M&R Episode 207: How to licence your art to companies like Urban Outfitters while traveling around the world with Cat Coquillette.
In Episode 207 I spoke with expat Cat Coquillette from CatCoq.com. Cat is an artist and loves painting watercolors. She’s also a digital nomad who gets to travel around the world, living an incredible life by licensing her art to companies like Urban Outfitters and Target. Have a listen to hear how she does it. Enjoy!
Show notes: CatCoq.com, Ryder Biolos Episode, Society6.com, SkillShare.com, Support Misfits and Rejects on Patreon, Get a Misfits and Rejects T-shirt or Tank
Show Transcription
Chapin 0:05
Seven off misfits rejects. In today's episode I spoke with Cat Coquillette from catcoq.com. Cat is an online entrepreneur who licenses her artwork to big companies like Urban Outfitters or Target or whatever it may be. And I brought her on because not only is her story very inspirational. It is something that I aspire to become somebody who develops an online business that is sustainable for my lifestyle, as well as those I love the most, can't live six months in Thailand. Then she went to Bali for a few months and then she moves to Europe for the rest of the time, and just hearing her story really inspires me to keep pushing, as I continue to try to develop my online ideas online entrepreneurship skills, and every individual on this podcast really just helps me stay focused and motivated, as they venture through all the peaks and valleys that entrepreneurship is. And there's one individual I really want to inspire with this episode, I mean as a writer by all this you might remember her from Episode 142. She's a young 14 year old artist as well. I just want to really to show through cat story what's possible when you find that thing that you love to do in your life, and then trying to figure out a way to monetize it is sometimes very difficult for many of us, especially artists out there. You always hear the struggling artists story well I think cats a great example of somebody who took her passion to the thing that she really wanted to do, and turn it into a very viable business, a viable way of making incredible money that then she can go do the things she wants with her life design that life that she's always dreamed of. And as you'll hear throughout the story like I said she's constantly living in cool places with a lot of cool people. So I have no doubt you'll get super inspired by her story as I did. If you're a first time listener, please pull up that phone hit subscribe if you are a listener and have been a listener. Well then that really helps me, within the algorithms of iTunes, Apple Spotify for other people the finding is if you rate, and leave a comment, for whatever reason, that's what the algorithm likes to see so for misfits and rejects get found a lot easier if you wouldn't mind after this episode, or even before just rating misfits and rejects We always appreciate five stars, leaving a comment. And if it feels so inclined, you think. jumbo cat calculate from cap koat.com cat Welcome to the show.
Cat 2:13
Hi, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure.
Chapin 2:15
I hit that Facebook message up to you quite a while ago and it sounds like you're not really at Facebook or.
Cat 2:22
I am pretty terrible at responding back to messages, here's the trick that he want me to respond. You just have to say Cat 911 read this and I'll see it.
Chapin 2:31
That's like paging days when you select a page I have 911911, I saw I have never been really good at the lingo thing so always take it seriously I'd be on the freeway like pull off the four or five in California get to a payphone back in there, we had to use quarters, and they'd be like oh just wanted to call me back. So knowing
Cat 2:49
my last 911 was for my roommate and it was 911 Cat where's the parmesan cheese so I totally get it.
Chapin 2:55
That's so funny. I mean are you of that era, like did you grew up with pagers.
Cat 2:59
I did not grow up with pagers and 32 and now I'm 33 my birthday was the can weeks ago. Mr pager thing it's just responding back to messages terrible emails much better but Facebook messages.
Chapin 3:10
They just miss. That's cool, are you into social media, you must be for what you do with your art right
Cat 3:16
yeah absolutely my Instagram page is a professional page it's not a personal page so it's a lot of artwork process shoots photos of the inspiration that inspires my designs and our work. So yeah lots and lots of posting on Instagram. This is rad.
Chapin 3:29
And like I told you pre show like you gave an incredible speech at DC BKK this last year in Bangkok which just inspired the heck out of me and just instantly did you think of a past Guest writer by all US Episode 142 is 14, who's in the art, I think has this entrepreneurial mindset to really she wanted to So, like, let's start a little bit about where you from originally.
Cat 3:50
I am from Kansas City, so I grew up in the Midwest winters in the Midwest College, University of Kansas. and actually purchased into Kansas City for about 40 years before I started my digital nomad life I worked as an art director at a design firm in Kansas City. So we did branding and photo shoots logos web design, all that stuff so yeah I did that for about four years that's what I went to school for it's what I always thought I wanted my career to be. But, yeah, I would say, towards the end of that career I realized that what really interested me was surface design and art licensing. So we made that pivot, when I was in my late 20s I quit my job, started my own business and moved to the other side of the world. I moved to Chiang Mai, Thailand, to get my business off the ground. What was that
Chapin 4:33
moment where you decided to make that decision to have such a drastic change in your life direction.
Cat 4:39
A lot of it was boredom. I was bored living in Kansas City. I was bored living in that same apartment. I was bored doing logos, and I really wanted to change and so for me it wasn't just enough to change my entire career and start my own company, but I wanted to just, you know, full speed with that and change my entire life. It felt like a really nice fresh start to get my business off the ground. And, you know, Chiang Mai was Holly night, already been through Chiang Mai and backpacked through Southeast Asia, but I knew Chiang Mai had this digital nomad being this big hot spot for people that were doing what I was doing, which was getting the business started, and I wanted to be part of that community. So yeah I moved to Thailand I didn't know anyone there but I was pretty confident that with such a huge digital nomad community I'd be able to make friends pretty quickly. I definitely did so I found my seeing, you know, people, not necessarily artists, but I met a lot of people that were starting businesses and the tech world, they were doing products that they were sourcing of China, a lot of programmers copywriters so it was a lot of people that had those same passions that I did which was passion for autonomy, starting a business and,
Chapin 5:48
you know, living life on their own terms. So cool let's get granular on this because I'd like the audience to really understand the steps you took to break free which is, I mean obviously you've been in Chiang Mai, you knew the scene a little bit. And you understood the nature of what traveling takes so you had booked an Airbnb prior to landing, or did you land and just find a place when you land it.
Cat 6:08
I joined the digital nomad girls che my facebook group. And I saw someone posting that they were looking for roommates around the time that I was planning on flying in. So I messaged her we set up a Skype call. She decided I was normal and I decided she was normal and so when I landed, I was able to move into this house full of, there were four of us five of us all together we were all digital nomads and funding our own companies. So, you know, I just started headfirst right into that scene.
Chapin 6:35
Did you have a plan with your company? This pointer was already. We already kind of create stuff already for it.
Cat 6:43
You know, I had a few years head Start. Actually I was building a company on the side while I worked a full time job. So by the time I quit. I've actually had pretty comfortable spots in terms of knowing that I had this business that was, you know, financial the Bible i was i was going to make money and be able to support myself with it. I had a few licensing partners under my belt by the time I left. So, yeah, I really had that head start, which made things a lot more comfortable in terms of, you know, it wasn't just starting the business at that point it was really optimizing it, which was a good facility and when I got to show you why.
Chapin 7:16
This is cool, can we talk a little bit about licensing or what drew you to that aspect of the inside of what you do.
Cat 7:22
Yeah, absolutely. So I got started with licensing, it was, it wasn't even intentional I was doing licensing before I even knew that that's what it called. So explain that a little bit. I was painting on the side watercolor paintings and you know flowers and animals and food and insects, and I started sanding those paintings in my computer and uploading those files to a website called society six, and what society six does is it's open source artists and designers from around the world can upload their designs and then society will turn those designs into their products that they sell to their customers. And then I receive a royalty, and it's usually about 10% for each product sold. So a $30 phone case is going to earn me $3. So I started uploading these designs to this website, and I got in honestly it was, it was perfect timing because the site was, it was prominent, but they weren't overly saturated with artists at this point, this was back in 2014. So yeah, I started uploading my designs there people began buying them. And it really just blew up within about three months I was making enough on that site month by month anyway rents. So, yeah, that was my first foray into art licensing. And from there, it really just kind of grew. I worked with other print on demand companies with a similar business model as it said, I really just took a shotgun approach to it, I was like, Well, if I'm making this much with this one website, why not find every similar website out there and then also sell my designs through them. And I became pretty popular and on other websites as well. And because these websites have great SEO, my word was popping up really high in Google Image results. So bigger companies began taking notes, and that's really how I got an even with bigger companies like Urban Outfitters.
Chapin 9:02
So cool. So it sounds like you guys had a time where you didn't have to learn all the algorithm algorithms and hacks to really get your stuff seen is that kind of where people have to move to now to get their stuff noticed.
Cat 9:15
It depends. So social media is a really powerful tool for artists, that's that's really where my life was driven from just as at six in the first place I was posting these things on society six and driving my Instagram traffic over there, which trigger the society six algorithm and they began promoting my work more internally on their sites. So, yeah, I think my recommendation for artists would be, get your stuff out there and get it on social media, put it on your websites, trying to get a lot of traction out of it, the more places that your work can be seen, the more chances you have of getting that hold by big company
Chapin 9:49
Shipping companies are using these middlemen to help find what they need to fulfill any kind of add something.
Cat 9:55
Oh, absolutely. Yeah, that's about 40 to maybe 50 at this point are trends available through targets. And a lot of those were sourced by them biting me on the 76, which fed into a larger company denied designs. Yeah. And so that, that originally happened because I had my work on society so it was noticed that there was no one targets,
Chapin 10:17
possibly Congratulations.
Cat 10:19
Thank you. Appreciate it.
Chapin 10:21
The amount of success that you've had within some certain slides, have you ever had someone reach out to you and say you're like our top seller.
Cat 10:27
Yeah, especially in that top percent with society six. I'm also a Skillshare teacher, and that's been really beneficial for me as well because I've been able to teach other students how to do exactly what I'm doing, you know, the more the merrier here it's, it's not, you know, a small chunk this pie you can take it away if I invite more artists into the space it's just making this pie bigger for all of us. Yeah so knowing that I wanted the top artists on society sex has also really helped propel my work worldwide with other brands.
Chapin 10:54
So cool so yeah let's talk a little about your Skillshare classes because I saw it on your site which was really interesting to me. You do what within Exactly.
Cat 11:02
So I upload these classes to a platform called Skillshare my classes are creative entrepreneurial skills or separate up creative skills like learning how to paint with watercolor or acrylic. I haven't technical classes like learning how to use Photoshop in the exact way that I do, it's like if you're an analog artist and you paint or you draw and once you digitize that artwork to sell online or licensed other retailers, learning how to digitize your work is absolutely crucial. So I have a whole class teaching other artists how to do that too that they can you know enter into the space get involved with licensing and print on demand and start earning an income for this for themselves as well.
Chapin 11:37
What kind of equipment, do you need to create a class like that and upload it.
Cat 11:41
Oh man, some of my first classes are. I mean, they're pretty rough I mean, the information is great but the the audio and the video you know it was kind of a learning curve for me I was figuring it out. Now I do my classes I film everything with my MacBook Pro. I bought a nice fancy mic for, you know, 100 bucks on Amazon and those are the two tools I use to put my glasses together. I added everything myself up what my purses and each of my courses is broken down into short videos and each video you know couple minutes maybe five minutes teaching these small chunks. Things that you can learn throughout the class so maybe one chunk is just focused on how to optimize your Instagram for more people to vaporizer artwork maybe another little video is how to use hashtags appropriately for the same result and outcome, but they're all kind of packaged together in these classes that are between you know 30 minutes or an hour. So pretty digestible. To get kind of get in there learn a little bit about art design our licensing, how to create products and designs that will become top sellers by tracking trends, you know, the whole gamut is all the tools I use I just kind of repurposed
Chapin 12:46
into classes for my students. And then what was that cost for someone to purchase.
Cat 12:51
Oh Skillshare is a it's a membership site. So I think it's on 30 bucks a month maybe you can put down during COVID to a cheaper price. But yeah, usually offer links on social media. So all my students can watch all my classes for free because Skillshare is really generous with their free trials, so you can sign up for a free trial get two free months where you can watch all the courses on the platform, and that's usually what I recommend my students to do. That way they don't have to pay anything they can watch my classes and really learn that knowledge.
Chapin 13:19
So then what portion of that do you get paid, 30 bucks a month,
Cat 13:23
I get paid based on the minutes watched. So the way that the Skillshare platform works they do a profit share, so they divide all their minutes watched amongst all the teachers so say I had, you know, a 50 at the Golden it's washed on the entire platform that I would get 150 of the profits for that month.
