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Every business benefits from a clear specialty, until it's time to grow beyond it. Today's update comes from Kaila, who built a branding studio around a niche she knew well: pet businesses.
Kaila Piepkow owns Dox Designs, a branding studio in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She studied design inside her school's business program, then worked long hours at a top Midwest agency before deciding the corporate path wasn't for her. As the owner of three dogs, she started freelancing on the side, and pet businesses came to her naturally. After a year working under her own name, she filed for an LLC and built out a team. Dox Designs now employs three designers and a copywriter, and has helped more than 70 small businesses grow through what Kaila calls “drool-worthy” branding and packaging design.
Starting with a single niche is the reason Dox Designs grew fast. Other pet companies would see a client's new branding show up on social media, and since pet companies tend to follow other pet companies, referrals came in quickly. That focus gave Kaila an edge in a crowded field: a generalist designer gets lost in the noise, but a specialist stands out.
Now that the team has more capacity, they're taking on clients outside the pet world, and it hasn't been easy. Business coaches, restaurants, and other small businesses tend to ask the same question first: do you only design for pet businesses? So Kaila is reframing the studio's language, positioning the team as dog-loving designers instead of designers who only work with pet companies, since plenty of business owners outside the pet industry love animals too.
This isn't a mistake. The harder path would have been the reverse: trying to be all things to all people before earning a niche of her own. Kaila built a real business by focusing first, and now she gets to expand from a position of strength, as long as she keeps the anchor that got her here: she's a pet owner, a pet lover, and someone with real experience in the pet industry.
Kaila also runs a free Facebook group offering design support for small businesses, open to anyone who wants to join at facebook.com/groups/designforsmallbusinesses.
