April 8, 2022 • 52 mins
Today’s guest is Andrea Canerossi, the Managing Partner and Mini Painter for Wolfwood Gaming. She co-owns the company with her business partner, Deacon Wolfwood, who is their woodworker and resin artist. Wolfwood Gaming is still a pretty new company, but it was really interesting to hear about the their journey. Andrea and I talk about playing D&D with their kids and the foster community, painting minis, and so many business logistics. We talked about setting up a LLC, what happens when you don’t pay your taxes on a monthly basis as a small business, what she would’ve done differently if she were setting everything up again, and more. If you are in the beginning stages of setting up a small, product-based business, this episode is for you.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Courtney (04:26):
Today I am joined by the managing partner and mini
painter for Wolfwood Gaming,Andrea Canerossi, Andrea, how
are you today?
Andrea (04:38):
Good morning.
I'm doing well, Courtney, howare you?
Courtney (04:41):
I'm great.
You know, it is a pretty chillFriday morning.
I'm just enjoying having somecoffee and was playing with
Bowser a little bit earlier.
So that's always fun.
Bowser's my dog.
Andrea (04:53):
That's awesome.
Courtney (04:54):
Let us start things off, and I would love to know a
little bit about you and how yougot into gaming.
Andrea (05:00):
Well, so I've been gaming, Courtney for about 15
,years, actually.
It was the first date of my nowhusband.
He invited me to come play withhim and his friends, handed me a
character sheet and said,prepare to math.
Which is not my favorite, butyou know, we were playing a
(05:21):
second edition game and yeah, Igot hooked especially with the
storytelling and I've beengaming ever since My husband and
I have been fostering for aboutfive years now.
And we've been using it with ourfoster kids and the foster
community.
And it's just become kind oflike a lifestyle for us, and
(05:41):
that's kind of also how I gotinto mini painting as well.
So that's kinda my gaming storythere is: fell in love with it
as part of, you know, dating myhusband, and now it's something
we do as a family.
Courtney (05:54):
Okay.
That is really cool, and I wantto dig into using it with the
foster children.
How did that start?
Andrea (06:04):
I'll go ahead and say that I've got four kids now.
Two are my biological childrenand we started gaming with them
first.
And then when we startedfostering and we ended up
adopting two of our fosters,thus bringing us to four kids:
ages from seven to 12.
So we are kind of the elementaryschool bus.
(06:24):
You know, what we decided wasthat this was a way for our
fosters to feel kind of part ofthe family.
Cause it's something we werealready doing with our boys and
it was also a way for them topretend to be somebody else.
They could be brave; they couldbe wizards; they could be super
(06:46):
powerful, and for fosters,that's, you know, they're in a
world where they've come frompotentially some not great
backgrounds, a lot of upheavalin their life.
They're very powerless.
They're told where to go andwhat to do and for them, this is
(07:07):
a way for them to get into aworld where they can cast
fireball, and it was also a wayfor us to start seeing their
personalities come out in theircharacters and get to know them.
You know, we learn theirfavorite colors based off of
what dice they wanted to use.
We found out, like my daughterthat we adopted she is a chaotic
(07:31):
little Druid in a very smallpackage and it was awesome to
watch her get comfortable withherself and watch her wreak
havoc across the battlefield, onthe map and then turn around and
bring that kind of same energyafter a while to the house and
(07:52):
playing with her siblings andgetting comfortable with us.
So, you know, for us, it's beena way to get to know the kids,
make them feel a part ofsomething bigger.
Cause they're part of the party,and also make them feel like
they belong and we've kept itup.
And while we're not fosteringright now we're really focused
on two of our kids right now whoare going through some health
(08:14):
issues.
It's something that we do withthe larger foster community and
host games for other fosterfamilies as well.
Courtney (08:22):
That is absolutely amazing.
Like how often are you playingwith your, I guess just your
family versus how often are youdoing the larger community?
Andrea (08:32):
So I would say the larger community is hit or miss.
We live in the south and soCOVID numbers over the winter
were heinously high.
Right.
So we didn't do anything overthe winter.
A lot of times what we find iswith kids coming in and out of
households, there's a lot of, ofthe COVID getting passed around,
and so we didn't do it over thewinter.
(08:53):
But before that, we would dothem once, every couple of
months for families that wereinterested.
But with our family, we probablyplay two to three games a week.
So my husband runs a game forthe kids.
I run a game for the kids andthen our two older boys run a
game and my husband and the restof us come in and out as we have
(09:16):
time and energy.
So it's cool to watch my 12 and11 year old kind of, you know,
stretch their wings and try tobe the DM.
It's bonding time with Dad.
Courtney (09:27):
That is super cool.
Yeah, it makes sense thatobviously COVID would have
impacted how much you could doit on the larger scale.
Well, I mean, honestly, I couldkeep asking questions about this
for awhile, but you've mentionedthat this was kind of how you
also got into miniaturepainting.
So I would love to dive intothat.
What's the story behind theminis?
Andrea (09:49):
Right.
So I've been painting now forprobably two years.
I think, but anyway, it wasright at the beginning of the
pandemic, and I still wasworking for a global IT firm.
I was in associate partner incharge of a hundred million
dollar portfolio, 200 pluspeople department.
And then all of a sudden, allfour of my kids were home being
(10:11):
remote schooled and everything,and it was super stressful and I
needed an outlet and paintingbecame it.
It was the only way that I couldkind of turn my brain off, you
know?
Cause when you're focused onpainting something so tiny, you
can't really think aboutanything else.
After a while I started postingpictures of it to social media,
(10:34):
you know, my Facebook page andmy coworkers were like, oh my
gosh, would you paint for us?
And I was like, sure.
And then it just kind of evolvedfrom there into a"wow.
Could I actually make moneydoing this?" Like not as much
money as working at a full-timejob, but could I make some money
and yeah, so that kind ofevolved to that and started the
(10:58):
juices flowing on"maybe I couldmake this a side hustle," and
that's kind of what led toWolfwood Gaming as well.
So that's where I started.
Courtney (11:09):
Yeah, I love so much when it starts as something that
you just want to try it out andhave fun.
And then other people are like,whoa, that's really cool.
I want that.
Andrea (11:19):
Yeah, it was definitely a shock to my system.
The first time one of mycoworkers was like, I will pay
you to paint my minis.
And I was like, really?
Okay.
Courtney (11:29):
How many minis did they want you to paint?
Andrea (11:32):
Well, that one was actually a custom order.
And he wanted me to, since Ihave a 3d printer scale up a big
wonder woman miniature, he hadfound on my mini factory and
paint it for his wife.
Courtney (11:44):
Oh, cool!
Andrea (11:44):
So it was.
the biggest mini I've painted todate.
And it was the very first one Ipainted for sale.
So it was kind of like, okay, Idon't know if I'm ready to do
that.
But after that came a few of thenormal 32 ones, and those were a
lot more manageable.
Courtney (12:00):
So tell me about, for any of our listeners that aren't
aware of your shop (12:03):
what is Wolfwood Gaming?
Like what all do y'all offer?
And I guess let's go into alittle bit about your
partnership.
Andrea (12:11):
Okay, sounds good.
So Wolfwood Gaming is a veteranand woman owned business.
The veteran is my businesspartner and our creative
director, Deacon Wolfwood, andthen myself, Andrea as well.
I manage the business from abusiness perspective, the social
media and do the mini painting.
And what we offer is qualityaffordable tabletop gear.
(12:35):
And what do I mean by that?
Well, we believe inaccessibility, Deacon and I both
have had long talks about thisand we want everyone to be able
to have something at their tablethat is special.
And so we offer tabletop gearacross a variety of price
points, and that goes as low aslike$8 all the way up to some of
(12:59):
our more products as well.
And the products that we offerare dice trays.
What the dice trays are, they'rewooden framed.
And we either have a clothbottom that is padded for say,
like gemstone dice, or we alsohave dice rolling surfaces in
(13:20):
the trays that are super pretty,but they make that awesome click
clack noise right?
And then we have painted minis.
We have dice bag charms, whichcan be put on key chains,
purses, gaming bags, dice bags.
So they can be customized tomatch either a character or a
theme just to add a little blingto a bag and make it kind of
(13:43):
like, oh, something small.
They're great for gifts (13:45):
for you know, the DM or the entire group
at the end of a campaign or atholidays.
We also do different displaysfor dice.
Deacon and I are unapologeticdice collectors.
We love the little math rocksand what better way than to
display them in dice displaypotions?
(14:07):
I paint minis and create littlescenes that dice can be added
to.
So all of that's what we have inthe shop right now, along with
some you know, very inexpensivetabletop geared kind of
printables as well, like a dailyquest log, which is basically a
to-do list.
Courtney (14:23):
Y'all have such a cool variety.
I really enjoyed kind ofbrowsing through your Etsy
store.
How did y'all get connected?
Like how did Wolfwood Gamingcome to exist?
Andrea (14:35):
So I was very blessed to work with Deacon at our old job.
And then when our paths splitfrom a job perspective, right at
the beginning of the pandemic,we kept up the friendship and,
you know, after a while it waskind of like, Hey, Deacon was
like, I've got these trays thatI'd like to sell.
(14:56):
I'm like over here going well,people are paying me to paint
minis.
And so we decided to go intobusiness together and really,
truly the, the vision for it hasevolved, thanks to, to Deacon.