Chapin 13:41
Really cool what part of what you do, do you enjoy the most because you have your fingers in a lot of different pies, and there's a lot of moving parts, it sounds like that you kind of have to always keep up with be aware of like what part of the students are the most.
Cat 13:53
If I want, in terms of the meditative calm relaxing enjoyable experience. It's definitely painting and creating artwork. You know there's there's no better feeling than just kind of sitting down with a cup of tea getting my watercolor sets and painting I've always been doing that I really enjoy it. But then in terms of my competitiveness and feeling those big wins. I love final signing on the contract and landing a new big plans, whether it's you know Nordstrom or target like I mentioned before, Home Goods I really really like landing those clients they always feel like big wins to me especially if it's a brand that I really Aspire and look up to. And once that brand association with.
Chapin 14:33
Can you name a brand that you really look up to,
Cat 14:36
anthropology, I've. That's my that's my white whale client I'd really like to get to work in anthropology. I think that my style aligns really well their audience and for me that would be a big one.
Unknown Speaker 14:48
I think all by Urban Outfitters
Cat 14:50
yeah so that's an urban so I'm so close, but not quite there yet.
Chapin 14:54
Are you pitching to them, are you they just coming to you and you're waiting.
Cat 14:57
Are they approached me so you know I try the outreach, but I just terrible at it, those cold calls. None of them ever really turned in anything but where I found all of my success with getting new partners for licensing was just being available and having my workout there and having my contact info really available and they bite me they email me and you know we get the ball rolling from there but yeah the outreach side of things has been a big struggle for me but about two years ago I hired an agency to represent me and that kind of solved that problem with my brands you know I've been working for four years that I representation and all the work I was getting or were people that were finding me, but my outreach was, you know, absolutely zero. So hiring an agency now has been really beneficial in landing those new clients, and in a more in a more proactive approach.
Chapin 15:45
Can you take us through the, the contracts that are sent to you and how, what's it called to do redline it yourself.
Cat 15:51
Yeah, yeah. Now I don't have to because I hired an agency, but what I did before I had agents representing me was yeah I would go through those contracts on my own, and look for certain keywords. I wanted to make sure that all the contracts I was finding were non exclusive, which means I can sell that same artwork through other companies, if you sign an exclusive contract, whatever artwork you're sending to that company they they get that they don't own the IP or the copyright, but they do have the exclusivity. So that's a big thing I always look forward by contracts is making sure that non exclusive, or if they are exclusive. I'm really going into that and understanding that okay, this is a really big clients they're gonna make me a lot of money it's worth it to do the exclusivity never permanent it's always you know two maybe five years, but that's probably the biggest red flag I look for in contracts because for me again I do that shotgun approach with my artwork where I have that same piece available through a ton of different brands and companies and websites. You
Chapin 16:49
said something a TCK can hope you don't mind me reiterating for the audience and writer like how you negotiate certain terms for your contract I remember just being so fascinated by what you thought about that and things that you would offer that you didn't read didn't really matter to you, do you mind going through that again
Cat 17:03
yeah my bargaining chips. Yeah, so I go into contract negotiations. What happens is they send me a contract, and as I read through it review it like a few things that might be a problem. And then when I come back to them I'm like, okay, here's the contract, we need to remove these clauses, but in addition to a royalty rate, which by this by the way, are five I really need 15. I also wants, and then I get this big list of other things that I want. It's like, you've got to give me, you know 15 social media shout outs on Instagram and Facebook within the first month of signing the contract. And once homepage presence with my products on your website for at least six months. I want my products to be featured in your email. And if you've got an email list and I just kind of go through and I give all these ones right, but usually have that entire list, there's usually only a couple of things I really care about the rest it's like you know, take it or leave it and be great to have it but what it really offers me is a bargaining chip for something I'm willing to lose where it looks like you know we're meeting in the middle a little bit so it'll be like, Oh, well, we can't get 30 social media shoutouts but we can raise that royalty percentage, you know, an extra 5% which, that means way more to me than the social media call outs. So it really just gives me an opportunity to. Yeah, have a better positioning when we're going into that bargaining table, you know like, I'll have all my names on my end and they'll have all of theirs on their ends and by, you know, having these bargaining chips that I can afford to lose it always nets me out in a much better place.
