Meet Zena Johnson | Artist & Business Owner

We had the good fortune of connecting with Zena Johnson and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Zena, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
My company, Stick’N Local, sells stickers that are based on unique spots in my local area of Golden, Colorado. I’ve always loved creating art and have been painting and drawing for as long as I can remember. I thought of the idea for Stick’N Local back in my junior year of high school and wanted to wait until my gap year so that I would have time to run my business. In the meantime, throughout high school, I taught myself illustration and graphic design in illustrator, and have improved a lot in a few years. I’m currently in my gap year and am taking this time to go full force and build my business. Stick’N Local combines my passion for art and business with my love for my community and where I live. Golden is also the perfect market to be selling souvenirs because of how much tourism there is. My hope is to be in as many in-person store locations in Golden as I can and eventually I want to expand the brand beyond Golden.

What should our readers know about your business?
A little backstory about me is that I just graduated from Golden High School and I’m taking a gap year. I will be going to school at Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah Georgia in the fall of 2023. So, in case you didn’t notice, I’m a very artsy person. I’ve been making art for as long as I can remember; it’s just always been a part of me. I started with painting and in the past few years have gotten into digital art as well. Now, I would define myself as a multi-media artist. Another thing about me is that I’ve also always been very entrepreneurial. So Stick’N Local is that combination of my passions for business and art.

My idea for Stick’N Local came to me at the beginning of my senior year. I’ve noticed that where I lived in Golden, there’s lots of tourism and that a lot of the stores in downtown Golden don’t carry products that are specific and unique to Golden. So, I decided to make stickers that reflected the things that I love about Golden. In my designs, I included recognizable features in Golden such as the mountain surrounding the town, Clear Creek, and the welcome sign in the heart of downtown Golden. Throughout my senior year, I decided that I should wait to work on building Stick’N Local into a business until my gap year.

Now that I’m in my gap year, I’ve been seriously working on growing Stick’N Local for about three months now. Currently, Stick’N Local stickers are at Cafe 13 in downtown Golden and are sold online at Sticknlocal.co. My main goal right now is to get more distribution in-store in downtown Golden. I know that for this business model to work, I have to get hyper-local stores in Golden to carry Stick’N Local products. Getting more distribution would get the word out there through word-of-mouth, which I think is one of the most effective ways of growing. Eventually, I’d love to grow to sell not only stickers, but merchandise as well. I’ve definitely learned in the past months how much work it takes to start a business, but I am enjoying the process.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
If my best friend was visiting for a week I’d want to plan the best weekend I could! I’d have to take them on a lot of hikes and adventures in nature, go shop at the cute stores in Golden, and have dinner at a place with a good deck with a view of the mountains.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Throughout starting Stick’N Local, my parents have been amazing resources and mentors to me. They are business owners themselves, so they have given me an interesting perspective and share with me helpful systems to implement in my business.

Additionally, my aunt and friends deserve a shoutout. They have always supported me in my creative pursuits. They give helpful and honest feedback which I think is super helpful and important. It’s my favorite thing to show them new designs and see their reaction. The positive feedback, and excitement they have kept me motivated to keep working hard.

Website: sticknlocal.co

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sticknlocal/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zena-johnson-aa2239220/

Image Credits
Zena Johnson -all images