Today we’d like to introduce you to Serena Dang.
Serena, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Back in 2010, my partner Roque Mendez was working in the education space, specifically at the Dallas ISD. He was happy to serve in an educational role, yet did not feel fulfilled as an artist at heart. Around his birthday in August that year, he brought his sketchbook to a local tattoo artist named Gerald Garcia with the hope of landing a tattoo apprenticeship. Gerald glanced at the hopeful’s portfolio, told Roque to continue drawing and come back to show him progress. Week after week, Roque came back with more drawings and sketches, hoping to persuade the mentor of his potential. Finally, three months later during Thanksgiving, Roque officially became an apprentice at Last Angels Tattoos studio on Greenville Avenue back then. In December 2013, Roque was recruited by award winning tattoo artist Char Mcgaughy to Gold Dust Tattoos studio.
By late Summer 2016, Roque became an independent custom tattoo artist and started his own brand My Idiot Heart Tattoos on Lower Greenville. By Spring 2017, I started joining the business to help Roque elevate and transform his personal brand into a more streamlined, cohesive small business. Fast forward to 2019, My Idiot Heart Tattoos is now a recognized and trusted tattoo brand with features on the Dallas Observer and Texas Inked Magazine.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has definitely not been easy to attempt building a recognizable, organized business and distinguish it from the typical personal branding most tattoo artists align themselves with. The tattoo industry is slowly becoming more professional and streamlined recently, but there is still a lack of ability to successfully infuse outstanding artistry with great customer service and business processes.
At the beginning of having his own independent brand, it was difficult for Roque to have a consistent client base especially during slow seasons (mid summer and winter holiday times). For those who don’t know much about the tattoo business, there are a few differences between being a contractor to a tattoo shop versus being an independent artist. When an artist is a contractor to a tattoo shop, they earn a portion from every completed tattoo at a pre-determined percentage with the shop owner. In exchange, shop artists do not have to pay rent and get distributed a steady amount of customers from the shop. In business terms, they receive a commission split as long as the shop takes care of lead generation, marketing, rental space, and invoicing processes. In this scenario, the tattoo shop also handles most of pre and post-communications with clients. The artist usually only provides tattooing services and would only manage client relations if it’s a repeat client.
As an independent artist there is no such luxury. Independent artists have to build their own clientele by actively promoting and advertising their talents to generate a constant stream of leads, provide beginning to end customer service, manage invoicing, and all other back-end business procedures.
And that’s where I came in. Having been in marketing and operations for over 8 years, my role was to audit, consult and optimize My Idiot Heart Tattoos infrastructure, budget management, pricing, as well as finance and communication processes. My main goal is to help Roque focus on his artistry, client satisfaction and expand his body of work while I take care of all areas of business operations. I overhauled our accounting procedure, updated communication platforms, and rebranded My Idiot Heart Tattoos to the current branding.
Please tell us about your business.
My Idiot Heart Tattoos is the destination for a true custom tattoo experience in Dallas. Despite being known for black & gray realism work and color illustrated style, we don’t want to be boxed into a simple definition when it comes to style and specialization in tattooing.
Texas Inked Magazine highlighted My Idiot Heart Tattoo’s black & gray realism portfolio in its Black Issue featuring the best Texas artists known for their black work. Earlier in 2019, one of our Star Wars inspired black & gray realism work received recognition at the Sinners Tattoo Convention. The Dallas Observer featured Roque among the top custom tattoo artists based on customer feedback with good reasons. We have helped clients fulfill a wide variety of custom ink from geometric work, traditional, Neo-traditional to realism tattoos alike. That being said, we take pride in creating personalized art that stems from complete trust from our clients. The biggest accomplishment an artist can ask for is to have complete creative freedom to craft permanent skin art.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
If we were to start over, we would definitely have raised our deposit amount much earlier on and enforced a much stricter cancellation policy. A lot of people do not realize that independent tattoo artists pay rent for their booth space, and each no-show or cancellation means a net loss to their cash flow. Besides the general courtesy of respecting your tattoo artist’s time, customers should try to give advance notice whenever they expect to be late or not able to make the appointment. We do our best to accommodate our client’s schedule since we understand that life happens. However, deposits are required and will be forfeited in instances of unreasonably late arrivals, late cancellations and no-shows to protect the business and to show respect to the artist’s time.
Pricing:
- Deposit: $300
- Hourly rate: $200/hour
- Minimum session: 4 hours
Contact Info:
- Address: 1902 Greenville Ave, Dallas, TX 75206
- Email: myidiothearttattoos@gmail.com
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