Consider the Wildflowers
Consider the Wildflowers
120. From Water Bills to World-Class Typefaces: Jen Wagner's Rise in the World of Font Design
Jen Wagner’s journey from aspiring orthopedic surgeon to powerhouse type designer is a testament to the power of reinvention. In this episode, Jen shares how a series of unexpected life changes—culminating in a leap of faith to go full-time freelance—led her to create a thriving font design business. Learn how her goal to "just pay the water bill" evolved into a full-scale creative venture and hear how her strategic focus on output, simplicity, and persistence led her to dominate the design world. Whether you're looking to start your own business or elevate your creative work, Jen's journey is a must-listen for every female entrepreneur ready to embrace both failure and success.
WILDFLOWER SHOWNOTES : shannaskidmore.com/jen-wagner
📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED:
Email Marketing for Creatives Guide
Jen Wagner: Hard Deadlines are Toxic Motivators
*Some links above are affiliate links which means I receive a small commission when you choose to purchase through my link. I only recommend tools I love and use myself!
Shanna (00:02.216)
Hey, Jen, welcome to the show.
Jen Wagner (00:05.006)
Thank you
Shanna (00:06.442)
This is going to be fun. I mean, where do we even begin? Do I go with my questions? Do I not? So many things. Let's just go back to tell everybody quickly just who you are, what you do now. And then we'll just kind of kick it back to life before business, how you got here.
Jen Wagner (00:23.63)
Totally, yeah, so I'm Jen Wagner of Jen Wagner Co. And I am a type designer and resource creator for creative business owners. So mostly type, but that also falls into templates, email marketing templates and mockups and design assets and stuff like that.
Shanna (00:48.978)
When you set out to think of your career, did you think to yourself, I'm going to create typography? Like, I'm going to be a type designer. That's not something you hear very often.
Jen Wagner (00:59.51)
No, no, no. I, so from the time I was in eighth grade on, I was like dead set on being an orthopedic surgeon, wanted to go into sports therapy. We were living in Denver. So the dream was like, my gosh, if I can like be the orthopedic surgeon in Vale and like be working with like athletes and like, I just, I was like, that's, that's it. I love sports. I love like,
Shanna (01:23.22)
That'd be awesome.
Jen Wagner (01:29.196)
medicine, like this will be great. And then sophomore year, I think I took a biology class and was like, I hate this.
Shanna (01:38.558)
That's the weed out class. Is that what they call it?
Jen Wagner (01:41.574)
it sure yeah I mean depends on who you ask a weed out class could mean different things to different students
Shanna (01:47.378)
Yeah, sure, sure, especially in Denver. Yes.
Jen Wagner (01:50.21)
yeah, yeah. No, and at the same time actually, my mom, she had us when she was very young. So she ended up when we were in high school going back to college to study medicine and become a nurse practitioner. So when I was in high school, she was in college and I was able to like watch her pursue medicine and.
both watching her do it and like taking a single biology class myself, I was like, I am, I need a career shift. Like, I don't, I don't think I want to do this. And then from there, it just got very wishy-washy. Like, I was always really creative. I was always into drawing, painting, loved calligraphy since I was a little kid, photography, design. So I like started doing design.
Shanna (02:22.057)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (02:45.548)
just for fun and ended up like funny enough trading design work to like the National Honor Society club at school for like a check on my attendance when I wasn't there. Like bartering in high school for like stuff for my college applications like if you say I was in NHS then I'll give you some t-shirt designs.
Shanna (03:13.898)
That's awesome.
Jen Wagner (03:14.406)
So trading does work. But yeah, think like design was just always something that I like gravitated towards just like creating beautiful things has always been like kind of core part of who I am and design was the expression of that. So I ended up doing that for a long time.
Shanna (03:36.842)
So when you were like, no to the orthopedic, that was in college or in high school? And okay, okay, so in high school, you graduated, like what was next? What happened next? What steps did you take? What career did you do to go to college? Like tell me kind of what happened next.
Jen Wagner (03:42.154)
No, that was in high school. Yeah.
Jen Wagner (03:52.214)
Yeah, I was so like, I don't know what I want to do with my life that I was like, I'm just gonna go to school for business and marketing. that's, I enjoy those topics so much. I was always starting businesses. Also since like elementary school, like I would sell lanyards and at one point in high school, like I had...
We had bought this screen printing equipment and set it up in the garage and I had a screen printing business when I was a senior in high school and freshman in college. I did photography and I just did everything I could. And ended up going to school for marketing, got my degree from CU while working full time at a church as their creative director. So was very, very, very busy.
I graduated in 2015 from college and at the time I was like working, you know, part time at a church, which is 50 hours a week. Totally exactly. And then I was doing freelance and the hours from that ended up being like, like 30 hours a week. So I was just like working constantly. And at one point I was like, you know what?
Shanna (05:00.168)
Yeah, exactly. Full-time hours, part-time pay.
Shanna (05:14.28)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (05:17.186)
I think I can quit my job at the church and just go full-time freelance. Like I never wanted to work at a church. That was not my like my goal in life. And it really just came down to this like being unhappy with where I was at and kind of like taking a hard look at my life and being like, it's cause I, actually didn't want this. Like I, I'm just doing it. So let's stop doing it and do this other thing that I'm interested in.
Shanna (05:29.713)
Thank
Shanna (05:38.686)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jen Wagner (05:45.046)
And day one of like being done with my job at the church, all but five hours a week of my freelance work bailed. Like it was within days of each other. Like I was getting emails from these clients being like, yeah, sorry. I know we said we could do 20 hours a week, but like we got our numbers for this year and we can't do it. Or like we can offer you an admin position or we could like, it was just everything fell apart within a few days. so all that happened. And then like,
Shanna (06:07.432)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (06:14.806)
A month later, my parents got divorced. And then I think a few weeks later, we had a very, very early term miscarriage. it was like everything in my life was just unwrapped.
Shanna (06:26.878)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jen Wagner (06:29.462)
And so, and we had planned on having like dual income. And so we're also trying to figure out how to make things work. And we made it work, but like the whole time I am remarkably stressed because just kind of how I grew up, like all of my self worth was tied to my income. And so like, I'm not making any money.
Shanna (06:36.446)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (06:57.158)
and nothing I do is valuable and neither am I as a person and like, so I'm just scrambling to find ways to make money and I'd started like an Etsy shop doing calligraphy stuff, I was doing wedding invitations, I was like just anything I could possibly get and nothing was really sticking and I was also not having any fun and so I ended up kind of throwing in the towel, I started interviewing for marketing positions around Denver
And I was like three interviews in with this company. were, the process was taking forever. And the one client that I did have was like, hey, I know like this sucks, but let's pause our work and like not start any new projects until we know what's going on with this new job. Cause we want to make sure you're able to finish things. And that was understandable. So I had this like three week lapse where I just like had nothing to do.