And then from a creativeperspective, all the lines of
offerings that we have in theshop.
Those are, you know, Deacon'sideas.
(15:18):
And then behind that comes mewith you know, my program
management background from theIT company that I was working
for, and so I manage all thefinances and it's a really good
balance between Deacon and I tobuild this business.
Which is great because being asmall business owner is a lot of
work.
Courtney (15:36):
Yes, it is.
So I guess I want to dive into alittle bit more of how y'all
decided how to, I mean, otherthan the, you're the one that's
painting the managers and Deaconis trays.
How did you decide how to splitup the business responsibilites?
Andrea (15:54):
We really try to lean into each other's strengths,
Courtney, and you know, ifsomeone else is looking at doing
a business, that's kind of whatI would recommend as well.
Deacon is very outgoing, so hehandles a lot of the local going
out to shops and promoing thingslocally where we are here in
(16:14):
Alabama, and then he handles alot of the research as well into
the creative side of things.
He goes out and looks at what,what is the market interested
in?
I'll get texts from it and it'llbe like, look at this cool
thing.
We could do something like this.
And I'm like, okay.
Yeah, you're right, we could.
And then you know, I'm used tomanaging large portfolios,
(16:36):
revenue, profit, et cetera.
So I, it just naturally fell tome to kind of handle that side
of the business.
Courtney (16:43):
Yeah, that makes sense.
I'm a project manager, so evenwhen I was kind of starting up
with some of the Lightheartstuff, it was like, well, I know
how to make a schedule and getpeople to follow through on
things.
Andrea (16:54):
Right, exactly.
And that that's basically, youknow, we play to our strengths.
Courtney (16:58):
What were the first steps?
So you guys decided that, Hey,we could actually make a store
together and make this work.
What did you do then?
Andrea (17:09):
We had to make it really official.
We went ahead and decided toincorporate into an LLC.
Limited liability company forthose not familiar with the
term.
And that meant registering as anofficial business in partnership
with the IRS and getting what'sknown as an EIN number.
and that number is, you know,specific to the business and
(17:31):
used on all things like taxforms and stuff.
And the idea behind that was togive Deacon and I some coverage
as a company, so that if therewere issues, you know, it
protected both of us asindividuals and our, our
individual bank accounts.
Which is one of the things that,you know, if somebody else were
looking at doing a smallbusiness, I would recommend you
(17:53):
can register your business forfree with the IRS.
Or you can get something likelegal zoom to do all of it, and
your startup costs, if you dothat, will be probably anywhere
between 250 to 500.
At the time, you know, I had a70 hour week job plus the kids,
so I took the legal zoom route;Courtney, looking back if I
(18:15):
could go back, I'd probablychange that just to save on some
startup costs, but that was thereal push to go pass the inertia
of just, we have this great ideato making it real.
And then from there it wasdeciding, okay, what's going to
be our first line of stock?
You know, are we going to juststay focused on dice trays and
minis?
Are we going to do somethingelse?
(18:36):
And then also what platform arewe going to use to, to sell on?
And so that was really thenucleus of, of starting that
business back in December of2020.
Courtney (18:49):
Okay, what made you decide on Etsy?
Andrea (18:52):
So we actually didn't move to Etsy until August of
last year, we try to run our ownwebsite based off of WooCommerce
and a WordPress site.
And Deacon is a UI web designerand he did a great job really
designing a website that wasunique and very much on brand
(19:15):
for us.
But unfortunately the backend,the commerce side of it, we just
could not get those commerceplugins to work consistently.
And it meant we were losingsales because people would go to
checkout and then the checkoutprocess would mess up.
Usually with the shipping, itwas always the shipping.
(19:37):
And after a while, we startedgaining a lot of traction on
social media, but we weren'ttranslating that into sales.
We decided to move over to Etsy.
Just simply because it's a knownplatform, it's a known
marketplace and it took thestress of managing those
(19:57):
commerce pieces out of it.
And from there we really saw,sales increase by leaps and
bounds because people weren'tabandoning things in their cart.
You know, they weren't havingissues with the website.
Like it or not, Etsy was drivingtraffic to us.
There were some hidden fees thatwe didn't know about until
(20:19):
afterwards, but, overall themove to Etsy was good for us.
Now that we're well-established,have almost a hundred sales in
Etsy and they're raising theirfees, we are looking at
expanding into a Shopifyaccount, and actually running
both Etsy and Shopify at thesame time.
Courtney (20:41):
That is interesting that you kind of have had to go
back and forth.
It's very unfortunate thatyou've had those issues with the
plugins right at the beginning,but I think that it does make a
lot of sense to once you arelike more comfortable and more
established to have both an Etsystop and a website where you're
(21:02):
not having to pay all of theEtsy fees, but you're still able
to get that Etsy traffic thatisn't coming from your normal
social media.
Andrea (21:09):
Exactly.
Courtney (21:10):
Cool.
So what I would love to diveinto next is the, I guess,
overall design process.
So obviously you and Deacon aremaking different items, but is
there any kind of collaborationon themes or how do you decide
on what a new type of productoffering is going to be
Andrea (21:29):
So Deacon and I have a real problem with Pinterest.
And we're constantly sendingthings back and forth over
Facebook messenger to eachother, and it's like, look at
this, we could make this intosomething that's game-related
and, you know, it's things likewatching acrylic art paint
(21:49):
videos, and the way that thecolors are mixing is kinda like
that would make a great resindice tray to do something
similar.
I also have an entire board onPinterest associated with
character art, and that becomesthe basis for a lot of the color
schemes for my minis that I putup in the shop.
(22:12):
And Deacon will send me otherthings as well, ideas, you know,
and so back and forth, we'd goand have these kind of
collaborative sessions.
And then once we talk throughthe creative side of it, then we
kind of turned to the businessside.
Okay.
How much is it gonna take tomake this; what's kind of the
profit margin we want to have?
(22:35):
Right, because for Deacon inparticular, this is one of his
ways of bringing in anadditional stream of income, and
now that I've left my job, it'smine as well.
So this is how we pay the bills.
So it's like, how do we balanceprofit margin with also staying
in line with our kind of creed,right?
Affordable quality materialsthat you can have for your
(22:58):
gaming space.
And so that's kind of where ourcreative process is, is let's
look at these colors, let's lookat these ideas.
We don't see this really on themarket, but we can translate
something else into that.
And then is it a viable businessproduct?
I mean, we have shelved someideas where we're like the
(23:20):
profit margin's not gonna workEspecially with Etsy fees, and
it's just not worth it to havesomething that's only going to
bring us a buck or two.
So that's kind of our process,Courtney.
Courtney (23:30):
Yeah, that makes sense.
I am also a huge Pinterest fan,so I appreciate that that helps
give y'all some inspiration.
So I guess I would love to knowabout the evolution of the
products was kind of a follow-upto that.
I know it started withminiatures and trays on Deacon's
part, but at what point did youdecide to add other products?
Andrea (23:52):
So we actually started adding new products, like the
dice bag charms pretty quickly,when we realized that the more
successful businesses in ourspace had a variety of price
points.
And so that's where things likethe dice bag charms came from.
(24:13):
What we were seeing was peoplewere selling dice bags, and some
of those dice bags came withalready attached dice bag
charms, but we didn't really seeanywhere else on the market:
removable ones, let alonecustomizable ones.
And I'm one of those nerds whohas Yeah, I'm one of those
(24:36):
people.
I have my own dice percharacter.
And so each character has a dicebag.
So I was like, well, I want tocharm on each of those dice
bags, maybe other people would,and it's been a best seller, I
would say, honestly, because ofthe price point, and it's
something that was new and it'ssomething that you can add to
(24:56):
your purse or, you know, yourkey chain.
They're very versatile.
And then from there we looked atokay: what are some of the more
cheaper ways we could help otherdice collectors, you know, have
something special?
And that's where the dicepotions came in because that's
(25:16):
the just plain glass bottles ishow I display my dice in my
studio-- the ones that aren'tused for a specific character.
And so Deacon had the great ideato add colored resin to match
those.
And it just took off from there.
And that's probably our secondbestseller is our dice potions.
Courtney (25:39):
That's a really fun sounding journey.
And I definitely think that withthe days bag charms, that it
makes sense that most peopleonly offer that as already
attached.
And so I can see why that wouldbe something that folks would be
really interested in.
I am curious about some of thelogistics around inventory and
(26:00):
knowing how much stuff to stockup on, especially when at the
beginning, because obviouslyonce you get more sales and you
can see what's popular and whatmakes sense to have a few more
items on hand for, but whatabout when you first got started
with the shop as a whole, versuseven when you decide to bring in
a new product that you haven'toffered before?
(26:21):
What is your decision process onhow much inventory to have on
hand when you start?
Andrea (26:26):
So that's a really good question because I'm pretty sure
we didn't have a solid answer.
What we did know was we neededto provide a variety of things.
And so we really shot for having5 to 10 of each item when we
(26:47):
first opened.
And so we probably had 7 to 10minis, both player, character
and monster minis, and thenDeacon did a phenomenal job and
he busted out like seven to 10different size, different kind
of dice trays.
(27:08):
And that's really kind of wherewe focused on was having a
variety to get the widest appealacross the board to potential
customers.
And so that meant differentcolored trays, different sizes,
different wood types, woodstains for the minis.
(27:28):
It meant in different races.
