Today we’d like to introduce you to Justin Cornwall and Danielle Meigel.
Justin and Danielle, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
We started in March 2018 after several visits to Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar at the Disneyland Resort. We both immensely enjoyed tiki culture and after admiring from afar for a while, we dove into tiki mug collecting. After we noticed there wasn’t much more to aesthetically showing off day-to-day tiki style outside of wearing a floral print or Hawaiian shirt, we brainstormed the idea to make enamel pins based on tiki mugs. This idea quickly outgrew doing just tiki mugs!
We have made pins that express a sense of adventure, classic tropical flare and sometimes downright bizarre curiosity (like our frozen monkey brains pin). We haven’t just stuck to pins – we’ve released t-shirts, patches, and stickers and plan to continue to expand our catalog. An Islanders Trading tiki mug is in the cards! Through embracing (and being embraced by) the Southern California tiki scene, we’ve been able to consistently grow and bring our dreams into reality. It has been a lot of learning and has brought a lot of joy, not just into our lives, but to the hundreds of people we’ve connected with along the way.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
We had no idea how to do any of this – other than some basic design work. From day 1, we have self-navigated and grown along the ropes of small business – from shipping to digital marketing to working with manufacturers, to building a website and maintaining e-commerce. Every order is still packed by hand by either one of us, but we’ve definitely created a streamlined system of doing so. Our first few batches of orders took about a week to get in the mail, now it just takes a day or two. We continue to learn every day and it has been an extremely fulfilling process learning the skills to keep us in full control of our business.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Islanders Trading story. Tell us more about the business.
Our team consists of the two of us and a designer to bring the ideas to life. Justin specializes in the day-to-day operations, Dani handles the social media and our main designer Joshua Benedikt, one of our best friends, has helped bring each pin to life. We do work with outside designers on collaborations from time to time. We all come up with the ideas/concepts for pins. We’re known for our pins, but our t-shirts have been a big hit in the tiki scene as well.
We are extremely proud to have filled over 1000 orders in under a year, having started this from scratch, only relying on organic growth to promote our product. Our pins stand out, from what we have been told, due to the quality and care of each design. Whether an original concept or based on a popular mug, we spend a LOT of time going over the tiniest details – you’d be surprised how much reviewing you can do on a 2″ enamel pin. As huge fans of the scene itself, we have a good finger on the pulse of creating what people want, and what they don’t even know that want yet.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
Launching our store in March 2018 was extremely good luck. This was just as Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar was really catching on with mainstream crowds and it just so happened to be one of our main sources of inspiration. We were also regulars and met many other tiki enthusiasts there. Our first few pins were based on Trader Sam’s. Whenever they’d release a mug, a huge influx of people would engage (in-person and online) with the bar, and by association they would be exposed to our work. They would typically like what they found and we started growing straight away.
Pricing:
- Pins are always $12 (comes to $15 with shipping)
Contact Info:
- Website: www.islanderstrading.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/islanderstrading
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/islanderstrading/
Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