Chapin 18:33
Has it ever backfired on. You give you all the things you don't care about but one gives you things you actually,
Cat 18:37
That does happen from time to time yeah you know it's not that I don't care about the social media shoutouts it's just that you know sometimes royalty percentage, you know, I'll say that that's you know that's more money in my pocket. So it's uh you know I've never not gotten everything I always get some things I asked for. But, yeah, I've never signed a contract right haven't been happy with where we've netted out if we net out in a terrible place then, you know, sign up for that contract is, you know, not gonna happen
Chapin 19:04
yeah what like how many times do you have to go back and forth with these companies
Cat 19:08
at different points, it depends. Sometimes it's, I always prefer to do calls over emails, you know, face to face video calls, because I help it I think it helps to see me as a person and, you know, I'm a pretty nice person and it's hard to say. It's hard to say no when you're face to face, whereas an email, it's a little bit more personal so I like having these conversations, face to faces we can get you know I travel around full time so it's always video calls and never to see any of my clients. But, yeah, it's so far it's worked out pretty well but yeah then when I signed on with that agency, I was able to kind of give them the list of what I look for in contracts, and now they can relay that and do that negotiating on my behalf. So it's worked out very well it's, you know, being able to outsource my negotiations has freed up a lot of time on my ends, but yeah it's been pretty nice.
Chapin 19:58
Yeah. Speaking of the agents I'd like to dive into that a little bit more because for me I instantly go into defensive being like they're gonna take way too much and you're gonna lose control. Have you felt any of that with the industry that you've taken as a
Cat 20:09
team. Those are my two biggest concerns before I signed on with them, you know I've been running a successful company for four years, and part of me, felt like you know I've done all of this on my own so far, why, why do I need to hire someone to do it for me. But ultimately you know what it comes down to is, I'm good at certain things in my business and some things I'm very good at like I'm bringing creating designs that are going to sell very well. But, like I mentioned before, I'm not really that great at outreach so in my mind, hiring this agency, they were going to be taking care of the things that I was either just playing data or had no interest in doing so, yeah, writing original contracts, those notifications you know they're fun they're definitely fun but they're kind of there neither time. So having someone do that for me and do all that outreach and, you know, they're the professionals they're able to come to me and be like hey, we're seeing a lot of interest and it's a citrus designs and if you just create a less interest this month we'll be able to sell it and look at it in with these big companies. So, you know, they've got my back and I've got their back and it feels more like a team than else.
Chapin 21:11
It's awesome. Do you think that the things you're naturally drawn to like paint watercolors, is naturally what the market always wants or have you had to adjust your kind of artistic desires
Cat 21:21
to fit the market. There's been a lot of adjustments. Within the mediums themselves, you can there's a lot of flexibility so I've always painted with watercolors, it's kind of the bread and butter of my illustration portfolio and watercolors definitely have had a heyday you know back in 2010 ish you saw watercolor florals, you know surrounding these beautiful calligraphy. To me that those kinds of motifs were everywhere. So yeah, I absolutely cashed in on that, and created a lot of artwork of, you know, quotes done and beautiful calligraphy with watercolor flowers and they didn't go well at the time. Now, those motifs, they're, they're not they're not as popular because there's other things that I've kind of focused on, and adapted with the trends, but in terms of painting medium in general. Yeah, there's a lot of flexibility there though, you can stick with your same medium if he wants to and just kind of adapt to the
Chapin 22:10
trends and market that way. So as long as you're doing watercolors, you will pay anything and you're happy it sounds like,
Cat 22:15
oh absolutely
Chapin 22:16
anything like human figures animals flowers as long as just in the medium of watercolor you're like, just in bliss.
Cat 22:23
Oh yeah, that's my wheelhouse. I recently moved on to. I also do acrylic ink I drop from time to time, but yeah watercolor is definitely my absolute favorites, but now I've started doing a lot more digital illustrations, and on my iPad with an Apple Pencil there's an app called procreate, and they have so many great tools, it's really intuitive because you're holding that Apple Pencil and. And, oh god it's so much faster to do digital illustrations so if I'm putting something together for a client and let's say they have a really quick turnaround and they need, maybe 10 files and they want all this brand new artwork. I know I can whip that out digitally on an iPad, and probably half the time it takes to change something.
