Meet Randy Nguyen | Business Owner
We’d love to hear more about your thoughts about starting your own business.
Starting a business is easy if you have a product/service and a market. Those are just the basics, but everything else is up to you. Some people want to make a lot of money and focus on sales and other people might just be content with knowing their name is out there and building brand awareness. You just have to start small and figure out what works for you and your business. Investments are important too, but sometimes it’s better to create a small Instagram page just to experiment instead of spending money that you’d rather be saving, on a website that might get a few clicks and views. It’s all subjective.
For me, of course, I enjoy the financial support from selling my work, but having returning customers or just general people that enjoy my work or share it with others on social media, word of mouth, etc. Once I started a new page solely for business, I was able to focus more on what I wanted to showcase and sell.
Let’s talk shop. Tell us more about your career goals, what can you share with our community?
My goal is to be more consistent overall with my work. As a full-time student, I prioritize my education over my small business, so it can be difficult to keep up with both at the same time. I also want to give myself grace and remind myself that I am the only person running this whole thing, so I can’t be hard on myself for not mass producing or constantly putting out my work.
I want to create more collections instead of making a bunch of stuff just to get it out there and sell it. I’ve been told that I should focus on specifying my target audience, but the reason I make so many different things is that I want anyone to be able to enjoy what I create.
Please tell us more about your work. We’d love to hear what sets you apart and what you are most proud of or excited about. How did you get to where you are today professionally? Was it easy? If not, how did you overcome the challenges? What are the lessons you’ve learned along the way? What do you want the world to know about you or your brand and story?
I kind of mentioned this before but I think the uniqueness of my business is that I’m always switching to new mediums and creating different things. In some cases, my work is limited edition, unintentionally. For instance, I haven’t made any rugs or coasters since the summer of 2022, and quite honestly don’t plan on making more any time soon.
Over the last 5 years, I’ve created a small community of supporters. I started off selling tiny canvas paintings to friends and family through my personal Instagram. From there, I just started making anything really. I went from making shrink plastic earrings to incense holders and ashtrays, to punch needle rugs, to beaded necklaces, and now I’m crocheting a lot.
I think it was easy to start my business, but maintaining it has been challenging. I want to create more content since I’ve focused on putting my energy toward vending rather than documenting and showcasing my work. There have been times when I sell my work at gigs and completely forget to take photos to share on social media.
I want people to understand that I make everything because I enjoy it, and if I’m not making a certain thing or creating in a certain style, I simply don’t enjoy it any more or I don’t think the quality of that work is worth making anymore. I want to think of myself more as an artist rather than a business. I know I have both but I want things to feel personal, which is why I love vending.
Who else deserves some credit and recognition for your success? People who supported you.
My closest friends and family deserve credit since they’re the ones that helped me spread the word about my business and are always telling people about my work. Special shoutout to Elizabeth for being my main returning customer. I met her at the Philly Stoop and she stops at my table to buy something whenever I’m vending. Art Album has played a part in my success as well.
If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I automatically take my friends for food whenever they’re in town. I think I’m biased but I love South East Asian cuisine. My favorite places around Philly are Pho 75 on Washington Ave, Pho Xe Lua in Chinatown, and Penang, also in Chinatown. A great dim sum spot is China Gourmet in northeast Philly. It’s a little out of the way but worth it.
Who are some talented local Philly artists, that you want to show some love to?
I have so many friends that are artists but to name some, Lukey who’s dropping an album soon and is always in my Spotify wrapped, Annie Dang who makes music and Youtube videos that I watch while I get ready, Hannah (idkcrochet) makes the best crochet plushies, and Mickie (madebymickie) made the two crochet sleeves that I wear at least once a week. The list goes on but those are the few at the top of my head.
You can follow randy on Instagram and Tiktok : @randomsbyrandy
and her website: Website:https://randomsbyrandy.bigcartel.com/