#WIB -Q&A With Dani Bateman Owner Of Fat Unicorn
1. Can you please tell us more about your business?
A. I design small but scalable websites for small businesses that don’t have heaps of content. The concept is to grow your website along with your business and only pay for what you need, as you need it – if you need it.
2. When, how and why did you start your business?
A. Fat Unicorn was initially started in 2017, and it was an online shop, in the beginning, doing something completely different from website design. I created Fat Unicorn as a Brand to sell my crafts, I’ve always been thrifty and crafty, so I thought it was a rather cool way to bring a bit more money in. At the time my husband and I owned a company together called Define Digital, and he set up a shell website for me to play around with and learn how to design websites so that I could help him with his workload – it was through this that I discovered that I actually love doing this.
Fat Unicorn as an e-Commerce store was a huge flop, I did not sell a single thing, but I was getting consistent hits on my website, people did not like my products, but they loved my blog. I realised I’m actually quite good at this and spent the next 3 years studying website design all the while running the admin department of Define Digital and getting consistently better with the design aspects of the business until eventually, I was doing designs all on my own.
I got a bit discouraged at one point and completely shut Fat Unicorn down, nobody wanted to buy my products, and blogging just wasn’t enough for me to keep coming back to it – I even started resenting the logo. So I put it away, but I kept renewing the domain – I have no idea why, I just loved the name. Fast forward to about January of 2020 – just before Covid-19 hits South Africa, my husband gets this fantastic offer from a local business that is more in line with his dreams and there is just no way we can turn this offer down.
He would be doing what he loves which is more in line with Systems Administration rather than design and the new company offers to buy Define Digital and I have a choice to make. I can either go and get myself a job and work for someone else, or I can study and start something up.
I chose the latter – who wouldn’t? So I redesigned the Fat Unicorn logo and pulled a website together in a day. I loved the brand, I figured, “Why not?”I started to see trends online as the pandemic started gaining ground in South Africa – people losing their jobs left, right, and centre. There were a lot of people clamoring to get something started up so that they could earn. I started offering my services to a few ladies in the area.
I quickly formulated templates to pump out websites faster and cheaper without compromising on quality until eventually, I had the system perfected. I now spend about 10 hours per website, yet each one is different as night and day. If you look at a skeleton, they all pretty much look the same, they may carry different forms and functions, but they are the foundation that we build onto to become individuals. The beauty of this is that I integrated my studies incorporate sustainability into my business model.
Every website designed through Fat Unicorn is easy to edit, and every single one is completely scalable. It is standard practice for me to teach my clients to perform content updates and minor changes to their own websites and each website is able to grow alongside their business. We have so far seen nothing but positive results.
3. What is your role in the business?
A. I like to keep things small – I am the only person in my business and I wear many hats. I do everything and I love every part of it. My clients get a personalized experience, and I’m able to keep prices low because of it.
4. Where did you study and what did you study?
A. I haven’t actually studied at any institutions and I think that this is my advantage because I’m keener to experiment and break rules. I’ve done about 40 different Google Courses on Website Design and SEO and Copywriting and Web Development as well as Python, CSS, and HTML – but I never actually went to university. I never had the opportunity growing up, I come from a bit of a struggle and by the time I was pushed out into the world I sort of had to hit the ground running, and so I’ve just sort of adapted this “Learn as You Go” attitude, and it has worked for me so far.
I studied corporate sustainability in 2014 while I was trying to figure my life out and found that South Africa was definitely not ready for that, so I tried something else, never quite forgetting the knowledge I gained. And I continue to learn as I go – I study analytics and adapt my designs accordingly, which is completely necessary as the world changes (and boy! Is it changing fast!).
5. How did you finance your business?
A. I didn’t. The only thing I needed to get started was a Computer for Design and a Computer to use as a “staging” environment – my start-up costs were virtually non-existent so start-up capital was not necessarily needed.
6. Describe your average workday, if such a thing exists.
A. Every day is different, however, there are frequent needs of the business that need to be taken care of on a day-to-day basis, and so I usually start my day by checking out analytics. These give me an idea of what needs to be added, and what functions to stay away from. Once I’m a little more awake I take care of communications – sending requests for content, receiving and acknowledging content.
