How Brittney Wysong Built a Kids’ Art Studio While Working Full-Time

Alan Li (00:48)
Hey Brittany, thanks so much for joining the Opening Tune Podcast.

Brittney Wysong (00:51)
Hey, thanks for having me.

Alan Li (00:53)
Awesome. Well, I'm really excited to dive into Artsy Studio. But before we do, could you give the audience a quick background on yourself?

Brittney Wysong (01:00)
Yeah, so my name is Brittany Weissong and I'm based in Trustville, Alabama. I'm actually originally from St. Louis, but I've lived in Alabama for about 10 to 12 years. My background is actually in healthcare marketing and so I've worked in marketing and been a graphic designer for years. I've got about a decade or so more into marketing and I recently have transitioned and now I own an art studio in Trustville, Alabama.

called Artsy Studio that is focused on art play classes. So it's art lessons and open art play classes for kids and workshops for adults.

Alan Li (01:34)
Interesting. And how did that transition happen there?

Brittney Wysong (01:39)
So that's kind of a funny story. at the time, you'll probably hear it and you'll be like, wow, she's crazy. ⁓ So I was actually at like a really pivotal point in my life. ⁓ So I had always just like thrived in environments where like my creativity could flow. Like I'm a creative person and I just really thrive environments like that. And for those fellow creatives, like you know what I'm talking about is that you live, you get that energy just from being creative.

Alan Li (01:42)
Ha

Mm-hmm.

Brittney Wysong (02:08)
And I had just had my second baby. Like I was, you know, six weeks postpartum. I had a toddler at home. He had just turned, he'd just turned two. And I was just, I was just doing work that just like wasn't really thrilling me at the time. And so I kind of stumbled upon the idea when we were out of town, actually. So we were out of town. We were up north visiting family and it was the winter and you know, toddlers six month, six week old. And I was like looking just for something to do.

And at the time, know, like when you have little kids, you know that you, you try and do all these like art things at home. You just set it up all the kitchen table. You spend all the money, do all the different things and you get them up there and you're excited. Like you're excited to get to do stuff. And then they sit there for two seconds and then they're like, I don't want to do this. Or they're just like, go walk to a truck or something like that. And then you're just like, no, no, no, come back. Like it's so, so fun. And then they're like, it's actually like not. And so they're like, thanks, but no thanks. So.

Alan Li (02:48)
Mm-hmm.

Ha

Brittney Wysong (03:07)
For some reason, even though my toddler did all of these exact things, every time I tried to do a craft or art or anything with him, he was always just like, I am no thank you. So, but for some reason I was like, I took him to an art studio and it was cool as I was probably like one of the only things maybe that was open that I could find. And so this was 2024. So the end of 2024. So about a year ago. And so.

Alan Li (03:12)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

And sorry, what year is this?

Brittney Wysong (03:36)
Yes, I mean, because my daughter just turned away. So yeah, so it was the of 2024. And so when I took him to this studio, we walked in and it was really just like an open space with stuff everywhere, like just stuff everywhere. And he lit up. And I was like, honestly shocked. Like I was like, I probably spent it was like an hourish long class. And I probably there's other you know, kids his age there was all designed for his age. And he lit up. It was really calm.

Alan Li (03:48)
Mm-hmm.

Brittney Wysong (04:05)
He was really focused. He was entertained. He wasn't saying like, I wanna leave or I wanna snack or something like that. was ⁓ just really fascinating at the time to see. And I kind of was like in these moments, cause I'm like, know, just watching this and I really just realized that kids kind of experience the same things.

that I was experiencing in my day to day, there just really aren't environments that just let them create without chasing them around. Don't paint that, or we can't do that for us. That's not on brand, you can't do that. There's a lot of those environments that kids get where they have complete control, complete creative autonomy. ⁓ And so we start to lose that.

I kind of realized we start to lose that fire really early. When do we get to the point where people are, when you start to feel like, I can't do that or I'm not artsy. it's like, we start to lose that really early because there's no environment to foster that with kids. I was like, we need something like this, particularly in the area that I live in in Alabama. ⁓ I was like, we really need something like this. Kids need things like this everywhere.

Alan Li (05:07)
Mm-hmm.

And what do you think was different about you setting up sort of a makeshift art studio at home versus going to an actual art studio? Because I remember, you know, he wasn't, only played for a few seconds there, but in the actual art studio was like, this is really cool.

Brittney Wysong (05:42)
Yeah, so I kind of align it to this is that when you work out, do you get a better workout in your living room or do you get a better workout in the gym? And generally, if you go to the gym, you're going to get a better workout in because there's all the things there designed for you to work out. Everybody there is there for the same reason, to work out. But if you go to...

Alan Li (06:03)
Yes, yes.

Brittney Wysong (06:05)
If you're in your living room and you're like, I have weights and a yoga mat in my living room, you're also like, okay, but the laundry's right there. ⁓ I could just like, need to, my phone is right there. I could like answer it like nobody's like watching me or anything like that. It's the same thing with kids and art. The environment makes a huge difference is that everything that we do here, the environment is set up for them to do art. There isn't those distractions that they get. There isn't like,

⁓ I can go up to my room or I can go into these other rooms in my house or I can play with this particular toy or I can watch TV. There isn't those distractions. The environment is cultivated for art and it focuses on art. It gives them options for sure, that's the same way the gym is. You get the options, you can go and do multiple things, but the environment makes just a huge difference. And I think that that's one thing that...

we don't necessarily recognize. You can have a personal trainer come to your house. You can be the art teacher at your house or you can go to the gym and have a personal trainer there. It's the same thing. You could do art with your kid at your house. Yeah, they could do it, but chances are when they are in a space that is fully cultivated for them, they're going to have a different experience.

Alan Li (07:24)
Yeah, Brittany, one quick thing. I think you might be touching the table ⁓ a bit or maybe the computer and it's just causing a bit of a ruffling in the sound. just if you could try not to touch it so then the audio doesn't affect, but all good. Yeah. ⁓ Awesome. Well, that's super helpful. ⁓ So I know that you said you were doing marketing at a healthcare company. I'm sure that's a pretty stable job.

Brittney Wysong (07:29)
sorry.

I will not do that.

I'll sit back for a minute. Yeah.

Alan Li (07:53)
good salary, great benefits. How did you get comfortable with leaving all that behind?

