Etsy Seller Interview with Nellianna and Kenneth of nellianna

How nellianna got started

Introduce your Etsy shop and tell us your story. How did you begin and decide on what to sell on Etsy, and how do you create your products?

It began with a mutual desire to create a product and company on our own that allowed us to be creative and have fun in the process. Kenneth started out with a da Vinci kind of umbrella that was an absolute fail, followed by a toothbrush holder for use in the shower. The toothbrush holder was a small success and provided the starting capital for the lampshades.

Nellianna got fired from the architecture firm where she worked because of the credit crunch in 2008 and started looking for her own creativity. She tried several different techniques, and the first lampshade was made of fabric and sold to a hotel in New York through Etsy. This was our first sale.

We gave Nellianna’s father a tutorial on how to make an origami object, and when he came back, Kenneth thought it would be cool to scale this up and transform the idea into a lampshade. The fabric lampshade idea was soon abandoned, and we started to focus on lampshades folded from paper that gained their strength from all the folds. The basic concept was to create a lampshade that did not require an inner frame for strength and to create a product that was a sheet of paper transformed into an object with all of the functions built in by the folds. Origami was a hot topic at that time, and after watching the movie "Between the Folds," we were very much inspired to create more designs. The first design was the Signature lampshade, followed by the Chestnut lampshade and the Moth lampshade. In the years after, we designed more lamps, and the collection is still growing.

Favorite items

What are your favorite items? What makes these so special? Why do you think these items might be selling well?

The chestnut lampshade is our favorite because it is the only one in our collection that is truly only one sheet of paper with no seams. It is almost true origami.

Getting sales on Etsy

How long did it take for you to earn your first sale and how do you currently attract customers to your Etsy shop?

It took about 2 months, and we were very surprised when we got it. And very happy, of course. To attract customers, we list our products on Etsy with good photos and descriptions. We also use Etsy ads. But mostly we just put our products out there, and Etsy does the rest. We found out that for us, the best way to get more attention and sales is to come up with new products every now and then. This is also what we like to do the best. Admittedly, we are both not very good at marketing through ads or that kind of thing. It certainly would be possible to increase our sales by using those kinds of techniques, however. The only thing that we looked into was Etsy SEO.

Managing nellianna

How do you manage your shop? Are you running solo or do you have any team members? What tools or services do you use to run your shop and how do you handle fulfillment?

We both manage the shop, and we rotate this work a bit. We don’t use any apps. For shipping, we just work with the courier services that are available in our country.

The future of nellianna 

What goals do you have for your shop in the future?

We started in 2010 and have now been working together as a husband and wife in our company for nearly 12 years.We are still having a lot of fun with it, and it provides a nice part of our needed income. We definitely want to keep doing this and being creative. We also get a lot of really nice reactions from customers who are really happy with their lampshade or origami clock. And making people happy is our biggest motivation their lampshade or origami clock. And making people happy is our biggest motivation. Earning money is necessary but is not our main motivation.

At the moment of writing, Nellianna is becoming more and more attracted to being an artist. The lampshades could also be considered a form of art, but producing lampshades for customers is a repetitive process, and after I don't know how many lampshades I've made by hand, a yearning for new inspirations is difficult to ignore.

During a holiday in Portugal in 2021/2022, Nellianna found a paper Nautilus shell, which is the shell of an Argonaut. The Argonaut unfortunately lost contact with the shell and did not want to get in anymore, so Kenneth decided to drop the Argonaut carefully behind the shorebreak with the hope that the Argonaut would survive even without the shell and possibly be able to build a new shell over time. At that time, we did not really know what it was, and we found out later. Argonauts really don’t swim in the Atlantic Ocean near Portugal, so it was obviously lost, and Nellianna found it buried in the sand on the beach at Peniche. It felt like a very intense and special encounter, and this experience encouraged Nellianna to look more in the direction of folded paper art. The result of this is the Nautilus lampshade, which is also in our Etsy shop. Nellianna is currently also experimenting with expressing her feelings on paper through different illustration techniques. Kenneth experiences a growing interest in ancient Egypt and is attracted to learning more about it. This summer, he also started to give kitesurfing lessons to divert a bit from the routine of his usual activities in our own company and create space for new ideas and adventures.

Advice for new sellers

What’s your advice for a new seller starting an Etsy shop?

The most important piece of advice we could give is to simply begin and believe in yourself. With the right motivation, you can do anything. If there are hurdles that you see along the way, try to simplify your goals and take small steps to progress. Try not to rush and enjoy the process. In the beginning, it is good to not depend on our Etsy shop for your income, so we started it while earning money with other work.