I’ll chat with some potential clients concerning requests for quotation, sometimes they have questions, and sometimes I have questions too, so it’s always good to put some time aside for a chat. My day is very flexible so all the while I’m doing these things I’m also designing, handling my social media, or simply just taking a walk around my garden to decompress and keep things relaxed, so I maintain a fantastic level of quality because I’m never stressed out.
7. How do you balance your home life and your work life?
A. This is quite a challenge seeing as I work in my home, but I make sure that I stick to allotted times. I’m very upfront and transparent with my clients who are then in turn very accepting. I operate only within my business hours. I have this luxury, this isn’t a very fast-paced industry, I have deadlines that I need to meet, but I’m not here to kill myself, so those deadlines are set realistically – if a project is going to take 10 hours of my time to do the actual design but relies on a bit of feedback from the client then I allot a week before a deadline and I stick to it.
If I find that a client is taking too much time to give me feedback, the project is paused until I receive what I need from them and I simply just move on to the next project until I come back around to the paused project, in which case I’ll give a bit of a push to the client and ask them nicely to speed it up.
8. What drives you and inspires you?
A. I’m a creative. I love figuring out these puzzles – I love the freedom that comes with this. I love my brand and I love my clients. I’ve led a very stressed life for the first 24 years, and it just wasn’t my scene, so what I’ve got going now just really works for me. Not only that, but I’m happy, and I’m at peace and I think that’s what anyone who wants to start their own business is really chasing: Freedom.
9. Where and when do you have your best ideas?
A. My best ideas come to me while I’m in my garden. If I have a design that’s not behaving or a client that has me stressed I simply put my work down, and I go out into my garden and I take my shoes off and give my plants some love. While I’m passively doing this my mind is flowing, I’m able to think and decompress at the same time.
10. Where and how do you market/advertise your business for sales leads?
A. Now this is an interesting question. I’m still fairly new, so I can only tell you what’s worked for me so far. I don’t pay for any form of advertising – I’ve been getting plenty of business by word of mouth. I joined a Facebook Group at the beginning of 2019 and through just being myself I made friends with the creator of the group.
It was a businesswomen’s networking group for the area I live in, and they were offering Instagram Marketing tips, I was horrible at that, so I joined up and somewhere along the line some ladies started asking about their websites, so I was approached, and I now post tips for best website practices every week on a Wednesday.
Sometimes I’ll run a competition on my business Facebook and Instagram networking groups, and I’ll just give away a free website design. The largest amount I’ve ever given away at one time was 10 websites – I’m currently designing the last 4 of that batch but through this, I’m getting better results than normal, conventional advertising. I find that helping people brings more in terms of returns and happiness.
11. What is next for your business?
A. I think I’d like to take on a reseller, but I’m a bit nervous to go that route. I like having a frank and honest relationship with my clients and a reseller may operate differently, so at this stage, I’m just seeing where this takes me. I don’t plan on growing my business in terms of size – I merely seek to expand my client base. The point is to keep it small so that I can help the little guy, but I may just diversify and create a network of quality creative people that I can outsource to. Once a client has outgrown me, I simply send them to a larger company, sort of like a graduation.
12. What advice would you give to female entrepreneurs hoping to start their own business?
A. Honestly, just go for it. If it doesn’t work, pull back, recalibrate and go for it again until you find something that works. It is wonderful to be free. It’s not easy, but be stubborn and keep going.
Short Bio:
Fat Unicorn was initially started in 2017 as a sort of virtual jungle gym for me, Dani Bateman, to practice Website Design. Back then Fat Unicorn was an e-commerce store, selling goods that I crafted for fun while I up-skilled myself in Website Design. Having been in this industry for a good few years now, I noticed a problem that a lot of new businesses face: Content. I set up this concept to accommodate the little guy, so to speak.
Using my concept you can communicate everything you need to your audience in a stunning layout that is easy to scale up or down at your leisure. This means that you only pay for what you need as and when you need it (if you ever need it).
Contact details:
Cell: 063 148 1489
Email: dani@fat-unicorn.co.za
Social Media Links:
Facebook: Fat Unicorn SA – Home | Facebook
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fat_unicornza/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dani-bateman-41148a14b/