Chapin 23:02
What is it about the watercolors, that you find so relaxing and enjoyable to dive into. I think it's all the
Cat 23:07
color mixing, so when you paint with watercolors you, and you have a lot of tints and water on your brush and as you're kind of painting along that paper it's this really texture paper that this paint is soaking into, and it leaves these, these pools of water and pigments you can kind of dip into your palette pick other colors and it's not perfect and that's what I like about it you can kind of see what happens when that page dries, it usually creates some sort of effects that you weren't planning for expecting. And that's what I really like about it.
Chapin 23:36
So that unexpected result is where you would get off on Oh
Cat 23:39
absolutely, all of that color blooming the variation of pigmentation, I just love it.
Chapin 23:44
That's really interesting. I mean like I like baking for some reason that that's what if I could just come home after work and just make a loaf of bread for some reason that's my jam. But it's really cool that I mean making bread makes no money I had a bakery at one point, and it's cool that what you love to do, makes you money. And that's, I think, luck for one thing, you know, but at least it's something that you can stay focused on and whenever they get sick of it.
Cat 24:07
Oh yeah, I mean it's I feel incredibly fortunate that I've been able to make a living. And, you know, one thing I was worried about at the beginning when I pivoted my career to focus on art licensing was, you know, if I make this my full time job and I become reliant on this for an income. Is that going to take the fun out of it you know it's, you know, maybe if this becomes too much of a stress high pressure situation like okay I gotta, gotta keep earning money gotta keep painting, but it really hasn't been that way at all it's it's, I still been able to mentally separates my watercolor paintings from my business in terms of. It doesn't feel like a chore doesn't feel like a big I have to do it's not like okay from, you know, 930, to 230, I have to paint and then those out. It's something that I still do when I feel like it when the inspiration strikes and I feel incredibly fortunate in that.
Chapin 24:56
What do you do with all watercolors, I mean you're Fulton traveller and you paint for living. So you have what it was all the art.
Cat 25:04
I have never felt original in my life, I don't, I don't even know how to do that I wouldn't I wouldn't even know how to price myself. All of those originals, usually gets shipped back to my parents house and Kansas and stacked up in my old childhood bedroom so I mean at this point it's it's thousands of paintings. So, yeah, quite a bit
Chapin 25:25
interesting so you go home, family, and you can't sleep in your own bed because
Cat 25:30
there is so much crap in that bedroom yeah it's uh you know I travel all over I don't have a permanent home anywhere the closest thing is probably Chiang Mai where I have an apartment, oh five to six months out of the year, but even not I mean I'd have to put in a storage refresh when I leave my house. So yeah all of my all the stuff I collect on my travels all that stuff just gets piled back in my parents house and you know if mom and dad is real estate to this, I will deal with that someday just not right now.
Chapin 25:57
You know, let's go to your lifestyle and how it kind of unfolds because your full time job but you do 100 down in Thailand six months. What do you after Thailand
Cat 26:05
and Thailand. I live up north in Chiang Mai so every February March ish. They do something called, it's called burning season, and you're familiar with this use inside of Thailand, but it's when they burn the rice fields and because Chiang Mai is in this valley surrounded by mountains all of the smoke really just settles in the city, and breathing I mean the air quality is just atrocious. So I usually leave Thailand when the brain starts so you know February usually is my time to leave, and February is too cold to go back to Kansas and visit my folks it's too cold for most of Europe. So I usually end up going down to Bali for a few months, killing time until it gets warmer and the rest of the world, where I can travel and then I spend my summers in Europe traveling around
Chapin 26:49
for proper backpacking or you do the same thing just hunker down and say like of Lisbon.
Cat 26:53
Yeah, exact same day so I'll rent an apartment for a month or two, sometimes three use up all of my shamian days as an American I can only be in the Schengen for 93 days out of, you know, every 180. So usable Michigan days. Once those are blown, go back home visit the folks, and by that time it's home to try and rinse and repeat same cycle.
Chapin 27:15
How many years have you done this now,
Cat 27:17
my fourth year.
Chapin 27:19
So cool. That's so cool I mean what an amazing story like what are your parents think about your lifestyle, are they proud of you. Do they miss you,
Cat 27:26
they miss me a lot. When I first told them that I was going to be quitting my job and moving to Asia, they, they were surprised. Yeah, but they I had unconditional support from them, they're like well you'll, you'll make it work. And, yeah, it's been great they've been very supportive my whole family has. Yeah, friends and family were again pretty surprised when I announced they're just going to move to Asia with no connections no friends just gonna just gonna see how it went. But yeah has gone on and my family has seen how I've really you know carved out this life for myself that makes me so fulfilled and so happy. Yeah, I think they're. I think they're pretty proud of me.
Chapin 28:09
What else makes you happy like what other kind of hobbies,
Cat 28:11
do you have. Oh man I spent so much time just creating artwork.
Really like hiking I like doing hiking trips around the world. And that's something my family loves as well so usually that once a year. I my dad sometimes my hands will fly out to visit me wherever, wherever I need at the moment, whether it's Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and they'll join me for a couple weeks we'll usually do a hiking trip together. And it's great in Asia because you can do these village to village days. So when my parents met me at the northern Vietnam in Hawaii. We went to this region of Vietnam called Sapa, and it's all of these gorgeous rice fields, all local farmers, and there's this group of women called the Sapa sisters, and it's these Vietnamese women that speak English and their tour guides for you, for these hiking trips so they'll take you out for a week to however long it was, and you'll hike through these beautiful rice fields, you'll see water buffalo, and you'll stay in villages overnight so you'll have this this local guide translator and she'll, you'll stay with families and they'll cook you dinner and you can kind of have these conversations decorated it's a it's a really powerful and humbling and beautiful experience. So that's a, that's definitely something I try to do at least once a year, usually with my parents when they come to visit, because it's a really really wonderful experiences you
Chapin 29:26
have today enjoy Southeast Asia as much as you didn't
Cat 29:29
want to live there, but they want to come in and visiting. They actually just visited me in Bali in February right before coconuts and yeah they had a great time in Bali and we went up to. Good day hikes we didn't do any overnight hikes just it's way too hot. You know, February Valley it's, you know, 90 degrees, all day but yeah it wasn't so that's nice a day hikes and see those rice fields and learn a little bit about the local culture.
Chapin 29:56
You ever see yourself settling down in one of the spots that you frequent.
Cat 30:01
You know I like to someday, but I'm not quite ready for that. Yes. Yeah, one day I'd love to have a home somewhere that is my permanent home. I wouldn't want to stay there permanently maybe six months of the year, and still have that flexibility to travel but you know it would be really nice to have somewhere to put all my souvenirs that's not my child had been injured.
Chapin 30:21
Absolutely what places have you considered
Cat 30:23
I considered Europe, so yeah I've looked into what it takes to purchase property in Europe. Does that buy me residency Could I stay in the Schengen for longer. You know I'm not quite ready to pull the trigger yet, but eventually I would like to. Yeah, I'd like to own a home somewhere in Europe. Are
Chapin 30:40
you at a point now that you could afford a home somewhere like do you have that kind of income where you're like you could be a home owner in Europe or have multiple homes around the world.
Cat 30:49
Yeah, it could it could happen it's just a matter of. Yes, talking with my financial advisor getting the plan going but yeah the the revenue that art licensing and online teaching has generated has been, it's been pretty astronomical for me I mean yeah I feel really fortunate to this, you know, within six months of me selling my artwork online I was already earning more from my side hustle than I was at my full time job as a designer back in Kansas City. So, you know, that's one of the reasons I left that job because I saw I saw ceiling in terms of income, whereas with art licensing and entrepreneurship and all these different avenues that I could take my brands, it seems, it seemed almost limitless and yeah that's been my experience so far it's just you know testing out new avenues new income streams, you know, some of them don't work out but then some of them turn into, you know, not just a great income stream but something I really love doing like all of that online teaching.
Chapin 31:41
So cool. Are we talking like six figures seven figures, talking a little bit more about that or,
Cat 31:46
yeah. Six Figure salary right now with art licensing coming in. And, you know, it's definitely going to take a hit with COVID my licensors and you know within the industry it's, it's being projected that you'll probably make half as much until the virus gets contained which, you know, it's a big bummer but it's not it's not the end of the world for me it's something that I can kind of adjust and be fluid and work through.
Chapin 32:11
Who is your financial adviser, like is it like a friend of a friend or something like that.
