San Jose State University (SJSU) Spartans have turned their hobbies and passions into businesses recently by utilizing platforms like Etsy or making their own websites. I started an Etsy shop called Tie Dye For Hope, selling tie-dye apparel and donating some of the profits to COVID-19 relief organizations. I asked other fellow Spartans to tell me about their businesses, how they market their business and how they manage to be full-time students and business owners.
Here are some awesome women-owned Spartan small businesses to check out!
Anika Puri, Sunflower Brown, @sunflower_brown
Anika sells a variety of items like jewelry, book boxes and thrifted clothes on her Etsy shop. Her best-selling item right now is a mystery book box, which is a product in which you can choose what genre of books you want and how many. She started this business originally to sell her art, but as time went on she saw it as an opportunity to make and sell things she can make or things she can repurpose.
She says, “I love creating things and gifting things to people. There is nothing that makes me happier than surprising someone with a gift and that’s what I want my shop to do for other people.”
Anika’s favorite ways to market her business are through Instagram, making TikToks of packaging orders and partnering with other organizations (like the PINK VS SJSU reps) to get more visibility. She also says that her business has a good balance of orders at any given moment, and it isn’t too difficult to make it fit into school life.
Safaa Nekrawesh, SAF’S BEAUTY, @safaasbeauty
Saf’s Beauty started out as a lip gloss business in October 2020; it recently expanded into an all-around beauty business in 2021. Her business sells products like lip gloss, highlighter, beauty blenders, and even jewelry. Her current best-selling item is the butterfly huggie earrings, so check them out!
Safaa says, “I started this business because I’ve always had a passion for learning about business and starting one myself. At first, it was just to pay for some school expenses, but now, I am hoping for it to grow in order for it to go from a side job to my main career!”
Her advice to people wanting to start their own business is to do research, get the products, find a name and just start.
Maya Vallinayagam, Rose Iridescent Shop, @roseiridescentshop
Maya’s business is very recent, est. March 2021. She sells macrame coasters and has already made several sales in her first month! She’s always wanted to start a small business to show off her creative side and she’s excited to see it grow as she expands and adds more items. Her best advice is to just go ahead and start it.
Maya says, “I was hesitant to start my small business but once I started it I was so happy I did.”
Avery Gutierrez, @celestial.tarott
Celestial Tarot is an online tarot shop where Avery sells tarot card readings virtually (through phone call/FaceTime) and creates informative posts about astrology, shadow work, and tarot, to share on the Celestial Tarot Instagram page. She first started doing tarot readings for friends and family and then it expanded into what it is today. She says that her best-selling reading is the “General tarot card reading” because it’s popular for first-timers and for those looking for general guidance.
Avery says, “I enjoy marketing my small business through Instagram because it allows my clients to interact with me and my content, gives people the opportunity to share my posts, and allows me to support other small businesses as well giving it a sense of community!”
Her best way of balancing the work is setting boundaries for times to rest, do homework, and working on the business and doing this has prevented her from burnout.
Izzy Asuncion, Rose Belle Cosmetics, @rosebelle.cosmetics
Rose Belle Cosmetics is an affordable, high-quality, vegan, and clean beauty small business owned by Izzy Asuncion. Her best-selling items are the Rosa and Rose Thorn Lip Oil, and the Luxe Blinks Lashes in the style “Honey.”
Izzy says, “Before my mother passed away due to cancer, I remember her trying to find beauty products that only had clean ingredients. It was absurd how hard it was to find affordable clean and vegan products. I noticed how markets and businesses tend to mark-up the prices of their products in order to take advantage of the benefit of clean beauty.”
That is why she challenged the norm and opted for only clean, vegan, and cruelty-free products, and kept the prices affordable. It is her mission to try and eliminate high prices in clean and vegan beauty products so that beautiful men and women who may be affected by the cost of cancer treatments can still afford beauty with ingredients they are comfortable and familiar with.
Her advice is to leverage TikTok to market your small business because one of her videos where she talked about her small business’ story and mission went viral on TikTok and TikTok’s small business community is amazing.
Kristi Luu, drawwithkristi, @drawwithkristi
Kristi sells cute vinyl stickers and art prints of her own illustrations featuring original characters Toffee (brown bear), Cream (tan bear), and Butter (pink penguin). She sells stickers of characters that she loves like Winnie the Pooh and Tuxedo Sam. You’ll also find a special character named Bloo (blue penguin) from her Twitch brand (@queenkristi), who’s featured as well. She started learning Adobe Illustrator in August 2020 and started her Etsy shop in late September. Since then, she’s already made over 100 sales!
Kristi says, “My art journey links back to 2010 where I drew with a mouse on Paint Tool Sai. Now, I’m using my laptop’s trackpad with Adobe Illustrator. I began posting an illustration daily for the first 8 weeks of the opening to my brand on Instagram.”
She looked at other artists within her niche to see what works and what doesn’t on social media because she didn’t know much about hashtags or reaching more people. Her best advice with balancing student and business life is to use Notion to organize everything in life including doctor’s appointments, homework, projects, and more.