Starting a business during a Pandemic
2020, what a year! A lot happened, but one thing we realized was that it was the right time to take a risk and believe in ourselves. And well, that's when we decided to launched this business! Let me tell you that starting a business during a pandemic had some challenges, but we wouldn’t change it.
Why did we start a business during a pandemic?
For a long time, we had been wanting to start our own business, for 3 years now to be exact. The entrepreneur bug hit us back in 2017 when things didn't feel right in regards the career path we were in. For the last three years we've been going back and forth between ideas of what we wanted this business to be about and we just couldn’t nail it down. There were too many ideas and nothing felt right. However, during those years we did a lot of research, brainstorming, and gathering ideas.
2020 was a rough year in so many ways and jobs were lost so when all of a sudden we had all the time in the world stuck at home, it just felt right starting a business during a pandemic. The ideas were just sitting there, we had the tools, and thankfully some savings and what better way than to invest in ourselves, and our dream.
What’s our business about?
As business ideas were being brainstormed, we couldn’t decide what we wanted to focus on. The idea first started with a clothing boutique, then a photography business, then sunglasses, and well nothing felt right. One thing we did know was that we wanted to embrace our culture and be able to represent our roots while empowering. After many ideas, thoughts, and brainstorming we decided to create an apparel brand, IXTA Apparel where we would sell custom t-shirts, hats, and mugs.
Every piece in this business is meaningful. We're obsessed with graphic t-shirts, we love coffee and are obsessed with cute mugs, and to cover up messy hair days we through in a hat -- and that’s how we decided on our three product categories. IXTA Apparel launched on Thanksgiving Day, November 26th, 2020 and since then we've already had two new drops. Starting a business during a pandemic has brought some struggles, but overall we're proud of what we have created, going for it, seeing this dream come to a reality, and we can’t wait to see how IXTA evolves throughout 2021.
Struggles of starting a business during a pandemic
Deciding to start a business is one thing, but doing it is another. Overall, it’s never easy starting a business and none the less while in a pandemic. One of the struggles we faced while starting a business during a pandemic is that as we researched for vendors it was hard finding places that were open. While we went looking from one place to another for merchandise many vendors were close or back-ordered due to COVID.
We couldn’t exactly find what we were looking for and vendors said they didn’t know when they could expect new items since shipments were taking way longer than usual due to the pandemic. There were two options, either get discouraged and wait until we found exactly what we wanted or just use what we had at the moment. Of course, we decided to just go with what we had because we knew if we didn’t do it now, then when? We weren't going to sit around and wait until COVID went away.
Just go for it, things will fall in place
Nothing will ever be perfect so if you’ve been wanting to start a business, a blog, go back to school, find a new job, start a new career and you’re just waiting for things to be perfect --- you’re wasting time! If 2020 has taught us something is that time is now because tomorrow is never guaranteed. We aren't business expert and we don't have the answers to everything, but this is something we've dreamt about so even though we didn't have all the answers we decided to just go for it. We are learning as we go and mistakes might be made along the way but that’s okay because it’s all part of the journey.
Thank you for reading his blog! More business tips to come and we can't wait to share this journey with you all. Cheers to Small Businesses!
Ps. If you have any questions or comments on starting a small business don't be shy and send us an email!