In May, forces aligned and I left the world of food marketing. The choice before me was to either jump back in somewhere else, or jump off the cliff and turn MEP into a career instead of just a business.
I chose the cliff, and it was the right decision. It's been tough, challenging, sometimes even harrowing over the past year, but always right and I've not had any regrets. I think Angel would say the same.
Immediately our business began to grow, but we had some major growing pains along the way. Much of the new business found us, but then we had to handle it. New issues cropped up. I had no baseline for forecasting or profitability, and there were only two of us. We survived the crazy holiday season, but barely. We were exhausted, mentally and physically, and knew that we didn't want to try to do that again in 2013.
It was, however, a year of learning, and once we lapped the year long track, we had some new understandings to help us continue to grow, and to weather the storms of owning a small business.
This spring, we added Kate to our team. Some of you have already met her, and she helps with running the day to day tasks of the studio, including prepping orders for pick up, shipping, software management and pretty much anything else that needs to be done. She always has a smile and is willing to help out wherever needed, and we rely on her a lot. Kate is the mother to two darling young boys, and they keep her very busy!
As we sat down at the mid-year point to look at our business and the insane growth we've continued to have this year, a little bit of panic set in when I realized that this holiday season is likely to be much busier than last, so I knew we needed additional resources. The problem was knowing who and what to look for, especially out here in our little neck of the woods. Luckily, we found someone!
So today, our fun news is that we would like you to meet Alex. Alex will be working with us on post-production prep and design, which will be a HUGE relief as we head into our busiest four months of the year. Alex is a recent graduate of McNally School of Music, and loves his girlfriend Emma, photography and music (of course). I am excited to have Alex join us as it means that Angel and I will survive our "super busy season" with more finesse and energy than last year, and having another person on our team to work on customer orders with us will also help us maintain a great customer experience, which is so important to us.
As always, thank you so much for your support and love for us and what we do. We honestly cannot imagine doing anything else. And doing it for you, our clients, is why we love it so much.
Cheers!
Maris, Angel, Kate and Alex