We had some Orcs, we had someElves we've had humans, the
different monster minis.
as well.
And also on the minis havingdifferent color schemes.
One of the things that we reallywanted Wolfwood Gaming to be
known for, again, as anaccessibility thing, is we
believe everyone should be ableto see themselves at the table.
(27:51):
And so we really focused on froma mini perspective, having all
different skin colors on theminis so that no matter what
someone could look and say, Ican see myself; I can see my
character.
You know, as a, as a person ofcolor, I found a, mini that was
painted for me.
As someone who, you know, maybewas, Asian, they could see
(28:15):
themselves on the table so thatit, wasn't just kind of like a
homogenous inventory of, youknow, the same kind of
characters that all look thesame, like mainstream art.
So that was really what wefocused on was having a variety
of things, a variety of colorsthat would appeal.
(28:36):
And since then, the best thingas small business can do is
continue to add to inventory.
So we're adding anywhere betweenone to five things a week to our
shop.
Courtney (28:48):
Wow.
Yeah.
(29:16):
When you are painting, theminis, do you ever paint
multiple in the same colorscheme at a time, or is every
single one individual?
Andrea (29:27):
That is a really good question because the answer is
yes and no.
At any given point I've got fourto seven minis in progress.
And a lot of times they havesimilar colors because what I'm
doing is putting on my palette: blues and greens and grays, (29:40):
undefined
complimentary colors, right?
And then I cycle who I want toput those colors on, but in the
end they don't really look likea cohesive unit.
I'm not painting the units likeyou see for Warmongers and
things like that.
I tend to go towards more trendsof fantasy.
(30:01):
So yes, some end up havingsimilar colors, but they're
definitely not a unit.
Like you're not going to buythem and put them on the table
and it'll be like, they lookexactly the same.
Each mini is unique They justmay have hints of the same
colors.
And also at the same time, to behonest, Courtney, I paint my, I
paint minis for myself as wellas for the store.
(30:24):
So some of those colored minisdon't even end up in the store
cause they're for my personalcollection.
Courtney (30:29):
As they should.
So I guess, talk to me about,what does a typical week look
like for you these days,especially since you were able
to leave your job, you've gotfour kids running around,
running this Etsy store.
the question that uh, always isan interesting one is how do you
do your time management?
How do you balance everything?
Andrea (30:50):
So I have to admit I'm still learning that one.
I'm only on my first week notworking my crazy, you know, 60
to 70 hour job.
I literally left my job lastFriday.
I loved my job.
I just wanted to put that out.
So if any of my formercolleagues hear me talk about
this, cause I'm going to blastthis out on social media, right?
I did love my job.
I was in a place with my lifeand with my children's health
(31:11):
that I had to step away.
So time management is stillweird for me Right now, but
typically what I would say isMondays is a heavy social media
day.
I plan out the week for all ofour posts, for where we can
schedule posts, I get themscheduled.
That probably takes me a coupleof hours.
(31:33):
I do that while handling mykids' schoolwork.
So while they're doing theirschoolwork, I'm sitting around
the table with them on mylaptop, you know, uploading and
getting that scheduled.
Every Wednesday, I've got setaside some time to do the books,
because one thing that you findis taxes never go away, and so
(31:53):
if you open up your shop as anormal, like small business,
and, and it's not just like youas an individual where you do
your personal taxes; if it's a,if it's an entity, like an LLC
or a corporation, an S-corp,what you find is you have to not
only register with the nationalIRS and do annual taxes in your
(32:15):
state and in your county, youhave to register your business
and every month do state andcounty taxes.
And so my Wednesdays are spentbalancing the book from week to
week and then doing any taxesthat we need to in the first two
Wednesdays of the month, becausemost of the county and state
(32:35):
taxes are due by like the 15thof the month, and the rest of
the time is balancing betweenhopping on social media,
interacting with potentialcustomers, other small
businesses, lifting them up inthe community, because in order
to sell in a community, you haveto be part of a community, so we
spend a lot of time doing that,doing research into new
(32:58):
products.
And then a couple times a month,we sit down and do search engine
optimization.
So we look at the analyticsbehind our shop: what keywords
are working, what keywords arenot working so that people find
our stuff easier on Etsy, andwe'll do likewise when we set up
Shopify.
The rest of the time is wheneverI can, and my kids aren't being
(33:21):
crazy and, you know, are beingquiet: I will hop up into my
studio in the back corner of myhouse and I will paint minis or
make dice bag chains.
And likewise Deacon doessomething similar.
He manages around his workloadand makes some really beautiful
things with resin and wood whenhe's got a spare moment.
(33:44):
and so at any given point, we'vegot things, you know, kind of
prototyping or halfway throughbeing built or painted, and then
the other part (33:53):
taking pictures of the stock to put up in the
shop.
That's usually a Saturday thingfor me because that is probably
the most time consuming piece istaking photos.
And setting up nice kind oflayouts that are appealing
visually so that a customer willclick on it.
(34:13):
And I do that on Saturdaysbecause I can throw my husband
at the kids and say, goentertain them, please, and
leave me alone.
Courtney (34:19):
What tips have you learned to make that photography
really stand out?
Andrea (34:25):
So I'm going to gush, for a minute about this app on
my phone that I literally justfound three days ago and I'm
kicking myself for not findingit sooner.
It's an app by Adobe, which is,you know, I know not everyone's
favorite.
But the app is called Lightroom.
It's amazing.
It really helps balance theshadows and colors in the
(34:49):
photos.
But prior to that you know, youcan invest as much as you want
in getting good photos or aslittle as you want.
But what I would say to folks isyou can take really good product
photos on your phone, or with aCA or a regular camera, not one
of those super expensive ones,but find a place in your house
(35:09):
with good natural light.
Most of our pictures are takenon nice sunny days.
and I use I do use a big clothlight.
box that I got for like 12 buckson Amazon, just to diffuse that
bright light a little bit.
And then I've got scrapbookpaper that I bought at michael's
(35:31):
for like 50 cents a piece that Iuse as the backdrops for most of
everything (35:35):
except the minis, the minis, I use a different
setup.
From there, it's just addingcomplimentary things around the
item, you know, the right colordice, and such to make it look
interesting.
and you kind of go from there.
The big thing is Courtney ismaking sure that it's a
consistent look from product toproduct, to product so that when
(35:57):
someone jumps onto yourwebsites, jumps into your store,
whether or your own website, youknow, the consumer is seeing a
similar background.
And so there's definitely acohesive feel to it.
And that's really what we focuson when we take our photos is,
is using the same backdrops,trying to use similar lighting
(36:18):
so that people can see the samekind of thing from item to item,
it really helps create a senseof brand.
It creates a sense of quality,time and, and effort to showcase
our work to its absolute best.
Courtney (36:32):
Would you say that your process for your backdrops
has changed over time?
Andrea (36:38):
Yes, and no.
We do use pretty much the samebackdrop for the dice trays.
In particular, we have a reallynice big piece of scrap book
paper.
That's this really pretty woodenbackground that the dice trays
just really look nice against.
But from a dice potionperspective; from a miniature
(36:58):
perspective, we've definitelyplayed around with the setups
for those to continue to tweakhow they look-- just simply
because, depending on the natureof the colors of the dice and
the dice potion, or the colorson the mini.
Sometimes the white backgroundreally washes them out and it's
(37:19):
hard to see like the glitter andthe dice and the dice potion,
or, you know, certain colors onthe white background don't look
great on the mini, so we have toswap them out for a dark
background.
So we, we still play around withthat, and Deacon says he's a
good balance for me.
He tells me I'm a perfectionist.
So you know, I'll probably playaround with it more than I
(37:42):
should, which is why Saturdaymornings are all photography.
But, as a business, we just kindof keep trying, right.
Neither of us are professionalphotographers, But, we're
trying.
Courtney (37:53):
It's always so interesting when you do start
your own business, becauseyou're like, well, I'm really
good at this thing, and I wantto sell this thing or this
service, and then (38:00):
well, now I have to be an expert in
literally every single part ofrunning a business.
Have fun!
Andrea (38:07):
It is definitely a lot of work for sure.
And we wear multiple hats and ifit wasn't for Deacon, I don't
think I would've ever startedthis business as a solo person.
You know, like I said, it helpshaving a business partner
because again, we balance eachother.
Courtney (38:26):
Yeah, absolutely.
It is hard to go it alone.
Okay.
I'm going to ask something thatmay not be the most interesting
topic, but it's one that I don'tactually get to talk about a
whole lot on the show, but youbrought it up.
So, I'm curious on, honestly,just the more legal and
accounting logistics.
Like how long did it take you tofigure out a good rhythm for
(38:50):
just getting everything set upwith the taxes?
So you say you do your taxes onWednesday and you're kind of
keeping up with your books on aweekly basis that way.
How long did it take you tofigure all of that out?
Andrea (39:01):
I will be honest.
I still haven't figured all ofit out?
So I'm actually getting anaccountant for the business.
Now that we've had a very, ourvery first full year, right?
Cause we started December 15th,2020.
So the 2020 taxes were easy.
Cause we were open for 15 daysand sold one thing for seven
bucks, so, you know, we didn'treally have much for taxes, but
(39:25):
last year was definitely, we didwell enough that we were almost
break even with our originalstartup costs.
I would say it took me about 90days to really get a battle
rhythm down and work through allthe issues we had with the state
with setting our business up intheir systems.
