Mustafa's Unique Approach of Mastering the Mug Market

Thank you so much for having me.

Okay. My name is Mustafa, and I’m from Turkey. I’m living in Turkey, actually.

And I have a background of interior design. I study interior design for and in college, and for about 10 years I did interior design career and internal design projects. And you know, after that he. He wasn’t very tiring, you know, doing all this stuff into design projects and staying on the ground. And I just wanted to make a change. So I just started an e-comm business in the Us. While still living in Turkey. and it was about, you know I was I. I started in 2018 and since then I’ve been in the e-commerce business in us. I’m still living in Turkey.

Yeah, I’m still living in Turkey, you know. Sometimes, I talk with my wife about it if we move to the Us. You know our business in the Us. Now.

We are now. We have kids and family all around us here.

So living in here is better for us. But the business is definitely in the US. Now.

Yeah, it’s all in Turkey, you know. So it’s difficult to move to a place that we don’t know anybody or any friends or relatives. So we just wanted to keep staying here about doing business in the US.

Our brand, we actually started 3 years ago. And actually, I started selling on Amazon as a seller.

You know, but after trying with a private label and other stuff. I just wanted to do our own stuff from here. So my wife actually is kind of an interest about, you know, doing ceramic stuff. So he just wanted to learn the making the handmade stuff. So he learned. He learned the craft and we said, Why not? We can start a business. We can start a brand. So it just happens like that, you know, while selling it on Amazon, and after a while decided to do our own craft with my lab. So we just doing it with my wife. Actually, she makes older mugs and I do the marketing customer service and shipping all the other stuff I did myself.

Actually mugs is very common. It’s selling very well. And you know, I know a lot about the data,you know, on it see on Amazon, because I sell for, I am still selling on Amazon. So I know that, what’s selling, what’s not selling. So

we basically focused on the mugs actually. we started with, actually reselling from an artist in here. He, you know, she makes the mugs, and we just resell her products in the US Market. I started like that before my wife during the month, actually.And we, you know, we tested that with her products, actually, her designs. And we get, you know we had a lot of confidence that mugs is selling very well. especially the unique ones for Christmas and for summertime for Mother’s Day, or different types of designs. And we, we test all of that. So for all these special occasions like, you know, birthdays, mother’s Day, you know, Christmas time, holiday time. All of that. We tested all different designs. So we know that we just selling what it’s not selling. and that’s why we mainly focused on mugs especially. That’s the, you know, plates is not like that. It’s a common, you know, ground. You know. I also sell plates but it wasn’t that significant on, like, you know, the mugs we sell.

Definitely.

Yeah, yeah, it’s still selling, you know, especially if you buy a gift present for you know. But at present you’re gonna still buy it. Mark, for example, your friend, your relatives, your loved ones. You’re gonna buy a month, probably, even if you don’t buy you gonna remember, the idea is always on our minds that you can buy a mug.

Actually, there’s no competition on, you know on mugs, because it’s handmade and you can create anything you want.

So everybody is doing their own rice. We do our own right. So basically, there’s no competition. So there’s always someone you’re gonna find someone that they like. So every person is different and their lifestyle different. And they like different designs. So basically, you gonna create for a specific type of you know. buyer. So they gonna like, even if you know, if they find their Design style, you definitely, they’re gonna definitely buy from you. So basically, no competition at all. I know very well, competition from Amazon. So there’s not much competition on this area, actually, and make mugs is very, very unique and very you know, special. So you’re gonna buy anybody. And you know, if they like it, they’re gonna buy, anyway.

Actually, pinterest is very good for us, you know. from the marketing side.

Because I didn’t expect that we can grow that much very quickly. and we mainly drive traffic and get a lot of orders directly from Linkedin directly from best. So Pinterest is definitely a success for us. But there’s a lot of seasonality because our, you know, products mainly sell at the end of the year. So for holiday.

But we just try to compensate that with Linkedin to get bulk orders from companies for their corporate using and other, you know for clients, for partners, for other, you know, business related gifting. Actually, we just tried to do that more.

I just tried to do that more. You know the already getting sales conferences. But just try to reach out to link, you know, grow on Linkedin, and reach out to the business actually, for corporate giving.

Actually you know, staying consistent is the biggest challenge for anything, I guess.

You know. Sometimes it can be very tiring to stay, update, and to catch up on all the stuff, especially at the beginning. You know me and my wife. We have to handle everything together. You have 2 kids at the same time, 2 little kids.

And we just try to manage all together, just 2 of us, 2 kids and a business that needs to be handled. And that I guess you know If just 2 of us without kids definitely, we can keep up updating for all channels for everything on consistency basis. You know, Constant, we will probably constantly do the same thing, and we will update for all, all channels. You know. Right now, social media is a lot of platforms, you know. We just not only on Pinterest we have, you know, and Tiktok Instagram. All these channels need to get attention and time.

So that’s the main problem. I guess you have little time. We have too much workload and keeping up the old stuff. This is the main challenge, probably just doing fine I guess you know, I’m just we just try to At the beginning, we just do all channels. We just try to catch up all channels. But now I mainly focus on Pinterest, so we can’t catch up all the channels. But at least we are winning on Pinterest and maybe a little bit on Linkedin.

So just focusing on one or 2 platforms is much better. You know, we just were. I just tried a little a little bit about at the beginning, but not to try to keep up all the channels is much better for us.

Yeah, definitely, quality or over quantity. It’s much much better for everyone. I’m guessing, you know, from the perspective You know. I’ve been doing this for a while, and you know I can’t definitely say that We sometimes, you know, we as a human being, you know, just wanted to rush and win the games. For example, in any aspect of life.

But meaning is not, is a, you know, requires a lot of time, and success comes very slowly. So you can’t win on day1 or day 2, or the 1st year, or the second year.

You have to be patient for a while, maybe 5, 10 years. Then after that, probably you’ll be much better positioning this winning. For example.

Yeah, yeah.

All of us wants to lose that much pounds, you know.

All of us have this instant gratification. We just wanted to have that. But, the real life is not happening like that.

Actually just be well known in this space.

You know the and not only in retail, or you know the but also for the companies or for the corporate gifting. I just wanted to be See, I just want to see our company or our brand’s, our designs, A well known in the business space for the gifting space, for example. That’s the vision actually, for myself, for my wife, actually for the company, all of us.

Thank you so much. Thank you very much.

Thanks for having me.