Welcome back listeners! Today’s guest is Ilana Griffo. Today on Brava we’re discussing how you can take your creative passion and grow it into your full-time gig…and Ilana is an expert on this! She’s a freelance designer and illustrator. Plus, she’s a newly published author of the book, “Mind Your Business”! Want to start your own side-hustle? Tune in now below to mind your (own) business with Ilana Griffo.

SHOW NOTES:

Ilana always knew she wanted to be a graphic designer. She went to school for graphic design and started freelancing immediately while working full-time. She went off on her own four years ago and hasn’t looked back since (1:05).

Despite using school to hone in on her design craft, her favorite class in school was a career development class that focused on interview tips and tricks and how to conduct yourself in the professional world (2:25).

Ilana wrote her book to help other creatives (like you!) create the business foundation to launch their careers (3:30)!

Working from home can be tough with all the distractions around you. Illana created a dedicated office for herself. A day in the life for Ilana includes her one year old son, a to-do list and drawing (7:00).

She sources inspiration from every aspect of life and is very inspired by the seasons (8:22).

When reviewing your own business, Ilana recommends not diving directly into a branding voice until you find your voice as a brand (10:50).

It takes a lot of adventure and trial and error to develop and find your voice (12:00).

The hardest part of publishing her new book, “Mind Your Own Business”? The beginning and getting started! What helped? Her loyal and hard-working team (13:45).

“Ilana’s go-to mantras: “Do it with passion or not at all” and “ask for what you want.” ”

Hoping to start your own side-hustle, Ilana recommends just to…start! Never stop having fun with it (17:45).

Thank you readers, to tuning into the Brava Podcast. If you like the show please leave us a review on iTunes!

What from our conversation inspired you today? What do you hope to hear next? Tweet or message us on Instagram @BravaPodcast to tell us what you want to hear, even if it’s your own story!

For today’s discussion, we’re going to take a step into the start-up space. Whether you have your eyes set on an entrepreneurial venture in retail, finance or technology I hope that our conversation will ignite a spark within your own career path.

Let me introduce to you a powerful serial entrepreneur. Today’s guest is Erica Amatori. She’s the Director of Marketing at Burrow and Co-Founder of TheBit at the impressive age of just 23. Tune in below!

SHOW NOTES:

Erica is the VP of Marketing at Burrow, an e-commerce start-up that is changing up the furniture space. Their value lies in that their furniture is extremely comfortable and adaptable. She’s also the co-founder of thebitdaily.com a source from crypto-education and a crypto-community (1:26).

On knowing when to invest her time or money on a start-up, Erica first needs to believe in not just idea, but also the team (2:50).

“To know whether a start-up is right for me I act like my own venture capitalist firm.”

Start-ups are a roller coaster. The highs are high, the lows are low. When you don’t think there is a market for your service or product, you have to be real with yourself and move on (5:12).

“It’s not a failure, it’s a learning.”

— Erica Amatori

Book recommendation by Erica: The Dip by Seth Godin ß Click here to check it out.

With an idea, is it better to be authentic or original? Erica says neither. She thinks you truly need is product market fit. A demand and audience for the product (7:15).

To Erica, “innovation” means to find opportunity gaps and fill them. Finding a broken process and fixing it (9:00).

Innovative ideas come from innovative people. Character traits such as curiosity allow you to question the current processes and finding new solves. Practice this by always asking questions (10:20).

“Behind every successful person there are a lot of unsuccessful years.”

— Erica Amatori

Want to get start in your start-up now? Erica advises to go out there and start doing market research and find if your product or service is valuable (13:20).

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