243: Failure or Fashion? How Mikaela Pabon’s Setback Propelled Her to Start Dressed In Joy
Side Hustle Pro
Nicaila Matthews Okome | Side Hustle Pro Media
4.7 • 1.8K Ratings
🗓️ 24 March 2021
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For Mikaela Pabon, she is living a dream that would make her 8-year-old self ecstatic! She is the founder of the statement-making athleisure brand, Dressed in Joy. It’s interesting to think that she never thought she would be able to live out her fashion dreams, but here she is, today, doing just that as a full-time entrepreneur.
Her initial career path, although she didn’t like it, was in information technology (IT). Eventually, Mikaela found something in that line of work that she did enjoy in working with databases, which she did for about 15 years. But in 2015, the fashion enthusiast took her first dive into entrepreneurship and decided to call it quits after four years, and no profits made.
After some time away, her dreams started to come back to her, and she was reminded of her days of watching fashion shows and “House of Style” on MTV, and it led her to design. Not for profit, but for herself. And if you ask Mikaela, she did not intend for the business she has now to be a business. For her, she was just designing something she wanted and didn’t see in the market. And to her surprise, people loved what she had to offer. After learning from her past mistakes, facing her limiting beliefs, and responding to customers, she built a successful and expanding brand and business.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
☞ How Mikaela went from closing one business to opening another wildly successful one
☞ How she was able to leave her full-time job to focus on Dressed in Joy full time
☞ How Instagram Reels helped her to boost her audience in a short amount of time
☞ And why she believes that no matter the obstacle when it’s meant to be yours, it will be
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Guest Social Media InfoDressed In Joy (Instagram) – @dressedinjoy
Mikaela Pabon (Instagram) – @mikaela.pabon
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I think that people really need to buy into you and who you are and like you in order |
| 0:09.4 | to want to buy into what you have. |
| 0:13.1 | You're listening to Side Hustle Pro, the podcast that teaches you to build and grow your |
| 0:18.0 | side hustle from passion project to profitable business, and I'm your host, Nikaela Matthews |
| 0:23.6 | Tacoma. |
| 0:24.6 | So let's get started. |
| 0:26.6 | Hey, hey guys, welcome, welcome back to the show. |
| 0:30.5 | It's Nikaela here and today in the guest here, we have Michaela Pobom, the founder of the |
| 0:36.5 | Statement Making Athletes Your Brand Dressed Enjoy. |
| 0:40.3 | Michaela is a Brooklyn-based wife, mom of two Hawaiian dancer, prep designer, and content |
| 0:45.8 | creator. |
| 0:46.8 | And six years ago, she started an online boutique that she loved all while working a 9-5. |
| 0:52.9 | From events to international photo shoots to go into major buying conferences and investing |
| 0:58.2 | in Australian brands for her boutique, she was ready for success. |
| 1:03.6 | But that online boutique ended up being a failure. |
| 1:07.4 | And Michaela thought that she would have to let go of her fashion dreams. |
| 1:11.8 | That was until she did a complete shift and decided to design a style of hoodie that |
| 1:16.3 | she had never seen before, something bright, something colorful, that brought instant |
| 1:20.9 | joy upon seeing it. |
| 1:22.8 | So she did. |
| 1:23.8 | She designed that hoodie and that hoodie led to an influx of orders. |
| 1:28.9 | Soon Michaela was shipping out of her bedroom and she did that until she was finally selling |
... |
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