Today, I’m delighted to introduce a truly creative business owner, Rachel LeRoy of HipMaps. Rachel and I first connected in 2021 when we were both launching our business ventures, so it’s a pleasure and an honor to welcome her back to the blog after supporting the relaunch of her fun and successful website, HipMaps!
Rachel and her talented team design custom maps for meetings, events, lodging, municipalities, wineries, and vineyards. If you’re hosting an event or managing a venue, you need a HipMap! HipMaps offer a personalized map experience that lets you share your recommendations for where to eat, drink, and play through both an innovative app as well as a printable/downloadable map.
And here’s a hot holiday tip – Rachel has recently launched a line of calendars, mugs, and puzzles featuring designs inspired by AI-generated world maps in the style of international artists. They are beautiful and so much fun!
Visit her website to see engaging visuals that explain the HipMaps concept and find all her social media links!
When did you start your business, and why did you create it?
I initially started consulting in late 2019 and tried to launch personalized maps for weddings in March 2020 – on the Monday of the week when the US went into lockdown on that Friday! I spent a year regrouping, learning, and rebranding to HipMaps, which I officially launched in June 2021.
I created HipMaps because I have always had a passion for how maps are an incredible way to convey information in a visually pleasing, easy-to-understand manner and I saw how when a highly personalized map is shared with guests, a connection between host and guest blossoms and experiences are more meaningful.
Tell us about your business and what makes you unique in your field.
HipMaps is the only business where a host – a host of an event, a hotel concierge team, a city’s visitors bureau, or many other ‘host’ situations – can completely personalize the contents and visuals of their own map to share with their guests, and the guests can utilize our app to see their real-time location right on the host’s map, read their curated comments about each place, link to websites, and get directions. The versatility of our designs means that we have helped guests and attendees in a variety of situations – from a historical walking tour of a downtown to a lacrosse tournament, from an arts-focused hotel to an annual conference of distillery owners. The maps we design can be printed and used in our app, so the younger generations (typically) love that they can use it on their phones and the older generations (typically) are happy that they can have an ol’ school physical map.
What do you feel makes your audience special?
No matter what industry our clients are in, they are the type that wants to go above and beyond to make their guests feel special, giving them a thoughtful gift of hand-picked recommendations in the area for the guests’ free time, or helping them navigate a variety of event activities. They are the truly hospitality-minded folks.
Did you create your own website or hire it out? Do you use WordPress?
I have hired out our website design twice – once when I started and then again when we were ready for a complete refresh of our site. We used WordPress both times, and I highly recommend utilizing Cory from Meadowlark Consulting’s services as she was amazing for our website redesign – taking our messaging and vision and collaborating on the new design to turn it into a website that effectively communicates what HipMaps is and how we can best help, which is not an easy task since no one else does what we do!
What advice would you give to someone who is thinking about starting their own business?
I would identify the areas that you are weakest in and take classes and workshops in those areas before you launch your business. At first you are going to do ALL the things – sales, marketing, bookkeeping, project management, you name it – so you should work on the parts that you are weakest in before you launch. Once you are up and running you can offload the pieces that you do not shine in, or the pieces that are not a good use of your time – but at first you should be quite capable of doing all the pieces.
Do you have an email list? If so, did you start it when you launched?
Yes, I have an email list that I started when I launched. I send one email a month that is fun and upbeat because I certainly don’t want to hear only sales & marketing from companies every few days so why would I think people on my email list are any different? And because of that I have a high read and click rate, and even have had people tell me that my monthly email is the only one that they look forward to reading!
Is this your only job? Did you launch your business while working another job?
Now this is my only job, but when I launched it in 2020 I did have a part-time consulting job – which was great because I had a steady source of income as I was launching and building HipMaps. I did not like having that job because all I wanted to do was work on my business, and eventually I was able to get there and now can focus entirely on my favorite job – my goodness is it different when you work for yourself!
What is an influential book that you’ve read lately?
The book that I love to recommend to women in business is Playing Big: Practical Wisdom for Women Who Want to Speak Up, Create, and Lead by Tara Mohr. The first time I read it I just read it and said I would go back and do the exercises, which of course I never did. The second time I read it with a friend where we met once a week to discuss one chapter and held each other accountable for doing the exercises – and oh my gosh what a difference that made!