Today we’d like to introduce you to Courtney Bilokonsky.
Courtney, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
ActiveDutypets/AtEase Accents was a solution to a common problem most military families face. In areas like San Diego, the compensation for a single active-duty breadwinner is hardly enough to support a family where the kids still receive a lot of time attention from at least one parent. Many military families have to make tough decisions based on values and economics if one spouse will stay home or if both will have jobs or careers. And if both spouses work, the costs of childcare, travel, and opportunity costs can in many cases mitigate most of the gains made by dual-employment, and make the margin of difference so narrow that an impoverished traditional lifestyle is nearly an even draw to a slightly more affluent dual-wage-earning family structure. The fact that we place our servicemen and women in this position while simultaneously asking them to sacrifice so immensely comes into play in our story.
My Husband Vasyl and I (Vasyl has been active duty for 13 years, 12 of which have been enlisted, and the last year of which has been commissioned), brain-stormed after a PCS (permanent change in station) in 2016 how we might solve this problem for our family. How we can maximize time, attention, and love in the house while maximizing our earning potential as 2 individuals – while still taking into account military moves and maximizing downtime when the active-duty spouse has time off. During this time, I began doing reviews for Amazon on baby and household products and slowly learned how to navigate Amazon’s sellers platform. We started researching products and found that there was a missing niche market for high-quality, Eco-friendly, beautifully and environmentally friendly pet products on Amazon. We understood the market intimately because we were often looking for specific kinds of products for our pets on Amazon and found that there was an unreasonable gap in affordable, high-quality items. I sourced quotes for various products and my husband (who has an MBA from Arizona State) ran calculations on profitability and we designed some branded products that we painstakingly
learned how to bring to the market.
I met with great success and was soon selling 20 dog brushes a day and was receiving dozens and dozens of 5-star reviews. Soon, we found ourselves with Amazon’s Choice badge on our product and we’re always in a rush to keep inventory levels up. I expanded to additional products and before long I was looking at other avenues to market such as a Shopify storefront.
I made an early commitment to hiring active-duty spouses for photography, product-testing, marketing, packaging, and all other outsourced business requirements so that we could strengthen the active duty family. Eventually, we started Active-Duty Pets Instagram (@ActiveDutyPets) in order to celebrate some of the really unsung heroes: the pets that love, support and protect active-duty families through all of their challenges. Fostering this community has given us a tremendous sense of community and enabled us to feel like we are doing something to strengthen the network of support between military families with a modern twist, while also providing us an approach to reach new customers.
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?
No military family in it for the long haul has a smooth road but I believe that the more fully you embrace the challenges and carry the lessons of perspiration with you, the deeper your appreciation for life and your reach towards your own capabilities becomes. I feel absolutely my most fulfilled when I am passing on my lessons and experiences to junior spouses and eager young entrepreneurs and see that they are interested and inspired by what I am sharing.
Gosh, there have been so many challenges. So many times, I have felt that I was running uphill or into a wall. I’ve had my competitors duplicate my products and my advertising, literally stealing my content line for line, trying to undersell me by 10 cents with an inferior product. There have been times dealing with international vendors that Eastern holidays blocked delivery for so long that I ran out of inventory and had to work to regain my sales position. Kids have gotten sick and my husband has been deployed, sometimes suddenly unable to even communicate for days or weeks. My to-do list sometimes becomes a distant wish-list and I have to find peace in the moment of what I have to do as a mom while I’m burning to build my business in seemingly impossible ways.
We’d love to hear more about #ActiveDutyPets/AtEase Accents.
Everything in the company down to the dog photography, the pick and pack of the brushes, the Amazon reviewers we pick and our Instagram features military spouses and their pets. Another passion of mine and goal is to not only employ but to coach and teach other military spouses how to build revenue on Amazon. It’s a fantastic opportunity for veteran families because you can do it anywhere across the United States.
My day starts out making breakfast for three hungry boys and carting them off to school, pre-school, or naptime. I’m lucky if I get 2 hours of office time in the morning and maybe 2 more in the afternoon if it’s a good nap day. I am incredibly lucky to live in a community full of other military spouses(my extended family), that are willing to work and help out whenever needed. I pick up hungry kids in the afternoon, feed them, talk to them about their days, play dinosaurs and trucks, take them to their afternoon activities which currently include baseball, church activities and jiujitsu, wait for my husband to come home and help share in the wonders of child-rearing before carving some time in the evening for down-time, debriefing, and maybe a glass of wine and reconnecting with my spouse.
We are set apart as a business because everything we do is genuine, small-batch, and made with love – yet we are right there swinging away at the highest levels of marketing, competing, bringing products to market, and living our best life every day. We are commuted to using this business to make employment opportunities for military spouses.
Our Instagram:
Our Instagram is what really brings us a lot of joy each day and draws our military community together through our love of pets. Several months ago when I decided the Active Duty Pets needed more of a social media presence- our #activedutypets was born. In our local military housing community, I saw a Facebook post from another spouse looking for a doggie playdate. Her post was flooded with pictures of service members and their pets wanting to connect. One dog stood out to me and I contacted them to use their dog on our page. The spouse ended up being extremely talented on social media and I brought him on board to help me manage the page. It was another way to be able to provide extra income to a spouse while also working together on a creative project. Instagram has been a great way to not only share our brushes with the public but provide a fun safe place for people to post about their military pets and share experiences. Today, we have over 3K followers with dogs represented by all branches of service. Pets hold such special place in our hearts are such a huge help with anxiety for Veterans and providing comfort during deployments, and we really try to capture that on our page.
So much of the media coverage is focused on the challenges facing women today, but what about the opportunities? Do you feel there are any opportunities that women are particularly well-positioned for?
Social media and eCommerce are such a huge part of today’s society and can create such wonderful opportunity for women with an entrepreneurial spirit or someone that would like to work from home.
Our networks and alliances and friends make our corporate footprint unique and the synergies we find in the outline of our associations is powerful. Women in particular through a combination of temperament and cultural reinforcement have an easier time forming and using these networks. Women are amazing at building and bringing communities together through the power of social media.
I’ve learned through living in a military community with a ton of different women is the fact that there are so many unique individuals with special skill sets that when harvested together can be built into something great and that’s what active duty pets is about – – pulling military spouses, and especially women together to help provide second incomes for their families, and freedom of entrepreneurship.
Pricing:
- AtEase Accents Eco-Friendly Brushes $13.95 (on Amazon)
Contact Info:
- Website: www.amazon.com/ateaseaccents , www.ecopetbrush.com
- Email: ateaseaccents@yahoo.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/activedutypets/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/activedutypets/
Image Credit:
@cionmonge (image one golden retriever)
Kathia Matienzo Photos(Courtney brushing Max)
@oakleyandbenny_adventures(cat)
Ashley Ford Photography
Kathia Matienzo Photos(Brush)
@itsbuddyboy(cocker spainel)
@cooper_the_doodle
Mary Sasso Photography
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