And my husband who had watched me just like try and try and try and what felt like fail for months, like I think eight months at this point was like, Hey, you have three weeks and like nothing that has to be done. So I need you to make something that you want to make. Like don't worry about if it's going to make money. Don't worry about like how good you're going to be at it or like, like just anything you've been curious about, just make something.
Like take this time, it's like time off almost to just create. I was like, well, I've always been like, I've always loved typography and been interested in like font design. That's really cool. I had been like looking for fonts for different ideas I had that I just couldn't find. And then ended up like making the letters myself and was like, huh, I wonder if there's an easy way to like turn this kind of typography into type design and like.
fonts and a friend of mine had just mentioned that there's this company, this is 2016, called Fontself who had just made a plugin for Adobe Illustrator where you could take your A to Z alphabet or character set and click and drag it into this plugin window and it would generate the font for you. And so it was like, and there were no resources to learn type design online at the time. YouTube was still kind of just funny.
Shanna (08:54.302)
Yeah.
Shanna (09:18.92)
Yeah, I was gonna say, right. Yeah.
Jen Wagner (09:22.23)
entertainment, it wasn't for education at all. And so that was like my inroad to just start experimenting with it. I had like applied and been accepted to creative market and at the time was planning on doing like illustrations and like lettering stuff but ended up uploading some of these fonts. And my hope was that I would be able to pay the water bill, so 40 bucks a month. And...
Shanna (09:24.81)
Yeah.
Shanna (09:48.904)
Yep.
Jen Wagner (09:51.074)
that I would be able to eat it Chipotle once a week.
Shanna (09:55.818)
Hey, let's go with avocado, with the guac.
Jen Wagner (09:57.356)
That was my win. was like, if Creative Market can give me the ability to do this passively, like...
Shanna (10:04.276)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (10:06.166)
not had a single win this year, like I need something. And that month, I think tripled my income from my church job, which wasn't paying much, but was still like, this is a real job.
Shanna (10:08.232)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Shanna (10:21.738)
So you uploaded, you created this font set, like a typography, you created it and uploaded it to Creative Market. They sold it, they used their platform, you got the commission, I guess, off of it. that's, so once you created it, it was pretty like done.
Jen Wagner (10:27.106)
Mm-hmm.
Jen Wagner (10:36.012)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (10:40.942)
It was pretty passive. Yeah. And it was like, I started off like, I knew I didn't know what I was doing. And my fonts were so, so simple. So it was like all uppercase numbers and basic punctuation upload. Like there was no kerning. There was no like finessing anything. was just, it was just what it was. And I priced them appropriately too. They were like nine to $12.
Shanna (11:03.646)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (11:10.978)
But I was, because they were so simple, I was making like three fonts a week and just putting stuff out. And I feel like that was so encouraging early on and such a valuable lesson to learn right away that like sometimes repetition is more valuable than like quality when you're first starting out and just because you learn something new every time you start from scratch.
Shanna (11:32.552)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yes. Yeah.
Jen Wagner (11:38.508)
And you get faster and better and you see things you could do differently. like, so I think I had in my first couple of months, like 25 fonts. And I think because I was feeding the creative market algorithm, they were like, cool. We're just anything Jen puts out. We're just going to push. And when you're putting out three things a week, like it, I think it seemed like I just came out of nowhere. And it's cause I kind of did.
Shanna (11:56.585)
Yeah.
Shanna (12:04.584)
Yeah. So did you take the marketing job?
Jen Wagner (12:08.544)
Nope. No, I didn't get the marketing job.
Shanna (12:09.97)
Okay, so once you saw this money, okay, so somebody, girl, I mean, it's like brick wall, brick wall, brick wall. Hey, here's your window. What a blessing in disguise, right? So, so many questions, but for somebody who obviously is goal-oriented, achievement-oriented, I don't know if that's like how you were raised, if it was just in your blood, like.
Jen Wagner (12:18.614)
I didn't get it. Uh-huh. No kidding.
Shanna (12:37.734)
Was setting, you know me, my numbers brain is like, was setting that goal of like pay the water bill, eat at Chipotle, was that helpful for you to be like, I'm doing this thing instead of, you know what I'm saying? Like I think sometimes we set these big massive goals or like I have to hit this and then sometimes that can keep us from even starting.
Jen Wagner (12:50.36)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (13:01.198)
Absolutely, and I think having those goals be so Simple and sweet made it low pressure enough for me to continue having fun with it I think if I had been like I'm gonna make this my job It would have immediately not been fun and high pressure just like everything else I started earlier that year like I started so many different things with that intent and At no point was any of it fun But because this was just a hobby that
Shanna (13:14.716)
Yes. Yeah.
Shanna (13:20.489)
Yes.
Jen Wagner (13:31.0)
was like, if I could make 60 bucks a month doing this, like, yeah, that sounds good to me.
Shanna (13:38.226)
And how did you like, were you still looking for other jobs or were you just, okay, so you were like, I'm just gonna do this for fun until I find my thing. And it just ended up becoming your thing.
Jen Wagner (13:42.424)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah, well, and it kind of worked so fast, which I know isn't normal. But I also think that like, if you look at like the quantity of work, the numbers make sense. Like if someone is giving themselves a year to make something work and they put out 25 fonts in a year, because they've given themselves that amount of time, like I put that out in
Shanna (14:15.86)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (14:17.992)
months. like I'm seeing and it doesn't all it's not always linear like that but like I do think that the further into any creative pursuit I get the more I realize that like especially when you're starting the output is so important and not because like it's not for the reasons we think like it's because it's training us and getting us better and it's also like
Shanna (14:43.049)
Yes.
Jen Wagner (14:46.486)
showing other people that you're serious. And like we live in a songwriter town and artists and so like if you're only putting out two songs a year and you're only posting about those songs twice, we don't know that you're an artist. But like if you're showing up every week with.
new content, like you're communicating to me that you're taking yourself seriously and you're also improving every time you create something.