Brittney Wysong (08:01)
So it honestly, took a long time. So I wasn't.

In full transparency, I wasn't comfortable at the front half of it. And so my initial thought, like I loved the people I worked with and everything like that, but the particular role I was in at the time just like wasn't thrilling me, if that makes sense. And so like it wasn't probably like a good fit for my strengths, but at the same time, like just like you mentioned, you have a salary, you have benefits, you have like your career trajectory and everything to think about.

Like you have to like, those are all things that you have to think and you have to balance. But at the same time, like, you know, you have to also think about like, what is going to like, what is going to make you happy in the day to day? And so what, and I did things differently than any other business owner is going to do any business owner is going to do what's going to be right for them to, you know, and we're all going to be do what's right for us as humans. How are you going to follow what your dreams are, what you want to build, but then also knowing that you, live in a world where you have to make money.

Alan Li (08:58)
Yeah.

Brittney Wysong (09:03)
And when you start a small business, it's not always like the most like lucrative thing to start with. You're doing it because you have a passion for it. You're doing it because you see a need for this in your community. And if you make money in it, obviously that's always the goal, but it's not always the reality to start with. So what I did is that I wasn't at the time like

And still, you I stand by this decision. Like I wasn't super comfortable taking out a large massive loan to start an art studio. Like I just, that wasn't something that I was comfortable doing. ⁓ But I did, I had saved up a lot of money ⁓ over the time. so, and then my parents, they just, gave a little bit of money just to help kind of like get the startup costs going. ⁓ Not anything like super, super a ton of money. was, and so what I ended up doing though is I worked my

Alan Li (09:31)
Mm-hmm.

Brittney Wysong (09:54)
corporate job for a pretty long time, up until like very, very recently. And I had staff members who were running all the classes during the day. So I did all the backend work at nighttime. So all the things that we would need to have like to be set up during the day for classes. I would like get there really early before my kids woke up and I would like set up all the classes for the day. And then after they went to bed, I would, you know, like be up to like 11 PM every single night.

Alan Li (10:04)
Mm.

Brittney Wysong (10:23)
Just making sure that I was like it had all everything in line. Like I'd be like planning birthday parties I would be doing all of the things just at nighttime So it took me a hot minute to honestly be feel like okay, you know Maybe this is the right time to transition out and it was honestly just a timing thing where it just like it just kind of like it felt like the right time to make that move ⁓ and you know

and then transition out of that full-time and then spend more time working on this in daytime hours. ⁓ But yeah, it was a, oops, go ahead.

Alan Li (10:55)
Yeah.

no, sorry, finish your thought.

Brittney Wysong (11:01)
I'm good. You're good.

Alan Li (11:02)
yeah, so just to give the audience a sense of the timeline, ⁓ when did you start sort of thinking like, hey, maybe there's something I'm not really satisfied with, you know, what's going at work, I want to do something new to when you actually opened to then when you were making, doing both jobs and then now leaving full time.

Brittney Wysong (11:20)
So.

I think when you're in a job, and I just want to just also, I loved the company that I worked for and the people that I worked for. Sometimes you're just in roles that just aren't a fit with your strengths, if that makes sense. My work was more really, really technical at the time and just didn't have a lot of elements for creativity. ⁓ And so I didn't even think at the time when this happened, I don't even think I fully realized

what

maybe like what was happening. Like if that I was, I don't think I realized like how much of that creativity I was missing until like, it's like everything is clear in hindsight. But that probably once I had my daughter in October of 2024.

And then this kind of like idea came to fruition really in November of 2024. So things happened real fast. Life happens fast. And so, yeah. And so, and then we, you know, I got the key to December of 2024. it just life happens fast. And so it was.

Alan Li (12:17)
wow.

so

this all happened within a matter of months.

Brittney Wysong (12:28)
yeah, this happened within a matter of months, Yes. We can talk about that if you want to.

Alan Li (12:31)
Okay.

Yeah, that's a really

accelerated timeline.

Brittney Wysong (12:39)
Yeah, it is. ⁓ I would definitely say that was like, you know, when you think when I think about it is like, you know, this was an this was the thing that I was like, once the idea had struck, it was almost like I was like, I exactly knew what I was going to do. And the things just fell in place really quickly. Like it happened quickly, because the things fell in place really quickly. So we live in an area where, you know,

we have a really like new development right in my area. so, but I didn't want to take an art studio where kids could like literally paint on the wall and be like, let's go into a new build. Like that did not feel like it made literally any sense at all to me. And I was more looking for like kind of like an eclectic kind of vibe. ⁓ And so there are some buildings that are in our area that are older buildings and they kind of like fit what I was looking for. ⁓

Alan Li (13:12)
Okay.

Brittney Wysong (13:35)
And I wasn't going to do make any kind of move until I found what I considered to be the absolute right place. Like it was like, I wasn't going to do anything. Like I had already, once I had the idea, I kind of was like, you know, it was just kind of like hyper fixated. was, you know, on maternity leave, had a lot of time to think about it. And so kind of like hyper fixated on it. so, so it's like, but I really did know exactly what this business could possibly be like.

Alan Li (13:41)
Mm-hmm.

Brittney Wysong (14:04)
I had the name in my head. had like a look at it. I could like picture everything. And so, but I wasn't willing to do to make any moves, like not start anything up until I thought, you know, can we get a, can we get a spot and buy and can we get a spot for it? And that happened, you know, that happened pretty quickly. I had done like a tester in my garage with my friends. ⁓ I wanted to even see like, like as I was hyper fixating on this, I was like, you know, is this something that

Alan Li (14:28)
Perfect.

Brittney Wysong (14:34)
maybe just my kid likes or kids in that particular area liked. And so when I got home, I was like, I'm gonna try this just to see, maybe I'm just thinking too much about it. Maybe nobody actually likes it and it's just me. ⁓ So my husband went out. Yeah.

Alan Li (14:51)
I love the testing, the

lean model approach to building. I love it so much.

Brittney Wysong (14:58)
This is probably one of those, you see on Instagram, you're like unhinged things I did before opening my business. This is one of those things. So I have a really large group of female mom friends. so my husband went out of town and I was like, know, I'm gonna plan a Tuster weekend. And so, because he would not have been down for us to meet and destroy our garage.

