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Ep. 01 My Story

Release Date: 09/09/2021

Ep. 01: My Story

Hello, hello and welcome to the first episode of Caffeinated with Kas. Wow, this has been in the works for a long time, so I'm very excited to finally sit down with you guys. It is a rainy evening over here, I have my man scented candle on and a coffee... we are ready to go and this is going to be amazing. I already set up the vibe, so you guys need to do the same thing on your end, take a second, pause this video, go make your coffee. The whole point of this podcast is to be your break and pocket of peace for the day. So whether you are listening in the morning with your coffee, or you're joining me at any point of the day, this is your time to sit and absorb all this information, we are going to be talking about everything from business to mindset, and branding. The whole point is to really start to build your brand from the foundation to be bulletproof and authentic. I want you guys to be attracting aligned people to what you want and what is aligned to your offers, to your business, and to your life. And I'm going to give you all the tools to do that. But let's start the beginning. My name is Kas Djordjevich, and in this entire episode, I'm going to be talking about my story as your host, I want you guys to get to know me, and why I started my business. And there's going to be so many parallels with my story and your story. And that's why I want to be super transparent with you guys and tell you everything from the start and how I came to be where I am now. So without further ado, let's hop into it.

The Beginning

Okay, I'm going to start at the beginning of high school. I want to do this because it actually wasn't too long ago that I finished high school and I have always been somebody who needs some sort of direction in my life to feel like I have my shit together. And in high school, I did not feel that way. For starters, I was dealing with major anxiety and depression, especially grade 11 or grade 12. And a lot of it had to do with the fact that I didn't have any plans at all with what I wanted to do. I just didn't feel aligned with any options. I couldn't figure out what to do after high school.

And this entire time, I was always an art student. So taking extra design courses, being in the fine arts programs. I was taking art history, all that stuff. So for me, passion wise, I always wanted to go into art. But then I'm sure you've heard this is well being told that you need to get a "good paying job" that is secure. Go to school do this do that- art wasn't really in that criteria of it. So it was always really hard for me to figure out where I wanted to go with everything. So to cut the short story, I was dealing with major anxiety, major depression, major imposter syndrome that kind of carried along with me. And I decided to say yes, I'm going to continue with art, and hopefully in the first year of school, I figure out the direction that I want to go into and we'll go from there. So during this time, little Kasy is making absolutely no money like $300 a month IF THAT working as a barista and the work environment was so bad. On top of that I'm commuting to school for an hour and a bit every single day. I was barely having enough money to just pay for gas, let alone everything else. So there were days where I can pay for the art supplies, I couldn't pay for the gas. So I would just stay home, and it was definitely really at that point, just major burnout. That made it harder to find what I wanted to do in life. I know many people go through this where we kind of have that pressure of you go to school, you finish school, you find a college university, you finish the program and then you continue with your job and you move forward.

For me, my biggest thing was I don't want to drop out I don't want to be that person who can't continue with something but it wasn't aligned. After about a year I did all of the like design psychology courses, I did design theories.
I did all the art history stuff. I'm majored in art history, and they a little bit of fine art on the side as well in the whole program is kind of like a mix of everything. I ended up taking extra art history stuff with my best friend at the time. So my focus was art history, design and some fine art. After the first year, it did not end up being like that it was very focused on more like character illustration and animation or cartoons and that's not at all what I wanted to go into. I had to sit down and make that decision, is this actually leading me in any direction, or it was really just getting to that point where I just didn't want to go to school, I just want to lay in bed all day, it was not enjoyable. It sucks because I decided to pursue my passion and go into something with art, but I wasn't feeling that fire anymore. So I loved my art history classes. And I loved my actual art class at the time.

Starting my Biz Journey

My boyfriend had the idea in December, right before my second semester of second year that I open an Etsy shop and out came Juniper design. I was selling art and stationery design on Etsy, and it blew up, it went absolutely insane within the first month. I moved everything over to start marketing on Instagram for my Etsy shop, because I had a background in design psych. I used that entirely to my advantage. I remember, I feel like I couldn't even focus on my classes at that point because I was so excited with the amount of orders coming through. I has make the decision, do I stay in school? Or do I figure out what I want to do. And I still didn't really have a full plan. But I knew that it was going somewhere.

I was constantly coming up with new strategies and testing more on attraction marketing alongside all of the design psychology and it was going amazing, and I was HAPPY.

5 Weeks Into the Online Space

I was getting multiple requests from coaches to create business stationery for them, and I started the client welcome box project for coaching programs. This offer was sold out at a 4 figure investment in TWO WEEKS and I was able to quit my 9-5 job after 4 weeks. I refined my offers by focusing on graphic/branding design along with offering the physical brand extensions that were the client boxes, and a few months later I began coaching brand foundation strategies and attraction marketing when I really realized the holes in the online business space.

1.5 Years Later

So here I am today, I never fully overcame the imposter syndrome or fear of taking risks. The truth is, that never FULLY disappears, but it's up to you to make the decision to jump or not. I DID take the leap, and now I have an incredibly sustainable business, I am constantly attraction my dream clients, I am making passive income literally hitting 10K sales days, and I have found my purpose.

I went from $0.20 in my bank account- a mega broke barista, to hitting $32k months. When you have a passion driven idea, this is possible.

How to Start

But I know your main question is "how the hell am I supposed to do that"? Listen, my signature course InstaBRAND is all about starting a bulletproof brand on Instagram and is literally everything that I did- all of my knowledge and experience on how I quit my job and sold out my four figure offer in two weeks strictly off of Instagram, you can go into this course, knowing nothing, and you will grow like I did, because of all my knowledge and all my expertise starting off at Ground Zero, building and starting a bulletproof brand. I made an entire module of the course for free for you to access. This has gotten hundreds of downloads on helping entrepreneurs like yourself, learn how to start posting on Instagram. I know the imposter monster makes it hard for you to show up. It's scary, you don't know where to start. So I made the entire module for free. The link is right in the show notes for you guys to access and it's also on my website at www.juniprdesign.com under shop.

Inspiration

I hope you get really excited to binge and start turning that passion of yours into incredible sustainable business because it IS possible. I don't care if you're a mom, a student, a broke teen working three jobs like I was, or even if you're already an entrepreneur in this space, I'm here to give you a fresh take on what it can really be like to run an online brand. With all transparency guys, I will be covering the good, the bad and the ugly. I am 21 years old, a normal girl and inner drive to do exactly what I want. And if I can do it, you can too. No frickin excuses. I'm here to hold you accountable. I'm sure you've heard some parallels in my story, so take me as proof living proof that you can do it too. I am so freakin happy you're here. I cannot wait to share all my information with you. And until next time, have a coffee for me.

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