Shanna (15:19.626)
Yeah, yeah. And I think this is such an interesting and good conversation because I feel like, I don't know if the permission is still there to get out and learn and try and get better. Like I think there is this, I don't know, expectation we put on ourselves to be great at something from the beginning. just the amount of, it does kind of remind me, funny enough, of Tony Robbins. I heard him say one time that he would do like a talk every single day for like,
in his early days of being Tony Robbins, I don't know, he would do like a speech every day and he was like, other people would do one a month or something. No, and of course you're going to get better. You're practicing every time. And I think that's so interesting because I don't see in my world, I don't see people have that same permission that they used to of like getting out, get the client, do the work. Like you get better every time. Okay. So how did you figure out your pricing? Were you just kind of comparing that to
Jen Wagner (16:00.654)
Right.
Shanna (16:16.894)
Were there other type designers on creative market?
Jen Wagner (16:20.726)
Yeah, there were, but it was like,
Jen Wagner (16:28.354)
They were so much better than me at the time. And so I just saw what they were charging and was like, cool, I'm gonna go under that because I want people to get what they pay for. I don't want to have to deal with people being frustrated by my low quality because I can't fix it right now. I don't know better. So.
Shanna (16:49.886)
Yeah, yeah. And so, okay, so where you just like, at what point were you like, I'm a type designer, I'm doing this, I'm going all in.
Jen Wagner (17:00.718)
I mean...
Jen Wagner (17:05.358)
It's funny because it's evolved so much over the years. Like I feel like I have just within the last two years become a real type designer. I was totally self-taught all the way up until 2020 when I was able to like get some education on it. I went to the Cooper Union. I was supposed to go in person and then COVID shut everything down. They were doing like a six week program in New York.
So you're gonna like move to New York for a couple months and do that But it ended up working out they moved their year-long program online Which they've never done like you could only you could only learn type design in person at like six schools in the US Like it wasn't a thing
And so I kind of resolved like, man, I think I just like, I'm just gonna have to be self taught and hope I figure stuff out. And I hit this wall after a while where it was like, I know these things look wrong and I don't know how to fix them. And there's nothing to teach me how to do it.
Shanna (18:06.685)
Yes. Yeah.
Jen Wagner (18:12.982)
And so at that point I had like been doing it for three years and was like, you know what? This, mean, this is my job full time. I've been doing this for three years now. I would like to make this Facebook official. Like, let's get some education. And like, so I applied to a school in Paris and the one in New York. and I think like now there are so many phenomenal resources to learn online.
But at the time it was like either do that or stay at the skill level that I had. that was getting really frustrating to me. So I feel like after my education, you can see the difference in quality almost immediately. And that was when I was like a few typefaces in after my education. was like, okay, I think I can actually hang with these bigger foundries.
Shanna (18:51.528)
Yeah, yeah. When you can see.
Shanna (18:58.056)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jen Wagner (19:11.212)
I don't feel like I'm just a not, I am not in a like devaluing or minimizing way, but like it felt like I needed to outgrow creative market. Like it was a great place to start, but like I want to be a quote unquote real foundry. And that's not to say that real foundries aren't on creative market, but like it's, it's hard for me to communicate that difference. Like I want to be world-class.
yeah.
Shanna (19:43.882)
Okay, well, just talk me through, I love all of this. And I love like, you know, just talking through like, this was a hard skill for you to acquire and learn and to stick with. I mean, I think education is so available now online that it's hard to remember back to when it wasn't, you know? And will you just talk me through then the growth after your education, like,
Jen Wagner (20:07.211)
Yeah.
Shanna (20:14.986)
You know, how have you been paying the bills basically? How has the business evolved? How have your, I would also love to hear like how your goals have evolved, like monetarily, but also love how you said, like I want to be a world class. Is that what drives you and has kept you moving forward? So just kind of walk me through like the last few years.
Jen Wagner (20:17.698)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (20:36.642)
Yeah, I think.
I'm trying to remember that first part of the question, sorry. My daughter didn't sleep last night. These babies.
Shanna (20:44.682)
Just like, I know, we're here. I know, we're here. Can't wait to talk about family, let's talk. I was just wondering like the transition, post education, feeling like, okay, I can move my skillsets up. How has the business grown? How have you been paying the bills? And like, yeah, I just kind of like, how has the growth happened? And I'm just intrigued.
Jen Wagner (20:53.42)
Hahaha
Shanna (21:12.796)
of how your own goals have changed monetarily and with the business.
Jen Wagner (21:17.932)
Yeah, okay, thank you.
Shanna (21:19.922)
I asked you like 14 things, why can't you remember?
Jen Wagner (21:22.19)
I'll start writing them down next time. Yeah, so the business, mean, it's all the same and it's also all different. So it was always licensing. You're putting a digital product up on the marketplace and people can pay for a license to use it in the context that they license it for.
The pricing has changed significantly since I first started because the quality of my output has changed. I think that has...
changed the License types as well where now you have bigger corporations a few times a year still not crazy but a few times a year coming through and saying hey we need this large-scale license and so the size of the licenses has changed I think in accordance with quality jump to But after education
Shanna (22:19.178)
you
Jen Wagner (22:25.278)
I I finally was able to create the extent of what I was wanting to, which was families. Up until I got an education, I was just doing single weight, single style fonts. And that created some limitations as well in what I could charge because to pay, it, it...
It's not absurd, but it felt absurd for me to be charging 60, $70 for a single font, like not even a typeface with multiple styles and weights and italics. And for anyone listening, a font is like one weight, one style, like Times New Roman Bold is a font.
Shanna (23:10.962)
Yeah, right.
Jen Wagner (23:11.894)
And Times New Roman is a typeface. And the typeface is all of the weights, light through bold, it's the italics and all of that. So yeah, you're welcome.
Shanna (23:21.32)
I'm glad you shared that with us. Thank you.
Jen Wagner (23:26.538)
I have this reel that went slightly viral, I need to post it again, but it was like, I put an egg in an egg carton, and the egg is the typeface, or the egg is the font, and the egg carton is the typeface. Like the typeface holds the fonts. Anyway, so getting the education, was able to begin creating typefaces instead of just individual fonts. That gave me the ability to charge more.
Shanna (23:39.336)
Yeah, filled up with eggs. Yeah.
Jen Wagner (23:55.564)
which was great because I think a big goal of mine in growing essentially an e-commerce business was to increase my average cart value, any kind of upsells I could do, whether it's licensing or other fonts. And when you're selling individual fonts, it's like, if they don't need six different fonts for their project or the projects they're envisioning, then they don't need to buy them. So creating higher value...
Shanna (24:07.049)
Yes.
Jen Wagner (24:26.104)
higher priced products was really helpful. And I still find myself in that, like, back and forth of like, how can I create something higher, higher ticket is the term now, the buzzword, that I feel really good about. Because I also like a core part of my...
Shanna (24:37.212)
Right. Yeah.
Jen Wagner (24:51.534)
business ethos has been making beautiful quality type accessible to as many people as possible. And I do hear that like I need to be charging more for my typefaces and I am sure I do. But like, I just, remember being.
Shanna (25:16.138)
Mm-hmm.
Jen Wagner (25:16.222)
Freelancer and I remember feeling like to pay even 50 bucks for a font was like are you kidding? Like I I'm making $200 on this project And I I hope for anyone listening you're making more because you're charging more than I was But it can be really hard and really limiting to feel like you you don't have access to quality type outside of Google and Adobe because
Shanna (25:26.057)
Yeah.
Shanna (25:31.934)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Jen Wagner (25:43.852)
the quote unquote real foundries. And that's me, and my insecurity being like, I'm not a real foundry, these are the real foundries. But you're getting into the $450 range for a family on the lower end, and then logo licensing, and everyone's licensing terms are different. And I just want to be able to create,
Shanna (25:52.35)
Mm-hmm.
Jen Wagner (26:12.386)
beautiful things and like continue to get better and better to the point where like I I am like a world-class foundry but still find a way to like make my work accessible and it's it's hard to know if the two can even coexist because creating typefaces at that level require teams of people not just me and time
And that means like if I'm putting out one typeface a year instead of six, it's going to be, it has to by nature be more expensive. so that's, that's the tension I think with like growing in your skill and wanting to grow your business, but also like loving and caring deeply for your audience. Like,
Shanna (26:41.055)
Yeah.
Shanna (26:45.962)
Yeah.
Shanna (26:49.448)
Yeah, yeah.
Shanna (26:59.08)
Yeah. Yes, I know. Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up. I think that is such a good, like, attention that we don't always know we're going to get to. And when we do get there, it's like, I remember my first couple of years in business, I got to a place, you know, I'm only one person and I'm really grateful that my business grew really fast. I think female finance creative, this kind of was rare.
Jen Wagner (27:10.326)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (27:28.93)
Yeah, for sure.
Shanna (27:30.097)
back in those days, 2011, 2012. And I remember getting to the point where I was charging so much per hour. And I was like, I know 100 % that it's worth it. I see the results. I see and I know other people, but I didn't like it. didn't like it. You know, it's funny. that's when I found a way and that's when I wrote my course. because I was like,
Jen Wagner (27:43.086)
Absolutely.
Shanna (27:56.244)
How can I still love and serve people well, but at a price point that feels accessible? it was just, yeah, so it is such an interesting place to get to. And I'm glad that you brought that up. Was there ever like a temptation to do other things, to design other things, to like, yeah, how?
Jen Wagner (28:17.454)
There still is. I literally on my way out here today, I was like, I want to quit. Today's a quit day. Yes, it really is. We both were like, we're just tired.
Shanna (28:25.61)
That's the no sleep. That's the no sleep moment. And how did you, you know, like with, so how did you go all in and maybe you didn't, I don't know, on type. And also when you sell an e-commerce product for anywhere from, you know, $5 to now 50, a hundred, whatever it is now, you have to have high quantity. So how did you focus on?
Jen Wagner (28:52.386)
Yes.
Shanna (28:54.846)
getting this.
Jen Wagner (28:57.047)
So, okay. So my website was an afterthought until 2021. I was making all of my income through Creative Market. And then year after year, as they grew and they're...
Leadership changed and like the company just went through a lot of transition They cut their commission a bit at a time So it was a 70 30 split and then it was a 60 40 split and then a year later It was a 50 50 split and I don't think they can go lower than that just with like other competitive like platforms but like
20 % pay cut really hurts and when you don't have any control over that, it's really really scary. So all the way up until that point I was like in 2018 things drastically changed for me income wise because I started running ads. Funny backstory, I was not saving for taxes and yeah.
Shanna (29:41.395)
Yeah.
Shanna (30:05.609)
You aren't alone.
Jen Wagner (30:08.8)
No, and I haven't made the mistake again after that because it was so scary. But like I realized it was like, I think September 2019, I was like, or 2018. I realized I was going to owe probably like 17 grand in taxes that I didn't save for. I was like, I don't know where this money is going to come from.
Shanna (30:32.127)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (30:34.144)
let's figure it out. Like this is, alright, like it just is, let's figure this out. And then I realized I started looking at Creative Market and like just, I went into data mode. Like they gave us some analytics on the backend where we could see how many likes we had, how many views a product had. And I was looking and seeing like, okay, the more likes the product has, the more it sells.
So I can like there was like a 50 % like to sales rate like if I had 500 likes on a product it had sold 250 or more times and so I started I saw that consistency on my data and started using that to do market research on other fonts that were selling well to think like okay how much money has this
font from this creator probably ballpark made and I was using that to kind of plan New fonts that I could put out because they had been like market tested and I had kind of an idea of what might perform And then I realized I could see Kind of an essence like how much money I was making per view on a product and that was when I was like, my gosh, I should be advertising to creative market
Shanna (31:50.184)
Yeah. Interesting.
Jen Wagner (31:52.418)
And then when those ads start performing and the product performs well, the algorithm will push it on the popular page, which will get more organic sales. And I was like, my gosh, I figured out the secret. And it worked really, really well. And then our commissions kept getting cut. And then I kind of hit this point where it's like, this is working really well for me. And.
Shanna (32:06.844)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (32:20.27)
I do not own this business and And there were a few days where like they would be down for maintenance and you're just out like a payday And that kind of just it was just thing after thing after thing that I was like I Things were going really well, and I also felt so out of control and that in 2021 like We had our first kid
Shanna (32:22.728)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jen Wagner (32:49.486)
which will make you feel even more out of control. And I was kind of like, I know it's so weird. Children cannot be controlled.
Shanna (32:53.817)
Why Jen? I don't understand.
Shanna (32:59.334)
Children can't be controlled.
Shanna (33:04.69)
Nap time's not predictable.
Jen Wagner (33:07.034)
Bedtime they mean they sleep one night and then they're just awake the next and you don't know what's gonna be what My gosh these kids But yeah, I just I hit a point where I was like I have to own my business if like if I want to take myself seriously and dignify my work I need to own my business and and so I Started driving my ads to my site. I went I switched from Squarespace to Shopify
Shanna (33:12.305)
Don't they get it?
Shanna (33:31.124)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (33:34.924)
because Squarespace would only let you do one type of digital product. Like I couldn't do different license types under a single product. So I needed to switch to Shopify. That was its own crazy stressful thing, but figured it out. And then that started doing really well to the point where like before my website was generating maybe 5 % of my annual revenue.