Alan Li (15:19)
Thank

Brittney Wysong (15:24)
So our ring camera was on the outside and he's like, what are you doing this week? I'm like, I don't know, nothing. And so the ring camera's on the outside so he couldn't see what was occurring, honestly. But I went and got a whole bunch of tarps. I moved our cars out of the garage and I tarped our entire garage. And then I used...

Alan Li (15:24)
Yeah.

That's awesome.

Brittney Wysong (15:45)
I went into the Dollar Tree and got a whole bunch of random things. Like I got kitchen utensils and dry oats and ⁓ lots of paint and paint brushes and I took scrap wood that we had in our garage and built makeshift tables with like a nail gun while my kids were asleep during nap time and I set up other kind of like big

Alan Li (16:08)
Yeah.

Brittney Wysong (16:14)
planks of wood that we had in our garage on old paint cans and kind of like secured everything down, tarped everything down, and then invited 20 of my friends and all of their children over and said, okay, you just let them loose and whatever they do, they do. And then they did that for like three hours. And so it was really, it was so fun. And everybody's like, this is literally so fun because they were just like,

Alan Li (16:34)
That's incredible.

Brittney Wysong (16:41)
honestly raging with paint in my garage. And we had like sensory activities. We had all of these kind of like things that I'm like, had some that are like little tiny crafts. had some that were just like, you know, like paint whatever you want. I had like built all these structures out of cardboard, like big towers out of cardboard that they could paint. And afterwards, everybody was just like, that was so.

fun and I'm like, and it was fun and it didn't take that long to clean up. The only thing is the oats did take a long time to clean up. That was like, they were there for like a year, um, up until recently. And so I probably could have done better with that one, but everybody had such a great time and they were like, and so I kind of like, Oh, this is just opened up and I was like, you know, I'm like considering opening something like this. If I could find the right space, like if I could find the right space, this is something that I would want to do for sure. And so

Alan Li (17:30)
Mm-hmm.

Brittney Wysong (17:31)
you know, that was at the end of November. ⁓ So this was like, again, all these things happen real fast. And then as was, ⁓ I had like, was looking on like Loopnet and Cruxie and things like that to see like, okay, are there leases or anything that's like opening up? Everything was like new build and the square foot, like the cost per square foot was just like something that just felt like really intimidating to me. Like the rent would have ended up being, you know, around like,

Alan Li (17:37)
Yeah.

Brittney Wysong (18:00)
$5,000 a month or something like that. And like, I have to think of, you know, like if I were to price an art class for kids, like how much are people willing to pay for things? And like, you know, just like thinking through just like all of those things, running the numbers kind of like in your head. So, but I ended up driving by this older building that's like right in the center of town. So we were like right in the center of town and they had a sign out front.

Alan Li (18:09)
Yeah.

Brittney Wysong (18:29)
that said like four leases. And I was like, I had not seen that before. was like, that just like came out of nowhere. And it was like, but it's like right across from like this main district where everybody frequents. It's like where everybody travels to go to work. It's like the major intersection in our town. And so I took a picture of it while I was parked at an intersection and I, this is probably Thanksgiving weekend. And I went back and I called them and they, we just like kind of like chatted briefly on the phone and she's like, yeah, like it's.

you know, Thanksgiving tomorrow or whatever it was. And she's like, can come look at them like whatever day wasn't that day. I think it was probably like this was a Tuesday, maybe it was Wednesday or something like that. And so I went and we looked at the space. And so like the way our space is set up is that like when I had envisioned this, I was like, I want to have like a front area where like parents can like chill or hang out and then like a back area where, you know,

Alan Li (19:01)
Mm-hmm.

Brittney Wysong (19:25)
they can run wild and it's like the back area. It's the studio space. And so when I came into this space, like it was a, like a little kind of like jewelry place beforehand. And so it was like really cute. And so I thought that's all it was. I'd never been in this building before. And then we walked in and then in the back, apparently it was a old flower shop and it was like basically like the, like bare bones and it was messy and all of these things. And I was like, my gosh, I didn't even know that this was back here.

So it was this whole front space that had already been renovated and then this back space that was kind of decrepit. And I was like, my gosh, is absolutely, honestly, this setup is literally, it's perfect. This is insane how perfect this is. And so then we talked about the rent and we talked about the lease terms and after, and it's just like everything.

Alan Li (19:55)
Yeah.

Brittney Wysong (20:17)
It's just weird because everything just kind of like, I'm like, this is it. This is the spot. ⁓ my gosh, this would be like, I can't believe that this spot even exists in the place that I live. This is insane. And so I kind of just had to jump on it. And so I went back home and I talked to my husband and...

Alan Li (20:27)
Yeah.

Brittney Wysong (20:36)
you know, he knows me and he knows like, he's like, you know, I know you're gonna do this. Like I already know that you're gonna do this. Like, so I don't even know why you're like, oh, let's talk about it. He's like, I already know you're gonna do this. So after that, you know, there's obviously things before you send a lease that you have to get set up. Like you have to like kind of like wreck, you know, you have to have your LLC, you have to have your, for us, you have to have a trustable business license. You have to have a whole bunch of stuff to get that set up. So I was like, can you give me a month or so? Like maybe a couple of weeks just to get all these things.

Alan Li (21:02)
Yeah.

Brittney Wysong (21:06)
set up in place. ⁓ And our landlord was like, sure. you know, when SerbMD was in this space beforehand, so we were like, they gave us a really good, I don't want to say like a deal, but they gave us a good setup where she gave us two months rent free, because for us to get everything set up, and then we would start paying our rent after that. And so I had two months to basically get everything

Alan Li (21:25)
Mm-hmm.

and how long of a lease.

Brittney Wysong (21:36)
So initially, it was a three-year lease, which I don't know why I felt like very threatening to me, but you had a tenant allowance as well. it was a $5,000 tenant allowance and a three-year lease, but we agreed on a two-year lease and a $2,000 tenant allowance. So yeah.

Alan Li (21:58)
Okay, so you negotiate

it down to least term a little bit by reducing the tenant allowance a little bit. And for the audience, tenant allowance being the amount that you can spend towards beautifying or changing up the space to your suitable needs. Gotcha.

Brittney Wysong (22:04)
Yeah.

