An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

“Better done than perfect.” As someone with big concepts but little time in the day, I have to constantly remind myself of this. Who cares about all of the little details and perfecting it all if your timing is off and your chance is gone. Don’t wait until it’s too late.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Lisa Mohar.

Hailing from Cincinnati, Ohio, Lisa Mohar is an artist and designer currently making the magic happen in Brooklyn, NY. She designs for the happy people who like their cuteness with a good amount of boldness, can always find a reason to laugh, and navigates the world with a confident march. She is inspired by bright colors found in her neighborhood, decent jokes, unique female perspectives, and mid-century illustration.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I was born in the midwest and have always been crafty and imaginative. As a kid, I was bouncing off the walls, picking up new hobbies, and making messes that typically involved my mom’s craft cabinet. She was a special education teacher and girl scout leader so she pretty much had any craft supply I could possibly dream of.

I kept pretty busy during my childhood: dance classes, music lessons, play rehearsals. I went to a relatively small suburban school where I kept doing a little bit of everything. I was smart, but didn’t really care about getting the best grades. Everything besides the learning part of school was so much more exciting to me: the friends, the activities, the clubs. And I took all of those exciting things much more seriously.

I left Ohio (where I grew up) for New York when I was 18, and never looked back.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Instead of going to businesses or art school, I went to music school; specifically a jazz conservatory.

We had ensemble classes where we got together like a small band with a piano player, drummer, bass, and a handful of other students playing instruments, singing, etc. We’d play through a song and then take turns improvising. It was easy to be unsure of yourself. Maybe you didn’t know what notes would fit over the chord changes. For more complex tunes, you could get lost in the form, or maybe you just couldn’t lock into the groove. In these unsure moments, I had a teacher who would often give the advice “when in doubt, lay out.” Don’t play, but take a second to really listen, get your bearings, use your brain and all the skills you’ve learned to figure it out. When you’re more sure of what you need to do, come back in with confidence.

I rush into things and can easily jump to doubting myself and my instincts, so I often think about this quote to get myself back on track.

At the same time in school, I had another teacher who’d give different advice to the same situation: “when in doubt, play out”. Sometimes big and loud mistakes snap you back to where you should be fast or show you that you were right all along. Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t remember which teacher preferred which approach, which is another great life lesson quote I think about often: “know your audience.”

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

Both of my parents (unknowingly to each other) gave me a copy of Patti Smith’s book Just Kids right around the time I graduated college. The book is centered around her long evolving relationship with Robert Mapplethorp. There’s so much more in there about living in the NY art and music scene during the late 60s and 70s, and her journey to become the artist she is. It energized me to read her stories of our city and all of the legendary artistic players in it. Thoughtful Patti Smith took in all the creative chaos around her. She internalized all of these heavy influences while forming a stronger sense of self as a person and an artist.

At the time I read it, I was a bit caught up in doing things the right way and going down a path I had set up for myself before I knew it was really what I wanted. It’s difficult to be happy in that mindset, but reading this book changed that. It triggered a creative growth spurt in my life. I wanted to live in color and be inspired for every minute of it. I started saying yes more often. I hung out in what I considered that day’s “Chelsea Hotel” where everyone had a bunch of projects going on and always wanted to collaborate. I longed to be very bohemian, surrounded by creatives and late nights talking or dancing. Like Smith, I shifted mediums a bit, and moved away from music and fell into visual art.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?

Translating a good idea into an actual business is the easy part. You simply listen to those that have done it, do some research, and create a plan. The hard part is being consistently authentic from the start.

One reason why I started my stationery and gift business, Rhino Parade, is because I didn’t see anything quite like the aesthetic and messages I wanted to create. At the time, I felt that there were a lot of cute and soft or strong and bold, but not a lot in between. It didn’t seem like any fun. I wanted to design for smart and loud women who loved the color pink. Or people who could be a bit sarcastic in a positive way. They speak up on what’s important, but don’t take themselves overly seriously. The people I wanted to design for were me and my friends, and what I had to offer was something specific and genuine.

Translating that idea into a successful business means I’m always checking in. Every product, packaging, piece of marketing, etc should all remain rooted in what my business is all about.

Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?

Google.com is a helpful website for research. I think it’s more important to focus if your idea is good. Just because an idea hasn’t been done before, does not mean it’s a good one.

I’m in the greeting card industry, ideally putting 24 new card designs a year. Happy birthday has been said every which way, and yet we’re all creating new ways to say it. I have sketchbooks full of ideas of cards, but they’re not all hits. I tend to casually crowdsource an idea and sit with it until I go all out and pursue it.

For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through, from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it.

When I’m developing an idea, I don’t go through a linear process because that’s not how my brain works.

It all starts with a lot of simmering on an idea: sketching in notebooks, to the back of a magazine, to random thoughts in my notes app.

I like to leave it all on the stove while I figure out the logistics. I’ve spent years getting the right vendors for my products so sometimes I reach out to them to get quotes, just to see how doable something is. I think of how I’ll package it.

I sell my products to a lot of stores, so I start thinking of every step of the process for them: how will I share this product (what’s the method, what’s vibe and visual? How will they have it in their store: will it sit on a shelf, next to their register? etc.).

For my brain, it helps to really break things down, so the whole process is about a million steps. I reuse similar checklists for every product release and am usually adding to the template so I make sure everything gets done. I also go through and give myself casual deadlines.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.

1.) “Better done than perfect.”

As someone with big concepts but little time in the day, I have to constantly remind myself of this. Who cares about all of the little details and perfecting it all if your timing is off and your chance is gone. Don’t wait until it’s too late.

2.) “What’s good for someone else’s business might not be good for yours.”

