This time on No Pants Required we have a pair of successful creatives and business folks from the beautiful state of Michigan. They are the face behind Oh Hello Stationery Co. - they create beautiful and functional stickers, enamel pins, washi tape, greeting cards, mugs, and so much more!
They have carved out their own little corner of the planner world, which is growing bigger and better all the time. They were recently mentioned by a big name in the planner world *coughErinCondrencough* at PlannerCon 2017 in San Francisco at the beginning of March and in just seeing their emotional reaction you know that are extremely appreciative of what they have and who helped them get there.
Without further ado here are the sweet and funny Kayla and Alex!
NPR: Let’s start with how old both of you are?
A: I am 26 as of Feb
K: I turn 25 in June
NPR: What is the theme song for your life?
A: Oh man, one song? I listen to music all day and it changes, right now it is Bruno Mars 24k and That’s what I like. I get in such a good mood when they come on.
K: Anything by the Wheepies. I realize it’s pretty mellow, but I can listen to them forever.
NPR: How did you meet?
A: We met through a former best friend. The short story is they broke up and we ended up dating by almost accident. I was studying abroad and we just started chatting online. By them time i got home 9 months later i realized I really like this girl and I couldn’t even remember what she really looked like.
K: Honestly he found me super annoying when we first started talking!
NPR: You guys got married recently, CONGRATS! How is married life treating you?
A: LOVING IT. I still can’t believe that I conned her into it. I mean have you seen my wife, she is smart, funny, infuriating in all the right ways and not to mention adorable.
K: It’s seriously amazing. I love Alex more now than ever before.
NPR: So let’s get into the planner side of things! When was the first time you realized that what you were creating could be marketed to others?
A: That is a Kayla Question as I like to say.
K: Honestly our business started off with greeting cards and we kind of accidentally fell into doing stickers. I’ve always wanted to have a stationery shop.
NPR: What steps did you take to start making that happen?
A: Honestly Kayla started this thing and I come home one day and she’s hand cutting some stickers and putting them into little bags. It took her two hours for a $4 bag of stickers that we never sold. I knew that was crazy so I have a little bonus money I saved up and bought her a silhouette. Fast forward to the business making more money than me at my job and i hated my job so I went to keep the company alive while i looked for a better job.
K: We constantly are looking for the next way to expand and grow.
NPR: I have heard in your videos on your YouTube channel Above The Telescope that you, Alex are a business major - how has that worked in your favor through the process of getting Oh Hello Co. started?
A: To be honest, not a lick. I actually have two degrees with three focuses (entrepreneurship, business management with a focus on marketing, and finance, management) and not one of those classes prepped me for this. Here is why I am not lying - all those classes (including the entrepreneurship) all talked about handling 100+million companies. There is this gap between nothing and 100 million that never was explained or even touched upon. Our first year our taxes nearly ruined us, we just had to learn fast.
K: I totally agree with Alex. Anything I learned in college didn’t prepare me at all for this kind of work.
NPR: How many hours a day do you work on a typical day? Printing? Packaging? Creating the images? The business side of things?
A: I would say about 12 hours for me but that’s including lunch and dinner. So probably 10 hours a day. And we try to take a day a week off. The thing is that sounds like a ton but if I get sick of printing and cutting, I go design and it’s a totally different passion. For me, I am lucky that this business brings nearly all my passions into one thing.
K: There are so many aspects of Oh, Hello it never feels like we’re doing anything for long. Plus I LOVE working!
NPR: In a vlog it was mentioned that you both make all custom content from the designs to products themselves do you think that gives you a leg up in this corner of the market you are in?
A: It is both our greatest value and weakest point. We add value by making sure we are the ONLY ones who have these stickers and we are able to do things for our customers who just buys clip art never could. Like our dog and cat stickers are made from photos of our Helloigans pets, you can’t do that if you bought the art. The other side is I can only do so much, when making designs I might spend hours on something that is a flop and I can only make one a week. Where if you buy the art you can make a new kit a day. And you have a ton more variety as well, but then anyone else out there can find where you buy your art from a reverse google search and now you have nothing special. So again, double edge sword.
NPR: Do you listen to music when you are creating content? If so, what is your workflow playlist?