Yeah,

that felt a little bit like, mostly like just kind of like, I know that this sounds crazy, but I kind of like look at it the way I have looked at it is just that I'm like, okay, I can't like financially destroy my family in two years. Like with the amount of savings I have, like I can't destroy like financially destroy us in two years. So I was just like two years felt really manageable. And obviously you like want everything to.

You obviously want a year business to succeed, obviously. But I also am a, had to be realistic in knowing that a lot of businesses don't. And so I didn't want to lock myself into a seven year lease or a five year lease and then be like, okay, we are not in a good spot. Like we are now like a year in, which is like, yay, we are in a year in, we've made it through the year point. And so, like year two could be totally different. Year two could be like, wow, this is not performing. But then you have your lease ends. It's not like you're breaking a lease. Then you just make decisions from there.

Alan Li (22:46)
Yep. Yes.

Brittney Wysong (23:09)
So it just felt like a more manageable setup.

Alan Li (23:10)
Yeah.

Yeah, and how large is the space?

Brittney Wysong (23:16)
It is 1,700 square feet.

Alan Li (23:19)
1700 square feet, okay. Pretty sizable.

Brittney Wysong (23:21)
Yeah, and so it's got like, yeah,

it's got a front room, a back room, and it has two storage rooms, an office, and ⁓ a bathroom.

Alan Li (23:30)
Got it. And are you able to share roughly the amount that you pay for rent as well?

Brittney Wysong (23:34)
We pay $2,800 bucks a month.

Alan Li (23:36)
2,800, got it. Yeah, pretty well.

Brittney Wysong (23:38)
Mm-hmm. Comparably, are places

that are across the street. They're like newer builds and they have, I would say, like similar square footage and, you know, their rents range and they're like legitimately like yards away from us. Like it's not far. Like I can see their buildings. But their rent is like closer, like 4,500, 5,000 up to 6,000. So those are like, the area itself is like,

Alan Li (24:02)
Wow. Yeah.

Brittney Wysong (24:07)
the area to be in. I would just like in general, I think people think like in Alabama, your rents like, like you're in Alabama, your rents going to be like super inexpensive. Our I would say like our rents here are really, really high. ⁓ Because we are in Alabama. And that's like, obviously, like our Yeah, this is just a good area in Alabama. But it's just Yeah, I would say our rents here feel comparably too pretty expensive.

Alan Li (24:22)
good area.

Yeah, well, no, I'm really excited to dive into all the nitty gritty, but I just wanted to touch quickly upon how fast you moved and how I think you did all the right things too in succession, like with testing it out really rapidly, driving around, taking out the phone, calling people. It seems like you have a strong bias for action, which I think is what founders need, right? Because you can always...

Brittney Wysong (24:56)
Yeah.

Alan Li (25:02)
really get caught in the analysis for analysis. ⁓ You know, should I be doing this? Does it work? Do other people like it? But your thought process is I should just test to see if other people like it. Let me invite 20 of my friends and their kids. And then it's like, ⁓ I see a space. This looks like it'd work for us. Let me just call them, even though it's Thanksgiving. ⁓ And then let me go see it. So I really, I really like that. Just want to touch on it quickly. Where did you learn this? Was it through your experience working in the medical field? Have you always been like this or?

Brittney Wysong (25:05)
Yeah.

Bye.

Alan Li (25:31)
⁓ yeah, how is it?

Brittney Wysong (25:33)
think I've just always, I'm an Enneagram three, if that tells you anything about me, if you're an Enneagram person. And so like Enneagram threes and just like, as my personality in general, I am like, I thrive on being productive. I am not scared to make decisions. Like I'm not honestly very like, I'm not super like.

I'm somewhat risk averse only just like when I think about things, I'm like, I don't think I do. Like even this is obviously I think a humongous risk. I typically don't make decisions that are like so risky, but I do always, don't ever, whenever something like happens, I generally know the decision I'm going to make. Like I can generally process that pretty quickly of like, okay, like weigh the crows and cons, but then I also like need to trust. always, I trust my gut pretty heavily.

Alan Li (26:02)
Yeah.

Brittney Wysong (26:24)
So for this group, this is just another kind of like side story is that, you know, I run a group in Alabama called Be Him Cool Moms. And the way that Be Him Cool Moms started, it's just like an Instagram community, but we have a pretty large group. That's where all these tester people came from is Be Him Cool Moms. And I was sitting at my desk one day, I think it was like eating my lunch. And it was like, I had a toddler, just had my son, I haven't had my daughter yet.

and I was like, don't have any friends that are mom friends. I need some of these. And so I was just like, I think it would be really cool if we had a group that was like moms who are kind of like me, who are like cool and want to go do things with their kids and like want to go just like go out and we're not just sitting around. Like I just like, I'm like, I want people like that. So what I did was I literally in that moment, this is again, probably very impulsive.

Alan Li (27:08)
Yeah.

Brittney Wysong (27:16)
In that moment, I was like, you know what? I'm gonna whip up a little logo really quickly. So I just whipped up a little logo and I got an Instagram account. And then I just started kind of like posting. I started following random people on ⁓ our local, like we have like lots of breweries in Alabama. So I just like go to the breweries and anybody who tagged themselves at the brewery with like holding their baby, I just followed them. And then it literally has spiraled into this community, like this humongous community where we...

Alan Li (27:32)
Mm-hmm.

Wow, that's smart.

Brittney Wysong (27:44)
go on, we have beach trips that we go on, there's 20 something people who go on, and we have a Christmas party that has 30 something people who attend it, and we have merch and all these things. But it's just, I think just as a person, don't know if I've, I don't think I've always been like this, but I do think that a corporate background has definitely helped, especially because I worked in startups for a while, and you have to be really comfortable making decisions.

Alan Li (27:57)
I love that.

Yes.

Brittney Wysong (28:12)
You have to be comfortable, know, in somewhat taking risks and testing things and trying things. I kind of just like look at it. Is that like you only live on this planet one time and like what's the point of just like not trying something because like it could. Yeah, like I mean, that's like kind of like with the, you know, the two year lease is that I'm like, I don't think I'm going to just financially destroy my family in two years. Like, but.

You know, it's just trying something and if it works, like awesome. And I kind of just always think like there's ways that you can evolve to make things work. But a large part of it has just always been just kind of like trusting, trusting my gut, trusting the process and knowing that like I am capable and things can evolve and I can make this work.

