I started this business a little before graduating from college, around 2020. At the time, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do or where I was going, but I knew there had to be something out there that I could build for myself and make a living from.
This was right in the middle of COVID, so my first idea was selling face masks. I bought some inventory and gave it a shot, but it didn't work out the way I hoped.
So I started looking for something else.
That's when I came across metal garden decorations.
I knew a couple of guys who were making them and selling them wholesale to retailers, and I pitched the idea to my brother. He told me that if we really wanted to get into the business and do it right, we would probably need around $20,000 just to get started.
There was only one problem.
I didn't have $20,000. I had about $300 and a dream.
So that's what I started with.
Instead of buying all the equipment and trying to manufacture everything myself, I bought as little inventory as I could afford and started selling the pieces online through Etsy.
Little by little, orders started coming in.
Then more came in.
Eventually, things were going so well that my suppliers couldn't keep up. They had other customers of their own, and their production delays became my problem because I was the one making promises to my customers.
After dealing with delayed orders and shipping problems, I realized that if I really wanted to grow this business, I needed to have more control over what I was selling.
That's when I made a decision that completely changed the business:
If they couldn't keep up with my customers, I was going to learn how to make everything myself.
And that's exactly what I did.
I started learning the process, buying equipment, working with steel, cutting, welding, painting, experimenting with finishes, and figuring things out as I went. Instead of depending entirely on someone else to produce what I sold, I could now take an idea and turn it into an actual piece myself.
It wasn't always easy, and I made plenty of mistakes along the way, but little by little, what started with $300 was becoming a real business.
For the next several years, I continued selling my metal art online through Etsy, Amazon, and eBay. Thousands of people saw my work, and pieces that started as simple ideas in my head ended up in gardens and homes all over the country.
Eventually, though, I ran into another major setback.
My Etsy shop was flagged after my product photos appeared across multiple marketplaces, and Etsy questioned whether my products were handmade. Ultimately, I lost the account I had spent years building.
It was a difficult reminder that no matter how much time you spend building a business on someone else's platform, at the end of the day, the platform isn't yours.
But by then I had learned something much more important:
People actually wanted what I was making.
Losing a marketplace didn't mean I had lost my business.
So instead of treating it like the end, I decided it was time to build something that was actually mine.
That's how this website came to be.
Along the way, I've also watched websites overseas take my photographs and even reproduce some of my simpler designs. It's frustrating to see something you've worked on copied, but it's also taught me an important lesson.
Building a business isn't about everything going perfectly.
It's about what you do when things don't.
I started with $300, no real plan, and no idea where any of this would take me.
Since then, I've dealt with suppliers who couldn't keep up, production problems, shipping delays, suspended accounts, copied photographs, copied products, and plenty of mistakes of my own.
But I'm still here.
I won't let one supplier, one marketplace, or one setback decide where my race ends.
This website is the next chapter.
I'm still designing. I'm still cutting steel. I'm still welding, painting, experimenting, making mistakes, learning, and creating new pieces.
And most importantly, I'm still building.
If you've purchased one of my pieces over the years, followed my work, recommended it to someone, or you're discovering my work for the first time today, thank you.
Every order allows me to keep doing what I started with just $300 and an idea all those years ago.
And thank you for taking the time to read my story.