Today we’d like to introduce you to Megan Trottier.
Hi Megan, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers?
I have a background in sales in both retail and pharmaceutical sales over the past 10 years. I have always enjoyed selling and being “crafty”. In my 20’s I would spend lots of time working on crafts, putting up curtains, and even re-upholstering furniture as a hobby. Fast-forward 10 years, I am now married with 3 young sons’ so my days are really busy and naturally my hobby had fallen to the side. This gave me lots of free time. I started to paint for fun in the evenings experimenting with hearts and stripes; a lot of abstract art and colors. I really started to feel inspired with what I was doing.
My first piece was an unexpected explosion of color and joy—I realized how needed those elements are, not just during a dark time, but always. I painted more and more, craving the happiness it brought me, and because happiness is contagious, soon others were commissioning my work.
I built a home studio, left my 9-5, and haven’t looked back. I put together a website, Instagram account and started to promote my work. The paintings and commissioned work evolved into a home decor line including trays, coasters, pillows, fabrics, and drapes.
I have one retailer in Dallas that is selling my line and I plan to add more retailers in addition to my website and social selling.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has been a fairly smooth road; however, whenever you put yourself out in public with something persona like art, I sometimes worry that my products aren’t good enough. I always get a little burst of joy when I get a new sale through Instagram or my website.
I have been getting some of products manufactured abroad and running into supply chain issues. It’s funny to think that a small entrepreneur is running into these types of issues challenged that I thought would only affect large companies. Currently, a large shipment of my products are stuck in a port off the coast of California.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
As a working mom, I love to work with other busy moms that are entrepreneurs too. It is energizing to see the different types of businesses out there and I also like to work with other moms for my website development, accounting, and making the products.
As an artist, I like the creative parts of the business and working with customers directly to make the buying and commissions easy for them. Framing, shipping and receiving can be tedious but I now have a reliable art delivery person and framer.
I really like to focus on making the buying process easy by getting pictures of my customer homes and put together a sample color pallet. Once I have the colors together, I give my customers updated pictures as I create the pieces – There is no grand reveal.
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
I really enjoy working with what my mother-in-law calls a skill of the past: Sewing, upholstering, working with fabrics and paints. I was doing this as a hobby until I started Megan Jane Home full-time. With my business, I need to get the designs manufactured by I do like to get my hands dirty. I have made the initial products by hand in my garage when I started the business.
Contact Info:
- Email: megan@meganjanehome.com
- Website: www.meganjanehome.com
- Instagram: @meganjanehome
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MeganJaneHome/
Image Credits
Jenny Martel
Mia Su Valdez