Alan Li (29:03)
Yeah, no, thank you for sharing that. And I think that's a really good piece of advice. I remember one quote that I heard in beginning of my career that really stuck with me was, take educated risks. And I think you have been doing that to a T. So really good. All right, so you have the space, you have the rent, you have a couple of your lease. What's next?

How much did you have to invest into ⁓ making it into what R.C. Studio is today and how long did that take?

Brittney Wysong (29:36)
Yeah, so we, like I said, I did almost all of this in the dark of night. And so a lot of these things happened at nighttime because I was working during the day. And so I had to kind of do this on the weekends. There are literally videos ⁓ of me holding my, she was probably 10 weeks old at the time, holding her and painting the walls in here. ⁓ like,

And so I tried to be as, so my parents invested $10,000. I invested probably close to $20,000. And then, and that's kind of like what we're using as our like startup cost. And so like I said, I wasn't comfortable taking out a loan. So I did everything as literally thrifty as I can. like one, another thing about me is that I'm definitely the kind of person who

if I do something I'm like, which probably makes sense for I open an arts and crafts kind of business is that I'm like, I could make that. And so I did everything as thrifty as I possibly could. So ⁓ we have all of these, like you can kind of see, and tilt it upwards, like all these like on the wall, I hand painted every single wall in here. ⁓ Every wall in here, I did all, anything that has designs on it, I just hand painted it.

Alan Li (30:51)
Okay.

Brittney Wysong (30:56)
Did I have a plan for it? No, I just kind of like went in and just was like, I'm just going to go with my gut. I'm just going to paint it and just see if it works. Luckily it did. So all of the furniture in here I built myself, have, and with the help of like my husband, we have a big, huge table. I could have bought a really large table from like a store or something, but that would have been really expensive. So what I did instead was I got these,

Alan Li (31:22)
Mm-hmm.

Brittney Wysong (31:25)
like wooden saw horse kind of things and got a really large piece of wood from Home Depot, like a four foot by eight foot sheet of wood and then connected them together and then put stuff around the edges. ⁓ All the tables in the back we built ourselves. did, there were certain things that I was like, okay, I cannot do these even though I have attempted to do it. So they're like the back wall.

Alan Li (31:49)
See you

Brittney Wysong (31:51)
really needed to be painted. So what I did was that I called all those friends that I referenced earlier and was like, hey, do you want to have a painting party? And so, and of course they all said yes, because they're amazing. And they're like, pizza, wine, yes, of course we will come paint. It's like the moving, but painting. I am a chaos.

Alan Li (31:59)
Ha ha.

I love that.

Brittney Wysong (32:09)
I am a chaos painter, so they were like, okay, what is going on here? But a lot of them are really good painters. It gave us a good first coat, and then afterwards we're like, okay, you know, this space is big, we gotta hire somebody for it. I did try and paint the ceilings, and then I realized that is just like, that is an art in itself, so that is something we hired for. ⁓ The floor is in the back, had the original carpeting, and I was planning on doing that myself, like installing laminate vinyl plank, or epoxying them myself, because I am insane, and...

Alan Li (32:34)
Mm-hmm.

Brittney Wysong (32:38)
I even bought the knee pads and all the things for it. then I, with a three month, at the time she was, yeah, at the time she was three months old and my son was two years and three months old. So yeah, toddlers and like a newborn. But I was like, yeah, I can install this myself. And then my husband was like, girl, no.

Alan Li (32:42)
my gosh, this is with a three month old too.

Hahaha.

Brittney Wysong (33:03)
you can't like this might be something that we like it might you could do it he's like it'll probably take you five months well we got like one maybe a couple weeks and so that's something we ended up hiring for as well but everything in here I so like from the branding as like I mentioned I was a graphic designer so I did all the branding ⁓ I built the website myself I you know did all the like kind of like the launch activities I started really trying to tease it early on

Alan Li (33:14)
I say.

Brittney Wysong (33:32)
So what I did to kind of like start teasing it was we have like this windows that face the outside people like park there at light all the time. So one, I made sure that I had like all of the online like things like my backgrounds and marketing. So, you know, I was like, I need to get, need to make sure that I have like the right domain and he domains that somebody else could purchase. I need to get the handles like, and so I started kind of like teasing online, but I also started teasing with our windows. So I would take these big sheets of butcher paper and I would put riddles on there.

Alan Li (33:39)
Mm-hmm.

Brittney Wysong (34:02)
And I didn't want to tell them like what it was, but I would just put riddles of like, and I can't remember what they are at the time, but I would just like put like, this is your first clue to what's coming here. And then I wouldn't didn't post anything about like what we were actually doing. Like I just had like the blank Instagram until I said like, and then I started just doing a countdown on there of like when they should like when they should know like what they should follow and things like that. ⁓ And then

Alan Li (34:03)
Hmm.

Brittney Wysong (34:31)
did a really big kind of like online launch. Like I launched our website and our social and all these things just like on the same day. ⁓ And I had done tester accounts as well, or testers like in the studio with like our staff, like after we had tired our staff. And so I had lots of like, I wanted to get like marketing photos and I wanted to get people that like, you know.

other people knew so they saw them in their community. it's like my like people in our community like kids in their community. So I had all my friends and some other people who weren't my friends because your friends will just like tell you like, Oh my gosh, you started on this. Oh my gosh, you're doing so good. I love you so much. Yay. And so I got people who are like, I maybe were like acquaintances or like bring somebody with you or something like that. So I could be like, okay, well, it's like, does this like let's run this like an like the actual show. So I use that to get marketing photos and then have my instructors also like

Alan Li (35:04)
Mm-hmm.

Brittney Wysong (35:26)
test out like the waters and just how they felt about it. ⁓ all that, we got the keys December 16th and then opened on March 8th. So it was that.

Alan Li (35:40)
December and

then March in about a little bit over two months to keep it open. Okay. ⁓

Brittney Wysong (35:44)
Yeah. Our first tester class was

February 22nd.

Alan Li (35:49)
And that's where you got all the marketing photos and then put it on your socials and got the word out more. Incredible. I love that you pre-marketed it. I love the riddles. I think that's really clever. What was the response after you opened?