After that, and the associatedpenalties we had with those
(39:49):
third, those over those threemonths of missing taxes, right?
Because usually what happens isYou have to file state and local
taxes by a certain date.
Otherwise there is a$50 latefee.
Once you have a$50 late fee acouple of times you're like,
okay, I gotta get my acttogether.
And so we worked through thatappealed the late taxes, and
(40:10):
since it was our first threemonths, the state actually
waived those.
Thank God.
But yeah, As a business owner tokind of find that battle rhythm.
and it's just one of thosethings you have to keep up with
your books.
If you're a small business owneryou have to be looking at your
books once a week.
End of story.
If you try to go back like atthe end of the month or heaven
(40:31):
forbid, months later, you'regoing to be like what did I do?
How, what was this expense for?
I don't remember what was thiscost for?
I don't remember.
And then those fees on thetaxes, those add up and eat into
your profit margin.
And that's no good as a smallbusiness owner.
You know, the other thing isafter talking with a friend,
(40:53):
who's an accountant who actuallywas like, Andrea, you need to go
get an accountant (40:56):
there are, you know, tax refunds and
deductions that small businessesget that a lot of people don't
know.
And so that's what I'm hoping byusing an accountant for our
taxes, that we'll have some gooddeductions since both of us--
Deacon and I have dedicatedspace in our homes for the
business-- apparently that's adeduction.
(41:20):
I didn't know that and the samefor, we could deduct mileage
driving over post office to offorders.
So, you know those are the kindsof things as a small business
that we're working on and tryingto get our hands wrapped the,
the normal battle rhythm andpaying for those state and local
taxes and things probably aboutthree months to really get the
books going well.
(41:40):
And, that, that might be thenorm or not.
I don't know, but for us at thetime, that was really where we
kind of started.
Courtney (41:48):
So if you were to start over again, what would you
do differently?
Andrea (41:53):
Well, I would probably, if I could go back and tell my
old self, I would have taken thetime to search around for local
resources for small businesses,because about the six months
into the business aboutmid-summer, I found that our
local small businessadministration office actually
offered workshops specificallydesigned for businesses that are
(42:19):
minority owned.
So for women owned businesses,veteran owned businesses.
They actually provide freeresources, and I wish I had
known that because I would'vegone to a couple of the
workshops right up front beforewe even launched the business.
And I think too, we could haveavoided some of our startup
costs because some of thoseworkshops that the SBA was
(42:40):
offering along with anothernonprofit that's local to our
area, they were offering thingslike how to create a branding
package.
So I could have learned how tocreate our logos instead of
paying, you know, 50 bucks forsomebody to do it, or how to go
ahead and file your businesswith the IRS.
(43:00):
And that would have saved usstartup costs cause I just went
to legal zoom and was like,please do it for me because I'm
overwhelmed.
So if I were to start over,those are the kinds of things
that I wish I had done (43:09):
was get better educated before we jumped
in feet first, just because Ithink that would have saved us
some startup costs right upfront, which honestly, for a
small business, they, they addup quick.
So that, that's probably thebiggest thing.
That, and I wish we had figuredout a way to start on Etsy
(43:33):
first.
Start on Etsy and then createanother site that manages the
inventory between the two.
I think that would have probablybeen a good thing as well.
That would have meant that wehad more revenue coming in
sooner and that could havehelped kind of balance out
those, those opening costs: Especially when I forgot to file (43:49):
undefined
state and local taxes, and weended up with those, penalties.
Courtney (43:58):
That's really good advice.
I honestly hadn't ever thoughtabout there being local or yeah.
Something that could offerworkshops on.
Yeah.
Here's how to start a smallbusiness.
That is a really cool thing,that I am going to be looking
into now.
Andrea (44:11):
Well, the other thing is Courtney, our small business
admin here in where we are, theyactually offer grants to small
businesses when they'restarting.
You have to go through aprocess, and for us, we wouldn't
have qualified.
For what the SBA wants to dothere.
They're trying to give grants tosmall businesses that are
(44:31):
starting, that are, you know,the kind that have to have
offices and things like that.
Each SBA in the differentregions, they offer different
grants.
So it's also something to lookat, for other people who may be
looking at, Hey, maybe I couldget a hundred bucks to cover
something.
Some of the grants.
are actually pretty big.
They're like$1,500.
(44:51):
So that could be of equipmentthat's needed that's not coming
out of the business.
So those are, those are thingsthat I've learned over the last
year as I've, I've gotten moreand more involved in the local
community and talk to othersmall business owners, like for
example, our local comic bookshop, they worked with the SBA
(45:12):
to get a grant when they werefirst opening several years ago.
And that helped defray somecosts.
Courtney (45:18):
That is awesome.
So those of you listening, ifyou are wanting to start up a
business, make sure you lookinto your local resources.
There's some amazing stuff outthere.
I do want to make sure that wehave some time to go over some
of my questions that I love toask in every interview, which
hopefully, you know these arecoming if, since you've listened
(45:39):
to a few episodes, but when youlook back over the last couple
of years of getting this shopgoing and just all the ways that
it has grown and evolved sincethen, what would you say has
been the most challenging part?
Andrea (45:54):
That's really hard question.
I've been thinking about thisone, Courtney, knowing you're
going to ask me this questionand I want to say, I think the
hardest thing has been managingburnout.
Because simply speaking, like wetalked about earlier, you've got
all these hats on, right?
You're an accountant, you're theface of the business and this
(46:17):
and that, and even with the factthat there's two of us deacon
and I, we have to caution eachother regularly because we have
our, both have our healthchallenges, right?
Like I have fibromyalgia and hehas arthritis and we have to
make sure that we don't beat ourbodies up too bad, doing what we
love.
And so managing that, knowingthat when we aren't doing
(46:42):
business stuff is kind of like,are we missing out?
Are we missing sales?
Because we're not out therepushing, or we're not out there
making new product and notfeeling guilty when we rest.
That is probably the hardestthing because as they say right,
it's all about the hustle.
Well, the hustle can kill youand burn you out bad, if you
(47:04):
don't manage it well.
And I would say probably thehardest thing is managing that.
Courtney (47:10):
Yeah, that can absolutely be a challenge for
sure.
And you like, you want to makesure that you're still enjoying
what you're doing, but somedays, you're not necessarily
going to feel like it, but youstill have to, and it's hard to
keep that motivation going andprotect yourself.
Andrea (47:26):
Exactly.
Courtney (47:28):
Well, let's flip it around then.
What would you say has been themost rewarding part?
Andrea (47:32):
That one was an easy one.
It has been meeting other smallbusiness and all their small
makers, because my favorite partof the social media piece, isn't
promoting our stuff.
It is promoting other people'sstuff, and interacting with the
community and meeting coolpeople, such as yourself and
your husband and what you guysare doing, and some of the other
(47:54):
small businesses and makers thatyou've interviewed for the
podcast, you know, and just ingeneral, the tabletop gaming
community on social media.
Yes, there's some definitepockets of dissension.
There is a lot of really amazingpeople out there.
And just getting to see whatthey're doing, getting to see
(48:15):
what they're making, getting tomeet them and see what inspires
this business overall and thefun part.
And the other fun part too, isthe best part about the
businesses when somebody leavesa review and it's a positive
review And it's like, that givesyou all the warm fuzzies that
somebody thought that your workwas not only good enough to buy,
(48:36):
but then they absolutely lovedit when they're holding it in
their hand.
So I would say that's been thebest part about the last year is
meeting all these people in thisamazing community.
And then also just receiving allthat, that feedback, knowing
that we're hitting the markright on being an affordable
quality tabletop gaming gearshop that's really designed to
(48:58):
allow everyone to see themselvesat the table.
Courtney (49:00):
That is always so special.
And I definitely agree aboutgetting to meet so many cool
people within this little cornerthat we have found, but also
reviews are so important to yoursmall business owners.
So, Hey, when you go buysomething from Andrea's, shop,
leave her a review, tell her howawesome it is.
Andrea (49:22):
Yeah, it Definitely makes our day, and for Deacon
and I, we both had a prettyrough year, last year.
The reviews were what got usthrough.
That's what kept us going.
That's what's kept our doorsopen, was knowing that people
loved it enough, that they wouldtake the time to turn around and
come back and say, I love it.
It's amazing.
I can't wait to use it.
So yeah.
(49:43):
It was definitely a good mentalhealth boost when other people
say nice things.
Courtney (49:47):
Definitely.
Andrea.
This has been a really goodconversation.
Thank you for letting me nerdout into the more logistics,
businessy things.
It's been some good topics, butif people want to find you and
Deacon and your shop, whereshould they go?
Andrea (50:05):
So the shop itself is WolfwoodGaming.com.
And then you can find us on mostof the social media platforms.
So Twitter is at WolfwoodGaming, or if you want to do the
miniatures, you can find meAndrea at of dice and minis.
And then we're also on Instagramat Wolfwood Gaming and Facebook
(50:26):
Wolfwood Gaming.
So all of that, if you go toWolfwoodGaming.com and scroll to
the bottom, the links are allthere.
And if you're on Twitter, ourlink tree is there as well with
all of the links, but we'repretty active across all of
those platforms, like I said,And we just hope to see people
connecting with us there.
Courtney (50:45):
Awesome.
