece of artwork.

Squeaky: How do you balance on honing multiple types of skills?

Katia: I have learned that the most important part of growing and learning new skills, or improving existing ones is a mixture of consistency and patience. My crochet is the best example of this and if you have met me at shows you’ve probably heard me talk about this. When I first tried crochet, I read books and watched so many tutorials but it just wasn’t fun. I enjoyed it at first but then became so frustrated with myself when my creations did not look as good as the patterns. I just figured that crochet wasn’t for me and gave up. I did not touch any of my yarn for about a year. And then, for some reason, my brain decided that I wanted to try again. This time focusing less on what the outcome was, and more on just enjoying that I was learning something new. While the creations still weren’t quite what I wanted, I had so much more fun and couldn’t wait to try another tutorial the next day, and another, and so on. After about another 6-8 months of crocheting every day, I decided to put some of my creations on my vendor table. And everyone loved them! This gave me even more motivation and gave me the confidence to start experimenting with my own patterns and creatures (something that I already loved doing in polymer clay and art). My point is, it is perfectly okay to be bad at something and to get frustrated, but please be gentle with yourself, take breaks, and come back to it later if you really enjoy and want to learn. Everyone you look up to started somewhere very different than they are now. Practice makes everything better.  And remember to have fun!

Squeaky: What in your opinion is the most efficient way to hone multiple skill sets at the same time?

Katia: This is hard to do, but not impossible by any means. In my own journey, I have found that spreading yourself out too thin or stressing out about time spent on each skill is very dangerous for growth. I know it may sound counterintuitive, but slow down. Pick one or two specific pieces within a skill that you want to improve and focus on those for 2-3 days. Then take a break from those, and come back after another 1-2 days. Let your brain process what you studied, watched, and read about during the “work” days and then put your brain to the test by coming back and trying to recreate and expand on the skills after the break. After that, step back and assess how you feel. If you are excited and see progress, move to the next piece and so on. If you don’t feel like you have made much progress, try to go back to the research and development phase, look up different videos or books and try again. Now, if you try again a couple times and start getting burned out or frustrated, that’s okay, just take a break and move to a different project or skill. Something fun and comforting to get your energy back up and refill your creative cup. It is very hard to healthily learn within negative or stressful environments so try to take care of yourself and create a safe place to learn.

Squeaky: How long does it take to make each product type on average?

Katia: This varies greatly between the different mediums and product types that I create. Going from idea, to initial brain dump, prototyping, refining, creating, refining again/simplifying, and then final production can often take me weeks to months. I also struggle a lot of the time with procrastinating between the idea and prototyping phases as I am often worried I will not be able to convey and create what was in my mind into a real world object. How can I convey the funny, derpy, silly story of the character with only clay, yarn, or paints? I think the story telling/ character building part is really what takes the longest, then of course, figuring out how to work with the materials.

Squeaky: What have you found is the best marketing tool and tactic?

Katia: Word of mouth! I cannot convey how incredibly amazing it is to have people see your work, enjoy it, and then go out and tell their friends and family about it. To have people who really connect with you and your creations and build that relationship, I promise it will pay back tenfold. And remember that you aren’t always looking for a sale, a new connection can lead to ideas, networking, consignment, partnerships, etc. Conversion rates are so hard to raise sometimes by yourself, but imagine you build a community that helps you not only by buying your work, but sharing it with others who they know will buy it too!

Squeaky: Do you use any project management? If so, which ones?

Katia: I am very old school and tactile in this aspect. I don’t really use any project management programs or apps, but I do use a mixture of Excel and traditional planners and journals to help me create timelines, goals, inventory trackers, etc. I am currently working to improve my time management and project management skills as my business grows.

Squeaky: What advice comes to mind for people who want to become full time creators?

Katia: Just start. I know everyone kind of gives the same advice, but that’s because it’s true! I am a huge planner, but this can sometimes turn into procrastination or excuses. I think my biggest advice is to take a chance, take the risk, do it once and go from there. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it doesn’t have to be pretty, you just have to try. I have been so scared to do so many events, so many things in my business, but after I do them, I never regret it because I always learn something and have a ton of fun. Go into everything with a positive attitude and the expectation to learn!

Squeaky: Is there anything you wish you knew before starting your journey to becoming a full time creator?

Katia: I wish I knew how much support there is within the small business and vendor communities. I was so scared and I tried to figure everything out on my own while feeling so unprepared. This was only to find that as I met other vendors we truly connected about how none of us really knew what we were doing, we were just sharing experiences and trying to research and learn as we go. Try to find “your people,” those who are like minded- driven- and positive and grow together! It will open up so many more doors for you as a creator and will get you on the path to becoming full time. Also, don’t be afraid of failure to the point where it ever stops you from doing something. Be willing to fail, it’s just free data of what to do or not do next time! And most importantly, don’t give up! There will be amazing days and there will be very discouraging days, but the real secret is just persistence and motivation to keep moving forward whether that’s on your own or with a group of supporters! Remember that there are so many people in the world and you just have to find a way and the time to find the ones who love and connect with what you do.