Meet Mandy Hoskinson

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mandy Hoskinson.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Before starting my own marketing agency, Zolay, I worked for a number of brands. One of my first jobs was at UCLA on their first social media team, ever.
I worked for an incredible boss and learned a lot while helping the campus clean up its brand and processes.

I went on to work with Apple, Fox, CBS, LA28 (the bid to bring the Olympics to Los Angeles, which we won, woohoo!), USC, and more. As my freelance work grew, I began to study different companies and nonprofits I admired. I knew I wanted to do good in the world, and I knew I loved marketing, I just needed to find a way to combine the two.

I had always admired very nice (https://verynice.co/), a design agency that gives half of their work away for free. Through them, while I was still in school, I learned about social entrepreneurship. When it was finally time to make the leap to start a company, I decided to create a social enterprise: a digital marketing + photography company that gives away a portion of its work for free.

Then we needed a name. In order to get the business launched, I just used the moniker everyone already used for me, “MediaMandy”. That’s been my Instagram handle for over ten years, so people were already used to the name. After a lot more work to understand who we were as a company, and who I was as a leader, I decided to lean into my own heritage.

I have a large mix of cultures in my family, but the two that stand out the most are my French and Mexican sides, so we created a name that was a nod to the word pozole (my favorite food) and Soleil (sunshine, the essence of SoCal)… Zolay!

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Growth is never painless, but smooth seas never made a skilled sailor. So far, our biggest hurdle was finding our niche. From 2018 to 2020, we began to specialize in photography. (We technically offer three services: websites, photography, and social media).

Event photos were huge in 2019, and experiential marketing was really blowing up. I saw a clear path ahead: lean into the photography arm of our services. I decided we’d add eCommerce and headshot photography to our growing event photography arm. We booked the gigs of a lifetime, including a music festival under a solar eclipse!

I realized my equipment was growing, and that I wasn’t thriving working from home. I decided to look for a space where, ideally, I could work and shoot photos. So, after much searching, I signed a lease for a studio in February 2020. February 2020. And then came March 2020. I was living the dream, doing a shoot in Belize. I couldn’t believe it.

And then the world shut down. Business ground to a halt. I started pulling from my savings to afford the rent. Everything sort of crumbled. That was a really, really, really hard time. I can’t tell you the amount of pain that came with that great tumble down.

We’re better now. The pandemic forced us to refocus everything. I’m grateful we survived the many challenges that COVID threw at us, and I’m grateful we came out of it stronger.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Zolay is a female-owned, diversely staffed bilingual digital marketing agency in the City of Angels. We’re a digital marketing agency specializing in social media, serving a mix of B2B and B2C clients, especially in the arts and education.

What’s interesting about us: every invoice contributes to a good cause. We’re working to give away 20% of our work for free. As a social enterprise, we want high-quality marketing services accessible to those organizations that may not otherwise afford them.

We’re analytical. We’re obsessed with data. Every client gets an analytics report and knows they can always ask the team about the latest changes in the algorithms.

We’re artsy. The majority of our team maintains a creative practice outside of work. That means writers, painters, photographers, actors, and more. They bring their artistic eye to everything they create.

We’re diverse. More than 50% of our team identifies as BIPOC. How can any company hope to reach a diverse set of customers without people from those identities being in the room?
We’re a lot of fun. It’s taboo to talk like this about a company, but it’s vital. Services like social media are an ongoing relationship, practically a marriage of two companies. If you want a relationship to work, you need to be able to communicate with them.

We pride ourselves on building great collaborations with our clients, and having a good time while we’re at it.

Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
Luck is a funny word. I think discussions of luck are often used as a replacement for having a discussion about privilege. I am deeply privileged.

My privileges are vast, spanning from being born in America, white presenting, able-bodied, English speaking, having educated parents, eating healthy foods, being exposed to many types of people, being supported in my education, being exposed to music, being supported in music (a privileged elective), getting chosen for many special accolades and opportunities, getting many funding sources for college, and more.

My greatest privilege while building a business has been being married. While I have this massive list of privileges, I do not have a safety net as an adult. I do, however, have a supportive partner who could cover all of our living expenses if he had to. That cannot be underestimated or ignored while telling my story.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: zolaystudio.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zolaystudio/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zolaystudio
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/zolaystudio

Image Credits
Hunnibuzz  hunnibuzz.com