Yeah, I will include links, tothose in the show notes, but
thank you again for coming ontoday.
This has been a greatconversation.
Andrea (50:53):
Well, Courtney, thanks so much.
This was really exciting for us.
This is our first time thatwe've ever been featured on
anything this cool.
So thanks so much for your timeand thanks for reaching out and
hope you and everyone listeninghas a great rest of the week.
Today I am joined by the managing partner and mini
painter for Wolfwood Gaming,Andrea Canerossi, Andrea, how
are you today?
Andrea (04:38):
Good morning.
I'm doing well, Courtney, howare you?
Courtney (04:41):
I'm great.
You know, it is a pretty chillFriday morning.
I'm just enjoying having somecoffee and was playing with
Bowser a little bit earlier.
So that's always fun.
Bowser's my dog.
Andrea (04:53):
That's awesome.
Courtney (04:54):
Let us start things off, and I would love to know a
little bit about you and how yougot into gaming.
Andrea (05:00):
Well, so I've been gaming, Courtney for about 15
,years, actually.
It was the first date of my nowhusband.
He invited me to come play withhim and his friends, handed me a
character sheet and said,prepare to math.
Which is not my favorite, butyou know, we were playing a
(05:21):
second edition game and yeah, Igot hooked especially with the
storytelling and I've beengaming ever since My husband and
I have been fostering for aboutfive years now.
And we've been using it with ourfoster kids and the foster
community.
And it's just become kind oflike a lifestyle for us, and
(05:41):
that's kind of also how I gotinto mini painting as well.
So that's kinda my gaming storythere is: fell in love with it
as part of, you know, dating myhusband, and now it's something
we do as a family.
Courtney (05:54):
Okay.
That is really cool, and I wantto dig into using it with the
foster children.
How did that start?
Andrea (06:04):
I'll go ahead and say that I've got four kids now.
Two are my biological childrenand we started gaming with them
first.
And then when we startedfostering and we ended up
adopting two of our fosters,thus bringing us to four kids:
ages from seven to 12.
So we are kind of the elementaryschool bus.
(06:24):
You know, what we decided wasthat this was a way for our
fosters to feel kind of part ofthe family.
Cause it's something we werealready doing with our boys and
it was also a way for them topretend to be somebody else.
They could be brave; they couldbe wizards; they could be super
(06:46):
powerful, and for fosters,that's, you know, they're in a
world where they've come frompotentially some not great
backgrounds, a lot of upheavalin their life.
They're very powerless.
They're told where to go andwhat to do and for them, this is
(07:07):
a way for them to get into aworld where they can cast
fireball, and it was also a wayfor us to start seeing their
personalities come out in theircharacters and get to know them.
You know, we learn theirfavorite colors based off of
what dice they wanted to use.
We found out, like my daughterthat we adopted she is a chaotic
(07:31):
little Druid in a very smallpackage and it was awesome to
watch her get comfortable withherself and watch her wreak
havoc across the battlefield, onthe map and then turn around and
bring that kind of same energyafter a while to the house and
(07:52):
playing with her siblings andgetting comfortable with us.
So, you know, for us, it's beena way to get to know the kids,
make them feel a part ofsomething bigger.
Cause they're part of the party,and also make them feel like
they belong and we've kept itup.
And while we're not fosteringright now we're really focused
on two of our kids right now whoare going through some health
(08:14):
issues.
It's something that we do withthe larger foster community and
host games for other fosterfamilies as well.
Courtney (08:22):
That is absolutely amazing.
Like how often are you playingwith your, I guess just your
family versus how often are youdoing the larger community?
Andrea (08:32):
So I would say the larger community is hit or miss.
We live in the south and soCOVID numbers over the winter
were heinously high.
Right.
So we didn't do anything overthe winter.
A lot of times what we find iswith kids coming in and out of
households, there's a lot of, ofthe COVID getting passed around,
and so we didn't do it over thewinter.
(08:53):
But before that, we would dothem once, every couple of
months for families that wereinterested.
But with our family, we probablyplay two to three games a week.
So my husband runs a game forthe kids.
I run a game for the kids andthen our two older boys run a
game and my husband and the restof us come in and out as we have
(09:16):
time and energy.
So it's cool to watch my 12 and11 year old kind of, you know,
stretch their wings and try tobe the DM.
It's bonding time with Dad.
Courtney (09:27):
That is super cool.
Yeah, it makes sense thatobviously COVID would have
impacted how much you could doit on the larger scale.
Well, I mean, honestly, I couldkeep asking questions about this
for awhile, but you've mentionedthat this was kind of how you
also got into miniaturepainting.
So I would love to dive intothat.
What's the story behind theminis?
Andrea (09:49):
Right.
So I've been painting now forprobably two years.
I think, but anyway, it wasright at the beginning of the
pandemic, and I still wasworking for a global IT firm.
I was in associate partner incharge of a hundred million
dollar portfolio, 200 pluspeople department.
And then all of a sudden, allfour of my kids were home being
(10:11):
remote schooled and everything,and it was super stressful and I
needed an outlet and paintingbecame it.
It was the only way that I couldkind of turn my brain off, you
know?
Cause when you're focused onpainting something so tiny, you
can't really think aboutanything else.
After a while I started postingpictures of it to social media,
(10:34):
you know, my Facebook page andmy coworkers were like, oh my
gosh, would you paint for us?
And I was like, sure.
And then it just kind of evolvedfrom there into a"wow.
Could I actually make moneydoing this?" Like not as much
money as working at a full-timejob, but could I make some money
and yeah, so that kind ofevolved to that and started the
(10:58):
juices flowing on"maybe I couldmake this a side hustle," and
that's kind of what led toWolfwood Gaming as well.
So that's where I started.
Courtney (11:09):
Yeah, I love so much when it starts as something that
you just want to try it out andhave fun.
And then other people are like,whoa, that's really cool.
I want that.
Andrea (11:19):
Yeah, it was definitely a shock to my system.
The first time one of mycoworkers was like, I will pay
you to paint my minis.
And I was like, really?
Okay.
Courtney (11:29):
How many minis did they want you to paint?
Andrea (11:32):
Well, that one was actually a custom order.
And he wanted me to, since Ihave a 3d printer scale up a big
wonder woman miniature, he hadfound on my mini factory and
paint it for his wife.
Courtney (11:44):
Oh, cool!
Andrea (11:44):
So it was.
the biggest mini I've painted todate.
And it was the very first one Ipainted for sale.
So it was kind of like, okay, Idon't know if I'm ready to do
that.
But after that came a few of thenormal 32 ones, and those were a
lot more manageable.
Courtney (12:00):
So tell me about, for any of our listeners that aren't
aware of your shop (12:03):
what is Wolfwood Gaming?
Like what all do y'all offer?
And I guess let's go into alittle bit about your
partnership.
Andrea (12:11):
Okay, sounds good.
So Wolfwood Gaming is a veteranand woman owned business.
The veteran is my businesspartner and our creative
director, Deacon Wolfwood, andthen myself, Andrea as well.
I manage the business from abusiness perspective, the social
media and do the mini painting.
And what we offer is qualityaffordable tabletop gear.
(12:35):
And what do I mean by that?
Well, we believe inaccessibility, Deacon and I both
have had long talks about thisand we want everyone to be able
to have something at their tablethat is special.
And so we offer tabletop gearacross a variety of price
points, and that goes as low aslike$8 all the way up to some of
(12:59):
our more products as well.
And the products that we offerare dice trays.
What the dice trays are, they'rewooden framed.
And we either have a clothbottom that is padded for say,
like gemstone dice, or we alsohave dice rolling surfaces in
(13:20):
the trays that are super pretty,but they make that awesome click
clack noise right?
And then we have painted minis.
We have dice bag charms, whichcan be put on key chains,
purses, gaming bags, dice bags.
So they can be customized tomatch either a character or a
theme just to add a little blingto a bag and make it kind of
(13:43):
like, oh, something small.
They're great for gifts (13:45):
for you know, the DM or the entire group
at the end of a campaign or atholidays.
We also do different displaysfor dice.
Deacon and I are unapologeticdice collectors.
We love the little math rocksand what better way than to
display them in dice displaypotions?
(14:07):
I paint minis and create littlescenes that dice can be added
to.
So all of that's what we have inthe shop right now, along with
some you know, very inexpensivetabletop geared kind of
printables as well, like a dailyquest log, which is basically a
to-do list.
Courtney (14:23):
Y'all have such a cool variety.
I really enjoyed kind ofbrowsing through your Etsy
store.
How did y'all get connected?
Like how did Wolfwood Gamingcome to exist?
Andrea (14:35):
So I was very blessed to work with Deacon at our old job.
And then when our paths splitfrom a job perspective, right at
the beginning of the pandemic,we kept up the friendship and,
you know, after a while it waskind of like, Hey, Deacon was
like, I've got these trays thatI'd like to sell.
(14:56):
I'm like over here going well,people are paying me to paint
minis.
And so we decided to go intobusiness together and really,
truly the, the vision for it hasevolved, thanks to, to Deacon.
And then from a creativeperspective, all the lines of
offerings that we have in theshop.
Those are, you know, Deacon'sideas.
(15:18):
And then behind that comes mewith you know, my program
management background from theIT company that I was working
for, and so I manage all thefinances and it's a really good
balance between Deacon and I tobuild this business.
Which is great because being asmall business owner is a lot of
work.