Then it got up to like 25, 30%. And then Shopify had a ton of limitations on like the design side, on the blogging, like SEO just wasn't very friendly. Like there was just a lot of stuff that was kind of being like, okay, I think I need to make the jump to WordPress, terrifying. But ended up, that was when I stumbled on Tonic. And...
Shanna (34:25.95)
Mm-hmm.
Shanna (34:30.759)
Mm-hmm.
Jen Wagner (34:32.386)
bought a tonic template and was like, okay, I'm going to figure out, show it. think, Jen recommended Ingrid, at Penguin Designing and she's an incredible, like WordPress show it, like, true love developer. Like she's amazing. So in 2022, she helped me move my site from Shopify to WordPress and show it. And that was like,
Shanna (34:34.004)
Mm-hmm.
Shanna (34:49.844)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (35:02.798)
things kind of just blew up from there to where now creative market is like maybe 35 or 40 % of my monthly or let well, it could be around 30 now. But I've also like, I've kind of gone all in on my site. Like I'm, I'm, have an agency running Pinterest and Facebook ads and we spend a few grand a month on ads. Like,
Shanna (35:11.091)
Yeah.
Shanna (35:16.083)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (35:30.343)
any content I put out, I'm trying to drive traffic to my site. My organic performs really well, like just SEO. So it's been a journey.
Shanna (35:42.388)
Do you feel like your brain just kind of works? I mean, you have a marketing background. Did anybody help you with all this? Or you're just like, I'm going to test this. I'm going look at this data. I'm going to see what's working. That's amazing, Jen. You're like me, I love numbers. It unlocks. Yeah, it can really, if you're looking, if you're just, and I love that you're like, you know what? I just sat down and thought about it. I think sometimes we make it so hard to be like, where to begin?
Jen Wagner (35:49.251)
No.
No, no, thanks. It's just doing it.
Jen Wagner (36:05.08)
Mm-hmm.
Jen Wagner (36:12.078)
Where to begin? And I also think that we have, maybe it's Instagram, coach culture, maybe it's like, don't know what it is, but I feel like we've convinced ourself that someone has answers that we don't. And we can't figure it out until someone tells us the secret. And that's just, I still feel that way. And it's not true. Like,
Shanna (36:12.243)
just begin.
Shanna (36:25.16)
Yes.
Jen Wagner (36:39.928)
Some of the best advice we ever got was from a philosopher. We took out to coffee. And we like, it was before we moved to Nashville and we were both just miserable in our jobs and our life. Like it felt like we peaked and we were 23. And so we're just like, I feel bad. We asked him out to coffee and he graciously said yes. And then we just like spend an hour just vomiting our.
We hate this, we don't know what to do. like, we just feel trapped. We felt so trapped. And once we quieted down, he was like, it sounds like you guys actually do know exactly what you need to do. You're just not doing it. And two hours later, we were sitting on the beach. Like we'd done a staycation, or not staycation, a little getaway trip to LA. We're sitting on Venice Beach and we decided to sell our house.
And we didn't know where we were going to go. But we decided to sell our house and he decided to quit. He was like the worship pastor at this church, which was a job he didn't even want and just found himself in. And he he's in a band like he's musician, writer, producer. Like that's what he wants to do. That's why we moved here. But like we couldn't do it there. And so it just he gave us permission to do.
Shanna (38:00.019)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (38:05.782)
Exactly what we needed we knew we needed to do But he didn't tell us what to do he just gave us permission to like listen to ourselves and I think that is such a big barrier for so many of us like Maybe what what if you did know? What would you do? Or what would you advise someone in your position because we all have great advice for other people
Shanna (38:10.12)
Yeah.
Shanna (38:31.242)
I know, right? Yeah. Yeah. I love that so much. OK, Jen, us. This is all just so good. I feel like so much comes from the ramble, though. You know what I'm saying? I do want to hear about. I mean, here's what I've taken away from it. Do you want me to tell you? OK. Here's what I've taken away. I do think that.
Jen Wagner (38:40.236)
I feel like I'm rambling.
Okay.
Jen Wagner (38:47.746)
live in the rambles.
Jen Wagner (38:53.91)
Yeah, tell me. I want to hear you talk.
Shanna (38:59.398)
asking ourselves what's working, what's not, and then looking at the data, even if you don't even know where to look. But like, okay, I'm Jen. I wanna create typefaces. I've learned a lot here today. I wanna create typefaces. I wanna sell these to people in an accessible way, but also be world class. How do I figure that out? That's a whole journey. And...
Jen Wagner (39:05.835)
Mm-hmm.
Shanna (39:26.96)
I want to own my own portion. how do I get more people? Because I think a lot of this is a question. E-commerce, digital products, whatever it is, it's high quantity, lower price. And we are in a loud marketing environment. And so figuring that out, I mean, I have so many questions about what changed when Instagram changed, what changed after COVID, what changed when ads changed. Like all of this has changed. But you just brought up like,
I would be really intrigued now, you know, when you say to yourself, like, what do I want? Why do I keep doing this? And how, you know, listening to your own wants and desires and being okay, if that means shifting or changing. But let me ask you, how has your business changed since moving to Nashville, starting a family? Like, how do you keep your priorities, your priorities, and even name your priorities?
Jen Wagner (40:29.706)
It's tough. think that like, we heard someone say like, once that balance isn't real, but harmony is. And like, our seasons of like, busyness in different pockets of flow, where like sometimes it's being really busy with the business and other times it's being really busy with the family and.
other times just busy with like the heaviness of life. Sometimes that can keep you just so busy. And I think other areas will have to shift and move around to create that harmony. And I think that like when all the levers are turned up to 10 is when things get really difficult and you kind of have to like...
pull the emergency brake and figure out like what's up. And I mean, I think that like if you have people hopefully in your life, whether it's your partner or friends or family who can tell you like, hey, this something's off, like we need a reset. Then like.
Family for me is always first. My kids, my husband, my relationships with them is always first. that doesn't mean that that's always the case. Because we get busy and there are deadlines and things creep up. And I think that having a partner who is able to of yank you out of it and be like, I understand this, but we need you here.
Shanna (41:58.57)
Mm-hmm.
Shanna (42:12.265)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (42:17.72)
can kind of help prevent things from derailing a bit.
Shanna (42:21.962)
Yeah.
Shanna (43:24.702)
Like, you, Jen, do you have to set goals in, like, how do you, do you, like, how do you create the harmony? Is it like, this is the times I'm working, or is it, here's my financial goal, and then I can, like, do you see what I'm saying? Do you have to have, like, clear, or is it just a sensing, a feeling?
Jen Wagner (43:42.144)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (43:47.894)
I think the more goals I set, the more I realize I need to stop. Like, I am a naturally driven person and I want things to just be their best. I think that for me personally, goals can be distracting.
Shanna (44:00.649)
Yeah.
Shanna (44:06.185)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (44:16.086)
in the sense where like if I spent years getting hyper focused on income goals and didn't hit them until I stopped worrying about them and just started like doing more of the things that like came naturally to came naturally to me filled gaps I saw on the market. Like but when it at any point even before like my journey leading up to designing type like trying to
Shanna (44:27.337)
Yes.
Shanna (44:35.06)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (44:44.362)
make money and like focus on that as the goal didn't work and I've now hit my income goals without trying not because I didn't but not because I didn't do the work like I've been doing all the things that lead to the goal instead of just thinking about the goal. So like like I know that running ads and getting more traffic to my site is going to generate more revenue. So
Shanna (44:46.088)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Shanna (44:53.866)
Yeah.
Shanna (44:57.394)
Right. Yeah.
Shanna (45:03.698)
Yeah. that's so good. Yeah.
Jen Wagner (45:14.424)
there's a little lever I can pull and like what collaborations can I do with creators like Tonic? Like she kind of made editor's note famous. But those kind of collaborations are so valuable and like now I see that and that's like low effort for me. So it's like cool. How do I like give creators access to make with my work which also drives the price point where it's like
Shanna (45:25.918)
My favorite one. So good.
Shanna (45:33.768)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jen Wagner (45:43.896)
Template licenses aren't cheap, but so many creators refuse to do it because they can be abused and because there's a lot to monitor and they can be expensive. But look at what happens. It gets your work in the world. And that generates more revenue down the line because people are buying licenses for their social media. they're like, so.
Shanna (45:51.752)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Shanna (46:05.64)
Yeah. And did you figure out licensing all on your own and pricing the licenses that was it just been trial and error?
Jen Wagner (46:12.726)
It's been trial and error and honestly I probably need to like actually have my lawyer look at everything. I've been like just referencing Creative Market and Monotype's licenses for since I started because that was all I had and I wanted my licensing to be somewhat consistent from platform to platform but yeah I need to... having a lawyer is just always a good idea.
Shanna (46:24.424)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Shanna (46:37.93)
I love Jen, how you said, and then we got to go to quick fire. I feel like I could just keep chatting with you. I love how you said, and I have seen this in my own business as well. I am a very goal oriented person. I saw a while back on your website. I think you maybe wrote a blog about her. I know where I saw it, just about like hard deadlines and how stressful those could be. Yeah. I thought that was such a good, I'm going to, I'm going to link it in the show notes. So good. But I think goals can be very similar, like
Jen Wagner (46:57.708)
Yeah, still learning that lesson.
Shanna (47:06.8)
it can feel like, and so I actually have a class that I teach on goals. And we talk about the difference, because I'm someone, you know that whole saying like, shoot for the moon, you'll land in the stars. And I'm like, you were shooting for the moon. You know, I'm that person. I'm that person who's like, if you don't hit the goal, even if you're close, you didn't hit the goal, like you failed. You failed the goal. And so I love, for me, and how I teach my students, like reframing a goal is like,
Jen Wagner (47:18.637)
Yeah.
Right.
Jen Wagner (47:28.45)
Yeah, it's black and white.
Shanna (47:35.402)
the outcome you want to achieve. Like what's the feeling you want at the end of this? Like what is the true outcome? Like if you're like, I want to make half a million dollars. Why? Why? Why do you want to make half a million dollars? Is it to pay the bills? Is it to go on vacation? Like, is it, why do you want to replace? I hear this every day. I'm going to replace my corporate salary. Why? Because that's going to make you feel okay doing your creative job. That's why people do it. That's their permission slip. So it just like, we focus more on, right. That's like, I'm okay.
Jen Wagner (47:37.934)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (47:44.621)
Right.
Jen Wagner (47:59.352)
Yeah, that's gonna qualify you.
Shanna (48:03.942)
So my last question before we quick fire. No, have two. When you said instead of focusing on the income goal, as you hit brick wall, just trying to make money, brick wall, brick wall, brick wall, brick wall, have you just kept your personal needs low financially so that you don't have to focus so much on the make money goal? Like is that how you've?
that make sense? mean.
Jen Wagner (48:34.39)
Yeah, no. No, I think my problem, and it's not a problem, I love beauty and I love quality and those things can be really expensive. And so I, yes.
Shanna (48:37.278)
Yeah.
Shanna (48:52.362)
It's problem. It's a gift. says it's our gift. We can choose quality. We have quality taste.
Jen Wagner (48:59.554)
But but like I I Want to make a lot of money like and I was always so ashamed of that and embarrassed by that but like it's it's not because I want the status it's because I want to be able to walk into that vintage store and say I want that couch and Be able to like curate beauty without that
a limitation and extend that even into like my ease as a person in my family like to be able to like order in and not stress about it because like I'm gonna feel like I can be a better mom if I don't cook tonight and like it making money
Shanna (49:29.482)
Yeah.
Shanna (49:44.532)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (49:55.852)
has afforded me the ability to create pockets of beauty in ways that like haven't in turn created stress. And I don't think you need money to do that by any means because we've been broke and like we're still creating a beautiful life. Like I think that just is your baseline of existing whether that changes or not your income. But like
Shanna (50:10.207)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (50:25.518)
I can't say that I've kept my personal needs low in order to feel like...
Shanna (50:36.488)
You just feel know what you make. You know what you made last year and you feel. Yeah.
Jen Wagner (50:39.19)
I know what I make and that's that is also a luxury that like I know isn't common. Like my income has been pretty consistent. At least in a sense where like it doesn't dip down below this level. Now having kids has changed the margins quite a bit where you child care is very expensive and like feeding them and throwing 30 % of it in the trash is very expensive. But I think I in
Shanna (50:47.688)
Yeah.
Shanna (50:52.809)
Yeah.
Shanna (50:58.344)
Yeah. Yeah.
Shanna (51:04.218)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (51:09.048)
When I was first starting, like...
Jen Wagner (51:14.124)
I don't know. It's hard for me to talk about money without feeling like...
gross about it, I guess. I feel good about like...
my relationship with my business. But I also, don't know, like this is, this is actually talking about money is a really big insecurity of mine. So if I feel like I'm fumbling, it's cause I am.
Shanna (51:38.698)
Mm-hmm.
Shanna (51:43.732)
Thanks for being here for it though.
Jen Wagner (51:45.298)
yeah. But yeah, think that it is also being someone who's been on the other side of it before and is like also still in it to some degree with like things that you love not bringing in income. I think that like lowering your quality of life in order to do what gives you more life is
Shanna (52:13.449)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (52:14.476)
always worthwhile. And like that has been true when I was broke and that is true with a successful business. And, I can also say on the flip side that making more money, doing less of what you love is not worthwhile. Like it, that, that's what to me feels like you get into like,
Shanna (52:30.814)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (52:43.27)
I don't know that for me personally it feels like selling out where it's like as soon as I start making things in order to make more money they don't work as well as I think they will and I'm miserable and that extra money is where like you don't even feel it like
Shanna (52:47.177)
Yeah.
Shanna (52:51.625)
Yes.
Shanna (52:55.73)
Yes. Yeah.
Shanna (53:00.714)
Yeah. Stress isn't worth it. I have this gauge and I was talking to a friend of mine lately and she was like, I have this gauge too. And I'm like, but is it fun? And she's like, I don't feel like it's okay to ask that. I'm like, it is, you know, is it fun? And when we're having fun, people, I think gravitate towards that and they are drawn to it. And like you said, when you're just, and listen, I have been there, I think,
Jen Wagner (53:16.824)
But it is.
Shanna (53:28.102)
A lot of us have been there. know a lot of people have been there. There's times when it's like, have to make money. And I don't like that feeling because it is like, it feels forced sometimes. And I think other people can feel that. And I know if anybody's listening and they're like, I'm there now, it's a hard place to be. Like it is a hard place to be.
Jen Wagner (53:32.904)
Yeah. No.
Jen Wagner (53:44.738)
And it's not like, we'll just have fun with it because you need to make, like you need to live.
Shanna (53:49.276)
Yes, right. Don't take that like just have fun and don't. If anybody hangs out here long, they'll be like, Chana, have fun, but make it profitable because we ain't here to be free. know. Jen, let's quick fire. Thanks for all of this. I feel like there's so much meat to we still unpack. But yeah, the school is going to want me to pick up my child in a second.
Jen Wagner (53:54.052)
No!
Jen Wagner (53:59.86)
Yes, like we need to make money. That just is. Sorry.
Shanna (54:18.62)
What is one thing you would be embarrassed if people knew?
Jen Wagner (54:23.086)
Jen Wagner (54:27.086)
I promise I thought about this before and I like...
Jen Wagner (54:32.856)
Kind of an open book is the problem here.
Jen Wagner (54:38.414)
what my desktop looked like and how many tabs I have open.
Shanna (54:47.498)
Do you know that you can like put your tabs together? What am I trying to say? Like, like group your tabs and I'm just like, it's too complicated. I'll just have 50 open. I'll just have 50 open. That feels less overwhelming for my brain than to have grouped tabs. But you do you. I love it. Any regrets or wish you could do over a moment?
Jen Wagner (54:53.868)
Like group them.
Jen Wagner (54:58.476)
Yeah, no. Yes. I have so many tabs open. Yeah. And my desktop and hard drive are like horrifying. It's bad.
Jen Wagner (55:16.43)
Yeah, I mean, of course I think like
Jen Wagner (55:22.392)
There are so many times I wish I just like did what was like natural to me instead of trying to force something. Whether it's creating a course or like I tried to be like course coach girly for a bit there and absolutely hated it and I felt like I was robbing people and not providing value even though that's not true and then I wouldn't promote it and then it was three months of wasted time on something I wasn't even going to talk about. So I wish I kind of like stayed true to me and the things that felt good to me and just followed that.
Also because like people do sense your belief in what you're doing and so like there was like a whole, I did like online courses and then I also did like a mentorship program that I did two rounds of and like by the end of it, it was like I was exhausted because I was on 15 calls a week and not designing type and it was, I...
Shanna (56:17.318)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (56:20.694)
As far as the money is concerned, it was a wash. I made a little bit more, but the quality of life dropped so much that it was like, why would I ever keep doing this? Yeah. And then I think I'm just still feeling really insecure about everything, but I wish in the past that I had had better money conversations, and I think that that's probably what's feeding the insecurity. And I also wish that I spent more time.
Shanna (56:23.026)
Yeah. Yeah.
Shanna (56:28.296)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Shanna (56:43.593)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (56:50.062)
practicing how to have good money conversations. It's a hard topic.
Shanna (56:52.358)
Yeah, it's hard. I think it's hard. I hope that's I hope that's why people come to this podcast. I hope that's why people work with me and are drawn to me. I hope I can be that person who's like, let's just talk about it. And not that I have by any means all the answers, but I do have weirdly a lot of knowledge about finance and nothing else. If you ask me about SEO, no.
Jen Wagner (57:05.301)
Mm-hmm.
Jen Wagner (57:14.247)
Hehehehehe
Shanna (57:16.998)
I couldn't, I mean, y'all, everybody listening, it took me about 30 minutes, no, probably 10 minutes though to figure out how to hear Jen before we even hit record. Like I am bad at technology. I am bad at spelling, grammar, so bad. But my God given gift is that I can understand numbers and I love it. And I just don't think enough people, you're right, know how to talk about it or they come with like.
Jen Wagner (57:18.808)
But in IRA...
Jen Wagner (57:26.765)
you
Jen Wagner (57:36.236)
You know the numbers.
I envy that.
Shanna (57:45.288)
baggage from growing up or whatever it is, whatever reason it is. And nobody teaches entrepreneurs about money. There's no business classes in like art school. There's no, so anyways, here Shanna's on her passion because in teaching kids about money, nobody's doing that. So.
Jen Wagner (57:47.424)
It's so loaded.
Jen Wagner (58:00.866)
And I can say...
No. And as someone with a business degree, I can say I didn't learn much about it with a business degree either.
Shanna (58:11.046)
I can say with a finance degree and working for five years of financial advisor, I never even created a budget. I think that and people don't know that they go to a financial advisor or somebody to help them with their money and they're taught about insurance and investment and those things are great. But what most people need is a budget, a way to understand where your money is, what money is coming in, what money is going out every single day. And that's essentially what I do is create budgets for business, budgets for home. Like anyways, OK, let's
Jen Wagner (58:17.986)
Wow. Yeah. Yeah.
Shanna (58:40.244)
Finish. This is so good. Big win or pinch me moment.
Jen Wagner (58:46.574)
Seeing fonts in the wild.
St. Louis to visit my mom and then like there's a big license came through from LeBron James's tequila company. They're gonna be using Editor's Note for their new branding. So yeah, so it's it's kind of just like seeing your work actually being used by like, especially because I have such like imposter syndrome and like whatever. I, it feels nice to see like
Shanna (58:59.466)
Stop it.