A: OH YEA, I go through moods. Right now i’m on this lo-fi hip hop kick (link https://soundcloud.com/xmittens) and it’s great for grinding out work. But I have to throw in different music all day to counteract my moods, so if I get tired i’m pumping Bruno Mars. Then if I need to just do work that i’m not really into I turn on girl talk on Pandora because it’s upbeat and catchy. But a few months ago it was all Simon and Garfunkle. So it bounces around.
K: I actually work in silence most of the time!
NPR: What is your go to snack and drink when you are working?
A: Coffffffeeeeeeee obvs, then water and for snackage its goldfish or nuts if we splurged that week and got some. I would say the flamin hot LIMON cheetos but they stain your hands red like Macbeth and I try not to get that all over stickers.
K: I’m weirdly obsessed with Nutty Butter bars. It’s an addiction.
NPR: What do you do to wind down after a long day of work?
A: I pour two fingers of rum and play overwatch for a few hours. I stream my playing but have literally zero followers and for good reason - I am garbage. But I play almost every day and am always willing to play with people!K: I don’t really wind down hahaha. Usually my “breaks” are working on blog posts or videos, and that’s still kind of part of my job!
NPR: Do you plan to attend Planner Con in 2018?
A: You know it! It was a blast and we are thinking of even doing a similar event in the midwest if we can figure out how to do it!
K: We want to have a booth and be even more involved than we were last year. It was so amazing.
NPR: Where are you looking to take your business over the next couple of years?
A: I think we need to expand into other products and get into retail stores. The stickers market was not here 10 years ago and that means it might not be here in 10 years. For us, we need to find other ways to stabilize ourselves. I mean one day I wouldn’t mind a child but not if we can’t feed it! But currently, I feel really good about the future, and also hope the stickers stay around for 100+ years!
K: I have my eye on craft shows. I think a lot of what we’re getting into would do really well in that market.
NPR: Any new products on the horizon we should be looking forward to?
A: Oh Mayne, so many! We are looking at socks, coasters, koozies, flip flops, clip boards, and shirts. We are even working with some local cut and sew shops to see if we can make leggings and/or placemats. The hard part is that we can get you hand-made unique placemats but we want to compete on price and quality. Having someone hand sew placemats can increase the cost a few bucks and when you can run to walmart and snag placemats that are cheaper and slightly less quality it’s scary. We are doing all this work and it might be something no one wants.
K: I’m most excited for sticker organizers. A collection of stickers all in one place at a fantastic discount. So pumped.
NPR: Any advice for someone else looking to break into a creative business such as what you do?
A: Hope I can swear. START RIGHT FUCKING NOW. I had a friend over last week that makes me look like i’m eating glue compared to how good he is at making art. He works construction and does nothing with that talent. His excuse was lack of knowledge. ARE YOU KIDDING ME! If you make art and that is what it is, ART. I don’t make clipart I make mini portraits of my life. Anyway if you make things and are scared or don’t know how, email me at ohhellostationery@gmail.com We can either help you getstarted or even help make some items with your art on it for you to sell. To be clear I am not going to do the work for you but I can help you not waste time going down the wrong roads. Sorry for the rant, huge pet peeve of mine are people who undervalue
K: Alex gets passionate about this sort of thing so I’ll keep mine short. It doesn’t happen overnight. I have that quote as my desktop image. You aren’t going to become famous and rich with just a few days work. You have to keep at it no matter what.
NPR: Is there anything else that you would like to share with our audience that I might not have mentioned previous to now?
A: Thank you for allowing us to be interviewed it was a really good
interview in my opinion. I hope anyone who spent the time to read about us got something from it. I also would like to say thank you to the many people who do support us in what we do, we have one of the most amazing group of people who call themselves Helloigans and support us. I honestly can’t think about it too hard or i start to tear up (which is the manly way of saying crying) because I live a life I don’t deserve.
K: Thank you so much for interviewing us!!
Thank you both for your time, Alex & Kayla! I’m so glad we got learn more about you and Oh Hello Stationery Co.
Please everyone go check out all of the places they give us content. Leave them some love in the comments!
Website: Oh Hello
YouTube: Above The Telescope
Blog: Microscope Beauty
Instagram: Alex
Facebook: Helloigans Group
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