How Targeting Niche Markets Leads to Sustained Success with Jason Miles Founder of Pixie Faire

Feb 7, 2019

Ask episode

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

Jason Miles is the founder of Pixie Faire. He started a family business with his wife at the time called Liberty Jane at their kitchen table in 2008. In 2013 they launched Pixie Faire, which has become the world's largest online marketplace in their niche. The site averages 50-60 thousand transactions a month and they have had over 2million of their patterns downloaded. People describe Jason’s wife, Cinnamon Miles as “the Vera Wang of the 18-inch crowd.” In 2014 Jason retired from a 20-year career in non-profit management to work on the business full-time. They also started Sew Powerful a non-profit organization focused on creating purposeful products at a sewing cooperative in Zambia. Jason has several bestselling books published by McGraw-Hill on social media, “Instagram Power”, “Youtube Marketing Power”, “Pinterest Power.” He is also one of the most popular ecommerce instructors on Udemy.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[1:40] Jeremy introduces his guest, Jason Miles.
[3:15] Jason talks about how he got started as an entrepreneur.
[10:30] Why did Jason and his family move back to Seattle?
[14:00] What did the early version of Jason’s ecommerce business look like?
[20:45] Jason talks about the evolution of the business & how they expanded the team.
[30:15] What tools and software does Jason and his team use?
[35:00] Jason talks about how to use Shopify effectively.
[37:00] Why targeting a niche market works.
[44:00] What does it take to drive traffic to your website?
[50:50] How to leverage platforms like Pinterest, YouTube, and Instagram.
[59:40] Why contests can help you with audience engagement.
[1:07:50] Jason talks about his work with non-profits in Zambia.
[1:12:45] Why the poverty in Zambia resonated with Jason.
[1:17:00] Closing thoughts from Jeremy and Jason.

In this episode…

What does it look like to target a niche market and build a robust ecommerce business around it? Is that type of strategy effective? How does social media engagement factor into the process? On this episode of Inspired Insider, you’ll hear from entrepreneur and innovator, Jason Miles. In his conversation with Jeremy, Jason opens up about how he started as an entrepreneur, why he chose to build a business in a niche market, how he learned to use platforms like Pinterest effectively, why they started the non-profit Sew Powerful, and much more. Don’t miss a minute of this fascinating conversation with Jason Miles!

When you think of big businesses do you think of a name like Walmart that sells a wide range of products or do you think of businesses with a focus on niche markets like Starbucks? While there are multiple ways to build a business, it seems that focusing on niche markets has recently grown in popularity, especially in the ecommerce industry. Jason and Cinnamon Miles built Pixie Faire with a focus on the doll clothing niche market. From humble beginnings, they built a thriving brand that encourages and equips this niche community. Make sure to check out the link to their website located in the resources section at the end of this post.

Behind every successful entrepreneur is a team that was built from scratch. Most startups don’t begin with a team, but they certainly need a team to scale the business and build out long term success. Businesses that start to build out a team from scratch are bound to make a few mistakes along the way, thankfully, Jason Miles was able to avoid any major challenges in this aspect of his business. They were able to bring on an incredibly talented designer as the first addition to their team at Pixie Faire. Have you seen the contrast between healthy and unhealthy team environments in your career?

Does your organization have a plan for social media engagement? Much of the new ecommerce marketplace is centered around building and expanding a social media presence. Think of social media as the new public square, wouldn’t it make sense to invest and develop an approach that takes full advantage of this dynamic? Jason Miles didn’t start out as a social media expert, but he learned along the way and developed an innovative method for helping other business leaders do the same. To learn more about Jason’s resources, books, and online courses, make sure to check out the link to his “Winning on Shopify” site located in the resources section at the end of this post.

Have you ever wondered what all of your success and striving is for? What is the endgame? Do you work hard to enjoy a comfortable life with your family? Are you convinced that your business is providing a valuable good to the marketplace? Or is there something larger that you are working for? Jason Miles found his larger purpose on a trip to Zambia where he met women trying to support 475 orphans in a poor community known as Ngombe. From that moment, Jason knew that he needed to use his success to help empower others. Now, Jason and Pixie Faire can use their platform and profits to help others through the non-profit, Sew Powerful.

Resources Mentioned on this episode

Sponsor for this episode

Rise25’s mission is to connect you with your best referral partners and customers.

We do this in 3 ways…

Our Done for you Media - We help your company completely run and launch your own podcast. we distribute your show across more than 11 different channels including a dedicated blog post and social media. You simply show up and talk and we do everything else. Our team has been working with podcasters since 2009. I personally credit podcasting as the single best thing I have done for my business and my life. It has allowed me to connect with the founders/ceo’s of P90x, Atari, Einstein Bagels, Mattel, Rx Bars, and many more. Besides making best friends and finding my business partner..podcasting has led to relationships with countless customers and referral partners.

Our Done for you Lead Generation- We manually send a consistent flow of customized outreach messages to your ideal clients and referral sources that you want to connect with to generate more business and clients - this is not paid traffic by the way.

Our Done for you VIP Events - We do live in-person VIP Days and receptions. These are 100% outsourced VIP days for software companies and conference organizers so we can help you serve your highest level customers. It may or may not involve Elvis costumes - See video

Rise25 VIP Days have a proven track record of helping companies to get more referrals, increase retention with their VIP customers, and get more engaged new customers without adding extra work to that company’s plate.

Rise25 has hosted VIP events in cities such as Austin, Chicago, Santa Barbara, San Diego, New York, Sonoma, and Las Vegas to name a few.

Since these each require a lot of humans to do the work we have limited bandwidth and only want to work with the right company. so if any sound interesting to you go to Rise25.com and contact us or email support (at) rise25.com.

If your company wants to attract and connect with your highest level customers and referral partners then you can learn more and contact us to find out if your company qualifies at Rise25.com.

Rise25 was cofounded by Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran.