Etsy Seller Interview with Heidi and Ariane of LeefvonRoenn

How LeefvonRoenn got started

Introduce your Etsy shop and tell us your story. How did you begin and decide on what to sell on Etsy, and how do you create your products?

In 2013, I, Heidi, started to focus on my learned craft. I have loved working with wood since I was a child. So much so that I even convinced my grandfather that girls could also become carpenters. So much so that I completed a degree in wood restoration, where I learned a lot of woodworking techniques. Knowledge that I can also make great use of for new products or for redesigning. And that's what I did now...

...by converting the 2m² hallway between the toilet and the kitchen in my old flat in Berlin into my workshop and starting to build things out of wood. First, I made wardrobes and then picture frames with secret compartments.

Ariane came into the picture. I asked her if she could help me put the products online. At that time, she was still working as a copywriter in a publishing house, and her "Yes, I can do that" was the beginning of our joint "Leef von Rönn".

So I continued to work, and Ariane put my articles on the internet. Key boards with invisible magnets were my next idea. I never liked the classic hooks on keyboards, and I loved the idea of hanging pictures on the wall that hold my bunches of keys without any disturbing hooks. And exactly these magnetic keyboards were sold. First one. Dance! Then the next Mega!...and so it went on. Fantastic!

I began to draw and photograph. Little by little, more and more motifs for the key boards were created. And when one customer couldn't find a suitable motif, Ariane had the idea that the customer could send us her own motif and we could make a personal key board out of it, and since then, our customers have had the opportunity to have their own personal key board made by us.

By the way, we call our magnetic key boards POKs because they make "POK" when you hang a key on them. And "m a g n e t c k e y b o a r d" is such a long word... we had to shorten it.

I build and develop products, and Ariane writes the texts, does the office stuff, exchanges messages with customers, and does the image editing on the computer. By now, we are a real dream team. I am "Leef" and Ariane is "von Rönn".

Favorite items

What are your favorite items? What makes these so special? Why do you think these items might be selling well?

My favourite products are actually all of them.

Because what I'm working on at the moment is always my favourite product. At the moment, I'm working a lot on the key boards with wooden surfaces, our HolzPOKs.Here I didn't use pictures, but high-quality veneers on the surface. And the keys hold on to a super-strong, large magnet.

I also love to make personalised key boards with pictures of my customers. I am always happy when my customers are happy about them.

The wireless chargers, are new and were a varied challenge for me.

And the knife strips always make me think of my grandfather's workshop. All cramped, all full of rattling, heavy machinery. In winter, the stove would crackle, and my grandfather and I would work in the workshop.

Getting sales on Etsy

How long did it take for you to earn your first sale and how do you currently attract customers to your Etsy shop?

The first sales were slow. I always sold something, but not well. That changed with the magnetic key boards—our magnetPOKs. And now we are in the middle of the challenges of social media marketing to get customers excited about our Etsy shop.

Managing LeefvonRoenn

How do you manage your shop? Are you running solo or do you have any team members? What tools or services do you use to run your shop and how do you handle fulfillment?

Ariane manages everything. We discuss many things with each other, discuss, think of something new again, discard it, take it up again, and do it. Just do it! Try it out. Keep going. See what works and what doesn't. And thus develop our common thread. Hopefully hahaha

In the meantime, our fantastic apprentice is helping us. He edits product videos and make-of videos, posts everything on the social media channels (Facebook and Instagram), takes photos, and does the content management. He takes care of the packaging and shipping of our products.

The future of LeefvonRoenn

What goals do you have for your shop in the future?

We want to inspire our customers with our high-quality products. They are manufactured with great attention to detail.

In the process, we process the wood in the most resource-conserving way possible. By processing rapidly renewable birch wood into dimensionally stable birch multiplex, our work is characterised by sustainable thinking. And that is exactly what we want to send to our customers: high-quality, sustainable, and handmade products.

Advice for new sellers

What’s your advice for a new seller starting an Etsy shop?

In any case, we can advise everyone to make what he or she feels like and sell it on Etsy! You should always stay flexible and keep going. Even if there are setbacks, Or don't lose traction when you're flying high. Because there will always be a landing. We can definitely give these tips to everyone along the way. Good luck and success!