Brittney Wysong (35:54)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

The response was so good. So we had our grand opening on March 8th. so I thought it was not, I don't know. I don't really know what I thought. I knew all my friends and everything were gonna come. But basically what we did was we just had a grand opening party and we started classes on March 10th, the following Monday. So I gave myself one day to just exist on the planet, exist. And so we...

Alan Li (36:21)
Mm-hmm.

Brittney Wysong (36:35)
we had our grand opening party. had like a, you know, a balloon arch and I had been, you know, promoting it. And we had some local news sources that like they had covered it and it was going to be a ribbon cutting on the same day. So I don't really know what I expected. I don't think I expected like, I thought it was like, I was hoping like, you know, it would be a good turnout, but we were literally packed the entire day. Like we were packed the entire day. There was like, it was wall to wall in here. Like it was.

Alan Li (37:02)
Wow.

Brittney Wysong (37:03)
It was wall to wall. It was very hot because it was like there were so many people. Like I remember I was like, my God, it's so hot in here.

Alan Li (37:09)
⁓ How many

people can you fit in the studio at once?

Brittney Wysong (37:16)
That, so generally when we have classes, we max out our, well, the max that we usually have for our birthday parties is we'll say we couldn't have fit 20 kids comfortably doing activities and all of their parents. That's probably the fire marshal, we would say it's a larger number just because, we have tables and stuff in there, so that's what we say for how many we can fit. we had probably passing through,

Alan Li (37:37)
I said.

Brittney Wysong (37:44)
I would say passing through throughout the day, we probably had 500 people coming in and out. ⁓ We had like, if you look at our photo of our ribbon cutting, like there is tons and tons of people who are there. ⁓ had, you know, I had like donuts and we had, you know, like mimosas and things like that. And then we just had like kind of very simple, straightforward things that we do. had our, we didn't even have our paint wall open. We just had like, you know, like a little art kind of, we had this paper chain.

Alan Li (37:50)
incredible.

Brittney Wysong (38:14)
Chandelier basically is the best way I can describe it, where they could make paint or shake chandeliers. We had like a collaging station. We had a whole bunch of things like, and they weren't even like the messy activities is what I would say. But we had tons and tons of people who even just like coming through, they're like, oh my gosh, we love this. Like it was just a really great day. It was three hours and it was just really packed the whole time. So the response for it was really great.

Alan Li (38:38)
Yeah,

awesome. Can you describe to the audience sort of the business model of how this works? Do kids or parents pay per class? I saw that you also had monthly memberships or annual memberships. Yeah, briefly describe the business model.

Brittney Wysong (38:55)
Yeah, so most of our model comes in from drop-in classes, which is basically where people pay for, and we've evolved since we first started. ⁓ But most of our classes come from what is considered like there's semesters or drop-in classes. We use a system called Sawyer for booking, and it's kind of like a kid-focused program. It's for like ⁓ camp booking. It's kind of similar to MindBody or something like that, but it's for booking classes or arts camps, classes for kids.

Alan Li (39:12)
Mm-hmm.

Brittney Wysong (39:24)
So we use the wire and people can purchase drop-ins, which is basically like this drop-in, they come to a class, they purchase it there, or they can purchase like the whole semester of a class. So like right now we have a semester that just started yesterday and, or started two days ago, and they can purchase like all the classes that are for that specific class. So like say they do homeschool art.

they want to do it from November 4th to January 27th. They just purchase all of those classes and they get a discount for that. Or if they do a drop-in, you you just do, you purchase that class, you can purchase class packs. ⁓ So we've been for a while open on a class model where we would just only be open like during class times. And we've recently started offering something called Open Studio, which I toyed with for a really long time and I couldn't figure out how to make it work. So like, obviously, you know, I do a lot of things and I'm just like, you know what, we're just gonna...

Alan Li (39:53)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Brittney Wysong (40:16)
go for it. This is one thing that I was like, I had really thought on or I was like, you know, this does not make sense in my head. Like, how can I make it so we have open studio, which is a different price points a lower price point than our classes, but then get the same experience. But we have to like there has to be some give and take for that. So what I ended up coming up with, like with our classes, we have it led by an instructor. They're engaging with your kids the whole time. So like, in most cases, you can just kind of like sit back and

Alan Li (40:33)
Yeah.

Brittney Wysong (40:43)
you know, in some cases you can just drop your kids off. ⁓ Like for our older kids, for toddlers, like, probably don't drop your toddlers off. They won't, they won't love that. But for like older kids, like you're welcome to like drop your kids off and they can do the class and then you can come back. So, but for open, and then they have like five to six activities or they have a really structured activity that they're doing. Like it can be something that is like, they're working on a specific project. ⁓ But for open studio, we have more straightforward activities. So they're less like,

Alan Li (40:49)
Mm-hmm.

Brittney Wysong (41:13)
where in our classes we'll be like, we kind of like go all out or we'll be like, okay, we're gonna build this structure and they're gonna paint it. Or we're going to use these like really off the wall tools or something. ⁓ With our open studio, it's like they have a drawing station, they have a collage station, they have a painting station and it's staff monitored, not instructor led. So it's just a little bit of a give and take, but they still get the same experience. They can still do all the same things that they want to do. It's just.

Alan Li (41:31)
Mm-hmm.

Brittney Wysong (41:40)
⁓ Like it's a little, I would say it's a little bit more straightforward. So we have those hours, which has allowed us to open our hours more because we don't have to like have a staff member who cannot do other things at the same time, like, you know, clean, get prepared for other things. ⁓ They can't, but they can monitor the class and things like that, which is good. And then birthday parties are really kind of like a big thing that we do. We have birthday parties almost every single weekend. And ⁓ so.

Alan Li (42:06)
Yeah, and sorry, before we dive

into the birthday parties, ⁓ for the classes, are these typically just about an hour long or what's the range? About an hour long. And then you said 20 kids per class maximum.

Brittney Wysong (42:13)
Yeah, classes are an hour. Yeah, we max out in our

classes at we actually max max our classes out at 10, but birthday parties will allow 20.

Alan Li (42:25)
Oh, classes is 10. And then the open studio is they can just come do whatever they want. is that also 10 students maxed out as well?

Brittney Wysong (42:33)
That kind of fluctuates, it's just like, so we have it from, we have like our block, or we have blocks for it, so it'll be like 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. or something like that. And so it will just be as people drop in and then it's first come first serve.