Shanna (59:03.036)
That's so exciting! Congrats!
Shanna (59:18.047)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (59:18.666)
Agencies using my type it makes it feel legitimate instead of like I kind of do this for fun
Shanna (59:21.096)
Yeah. Yeah.
As somebody who thought themselves to be an orthopedic surgeon in Vale was their destiny for you to accept that I'm a type designer. And I don't know if that's from like childhood or grown up or your parents or like expectations on yourself. I think so many of us deal with, I had a podcast interview with someone who sold their company. Obviously, I don't know what he made on it, but the company was sold for, I don't know, like $700 million. And he was just like, everybody has imposter syndrome.
Jen Wagner (59:51.598)
Wow.
Jen Wagner (59:56.066)
I believe it. Yeah.
Shanna (59:56.114)
And we're like, well, if you do, then yeah, everybody does. Best advice or just really good advice that you've received.
Jen Wagner (01:00:06.635)
You probably already know what you should be doing and you're just not doing it and then also and we're just talking about this with my husband this morning because we're both like we should quit like we're both having one of those days. We're just tired. Emma Greed, she is the CEO of Skims, I think and has a bunch of other companies, but she in a podcast said that like her days are split 33%.
where 33 % of the time she feels amazing about what she's doing. 33 % of the time she feels neutral and 33 % of the time she wants to burn it all down and quit. And that's given us permission to have days like this without panicking. Where like we're just, we're just having a 33 % day. Like that's okay. Tomorrow maybe we'll feel better. Maybe it's a week.
Shanna (01:00:43.54)
Yeah.
Shanna (01:00:47.314)
Yes. Yes.
Shanna (01:00:52.178)
Yeah, I love it. Yeah. Because all of us are like, we're pursuing the dream, right? I'm air quoting the dream. And so if it doesn't feel dreamy, it can feel like I've done this wrong. And in fact, it could be like, no, maybe you're just tired. Maybe your kid didn't sleep last night. Maybe you ate too much dairy. I don't know. Jen, tell us what you're working on now or one resource that you would like to share.
Jen Wagner (01:00:59.95)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (01:01:05.474)
Mm-hmm.
Jen Wagner (01:01:09.898)
just tired.
Jen Wagner (01:01:17.26)
It's true.
Jen Wagner (01:01:22.879)
Well, right now I'm working, I'm in the throes of Black Friday right now, prep. So I'm trying to get done with a bold, like bold weights for my latest serif typeface Royals. So wrapping that up this week, hopefully, there is a resource that I kind of just like word vomited into Google Docs and formatted and it's been like,
It's so many creative business owners have such a hard time with email marketing. And that was something that really significantly changed my business when I started focusing on my website, especially. And it's not as intimidating as people make it out to be. So I it's just like an email for email marketing for creatives guide. It's a free resource. And it's just like everything I wish I had when I started. So I sent that link should be in the show note.
Shanna (01:02:16.328)
I love it. Gonna download it. I'm excited. Yeah.
Jen Wagner (01:02:20.846)
It's great. And I thankfully I've heard from other people that it's really great too. So it's not just me, but that's everything I wish I had. And then just for the future, like I am, it's been such a chaotic few months since like August. It's just been like full throttle. So December, like after Black Friday, I'm gonna like sit down and like take some time I think to like.
Shanna (01:02:27.976)
Yeah, good.
Jen Wagner (01:02:50.318)
Potentially rebrand and like cast some vision for 2025 and just look at like I'm in a place right now where I just feel pretty unaligned Like What my business is putting out and like visually creating feels Congruent with an old version of me, but not who I am now And so I feel excited to just kind of like sit down and ask those hard questions again, which I think need to be asked
Shanna (01:03:00.681)
Yeah.
Shanna (01:03:12.626)
Yeah.
Jen Wagner (01:03:20.202)
often, like what do I want? What do I want to create? How do I want to feel when I put it out in the world? How do I want to feel when I see my work in the wild?
Shanna (01:03:21.022)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jen Wagner (01:03:32.766)
And just like, I think those shifts can be scary. I think it's starting to look like less output and that is really scary. But also like it feels more aligned with my life and who I am and my pace and the pace I want. And so it's like, well, if that hasn't failed me yet. Whereas like following the the red alert alarm in my brain.
Shanna (01:03:50.921)
Yes.
Shanna (01:03:54.568)
Yeah. Yeah. I love it.
Jen Wagner (01:04:01.23)
doesn't usually go well.
Shanna (01:04:03.006)
Yeah.
I think you've given me permission and maybe I hope all of us permission to to be okay with that question when it can feel very scary. But I have learned this and I'm in a season with little littles at home sounds like you are as well like seasons shift and seasons change and it's okay to be like, you know, for this season, I'm not going to do this or I'm going to do that. Yeah, I'm to do this offer, which is an offer. Maybe I don't think I would, you know, like just being okay with
Jen Wagner (01:04:18.667)
Yes.
Jen Wagner (01:04:32.045)
Yeah.
Shanna (01:04:34.204)
Instead of that feeling like, my goodness, everything's failing. Everything's over. I've got to quit. Let's just shift it. OK, last question. Yeah, like seasons change and it's OK. Looking back now to getting told no all of those times, not getting the marketing job, quitting your job at the church, feeling a lot of shut doors. What would you say to yourself now looking back on day one of like, I'm going to create a font.
Jen Wagner (01:04:41.794)
Yeah, you're allowed to change.
Jen Wagner (01:05:07.576)
What would I say to myself about creating a font?
Shanna (01:05:08.852)
Yeah, just know just about like starting like all of those shut doors and ended up being your open door. Like what would you tell yourself now in like day one of unofficially starting your business? I didn't ask that well, did I?
Jen Wagner (01:05:20.871)
yeah just no no that's okay they'll do that to our brains just quant like consistency over time
Shanna (01:05:33.48)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jen Wagner (01:05:34.52)
That's it. I think that's the secret to anything in life. Whether it's fonts or whatever business you want to start, you're making music, you're learning to knit. Consistency over time and you'll get there.
Shanna (01:05:38.249)
Yeah.
Shanna (01:05:45.29)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Jen, thanks so much for coming on the show. This has been fun just to get to know you. And I'm excited to see what's next for you and brand shifts in 2025. And let's say thanks for sharing your story today.
Jen Wagner (01:05:53.966)
Thank you so much for having me. You too.
Jen Wagner (01:06:00.802)
Be too, curious.
Jen Wagner (01:06:05.182)
it'll be good. Thank you so much for having me.