The previous advice and this one were things I learned when I worked with business coach Katie Hunt of Proof to Product. Katie is big in the stationery and gift industry with her courses and groups. I was really lucky to get into one of the mastermind groups that she ran. One of the biggest things she helped me with was creating a strong set of instincts that were right for me and how I wanted to do business.

My company is so connected with who I am, so why shouldn’t how I run my business align with how I do things? I’m finding this not only makes me happier, but leaning into who I am has also made me more successful. Folks buy from people that they know (another tip from Katie Hunt) and when your business is you, it’s a heck of a lot easier to get people knowing you.

3.) “You aren’t going to be perfect and quick at every single thing.”

I’m pretty much a one woman operation. There is a ridiculous amount of stuff I need to do.

I was talking to my therapist (please, everyone go to therapy), about my never ending to do list and how there must be something wrong with me (it’s ADHD, and there’s nothing wrong with me). She stopped me and started to broadly list off the things I do.

“So you’re expecting yourself to be a good artist and good at creating new products, marketing emails, social media, photography, web design, the physical labor of sending out orders, inventory, innovative strategizing, bookkeeping, taxes, follow up and outreach with buyers, AND emailing people people back in a timely manner? While being a good person?”

I wasn’t cognisant of how much pressure I was putting on myself. I was expecting me to be perfect at everything and do things in the (totally inaccurate) time frame I projected. It helped me to recognize how unrealistic that mindset was. If I was so perfect and quick at everything, we would have known it by now. I would be a millionaire but I’m me and this is where I am. I’m quite happy with that.

4.) “Your time is your most valuable resource.”

For my ADHD, sometimes I get on kicks when I time track what I do all day. This helps me stay on task and encourages me to take mini breaks to recharge.

I started realizing how much more time it took for me to tackle things I really hate doing or was bad at. My first big hire was a bookkeeper. It was a great decision. It saved me time in the obvious ways, but it also saved me time by not stressing over this mundane must do serious business task. This made me look at my business and realize there’s a lot that I don’t like doing where I could be better served hiring someone else.

5.) “If you’re working for yourself, make sure you aren’t the worst boss in the world.”

I’ve never had the joy of working a corporate job, but I have sat across a table from a corporate job working friend as they’ve complained about their boss. Their boss made them work long hours or even on weekends. They held them to unrealistic standards, unable to make them feel like the work they did was good enough, etc.

It wasn’t until sometime last year when I realized I was this kind of worst boss to myself. I was constantly setting myself up for an imposter syndrome episode. I was assigning myself a mountain of work to do in a day. I was the boss telling myself that I had to cut my holiday weekend plans down to 2 days. It was hard to detox from the #girlboss hustle culture kool aid I’d been guzzling for years, but learning to be kind to myself and letting myself rest has made me a happier person as well as more productive when I am working.

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

It’s rare that the first idea you have is your best, so brainstorm that idea out so it can reach its full potential.

Think about it while you’re on a crowded subway train: who in this car would like this idea or use it? What would they like? Take a notebook and write down everything that comes to you, sketch out visual concepts, marketing strategies.

This kind of thinking is really fun for me. While I sometimes can run away with an idea, putting the cart before the horse etc, it can also get me to where I need to be. Maybe my original product idea isn’t one I hitch a ride to, but maybe I had a far fetched vision from the product’s launch party that will inspire me to make a best selling print.

Never stop imagining. It’s fun.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

I highly suggest not going at it alone.

I’ve never worked with an invention development consultant, but I’m lucky to have a lot of smart and creative people around me. I have multiple group chats where I’m asking for opinions on a new product. I crowdsource over happy hour or a dinner with my sister might turn into a strategy meeting. Community is everything.

I’m also really fortunate that the stationery and gift industry is a strong collective with many of us believing collaboration over competition.

If you don’t have that — find it! The internet is a big place with a lot of people in it.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

I’ve bootstrapped. Because I had no other option but to be conservative with my spending, it forced me to be very intentional. I have thrifty instincts but now five years into my business, I have the knowledge to recognize what’s a risk and what’s worth it.

The main reason I never sought VC is because I just didn’t have the bandwidth to research it. It didn’t seem accessible to someone like me. Statistically, getting funding from a venture capital isn’t an accessible option for many entrepreneurs, especially if your company doesn’t include white male founders. Until the VC industry makes big changes to diversify who they fund, bootstrapping is the only option for many.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

I have many give back products. I’ve raised almost $10k for various organizations like LAMBDA Legal, and Southern Poverty Law Center, Fair Fight, EMILY’s List, and The Loveland Project. Our newest give back product is our “Queer and Vaccinated” vaccine card sleeve, where $1 from each sale is going to The Trevor Project.

You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

I make my cards and gifts to encourage and celebrate. I believe that kind of energy is infectious. I hope everyone that interacts with my work feels that and brings some care and fun to the world around them. I’d be thrilled if in some way, what I do can inspire people to take better care of their communities, listen and support those that are marginalized, and create a happy place for us all. There are many strong voices already doing this work like Alok Vaid-Menon, Blair Imani, and Danielle Coke, and I’m happy to join them.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Lisa Congdon. She is a wonderful illustrator. She has a clear artistic voice, works with so many brands, teaches, puts out books, and so much more. She’s also an activist and seems like she has an actual life full of people she loves and hobbies that have nothing to do with work.. I’ve just started listening to her podcast. I love to learn how people think creatively, so it’s just really speaking to me. I’m not sure exactly what I’d ask her or what I’d want to talk about. I suppose I’d just want to connect naturally, discussing what comes up. I think the conversation would be easy: we have a great first name, we’re both capricorns, neither of us went to art school, and we both love color. I also think she’d order something practical yet comforting, and I’d like to know what that is.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

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Making Something From Nothing: Lisa Mohar Of Rhino Parade On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.