We were lucky to catch up with Danielle Epstein recently and have shared our conversation below.
Danielle, so great to have you with us today. There are so many topics we want to ask you about, but perhaps the one we can start with is burnout. How have you overcome or avoided burnout?
What helped me is realizing that there are different kinds of burnout. There’s physical burnout, where your body is utterly fatigued. There’s mental burnout, where your concentration or problem solving skills get effected. Then there’s emotional burnout. Whenever I’ve experienced burnout, it’s been the emotional kind. I realized that I am an extremely passionate, all-or-nothing, deep diving kinda girl, and when the things that I am passionate about don’t give me as much energy as I put in is when I experience my burnout. The best solution I found for that is to take a break from having a passion, and it took me years to realize that this was ok. Careers are focused on growth and require passion, jobs are focused on stability and require consistency. When I’m in a particular career that burns me out, like building a business, I switch to a job, like bartending, until I feel that spark inside me again. I can’t tell you how many years I tried things like exercising, or self-care routines, or meditation as a way of healing from burnout. Those sorts of activities, while super beneficial, never helped me in the long-term. I’d always feel great after the workout or after a bath, but the dreadful feeling of burnout would always return within a few hours. Allowing myself to temporarily switch paths and intentionally choosing to put myself in a situation that demanded less of me was the key.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I have the lofty goal of changing the home decor industry. There are dozens of big box stores where you can go and buy decor. Sure, it’s convenient. But the goods are mass produced, imported in bulk, often made with cheap materials, and are ultimately not personal. You could go and buy individual and unique pieces directly from artists, which I fully support. But I don’t have that kind of budget, and most people I know are in a similar boat. So I’m building a brand that meets half way in the middle. I work with artists from around the world, sourcing goods from them that would look good in a home, and I reverse engineer them into a high quality, limited-edition, kit format. You get to recreate your favorite pieces and proudly display handmade goods in your home for a fraction of what it would cost to buy it already complete. And since a portion of every sale goes directly back to the artist, they are still able to make a living doing what they love. It’s a win-win!
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Being a solopreneur is really hard. I would highly recommend against it, but if you choose to go down that path like I did, I think the most important skill to have is being able to hold yourself accountable. You need to be incredibly regimented and consistent to build a business, and when you’re going at it alone, you don’t have the luxury of having someone else there to nudge you along. Second most important is probably having a growth mindset. Again, if you’re building a business on your own, you need to wear all sorts of hats. You need to learn a wide range of skills that would normally be executed by a team of people, you need to take feedback from customers and pivot accordingly…all of that requires an open mind and a commitment to always learning more. I would probably say networking is third most important. Don’t know how to do something? Need mentorship or guidance? Need feedback? Ready to sell your product? Ready to expand? Who can you call on in your network to help you do these things? It’s easy to get accidentally sucked into a vacuum when building a business, when in reality the best thing is to be putting it out there into the world every single day.
How can folks who want to work with you connect?
I am always looking for folks to collaborate with! If you’re an artist and are thinking of licensing your work, if you are an interior designer or interior design/DIY influencer and would like to earn a commission as a sales partner, if you love interior design, art, and/or DIY and want to join my beta testers/focus group to provide feedback, if you are passionate about this space and want to join my team to help build the business…I’d love to hear from you! You can email me at canatoo.kit@gmail.com.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.canatoo.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/canatoo.kit/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/canatoo.kit