Cat 32:15
It's through Ameriprise so it's actually my, it's my she's been my financial advisors since before I even started my own company and she was my financial advisor. As soon as I graduated. She got a full time job. And yeah, she was actually my parents financial advisor she works for Ameriprise she is in Kansas City, and more importantly, she will, you know, take calls at all hours a day for me if I'm in Asia or wherever, in the world to I get settled so yeah she's she's a great resource.
Chapin 32:42
So even though you travel a lot, you stay in cool places in nice places, you know, really cool people you're not blowing your money on frivolous thing that sounds
Cat 32:49
like, oh no yeah I am, I had a paycheck I paid myself on salary for myself I'm the only employee under cast coke LLC, so I I live with the income coming in from my paycheck or what I pay myself and then everything else that my company earns just comes through dividends which I make a habit to not even I don't even touch that I don't see it I don't even know it's there it goes straight into investments in my portfolio. So yes, frugal living but that's that's completely fine, I mean frugal to to an extent. but that's actually pretty bad for me I have roommates all the time. We traveled together, my roommates also on their own companies and yeah it's kind of a great lifestyle to live the people that are also mean their businesses, really motivated to work hard and have any questions if I'm kind of blocked and there's something that I'm really having trouble with, I can ask one of my friends or roommates. Usually, it's something that they've dealt with before their business as well and they can advise to travel business
Unknown Speaker 33:47
class or coach.
Cat 33:50
If I use my points, that'll travel business but everything else I'm Academy all the way. Okay.
Chapin 33:58
I love it. A few more questions that go with the website I was checking out cat coat, calm. Beautiful blocks as well to you right although I do
Cat 34:07
yeah I really enjoy dating. Yeah, my blog post is all its artists resources so it's advice to other artists and creatives that want to maybe get their venture off the ground, or learn even what art supplies I use some of my blog posts or experiences that I had while traveling. I had a whole blog post and it was basically I tracked how much I spent for a full another full week or full lives a full week in Thailand. I know everybody spends and I need a full blog post about that just to show how cheap it is to live over in Thailand. Yeah, I just I write in my blog, really whatever inspires me and talk about new collections with the appliance speaking events that are coming up, and whether it's you know like I just need to get DC BKK like you mentioned in Bangkok I was it was a really fun experience. Yeah, it's just a whole gamut of basically what's going on in my life in my business.
Chapin 34:57
Very cool, very cool. If you'd speak to writer, or if you could go back and think, where you were at when you were 14 and give each one of them words of wisdom, what would you say,
Cat 35:08
I was getting started with our licensing and I was really afraid to put myself out there I was kind of embarrassed about showing my, my watercolor paintings to the world you know something, but I'd always just done it for myself or in school you know for class assignments, but I never identified myself, as, as an artist I identified myself as a designer as an employee. And so that mindset shift was was absolutely massive. But I remember that that first Instagram has a story I showed my first painting will not make this painting but the first one that the world was going to see, and it was incredibly intimidating and I was like oh god This isn't perfect enough What am I doing, got my I guess my best advice is just to get over it. You are going to be your worst, you are your own worst critic, and that is so true and I am so glad that I got over that and I started putting myself out there because I wouldn't be. I wouldn't be at all where I am today. Unless I took that first lunch and you know swallowed it, and started showing the world my artwork.
Chapin 36:08
That's great advice Cat thank you so much for joining us Hey folks, check it out at catcoq.com.
Cat 36:13
Thank you so much.
Chapin 36:14
Awesome Cat thank you so much for joining I love your story really. I will continue on with my online business. Hopefully I can to live in these various places for longer periods of time, and a little bit bigger budget don't always have, and keep rocking, you're awesome. So remember if you're a first time listener. Subscribe if you wouldn't mind just heading down to the bottom of your podcast app rating misfits and rejects five stars, leaving us a comment. Again, sharing this episode with somebody who might be struggling as an artist, which is your world to me and cat. We do appreciate it it really helps me in the algorithms and be found a lot easier for people seeking out this kind of message inspirational message of people possibility for their life going after what they want in life and designing viable business online, really interesting cool lifestyles around the world, please help me get this message out there, it can't be done without your help so rating commenting, sharing means the world to me. Thank you so much I think you all are so very beautiful. I'll see you next week's episode Monday morning, 9am. Take care. Ciao, baby.