Meet Catherine Kay

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Catherine Kay. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Catherine below.

Catherine, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?

I really experimented ALOT, I tried multiple jobs, explored different careers, but ultimately It all came back to things that used to spark so much joy in me when I was a child.

I look back to my childhood and really what I am doing right now, really correlates with what I loved doing when I was younger.

I always loved illustrating and drawing, and my inspiration comes from all the media I consumed as a child, like anime, manga, gaming. One thing I also loved was pixel art, and digital art, which I found when I was really young. Infact I created my own pixel doll website, and taught myself how to code in HTML, just so I could share my own ‘Pixel’ art doll designs and allow others to browse the website, and create their own using a drag and drop builder I created

So all of this ties in to what I do today, I still create adorably cute characters, build my own website, and hopefully have created a online world and community, with products, that inspires, and sparks joy and happiness.

So really going back to my roots as a child, and teen has really helped discover what I truly love, and finding a way to translate that into a modern world has been how I have found my purpose.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

Here at Katnipp, our ultimate goal is to spread and spark happiness, fun and joy, we want our characters to put a smile on peoples faces while also fostering a safe space full of community of comfort.

I have always loved since I was a child, all things adorable and cute. From cute characters like hello kitty, to fantastical worlds created by Walt Disney and Studio ghibli. I have also enjoyed being online as a child, connecting with like minded people, I remember being sat in my bedroom when I was 13 years old, and I learnt how to code my own website using HTML, I spent hours after school building my own ‘Pixel art doll site’ where people could come in, and use the drag and drop doll clothes builder I created. I then moved onto the online site neopets, and there i would love to interact with the games, and created my own pastel rainbow themed guild where people could join and talk and quest together!

All this combined sparked my love of connecting with others around the world through art, and ultimately lead me to what Katnipp is today!

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

I think for me three of the skills that really helped my particular business was obviously the skill of graphic design and illustration. This gave me the advantage to have a brand image pretty early on since Graphic design is what my degree was in, meaning i didn’t have to invest money into branding, since I could do that myself as it was a skill I developed

Secondly I would say customer service, I worked in retail since the age of around 16/17 and was in customer service and retail for around 8 years, the skills I learnt translated into having my own online store, we strive to give the best customer experience possible, and want the customers to know they are heard and each and everyone is valued here at Katnipp, we wouldn’t be where we are today without them, and although in business issues can arise, we do our best to resolve them and love to take on board any feedback to make the shopping or product experience better.

Thirdly, I would honestly say is resilience and hard-work, building a business is fun, exciting and new in the early stages, but during growth phases and years in, you have to learn to be resilient and strong and ride some tough waves to keep the business afloat, it’s certainly not for the faint hearted, but being adaptable and resilient can be what helps your business overcome the tough days.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

We would love to start licensing here at Katnipp, our characters are starting to really garner a niche and core following, especially our characters such as Bumblebutt or gingie and spice.

We would love to see the characters on the shelves, in stores, and on a whole range of products so would love to look into collaborations with other brands to see how we can help spread little bit of katnipp magic across the world!

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