Alan Li (42:47)
I see. And how many classes do you typically host per day?

Brittney Wysong (42:51)
So we always have at least, it's either we have two to three classes a day or it'll be like one or two classes in open studio. So we generally are open from the hours of like 10 a.m. to four or five p.m. because then usually after like five p.m., we have an after school art class once a week but then we have lessons at nighttime where. ⁓

Alan Li (43:08)
Mm-hmm.

Brittney Wysong (43:16)
because we offer lessons. So that's generally after school, it's usually older kids and that's when we have like lesson time. So it'll generally be like one or two, two to three classes a day or one or two classes a day in Open Studio.

Alan Li (43:29)
I see. is this during weekdays and weekends are the same hours or are they also different?

Brittney Wysong (43:34)
We are

Saturday hours are 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and we just started we used to have two classes on Saturdays and then we used to do this we do this thing called drop in crafting where you can we just set up a whole bunch of different crafts and we kind of cycle them out through like it'll be like seasonal or just new things that we're trying so people can come in and they can do a self-guided craft and it's not like it's we we set up all the materials and we kind of give them like but they can you know do this at their own pace

But we recently just started offering open studio hours on Saturdays because it fits people's schedules better on Saturdays. And then on Sundays, we have one class every other Sunday.

Alan Li (44:07)
Mm-hmm.

I see.

Got it. So most students are coming actually during the weekdays, it seems.

Brittney Wysong (44:19)
Yeah, so we have most

of our stuff is during the weekdays. Yes, our Saturdays end up being pretty busy too.

Alan Li (44:25)
I see. And then I guess what is the target market for the students? ⁓ Is it K through 12 or even above? Yeah.

Brittney Wysong (44:35)
Yeah, so generally, see most of our business come from the age range of about like one to seven. But we have classes anywhere from one to 12.

Alan Li (44:50)
Hmm. I see. And I imagine summers and breaks are the most busy and, you know, during school hours is, are like regular, you know, school schedules where it's a little bit less busy.

Brittney Wysong (45:05)
Yeah, summer was great. ⁓ You know, especially July in Alabama is really, really hot. school, can be like this beginning. This is our first beginning of the school season. And so I learned a lot from summer. You know, summer, it was really with like camps. ⁓ That's probably more we'll focus on the summer camps. Our camps are really good. We had a Friday camp every we had a Friday camp every, you know,

Alan Li (45:11)
Ha

Brittney Wysong (45:28)
week. ⁓ So that was like a mini camp that we had and we did from 9am to 12pm. So we have that and then we will also do our and then so now with the school session, we try and like structure things like to be pretty consistent because there's a lot of kids here who are like we have a lot of homeschool popular with large homeschool population, but we also have a lot of like little kids. So little kids are a lot of what's coming during the day and then like if they're not in daycare or something like that. But then we have our homeschool class too. And that's like a big

Alan Li (45:47)
Ow.

Brittney Wysong (45:58)
part of our business is our homeschool class.

Alan Li (46:00)
Got it. OK, cool. Yeah, I was just curious, you know, like, who's actually coming during the weekday during school, but from school and then also younger kids who aren't even in school yet. Makes sense. OK, awesome. Great.

Brittney Wysong (46:02)
Yeah.

Yes, yes, yes, lots of younger kids. We just had somebody knock on the door

actually who was a little kid. But we opened him, so we're fine.

Alan Li (46:15)
⁓ nice.

OK. All right. And then, sorry, you were saying something about doing events and birthday parties as well as in addition to your classes.

Brittney Wysong (46:24)
Yeah, so in our, so we have birthday parties, is, you know, that's something that we, we do a lot of birthday parties. Birthday parties are really fun because we create this, we create a whole experience for them. ⁓ And it's really just unique to the child. So we do something different every single time and it ends up, but that's generally what fills up our weekends. They're two hours long. They can invite 12 children. They can do up to 20.

12 children are included and so they have an hour of art and then they have an hour of what we consider to be like birthday celebration.

Alan Li (47:00)
Yes. ⁓

Brittney Wysong (47:01)
Yeah, so

those are those are doing well.

Alan Li (47:04)
That's great. And then I think I saw also online that you had like an e-commerce box where you could send it and do it at home. Is that a big part of the business as well now or?

Brittney Wysong (47:13)
Yeah,

we literally just launched that like two days ago. And so they are called Artsy Anywhere Boxes. so they are basically we create a kit and it's just like a unique kind of a unique craft that comes out of my brain. And then we assemble all of it and give you instructions where you can do the craft at home. So right now we have

Alan Li (47:19)
⁓ I see.

Brittney Wysong (47:37)
holiday postcard kits so kids can make postcards. And adults can do the two. Like I did them and they were super, super fun. Like it's not just kids. I just say kids because we primarily focus on kids. So, but we have that. And then we have a trinket tray where we give you. And the good thing about these is that like, so one thing that we get all the time is that people are like, I could do this at home. And I'm like, yeah, you absolutely can do anything at home, but you can do literally anything that you go by also at home. Like if you want to go out to dinner, you could really make that at home. If you want to go with coffee, yeah, you can make it at home.

You can do anything that you do out in the world. You can do it at home. So but the thing is that you are going to end up like with crafts in general. Yeah, you're going to end up spending $100 on all the different supplies to not know if it's going to work or not. So we're not know if it's going to stick or not. I know if you're going to like it or not. So that's why we have all of these like drop in crafts and our craft boxes and everything because you get the right amount of supplies, you can do it like

how like in reality, let's talk about like even a trinket tray. How many trinket trays are you gonna make with Christmas tissue paper? Like are gonna make 100 of them? But you're gonna need, in order to make a trinket tray, you're gonna need this much tissue paper or you're just using like one pattern or something like that. it's like, that's the kind of way like I think about it is, know, yeah, people are like, I could do this at home. Like you totally could do this at home. If you are comfortable doing it, like great. Like that's, but you can do anything that you do out in the world, you can do at home too.

Alan Li (49:01)
Yeah, well, I love that you're also now supplying the built in a box tool set for those who want to do it, hope too, which I think is super smart. That's so awesome. So how was it doing sort of March of 25 and then how's it doing now? Are there any numbers that you can share with us for how the business is doing?

