I have always loved art, in any and every form, but I have always struggled to figure out what to do with that love. I have always hopped around from hobby to hobby, and it wasn’t working. I never felt fulfilled in what I was doing, and nothing ever felt worth doing. And good gracious, there was no way I could continue to get into new hobbies all the time. That was made very clear by the people that had to pay for it.

   I got to a point where there was no real purpose in anything I did. My life felt as if it was overcome by school, homework, and work. I had no time to do anything I enjoyed. Everything felt empty and I was upset that there was no room to be creative anymore.

   Martin Luther King Jr. Day, 2019 came and my sister and I were sitting on the couch needing something to do. We were both emotionally drained, we just wanted to do something fun. As many kids from Ohio do when they’re bored and have nothing to do, we went to walk around Target.

   There was an entire rack of white canvas shoes, extremely plain, extremely boring. I can’t stand plain white shoes, I have never gotten the purpose of them. Everyone gets them dirty, never takes care of them and there is nothing exciting about the shoe. 

   I wanted to paint them. I wanted to make them special because I felt so generic. I wanted to give them a unique identity because I had lost mine. My sister and I figured out what we wanted to do, we went home and painted shoes for each other. I took the entire day to make sure these shoes were perfect, every detail of them I loved. They were the perfect Mario Brothers recreation.

   I finished the shoes and all I wanted was to do it again. I had finally gotten back my passion. I kept making more and more shoes, I loved it! I wanted to show people what I was doing, have people love it as much as I did. 

   Chloe’s Kicks was born. I made my business, starting with Instagram. But I realized just posting pictures wasn’t working. I started to talk to people about it, I was trying to use word of mouth to my advantage. People were a lot more interested when I was speaking to them face to face when they knew who I was and knew I was reliable.

   I have a lot of growing to do, a lot of learning to do. There is no one perfect way to do things. There is no perfection to begin with. There is no right way to build a business. Many people use Instagram as an outlet for their business, according to Small Business Trends half of Instagram users follow a business account. Personally I would argue that interacting with people is one of the best ways to get more exposure for your business. You can use business cards, go to craft shows or things of that nature or even just putting up fliers. 

   There is no perfect way to build a business, but you should definitely build something you love.