A Failed Small Business Owner; An Aspiring Archeologist

Why can’t I get people to buy my jewelry? What is wrong with the way I am running nvz? Why can’t I seem to make this work? Am I just not qualified enough? Not talented enough? Is it me?

These are questions I genuinely ask myself every day on my journey with nvz.customs. The idea for nvz.customs hit me one day like a brick, and I have been dead set on making it happen ever since. When I began nvz.customs, the company was as small as a small business could get: I was selling a few paintings (most of them sponge bob-themed lol) to customers around my neighborhood. Despite my small profit margin, my dream was large: I wanted to help students in the same way so many other students and mentors have helped me.

---

During my Master's year, my teachers would constantly discuss the need for more POC representation across all fields of high academic research. These classes brought up discussions that my privilege had shielded me from my entire life, such as: Why is a white lady teaching me African history? Do I have the right to study and publish foreign cultures? Why does everyone on this dig look like me?

The lack of BIPOC representation in the archeological field upset me. I asked myself, how do I get people to care about this problem? How do I bring attention to problems within a field that most people conceive as unimportant or useless? Is there anything I can actually do to make a difference, or am I just presenting myself as the dreaded ‘White Savior’ archetype?

My determination to make this difference, to make people care about archeology, and to make a successful business quickly blurred as I began to gain momentum. I had genuinely no idea- and I still don’t- how to run a business. The stress of finding something *flashy* to bring people to my site, a product to sell -which I eventually settled on jewelry- and trying desperately to make my dream a reality started to muddy my intentions. My priorities with nvz started to shift as I sunk deeper and deeper into a sea of stress, denial, and procrastination.

All of a sudden, I was spending WAYYYY too much time trying to make pretty jewelry, because I thought if it was pretty enough people might go to my site to buy it. I assumed if enough people bought jewelry on the site, then more and more people would check out my blog, GRE resources, and the rest of the site. I assumed once the business side of this worked, then the purpose of all this work (helping- at the very least- ONE student accomplish their dream of being an archeologist) would just magically fall into place.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/4982a4_a964189a50014124aecdb6639c0d362e/480p/mp4/file.mp4

To sum up my journey, I totally SUCKED at running a small business. Fulfilling orders stressed me out, I was horrible at social media, and people constantly asked me ‘what is your business plan?’. I would have to answer ‘what is a business plan?’. I would take it personally when my friends and family wouldn’t buy stuff, assuming it was a personal insult or that they didn’t want to support my dream.

---

Emotionally, I was going through guilt, shame, and disappointment cycle on a loop. Since starting nvz, I have dealt with many personal attacks from others telling me that what I was doing was ‘morally wrong.’ People would comment on my (out of pocket paid) advertised posts talking about how I wasn’t using the correct political lingo, that I was taking space from BIPOC creators and artists, or comments about how my site was a scam that was based around personal profit rather than my intention of trying to help.

In the beginning, I would take these allegations very seriously and contact each person who had commented on social media, begging them for advice on how to improve my wording or what to do to make my message more around my intentions rather than the business side. Many of those people who called me out never answered my DM’s or refused to give me advice on how to improve. Each time any of these events happened, I would take it so personally and think to myself ‘I am just trying to help with a social problem I am passionate about, why are these people trashing my company?’

On top of that, I had friends constantly giving me advice on how to change and improve my vision. I kept taking too much of this advice, out of fear of what others thought of my company, that I ended up losing sight of what started all this in the first place: spreading the love to archeology students and raising awareness of those underrepresented in the field! I was too insecure to separate what I wanted for my company and what other people thought it should be. I found my mission changing constantly at the direction of friends or peanut gallery participants because I was so scared of critical comments.

As an aside, RESPECT SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS! THEY DEAL WITH A LOT MORE SHIT THAN YOU CAN EVEN IMAGINE! TO ANY SMALL BIZ OWNER READING THIS, I RESPECT YOU AND VALIDATE YOUR STRUGGLES!

In all this failure, naturally, I started to think this was all for nothing. I couldn’t accept that running a small business was not the right path for me. I tried everything to make it work: I invested wayyyyy too much of my own capital, I rebranded about a million freaking times, and I was constantly stressed.

A close friend recently asked me, “So what is this all about: archeology? Grad school? Or selling jewelry?” She sat me down and suggested if I really wanted to connect and help aspiring archeological students, then I had to take a different approach. At first, I was devastated, but then I had the realization: my failure to develop a successful jewelry business didn’t mean my idea/intention behind the company was stupid. Just because I failed to start and run a small business doesn’t mean I still can’t help and connect with students!

---

After this conversation with my friend, I had to accept that the way I am doing this just clearly isn’t working. Not only was I depleting my savings account with buying supplies, the domain, and such... but I was also freaking miserable. I had believed that if I couldn’t make this work, then I just wasn’t cut out to make a difference. I am not a businesswoman, but I am still a student, a researcher, and an academic. So I thought to myself, “get your sh*t together Isabelle let's try this again”. So, with a little help from my friends, I have decided to restructure nvz completely.

My plan is to focus on archeology and the students. I am going to use www.do-you-dig-itnvz.com as a blog where I can talk about my own experiences within archeological academia and the field. Hopefully, other students can connect with my struggles and gain some insight into the graduate school process through my stories and tips!

I still dream of starting a grant program for BIPOC archeological students who are financially struggling with GRE costs, application costs, and field school fees. To this end, I have decided to take donations on my site in order to fund my domain to keep my student resources uploaded as well as to collect for future grants. I will also have direct links on my site so that people can privately contribute to the few and crucial non-profit organizations that support and celebrate BIPOC contributions to the field. Those who donate will get fun little surprise thank you gifts (handcrafted jewelry by me…. because I still like making it :). Hopefully, one day I will gain enough accreditation to start my own multi-grant system.

For everyone that has supported me throughout this journey, please know I appreciate you. Although the idea of ‘failing’ at something is terrifying, I think the idea of giving up on my passion to help students is even scarier.

Let’s see how this blog goes! Everyone wish me luck!