Jana’s Journey of her Wormy Business

A favorite part of our Passion Perspective week is to find out how our guest turned a dream into a reality by taking something she loved and turning it into a business. Before we begin Jana’s story, you must see one of her Wormies so you will understand how easy it would be for children of ALL ages to fall in love with these adorable toys.

We asked Jana about her original passion and how and when this passion began.
Jana shared with us how she originally began sewing after her mom taught her when she was in elementary school and she remembers her mom telling her of the Wormies that she made for all of her friends who were having babies. Jana said, “When I was in college, I asked my mom if we could make Wormies for a cousin of ours who was having twins, and it was then that she fully taught me how to make Wormies so I could start making them without her help. After more people around me began having babies and I received such praise for the Wormies that I was gifting, I went out on a whim and decided to first start selling them to raise money for a mission trip that I was going on. When I received such favorable support and encouragement for Wormy orders, I decided to continue to sell them and absolutely loved finding the perfect patterns and colors to match each order and bring excitement and enjoyment to those receiving the Wormies.” Jana officially started her Wormy business in april 2011.

We asked Jana what steps she had to take to make her dream a reality and she said,
“When I first had the idea, I bounced it off of a few people to see whether or not it seemed crazy or possible. When I continued to get favorable responses, I began a blog for my mission trip with a Wormy tab for those that wanted to support in that way. After receiving favorable responses, I changed my trip blog to just a Wormy blog, making sure to have everything organized before I officially “launched” my blog. I gathered pictures, made order forms, organized folders, and went out on a whim with some new ideas. I think that biggest step that I took was to attempt to completely organize how I wanted to run and set up everything before making my blog and work public.” As a family, the “Weisser women” have fallen in love with Jana’s Wormies and I keep a supply of them at my house at all times for baby shower gifts.

What sets Wormies by Jana apart from other DIY craft ideas is that they are so different and they are SO unique. There is no handmade toy out there on the market today like Jana’s Wormies.  Each one is so completely different because you can combine different fabrics for endless possibilities. They can also be personalized which is an extra special treat for a new baby. The thing that makes Wormies by Jana so special is that the idea, pattern and designs of the Wormies are passed down from Jana’s mom. Jana still has her Wormy on her bed from when she was a baby.

Jana’s long term goals would be to have Wormies in some small shops and get orders from people that she does not know or have any connections to. She would love to have people see Wormies and think, ‘I must have one”!  She would especially like to be consistent in her Wormy production and blog posting and have time to be able to pour into marketing and managing her products better. Currently Jana promotes her products by keeping her Facebook page up to date and and uses her blog posts to promote Wormies. Her biggest dream would be “to have my own little Wormy “office” or creative space full of fabrics, pictures, and all my Wormy supplies!”.

She has added to her product line by adding a few new touches to her items here and there, embroidering names on the tail of Wormies and making smaller Wormies known as ‘Wiggle Wormies.’ Wormies have expanded with the help of the Weisser clan and our love for Wormies, but have not expanded as much as I have wanted because of time constraints.

We asked Jana about the next steps for her business and what challenges she has faced in marketing, and she replied, “The next steps would be to get back to being consistent in my Wormy production and getting more orders! One mistake that I have made has been going in completely unprepared to a craft show and promising to be able to do way more than I can actually handle at one time. A marketing technique that I think and hope has worked has been to update my blog with the most recent finished Wormy, doing a little story about it (what the theme was, who it was for, and how I put it together, etc), and attaching pictures with it, and then linking that to my Facebook page so that people actually see it.”

Tomorrow we will share with you more pictures of Jana’s Wormies and share with you more of her interview where you will get a deeper glance into how Jana’s passion for her Wormies has influenced her life.

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