Courtney (15:36):
Yes, it is.
So I guess I want to dive into alittle bit more of how y'all
decided how to, I mean, otherthan the, you're the one that's
painting the managers and Deaconis trays.
How did you decide how to splitup the business responsibilites?
Andrea (15:54):
We really try to lean into each other's strengths,
Courtney, and you know, ifsomeone else is looking at doing
a business, that's kind of whatI would recommend as well.
Deacon is very outgoing, so hehandles a lot of the local going
out to shops and promoing thingslocally where we are here in
(16:14):
Alabama, and then he handles alot of the research as well into
the creative side of things.
He goes out and looks at what,what is the market interested
in?
I'll get texts from it and it'llbe like, look at this cool
thing.
We could do something like this.
And I'm like, okay.
Yeah, you're right, we could.
And then you know, I'm used tomanaging large portfolios,
(16:36):
revenue, profit, et cetera.
So I, it just naturally fell tome to kind of handle that side
of the business.
Courtney (16:43):
Yeah, that makes sense.
I'm a project manager, so evenwhen I was kind of starting up
with some of the Lightheartstuff, it was like, well, I know
how to make a schedule and getpeople to follow through on
things.
Andrea (16:54):
Right, exactly.
And that that's basically, youknow, we play to our strengths.
Courtney (16:58):
What were the first steps?
So you guys decided that, Hey,we could actually make a store
together and make this work.
What did you do then?
Andrea (17:09):
We had to make it really official.
We went ahead and decided toincorporate into an LLC.
Limited liability company forthose not familiar with the
term.
And that meant registering as anofficial business in partnership
with the IRS and getting what'sknown as an EIN number.
and that number is, you know,specific to the business and
(17:31):
used on all things like taxforms and stuff.
And the idea behind that was togive Deacon and I some coverage
as a company, so that if therewere issues, you know, it
protected both of us asindividuals and our, our
individual bank accounts.
Which is one of the things that,you know, if somebody else were
looking at doing a smallbusiness, I would recommend you
(17:53):
can register your business forfree with the IRS.
Or you can get something likelegal zoom to do all of it, and
your startup costs, if you dothat, will be probably anywhere
between 250 to 500.
At the time, you know, I had a70 hour week job plus the kids,
so I took the legal zoom route;Courtney, looking back if I
(18:15):
could go back, I'd probablychange that just to save on some
startup costs, but that was thereal push to go pass the inertia
of just, we have this great ideato making it real.
And then from there it wasdeciding, okay, what's going to
be our first line of stock?
You know, are we going to juststay focused on dice trays and
minis?
Are we going to do somethingelse?
(18:36):
And then also what platform arewe going to use to, to sell on?
And so that was really thenucleus of, of starting that
business back in December of2020.
Courtney (18:49):
Okay, what made you decide on Etsy?
Andrea (18:52):
So we actually didn't move to Etsy until August of
last year, we try to run our ownwebsite based off of WooCommerce
and a WordPress site.
And Deacon is a UI web designerand he did a great job really
designing a website that wasunique and very much on brand
(19:15):
for us.
But unfortunately the backend,the commerce side of it, we just
could not get those commerceplugins to work consistently.
And it meant we were losingsales because people would go to
checkout and then the checkoutprocess would mess up.
Usually with the shipping, itwas always the shipping.
(19:37):
And after a while, we startedgaining a lot of traction on
social media, but we weren'ttranslating that into sales.
We decided to move over to Etsy.
Just simply because it's a knownplatform, it's a known
marketplace and it took thestress of managing those
(19:57):
commerce pieces out of it.
And from there we really saw,sales increase by leaps and
bounds because people weren'tabandoning things in their cart.
You know, they weren't havingissues with the website.
Like it or not, Etsy was drivingtraffic to us.
There were some hidden fees thatwe didn't know about until
(20:19):
afterwards, but, overall themove to Etsy was good for us.
Now that we're well-established,have almost a hundred sales in
Etsy and they're raising theirfees, we are looking at
expanding into a Shopifyaccount, and actually running
both Etsy and Shopify at thesame time.
Courtney (20:41):
That is interesting that you kind of have had to go
back and forth.
It's very unfortunate thatyou've had those issues with the
plugins right at the beginning,but I think that it does make a
lot of sense to once you arelike more comfortable and more
established to have both an Etsystop and a website where you're
(21:02):
not having to pay all of theEtsy fees, but you're still able
to get that Etsy traffic thatisn't coming from your normal
social media.
Andrea (21:09):
Exactly.
Courtney (21:10):
Cool.
So what I would love to diveinto next is the, I guess,
overall design process.
So obviously you and Deacon aremaking different items, but is
there any kind of collaborationon themes or how do you decide
on what a new type of productoffering is going to be
Andrea (21:29):
So Deacon and I have a real problem with Pinterest.
And we're constantly sendingthings back and forth over
Facebook messenger to eachother, and it's like, look at
this, we could make this intosomething that's game-related
and, you know, it's things likewatching acrylic art paint
(21:49):
videos, and the way that thecolors are mixing is kinda like
that would make a great resindice tray to do something
similar.
I also have an entire board onPinterest associated with
character art, and that becomesthe basis for a lot of the color
schemes for my minis that I putup in the shop.
(22:12):
And Deacon will send me otherthings as well, ideas, you know,
and so back and forth, we'd goand have these kind of
collaborative sessions.
And then once we talk throughthe creative side of it, then we
kind of turned to the businessside.
Okay.
How much is it gonna take tomake this; what's kind of the
profit margin we want to have?
(22:35):
Right, because for Deacon inparticular, this is one of his
ways of bringing in anadditional stream of income, and
now that I've left my job, it'smine as well.
So this is how we pay the bills.
So it's like, how do we balanceprofit margin with also staying
in line with our kind of creed,right?
Affordable quality materialsthat you can have for your
(22:58):
gaming space.
And so that's kind of where ourcreative process is, is let's
look at these colors, let's lookat these ideas.
We don't see this really on themarket, but we can translate
something else into that.
And then is it a viable businessproduct?
I mean, we have shelved someideas where we're like the
(23:20):
profit margin's not gonna workEspecially with Etsy fees, and
it's just not worth it to havesomething that's only going to
bring us a buck or two.
So that's kind of our process,Courtney.
Courtney (23:30):
Yeah, that makes sense.
I am also a huge Pinterest fan,so I appreciate that that helps
give y'all some inspiration.
So I guess I would love to knowabout the evolution of the
products was kind of a follow-upto that.
I know it started withminiatures and trays on Deacon's
part, but at what point did youdecide to add other products?
Andrea (23:52):
So we actually started adding new products, like the
dice bag charms pretty quickly,when we realized that the more
successful businesses in ourspace had a variety of price
points.
And so that's where things likethe dice bag charms came from.
(24:13):
What we were seeing was peoplewere selling dice bags, and some
of those dice bags came withalready attached dice bag
charms, but we didn't really seeanywhere else on the market:
removable ones, let alonecustomizable ones.
And I'm one of those nerds whohas Yeah, I'm one of those
(24:36):
people.
I have my own dice percharacter.
And so each character has a dicebag.
So I was like, well, I want tocharm on each of those dice
bags, maybe other people would,and it's been a best seller, I
would say, honestly, because ofthe price point, and it's
something that was new and it'ssomething that you can add to
(24:56):
your purse or, you know, yourkey chain.
They're very versatile.
And then from there we looked atokay: what are some of the more
cheaper ways we could help otherdice collectors, you know, have
something special?
And that's where the dicepotions came in because that's
(25:16):
the just plain glass bottles ishow I display my dice in my
studio-- the ones that aren'tused for a specific character.
And so Deacon had the great ideato add colored resin to match
those.
And it just took off from there.
And that's probably our secondbestseller is our dice potions.
Courtney (25:39):
That's a really fun sounding journey.
And I definitely think that withthe days bag charms, that it
makes sense that most peopleonly offer that as already
attached.
And so I can see why that wouldbe something that folks would be
really interested in.
I am curious about some of thelogistics around inventory and
(26:00):
knowing how much stuff to stockup on, especially when at the
beginning, because obviouslyonce you get more sales and you
can see what's popular and whatmakes sense to have a few more
items on hand for, but whatabout when you first got started
with the shop as a whole, versuseven when you decide to bring in
a new product that you haven'toffered before?
(26:21):
What is your decision process onhow much inventory to have on
hand when you start?
Andrea (26:26):
So that's a really good question because I'm pretty sure
we didn't have a solid answer.
What we did know was we neededto provide a variety of things.
And so we really shot for having5 to 10 of each item when we
(26:47):
first opened.
And so we probably had 7 to 10minis, both player, character
and monster minis, and thenDeacon did a phenomenal job and
he busted out like seven to 10different size, different kind
of dice trays.
(27:08):
And that's really kind of wherewe focused on was having a
variety to get the widest appealacross the board to potential
customers.
And so that meant differentcolored trays, different sizes,
different wood types, woodstains for the minis.
(27:28):
It meant in different races.
We had some Orcs, we had someElves we've had humans, the
different monster minis.
as well.
And also on the minis havingdifferent color schemes.
One of the things that we reallywanted Wolfwood Gaming to be
known for, again, as anaccessibility thing, is we
believe everyone should be ableto see themselves at the table.
