Nostalgic Mumma

A new beginning

Things happen for a reason. It’s funny how we tend to put pressure on ourselves to be high achievers, when we’re doing just fine, compared to the new generation.

A year ago I started a tee and mug online business on Shopify. I decided to give it a go. My theme was nostalgic key references (ie 80s and 90s tech, music, movies, etc). And although it had some traction, it didn’t have enough for me to continue so I decided to shut it down.

I felt imprisoned to a sales job that was meant to be just a hobby. The pressure of 1) finding time 2) finding headspace and creativity 3) financial burden vs little to no sales I was getting made my decision an easy one. I still work full-time. I am still a mother (and housewife). A creative job is not one you do well under pressure.

I enjoyed the creative side of things, but I could not afford the time or money. We pay for a domain, to verify the business, for APIs to work out the POD for us and all we needed to do was to post engaging content and wait for the results. A marketing and SEO strategies were needed. Who the hell knows the perfect strategy? Knowing when to post as it’s when people will be more likely to see it. Paying someone to adjust our business SEO settings so that it ranks when people Google our products. Then if we pay that little extra, our products are in effect “force-fed” to the audience that is more likely to buy our products… And all this costs money. Money I could be using else where (towards our house works, holidays, dinners out…)

The way I see it, the more businesses act on this premise the less likelyhood they are to rank up. It’s the race of the highest bidder. Just too much stress. I want to enjoy living. That’s all very well and good for big businesses that can afford to increase their bidding. I’m off that race.

Also, in my mind, a pool of followers that is organic is much more likely to gain traction, AND to buy from us. I am against purchasing contact lists, and forcing people to look at products if these are not looking for them. Personally, it has also been a big bug bear of mine to deal with pushy sales. “If I want your help, I will reach out”.

And I do believe my products had a market. A nostalgic, retro market, which is now at its peak. like fashion, culture is cyclic. It goes around and comes back around.

Maybe in a couple of years time, once things settle a little (Charlotte goes to Uni, Cedric’s over the teen years) my outlook on a business venture is more laid back. They still need me. A lot. And both, me and my partner want to make the point of being there for them. I refuse to be part of the statistics linked to mental health problems, or for my children to be one more adult that is scared to be part of the working force or to go out in the world because of what the mass media wants to push us to believe. I want them to be able to see through the fake news, the fake high lifestyle many influencers portray to be easy to achieve, whilst that life is being funded by their dumb, blind followers.

I don’t want them to take part in the wrong mob following, where they would remain silent when coming across injustices. I want them to follow inspiring, righteous and kind type of influencers, even if they don’t have a social media account.

Running a small business in our current world is a mission. Social media plays a big part in it (at least at the moment). I expect it to mutate in some way, as AI infiltrates it. Then the human input will be so little that we’ll have to find other ways to connect in a more personal way. And this is what I was looking for. But the social media world is hard to unfilter. The ones you see succeeding are either already celebs (or make fun of celebs), post noisy and bright content, practise affiliate marketing, or that post controversial content. Well, I don’t want to be part of any of those.

Now I will be posting as a simple blogger. Where I used to publish as Witty Freelancer, I am now Nostalgic Mumma, showing my views from a nearly half-a-century point of view. GenXer all the way, undeniably. Too old not to be proud of that, after all I’ve been assisting, and “Cancel Culture” is not in my vocabulary. Back to the whiteboard.

Welcome to my slow and happy nostalgic journey ✌