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JooJoobs is an amazing business run by Bibi, her husband, Kelly, and her father, Noi. Together, these three are making the most beautiful leather accessories.

Can you take us on the journey of your creative career path so far?

In a lot of ways, JooJoobs was created by accident. Like most kids, you don’t really expect to follow in your parents footsteps or at the very least, you want to try something else as your career, to form your own identity.

But when you grow up, living, sleeping and eating in a leather workshop, coming back to it later in life just seems the most natural thing to do.

What has been the biggest challenge you’ve overcome so far in your business?

Shipping! International shipping has the extra hurdle of clearing customs security screening, which puts us at a competitive disadvantage to domestic craftsmen. To assist with this, we’ve been able to strike a great deal via Fedex to offer expedited shipping for a just a little more.

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Leather iPhone Wallet Case

What has been the biggest ‘fist-pump’/successful moment for you so far?

This is an easy question, we even know the exact date. On July 12, 2013, Gearmoose.com featured our wallet. While this article didn’t go viral in the normal, social media sense, this article was syndicated virally. Which means, other websites, also featured it. And they kept featuring it, in multiple countries, and multiple languages.

This one blog post was our tipping point. The previous 6 months sales were matched in 2 days.

Do you ever have doubts as to your future creative direction? Are there things you yearn to achieve, but haven’t yet found the time for?

Not really. Leather is one of the most versatile materials to create things with and its popularity never wanes.

We love talking to our customers and we do our best to listen to their feedback, both good and bad.

Most of our designs were suggested by our customers.

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Men’s Leather Satchel

Are there times when your creativity and inspiration seem to disappear? How do you handle that?

JooJoobs has three creative minds always looking for new things to make. We take turns, keeping the ideas fresh.

How do you balance your work with the rest of your life ~ what does a typical day in your life look like?

At this stage in life, work is our life. We try to leave a little time for ourselves in the evenings but most days and nights are filled with JooJoobs related activities.

What has been the best marketing move you’ve ever made for your own business?

Etsy.

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Red iPhone Clutch

What is one piece of advice you’d like to give fellow makers about running a successful creative business?

Take pictures. Take more pictures. Keep taking pictures.

When you sell online, you not selling products, you selling pictures.

If you don’t follow this mantra, you won’t be successful. I’m always trying to improve our pictures.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years time?

This is a question we struggle with. We ask ourselves this question all the time. Each time, I think we find the most happiness comes from just living in the now and not worrying about the future.

We love our customers and we love putting smiles on people’s faces. For now, if we can accomplish that consistently over the next 5 years, I think we’ll all be happy campers.

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Leather Money Clip

You can find JooJoobs online at:

Her Etsy shop – JooJoobs

Her online shop – joojoobs.com/

On Facebook: facebook.com/JooJoobs.store

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