Brittney Wysong (49:07)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, so right now we're at the point, we're still really, really new. And so we're at the point now where we're still just trying to pay off those initial pieces of debt that we have. So like the initial loans that we've taken out. So that's like honestly the main priority for the last part of this year is paying. So we have to pay back like to about $2,000 left, which I'm pretty excited about. we have about $2,000 to pay back. then after that,

Alan Li (49:49)
Nice.

When you say the loans,

you mean the ones that you invested and your parents invested, or did you take on additional outside loans as well?

Brittney Wysong (49:59)
Yes. No,

no, no, did not take on additional outside loans. But those are just like the numbers of like, just like paying that money back. And then so, but right now is that, you know, we're still just like that we still definitely need to be doing more business in order to be more profitable. So I don't consider us to be profitable because obviously we still have, you know, that debt to pay off.

but we are doing enough business now where we are able to pay our bills, pay our staff, and work through investing back into the business to create new offerings for people. But those are kind of like what I'm primarily focused on. Ideally, we do need to be doing more business that I'm hoping that we can really help this ⁓ local, or excuse me, help.

Open Studio pick back up. We've did some other opportunities for revenue. Like we recently added in the front of the building, there's like a print shop where we sell local artists work, like kind of like a maker's mart. So we started selling local artists work and then trying to kind of like beef up our retail section because that's obviously like, especially as holiday season is approaching. So we definitely need to be doing more revenue and getting more people in the door for classes. I think this is.

Alan Li (51:06)
Mm-hmm.

Brittney Wysong (51:10)
all just a learning lesson for like, you know, our summer was really busy and then, you know, as the school year starts, like that's slower, but then like, you know, just based on market trends that I've been seeing, it's the same for everybody. So hopefully once, you know, like the holiday season starts up back up, then, you know, we can start like really trying to expand those offerings so that we can be doing more business and that we can make sure that we're continuing to be able to grow.

Alan Li (51:17)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Got it. And how many students are coming through on a per month basis nowadays?

Brittney Wysong (51:41)
On a per month basis, we're usually seeing anywhere around like probably 100 to 125.

Alan Li (51:51)
100 to 125 students per month. Nice.

Brittney Wysong (51:53)
Yes, because

people come on a recurring basis. there's people who come like, it's probably like 100 to 125 unique people. So we have, because people come on recurring basis.

Alan Li (52:05)
Got it, because sometimes it's a semester and then there might be a class every week or every other week or something like that. Got it. Exciting. Where do you see the business going from here?

Brittney Wysong (52:07)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

So we have another year on our lease and that's why the million dollar question is that we have another year on our lease. so, you know, that's like, that's where ideally what I would like to do is obviously like continue to grow it and to continue to expand it. I think that we have a really solid mark in birthday parties, particularly in lessons and workshops. So.

That's been something that I haven't been able to focus on because I've been focused on our classes so much. So as we continue to grow, those are the areas that I want to continue to focus on. And then, you know, after our lease runs out in the end of next year, I think that that's just, that's where we decide, you know, like, or do you continue to power, do you continue to grow on or do you continue to like, maybe we'd find a different spot or maybe we, you know, may look a little bit different. So.

I think that that is yet to be seen, but obviously what I'm hoping to do is to continue to grow those classes, to continue to build the business and be able to just make artsy a part of everybody's lives.

Alan Li (53:18)
Yeah, that's great. And when did you go full time onto the business?

Brittney Wysong (53:25)
about two weeks ago.

Alan Li (53:28)
wow. So very recently. That's great. So you were working a full-time job running Artsy Studio, managing two kids for this entire almost ⁓ last year.

Brittney Wysong (53:29)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah I was.

Alan Li (53:44)
That's incredible.

That's really incredible. Awesome. Well, Bernie, looking back on over the last year ⁓ and the lessons that you've learned throughout this experience, if you could go back, is there anything that you would have changed knowing what you know now?

Brittney Wysong (53:47)
It's very insane. But yeah.

I don't think that I would change anything. think the things that I would just tell them, I would just like, I don't think I would change anything of how I did anything. I really don't. It got me to where I am today and I just don't think I would change it. But I would just say that I would just be more, I am, I think, transparent to a fault at times. And so I think that I would be better about keeping things closer to the chest. There's a reason that like,

you don't tell all the things out in the world. I think I would keep things closer to the chest for longer versus being so, just being so open all the time. That's one thing that I would for sure do. And then I would say that the only other thing is that there would be times where I didn't trust my gut and that always kind of bit me in the butt. So I would just say trusting my gut, 100%.

Alan Li (55:00)
I see. when you said being too open, maybe you would rather keep things closer to the chest. Is that because ⁓ people might perceive things negatively or they don't like oversharing or is that what you mean?

Brittney Wysong (55:16)
No,

no, is that like, would be like, I have this idea or something like that, or like, this is what I was like. And so that's just like things that, you know, other people can take that and just like, kind of run with it. Or I would be do something and be like, you know, I'm like, I'm thinking about doing this. And then they're like, well, like, I think this would be really cool. And then just kind of like, not necessarily having something totally fleshed out before I shared it or being like, this is like a really like, or even just thinking, you know.

Alan Li (55:29)
Mm.

Brittney Wysong (55:43)
talking about things related to our business that really honestly should just stay within the business. So it's not like people oversharing or like, Britney, you not pull too much information. It's just that in order for your business to grow, you do have to have some trade secrets and not make my trade secrets public information probably. And so it's just a balance of learning. I like to share information and I like to talk about things and that's how I flush things out my head. So that's just.

I would say just like keeping things a little bit like giving some mystery to things like you don't have to like not everything has to be public information Even though I love just I love to talk about it. So

Alan Li (56:17)
Yeah, well,

yeah, no, well, we appreciate you sharing and being transparent throughout this episode. I'm sure a lot of people will find a lot of value in hearing your story and how you started your business so quickly and with so many things going on. I think this will be really inspiring to a lot of our listeners.

Brittney Wysong (56:39)
Well, thanks. I'm so happy you were able to chat and thanks for having me again.

Alan Li (56:44)
Awesome. Thanks again, Brittany.

Brittney Wysong (56:46)
Thanks, have a good day. Bye.

Alan Li (56:48)
It's a.