COMIC BOOK HIDEOUT
Radio Broadcasting and Engineering.
Did you have any assistance opening the business?
I did all of my business prep-work and the manifestation of the actual business itself by myself. I did have a lot of awesome friends and my dad was a big help in gathering everything together and executing it. I am very grateful and fortunate to have so many wonderful people in my life who helped out in the ways that they could when I started out. By my birthday, in June, I had the idea of starting it, and I was ready to open in September. We actually opened in November, but I had my stock and my business plan together before that. I’m the type of person who does things very quickly (once I make my mind up about something,) I pretty much go full force into it!
Describe your typical workday...
That’s such a hard one to answer because I do so many different things on different given days. I generally try to get up early in the morning, make myself and maybe my roommate breakfast, take a walk or drive to the store, open up the shop, check all my emails, do normal shop maintenance like any retail store (cleaning, gathering things up for the day.) I check all my social media and my emails and everything sometimes before I even get out of bed. Then, I have various meetings and phone calls I have to deal with (making sure bills are getting paid and the shop is running smoothly.) I don’t have a typical day – it really varies. When I’m working in the shop there’s definitely a structure to that, but it’s different than the structure I give to my employees.
On any given day, I can have meetings for some of my community outreach programs – I am the president of my Young Professionals Rotary Club, I teach (over the summer I taught art at La Habra High School – so during the summer I was teaching from 7 a.m. until 1 p.m., and then I would come to the shop from 1 p.m. to 10 p.m.) and I used to do a lot with the Chamber of Commerce. I try to be an integral part of my community. I also like to support other business owners. I live in Fullerton, so I eat local, I drink local and I hang out in my community. So you can often find me in any of my little haunts (one thing that comes with working hard, is playing hard too.) There always has to be balance. Finding that balance is probably one of the most challenging things as a business owner to do.
What element of your work gives you the most personal satisfaction?
When I say that I sell comic books, magic cards and happiness, I absolutely mean that! I adore my customers, and enjoy bringing them happiness through comic books! Whether it’s nostalgia, camaraderie, art or high concept kind of stuff like: philosophy, writing and the way of the world. I really, genuinely believe that the happiness people can get through this art