Today we’d like to introduce you to Bailey Phommavong.
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?
My name is Bailey Phommavong and I am one of the co-founders of LaabLai alongside Jeanny Khamvongsa and Kandace Siphengphone. Jeanny, Kandace, and I come from an incredibly large, yet close-knit family spending the majority of our childhoods together. From playing to traveling to crafting to eating, we did everything together, so the creation of LaabLai came about quite naturally. We have always been a creative family, so with the encouragement and support from those around us, we took the next step in sharing our creations beyond our family group chats. Both Kandace and Jeanny were already eager to start a business and display their expertise with the public and I wanted to take this opportunity to take a step further in my career as an artist. Our shop’s goals and products are influenced by our interests as well as our culture. From music to movies to foods, we find inspiration in so many aspects of our lives. As we are part of many fandoms, our designs and creations are fueled by our excitement for our interests and desire to share works that can be shared with the fanbases. And on a more personal note, we are incredibly proud to hold our identities as Laotian women. We want to do our part in representing the Lao community through art in order to share the beauty and resiliency of Lao culture and history. From our households to the world, our values are rooted in our desire for a platform to share our artwork and connect with people of all backgrounds. LaabLai is our small but growing family business that has gifted us with this unique experience and has become the tool for achieving our goals in celebrating the interconnectedness of fanbase communities and in advocating for our cultural community.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I don’t think anyone could ever start with a smooth road. Smooth roads are made after weeks, months, and years of practice in paving the road that you’d like to see. LaabLai is still a small, growing business, so we definitely encounter some bumps and potholes here and there. Sales trends with our shop fluctuate quite often; we could see a burst of sales and then a period of time with no sales. Nonetheless, our shop continues to thrive because our patrons have continued to support our business throughout the years and we are constantly welcoming new customers to our brand. Our greatest challenge stems from time management. Our business is run by the three of us who are all in very different stages of our lives with incredibly spontaneous schedules. Because of this, there are times when our activities and promotions can become stagnant due to difficulties with different processes such as marketing our products, creating new designs, or approving new designs. Despite these obstacles, we all work hard to do our part to keep LaabLai running. The three of us have very different career backgrounds and varied strengths, so we found it most effective to divide our duties in order for LaabLai to run smoothly. Jeanny handles all finances and communications with manufacturers, Kandace manages orders and communications with customers, and I design our products. When it comes to new product releases, we make all decisions together. We exchange our ideas, discuss all the options, and finalize the next product only when we’ve found something that we can all appreciate and want to share with the world. Our process can be, at times, meticulous and slow-moving, but we continue to adapt as we go because we want our approach to be as versatile as our range of products. Our passion and excitement to share the things we create is a constant motivation to keep going and at the end of the day, all our efforts come together to fulfill our goals.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
LaabLai specializes in the production of stickers and pins that encompass a variety of our interests which exemplifies the versatility of our brand. LaabLai is unique in that our business represents the intersection of our cultural and social identities. Our products express the pride we have in our heritage and the joy we feel from pop culture. We wanted LaabLai to reflect all sides of us and I am incredibly thankful to be able to apply my skills to make our visions into a reality. As our business was founded on the foundations of love and pride for our Laotian culture, we hope that customers will not only enjoy our products, but immerse themselves in the stories and histories that inspire each creation. And though our business began as a passion project to vent our ambitious ideas, LaabLai also serves as a means of amplifying and giving greater exposure to our interests and cultures that many may not be aware about. We are so proud to see that LaabLai accurately showcases our values, our culture, and our happiness through our stickers and pins. From Laotian culture to pop culture, we hope that our products can be enjoyed by our elders, children, and everyone in between. Our number one priority is working towards being a business where everyone is able to find a bit of happiness when they visit our shop site.
How do you think about happiness?
Every aspect of our business. From the Etsy notification signifying a new order being placed to the packaging of orders, to writing personalized notes to our patrons, to sending off the package at the post office. There is no greater joy than knowing that there was someone who saw our designs and loved it enough to purchase an item from us. Then thinking about how our products, whether it be a sticker or a pin, will be traveling and seeing the world beyond our bedrooms truly boggles our minds! These moments are what make us happy and we are incredibly humbled by the support and love we’ve received thus far.
Contact Info:
- Email: larblaicreators@gmail.com
- Website: https://www.etsy.com/shop/LaabLai
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laablai/
- Other: https://www.instagram.com/phommy.jpg/