(27:51):
And so we really focused on froma mini perspective, having all
different skin colors on theminis so that no matter what
someone could look and say, Ican see myself; I can see my
character.
You know, as a, as a person ofcolor, I found a, mini that was
painted for me.
As someone who, you know, maybewas, Asian, they could see
(28:15):
themselves on the table so thatit, wasn't just kind of like a
homogenous inventory of, youknow, the same kind of
characters that all look thesame, like mainstream art.
So that was really what wefocused on was having a variety
of things, a variety of colorsthat would appeal.
(28:36):
And since then, the best thingas small business can do is
continue to add to inventory.
So we're adding anywhere betweenone to five things a week to our
shop.
Courtney (28:48):
Wow.
Yeah.
(29:16):
When you are painting, theminis, do you ever paint
multiple in the same colorscheme at a time, or is every
single one individual?
Andrea (29:27):
That is a really good question because the answer is
yes and no.
At any given point I've got fourto seven minis in progress.
And a lot of times they havesimilar colors because what I'm
doing is putting on my palette: blues and greens and grays, (29:40):
undefined
complimentary colors, right?
And then I cycle who I want toput those colors on, but in the
end they don't really look likea cohesive unit.
I'm not painting the units likeyou see for Warmongers and
things like that.
I tend to go towards more trendsof fantasy.
(30:01):
So yes, some end up havingsimilar colors, but they're
definitely not a unit.
Like you're not going to buythem and put them on the table
and it'll be like, they lookexactly the same.
Each mini is unique They justmay have hints of the same
colors.
And also at the same time, to behonest, Courtney, I paint my, I
paint minis for myself as wellas for the store.
(30:24):
So some of those colored minisdon't even end up in the store
cause they're for my personalcollection.
Courtney (30:29):
As they should.
So I guess, talk to me about,what does a typical week look
like for you these days,especially since you were able
to leave your job, you've gotfour kids running around,
running this Etsy store.
the question that uh, always isan interesting one is how do you
do your time management?
How do you balance everything?
Andrea (30:50):
So I have to admit I'm still learning that one.
I'm only on my first week notworking my crazy, you know, 60
to 70 hour job.
I literally left my job lastFriday.
I loved my job.
I just wanted to put that out.
So if any of my formercolleagues hear me talk about
this, cause I'm going to blastthis out on social media, right?
I did love my job.
I was in a place with my lifeand with my children's health
(31:11):
that I had to step away.
So time management is stillweird for me Right now, but
typically what I would say isMondays is a heavy social media
day.
I plan out the week for all ofour posts, for where we can
schedule posts, I get themscheduled.
That probably takes me a coupleof hours.
(31:33):
I do that while handling mykids' schoolwork.
So while they're doing theirschoolwork, I'm sitting around
the table with them on mylaptop, you know, uploading and
getting that scheduled.
Every Wednesday, I've got setaside some time to do the books,
because one thing that you findis taxes never go away, and so
(31:53):
if you open up your shop as anormal, like small business,
and, and it's not just like youas an individual where you do
your personal taxes; if it's a,if it's an entity, like an LLC
or a corporation, an S-corp,what you find is you have to not
only register with the nationalIRS and do annual taxes in your
(32:15):
state and in your county, youhave to register your business
and every month do state andcounty taxes.
And so my Wednesdays are spentbalancing the book from week to
week and then doing any taxesthat we need to in the first two
Wednesdays of the month, becausemost of the county and state
(32:35):
taxes are due by like the 15thof the month, and the rest of
the time is balancing betweenhopping on social media,
interacting with potentialcustomers, other small
businesses, lifting them up inthe community, because in order
to sell in a community, you haveto be part of a community, so we
spend a lot of time doing that,doing research into new
(32:58):
products.
And then a couple times a month,we sit down and do search engine
optimization.
So we look at the analyticsbehind our shop: what keywords
are working, what keywords arenot working so that people find
our stuff easier on Etsy, andwe'll do likewise when we set up
Shopify.
The rest of the time is wheneverI can, and my kids aren't being
(33:21):
crazy and, you know, are beingquiet: I will hop up into my
studio in the back corner of myhouse and I will paint minis or
make dice bag chains.
And likewise Deacon doessomething similar.
He manages around his workloadand makes some really beautiful
things with resin and wood whenhe's got a spare moment.
(33:44):
and so at any given point, we'vegot things, you know, kind of
prototyping or halfway throughbeing built or painted, and then
the other part (33:53):
taking pictures of the stock to put up in the
shop.
That's usually a Saturday thingfor me because that is probably
the most time consuming piece istaking photos.
And setting up nice kind oflayouts that are appealing
visually so that a customer willclick on it.
(34:13):
And I do that on Saturdaysbecause I can throw my husband
at the kids and say, goentertain them, please, and
leave me alone.
Courtney (34:19):
What tips have you learned to make that photography
really stand out?
Andrea (34:25):
So I'm going to gush, for a minute about this app on
my phone that I literally justfound three days ago and I'm
kicking myself for not findingit sooner.
It's an app by Adobe, which is,you know, I know not everyone's
favorite.
But the app is called Lightroom.
It's amazing.
It really helps balance theshadows and colors in the
(34:49):
photos.
But prior to that you know, youcan invest as much as you want
in getting good photos or aslittle as you want.
But what I would say to folks isyou can take really good product
photos on your phone, or with aCA or a regular camera, not one
of those super expensive ones,but find a place in your house
(35:09):
with good natural light.
Most of our pictures are takenon nice sunny days.
and I use I do use a big clothlight.
box that I got for like 12 buckson Amazon, just to diffuse that
bright light a little bit.
And then I've got scrapbookpaper that I bought at michael's
(35:31):
for like 50 cents a piece that Iuse as the backdrops for most of
everything (35:35):
except the minis, the minis, I use a different
setup.
From there, it's just addingcomplimentary things around the
item, you know, the right colordice, and such to make it look
interesting.
and you kind of go from there.
The big thing is Courtney ismaking sure that it's a
consistent look from product toproduct, to product so that when
(35:57):
someone jumps onto yourwebsites, jumps into your store,
whether or your own website, youknow, the consumer is seeing a
similar background.
And so there's definitely acohesive feel to it.
And that's really what we focuson when we take our photos is,
is using the same backdrops,trying to use similar lighting
(36:18):
so that people can see the samekind of thing from item to item,
it really helps create a senseof brand.
It creates a sense of quality,time and, and effort to showcase
our work to its absolute best.
Courtney (36:32):
Would you say that your process for your backdrops
has changed over time?
Andrea (36:38):
Yes, and no.
We do use pretty much the samebackdrop for the dice trays.
In particular, we have a reallynice big piece of scrap book
paper.
That's this really pretty woodenbackground that the dice trays
just really look nice against.
But from a dice potionperspective; from a miniature
(36:58):
perspective, we've definitelyplayed around with the setups
for those to continue to tweakhow they look-- just simply
because, depending on the natureof the colors of the dice and
the dice potion, or the colorson the mini.
Sometimes the white backgroundreally washes them out and it's
(37:19):
hard to see like the glitter andthe dice and the dice potion,
or, you know, certain colors onthe white background don't look
great on the mini, so we have toswap them out for a dark
background.
So we, we still play around withthat, and Deacon says he's a
good balance for me.
He tells me I'm a perfectionist.
So you know, I'll probably playaround with it more than I
(37:42):
should, which is why Saturdaymornings are all photography.
But, as a business, we just kindof keep trying, right.
Neither of us are professionalphotographers, But, we're
trying.
Courtney (37:53):
It's always so interesting when you do start
your own business, becauseyou're like, well, I'm really
good at this thing, and I wantto sell this thing or this
service, and then (38:00):
well, now I have to be an expert in
literally every single part ofrunning a business.
Have fun!
Andrea (38:07):
It is definitely a lot of work for sure.
And we wear multiple hats and ifit wasn't for Deacon, I don't
think I would've ever startedthis business as a solo person.
You know, like I said, it helpshaving a business partner
because again, we balance eachother.
Courtney (38:26):
Yeah, absolutely.
It is hard to go it alone.
Okay.
I'm going to ask something thatmay not be the most interesting
topic, but it's one that I don'tactually get to talk about a
whole lot on the show, but youbrought it up.
So, I'm curious on, honestly,just the more legal and
accounting logistics.
Like how long did it take you tofigure out a good rhythm for
(38:50):
just getting everything set upwith the taxes?
So you say you do your taxes onWednesday and you're kind of
keeping up with your books on aweekly basis that way.
How long did it take you tofigure all of that out?
Andrea (39:01):
I will be honest.
I still haven't figured all ofit out?
So I'm actually getting anaccountant for the business.
Now that we've had a very, ourvery first full year, right?
Cause we started December 15th,2020.
So the 2020 taxes were easy.
Cause we were open for 15 daysand sold one thing for seven
bucks, so, you know, we didn'treally have much for taxes, but
(39:25):
last year was definitely, we didwell enough that we were almost
break even with our originalstartup costs.
I would say it took me about 90days to really get a battle
rhythm down and work through allthe issues we had with the state
with setting our business up intheir systems.
After that, and the associatedpenalties we had with those
(39:49):
third, those over those threemonths of missing taxes, right?
Because usually what happens isYou have to file state and local
taxes by a certain date.
Otherwise there is a$50 latefee.
Once you have a$50 late fee acouple of times you're like,
okay, I gotta get my acttogether.
