#1: an idea is born

It’s a sunny Friday afternoon. Work is slow. My coworker looks over to me:

L: Heeeeeyy Janet, how’s your side hustle going?
J: Which one? (I have a lot of things on the go right now)
L: You should make a brand. How about… “Say Something Nice”? The name can be a phrase, like the store “I Have a Crush on You“.

My coworker has a lot of good ideas.  I feel like deciding on a brand name is probably one of the hardest things to do when building some kind of business. There are a lot of considerations:  is it too long? too regional? too common? does it already exist? is it unique enough? is the domain name / Instagram / Tumblr / Twitter / Facebook / Etsy taken? (did I miss any?) Can I say it out loud without making myself cringe? – that one’s probably the most important.

We deliberated between the handles: @saysomethingnice (already taken) to @saysomethingnicetoronto (doesn’t feel quite me) to @somethingnice.to (on-trend but maybe want to avoid regional limitation) to finally @somethingnicesupply which was available across the board, indicated that it focused on some kind of hard goods, and made me feel embarrassed the least.

And thus, one of the most spontaneous things I’ve ever attempted was born. I’m piecing it together bit by bit as I go, but the plan is to make lil’ queer goods and other designy things – you know, enamel pins, patches, stickers, small apparel – fun stuff like that. Keep following this blog if you want to watch me slowly figure this all out and stay tuned to see if anything actually comes from this slow Friday idea!!

– j