And so we worked through thatappealed the late taxes, and
(40:10):
since it was our first threemonths, the state actually
waived those.
Thank God.
But yeah, As a business owner tokind of find that battle rhythm.
and it's just one of thosethings you have to keep up with
your books.
If you're a small business owneryou have to be looking at your
books once a week.
End of story.
If you try to go back like atthe end of the month or heaven
(40:31):
forbid, months later, you'regoing to be like what did I do?
How, what was this expense for?
I don't remember what was thiscost for?
I don't remember.
And then those fees on thetaxes, those add up and eat into
your profit margin.
And that's no good as a smallbusiness owner.
You know, the other thing isafter talking with a friend,
(40:53):
who's an accountant who actuallywas like, Andrea, you need to go
get an accountant (40:56):
there are, you know, tax refunds and
deductions that small businessesget that a lot of people don't
know.
And so that's what I'm hoping byusing an accountant for our
taxes, that we'll have some gooddeductions since both of us--
Deacon and I have dedicatedspace in our homes for the
business-- apparently that's adeduction.
(41:20):
I didn't know that and the samefor, we could deduct mileage
driving over post office to offorders.
So, you know those are the kindsof things as a small business
that we're working on and tryingto get our hands wrapped the,
the normal battle rhythm andpaying for those state and local
taxes and things probably aboutthree months to really get the
books going well.
(41:40):
And, that, that might be thenorm or not.
I don't know, but for us at thetime, that was really where we
kind of started.
Courtney (41:48):
So if you were to start over again, what would you
do differently?
Andrea (41:53):
Well, I would probably, if I could go back and tell my
old self, I would have taken thetime to search around for local
resources for small businesses,because about the six months
into the business aboutmid-summer, I found that our
local small businessadministration office actually
offered workshops specificallydesigned for businesses that are
(42:19):
minority owned.
So for women owned businesses,veteran owned businesses.
They actually provide freeresources, and I wish I had
known that because I would'vegone to a couple of the
workshops right up front beforewe even launched the business.
And I think too, we could haveavoided some of our startup
costs because some of thoseworkshops that the SBA was
(42:40):
offering along with anothernonprofit that's local to our
area, they were offering thingslike how to create a branding
package.
So I could have learned how tocreate our logos instead of
paying, you know, 50 bucks forsomebody to do it, or how to go
ahead and file your businesswith the IRS.
(43:00):
And that would have saved usstartup costs cause I just went
to legal zoom and was like,please do it for me because I'm
overwhelmed.
So if I were to start over,those are the kinds of things
that I wish I had done (43:09):
was get better educated before we jumped
in feet first, just because Ithink that would have saved us
some startup costs right upfront, which honestly, for a
small business, they, they addup quick.
So that, that's probably thebiggest thing.
That, and I wish we had figuredout a way to start on Etsy
(43:33):
first.
Start on Etsy and then createanother site that manages the
inventory between the two.
I think that would have probablybeen a good thing as well.
That would have meant that wehad more revenue coming in
sooner and that could havehelped kind of balance out
those, those opening costs: Especially when I forgot to file (43:49):
undefined
state and local taxes, and weended up with those, penalties.
Courtney (43:58):
That's really good advice.
I honestly hadn't ever thoughtabout there being local or yeah.
Something that could offerworkshops on.
Yeah.
Here's how to start a smallbusiness.
That is a really cool thing,that I am going to be looking
into now.
Andrea (44:11):
Well, the other thing is Courtney, our small business
admin here in where we are, theyactually offer grants to small
businesses when they'restarting.
You have to go through aprocess, and for us, we wouldn't
have qualified.
For what the SBA wants to dothere.
They're trying to give grants tosmall businesses that are
(44:31):
starting, that are, you know,the kind that have to have
offices and things like that.
Each SBA in the differentregions, they offer different
grants.
So it's also something to lookat, for other people who may be
looking at, Hey, maybe I couldget a hundred bucks to cover
something.
Some of the grants.
are actually pretty big.
They're like$1,500.
(44:51):
So that could be of equipmentthat's needed that's not coming
out of the business.
So those are, those are thingsthat I've learned over the last
year as I've, I've gotten moreand more involved in the local
community and talk to othersmall business owners, like for
example, our local comic bookshop, they worked with the SBA
(45:12):
to get a grant when they werefirst opening several years ago.
And that helped defray somecosts.
Courtney (45:18):
That is awesome.
So those of you listening, ifyou are wanting to start up a
business, make sure you lookinto your local resources.
There's some amazing stuff outthere.
I do want to make sure that wehave some time to go over some
of my questions that I love toask in every interview, which
hopefully, you know these arecoming if, since you've listened
(45:39):
to a few episodes, but when youlook back over the last couple
of years of getting this shopgoing and just all the ways that
it has grown and evolved sincethen, what would you say has
been the most challenging part?
Andrea (45:54):
That's really hard question.
I've been thinking about thisone, Courtney, knowing you're
going to ask me this questionand I want to say, I think the
hardest thing has been managingburnout.
Because simply speaking, like wetalked about earlier, you've got
all these hats on, right?
You're an accountant, you're theface of the business and this
(46:17):
and that, and even with the factthat there's two of us deacon
and I, we have to caution eachother regularly because we have
our, both have our healthchallenges, right?
Like I have fibromyalgia and hehas arthritis and we have to
make sure that we don't beat ourbodies up too bad, doing what we
love.
And so managing that, knowingthat when we aren't doing
(46:42):
business stuff is kind of like,are we missing out?
Are we missing sales?
Because we're not out therepushing, or we're not out there
making new product and notfeeling guilty when we rest.
That is probably the hardestthing because as they say right,
it's all about the hustle.
Well, the hustle can kill youand burn you out bad, if you
(47:04):
don't manage it well.
And I would say probably thehardest thing is managing that.
Courtney (47:10):
Yeah, that can absolutely be a challenge for
sure.
And you like, you want to makesure that you're still enjoying
what you're doing, but somedays, you're not necessarily
going to feel like it, but youstill have to, and it's hard to
keep that motivation going andprotect yourself.
Andrea (47:26):
Exactly.
Courtney (47:28):
Well, let's flip it around then.
What would you say has been themost rewarding part?
Andrea (47:32):
That one was an easy one.
It has been meeting other smallbusiness and all their small
makers, because my favorite partof the social media piece, isn't
promoting our stuff.
It is promoting other people'sstuff, and interacting with the
community and meeting coolpeople, such as yourself and
your husband and what you guysare doing, and some of the other
(47:54):
small businesses and makers thatyou've interviewed for the
podcast, you know, and just ingeneral, the tabletop gaming
community on social media.
Yes, there's some definitepockets of dissension.
There is a lot of really amazingpeople out there.
And just getting to see whatthey're doing, getting to see
(48:15):
what they're making, getting tomeet them and see what inspires
this business overall and thefun part.
And the other fun part too, isthe best part about the
businesses when somebody leavesa review and it's a positive
review And it's like, that givesyou all the warm fuzzies that
somebody thought that your workwas not only good enough to buy,
(48:36):
but then they absolutely lovedit when they're holding it in
their hand.
So I would say that's been thebest part about the last year is
meeting all these people in thisamazing community.
And then also just receiving allthat, that feedback, knowing
that we're hitting the markright on being an affordable
quality tabletop gaming gearshop that's really designed to
(48:58):
allow everyone to see themselvesat the table.
Courtney (49:00):
That is always so special.
And I definitely agree aboutgetting to meet so many cool
people within this little cornerthat we have found, but also
reviews are so important to yoursmall business owners.
So, Hey, when you go buysomething from Andrea's, shop,
leave her a review, tell her howawesome it is.
Andrea (49:22):
Yeah, it Definitely makes our day, and for Deacon
and I, we both had a prettyrough year, last year.
The reviews were what got usthrough.
That's what kept us going.
That's what's kept our doorsopen, was knowing that people
loved it enough, that they wouldtake the time to turn around and
come back and say, I love it.
It's amazing.
I can't wait to use it.
So yeah.
(49:43):
It was definitely a good mentalhealth boost when other people
say nice things.
Courtney (49:47):
Definitely.
Andrea.
This has been a really goodconversation.
Thank you for letting me nerdout into the more logistics,
businessy things.
It's been some good topics, butif people want to find you and
Deacon and your shop, whereshould they go?
Andrea (50:05):
So the shop itself is WolfwoodGaming.com.
And then you can find us on mostof the social media platforms.
So Twitter is at WolfwoodGaming, or if you want to do the
miniatures, you can find meAndrea at of dice and minis.
And then we're also on Instagramat Wolfwood Gaming and Facebook
(50:26):
Wolfwood Gaming.
So all of that, if you go toWolfwoodGaming.com and scroll to
the bottom, the links are allthere.
And if you're on Twitter, ourlink tree is there as well with
all of the links, but we'repretty active across all of
those platforms, like I said,And we just hope to see people
connecting with us there.
Courtney (50:45):
Awesome.
Yeah, I will include links, tothose in the show notes, but
thank you again for coming ontoday.
This has been a greatconversation.
Andrea (50:53):
Well, Courtney, thanks so much.
This was really exciting for us.
This is our first time thatwe've ever been featured on
anything this cool.
So thanks so much for your timeand thanks for reaching out and
hope you and everyone listeninghas a great rest of the week.
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