ASI 57 Resin Rockers, The Best of the Best in Resin supplies!

Jeff Morrow
0:04
Welcome back to art supply insiders. My name is Jeff Morrow. And today we get to talk with a really cool company. And the name of the company is resin rockers. And we're fortunate enough to be talking with Mandy who is the CEO of resin rockers. Mandy, welcome to the show. 

Mandy
0:23
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. 

Jeff Morrow
0:27
Oh, this is gonna be fun because there aren't really a lot of products out in the market that are uniquely as cool as yours. Tell us a little bit about resin rockers, how did you start? Why did you start? How did you come up with the name? 

Mandy
0:44
Sure. So it's actually a really fun story. Because it was back in the COVID days. And I always say the COVID days because it's a time when people just time disappeared, really, you know, and I'm kind of a doer, I like to be busy. And having you know, to stay home and, and find hobbies that I've never really ventured into before is not really my style. So I wanted my kids to be able to do something, I wanted to do something with my husband. And I thought, let's do something that I love that I enjoy, which is resin. And I've been doing resin art for about 12 years now. So it's something that I love doing. And there were just a lot of things about it that made me frustrated. So the more that I started experimenting with different brands and products out there, the more I realized, there's a lot of stuff I don't like about this. And I would look at other stores like Hobby Lobby, Joanne's these stores trying to find the perfect product. And I couldn't find it anywhere. I tried Amazon and all of the things that I didn't like, I would keep a list and say I don't like the fact that it has bubbles. I don't like the fact that it bubble or that it yellows so quickly. I don't like the fact that it's really hard to get it to cure the right way. So I had this little list going of things that I didn't like about the products that I was using. And I thought to myself, What if I made my own? What if I made my own resin that would do all these things like magic, you know, and, and cure all these pain points? Because surely if I'm frustrated, I know there are other artists out there that are frustrated, right? Absolutely. So I started the whole process of just buying all these different brands and testing all of these different products and finding, you know, what do I like, what do I not like about these? And how can I create my own to solve these problems? And then comes the money problem.

Mandy
2:55
And you're like, Okay, I'm buying all this stuff, but how is this gonna make me money, this isn't gonna make me money. In the end, I have three kids, I gotta put through college, I have three kids, I have to get married and off. So I thought, Okay, let's start with some products that I know I can afford to invest in, and try to build my brand from there. So that is exactly what I did. I came up with molds, and glitter and, you know, pigment things that I knew I could afford, that I knew people would really enjoy using. And I started, you know, building my own xe shop. I started on Etsy and picking out all of these different products that I thought would be good sellers. And slowly I would start to get sales. And it was like that really exciting moment, like, oh my gosh, I gotta say, you know, like, it was my first sale. And so then as time went on, I started thinking, hey, you know, I might be able to save enough money to start this formula process. I really wanted to get the resin because that was that was where my passion was. And so I ended up opening my own website. I started my own website back in the day, when I was on that team. And I thought, You know what I'm going to try to drive traffic from I've got this great customer base on Etsy, how can I get these customers to come to my website. So I started doing things like generating coupon codes that I would toss in their orders, and all three of my kids would be downstairs, you know, putting stickers on things and coupons and orders and it was just kind of like a big family thing. I love it. And and then I started getting my kids get a gift to give me ideas, you know, what would be a really cool mold to have in the shop and they would give me tons of great ideas. So once I started getting some sales on Shopify, which was a huge like, yes, on my own website, I was able to start saving money for the formulas, and that's exactly what I did. Is I started developing formulas and testing and after tons of, you know, research and development, I was able to come up with what our first product was, which was our UV resin. And that is the product that everybody's raving about globally, because it truly does what I had envisioned that it would do, which is solve all these pain points for artists like me.

Jeff Morrow
5:26
That's right. Now let me let me jump in real quick. Tell our audience a little bit what is resin art, there might be some people out there they go. I've heard it, but I really don't know what it means.

Mandy
5:38
Yeah, that's total i That happens all the time. So let me tell you what it is. So there's two types of resin that we have. One is epoxy resin, that is a resin that will cure with an A and a B mixed together in about 24 to 48 hours, you'll get a solid chair. So there's a little bit of a mixing process there. But it works great on things like a tray. If you wanted to make a tray like those glittery trays or coasters that you see on tick tock all the time, it will make keychains you can do bad real. So a lot of people in the medical field that have those little badge reels where they have their little scanning badge. You can do little custom badge reels for that you can do them holiday related fun, like quirky little designs. And then people use them on tumblers people use epoxy resin on tumblers to make those really fun glittery, customized tumblers that that people are walking around with these days. So it is it is useful for a lot of different mediums a lot of different projects out there as well. Okay, then there's UV resin and UV Resin that is our baby, so to speak. That's for people that are maybe just starting and people that want quick fixes, they want a quick win. They don't want to take two parts and mix it together and wait for it to cure because there's there's a little chemistry there. Right? And it's a little bit yeah, it's a little bit. You know, I'm a little bit apprehensive sometimes when I think about that. But there are people that want that quick when they want to create something and feel good about it because they're scared. They're scared to try something new. And these are things that I can give them a kit for UV resin and say watch how I do this, you can do this, I love to inspire people and say, Hey, you can do this just as easily as I did. And I show them how to make things like keychains, jewelry, pendants, earrings, you can do the bad deals with that too. And all you do is take this one part, no mixing resin, put it into your mold, or on top of your jewelry bezel blank, and you stick it into a UV lamp, which is one thing that we have, and it will cure it in one to two minutes

Jeff Morrow
8:01
flat, one to two minutes. One to two minutes. is gracious. And how long does the parts one and part two, how long does that take to cure that takes

Mandy
8:13
about 24 to 48 hours generally, depending on how deep the pore is. So there's a big difference in the type of resin that people people want to go for. And

Jeff Morrow
8:27
why would anybody I didn't mean to interrupt, but why would anybody not use the UV one if they can get almost instantaneous results?

Mandy
8:35
That's a great question. The reason is, the UV Resin is better on smaller projects. So those that may want to do jewelry, or they want to do you know a small piece of like a keychain or something like that. That's where you're going to get the most use out of the UV resin. When you're doing something like resin on a canvas, or the tumblers or something like that, you definitely want to use epoxy. So it really just depends on what the type of project is you're working on and how we can provide for that. But the nice thing is we can do it. We have resin for both both types of projects.

Jeff Morrow
9:16
It's kind of sounds like scale. If it's a big scale, you use the two part if it's a smaller scale, you use the UV resin.

Mandy
9:26
That's right. That's right. That's kind of how we how we position it. One of the really fun things though, that I want to tell you, is we just got our first patent pending invention and it is a lamp specifically designed to cure UV resin and it is the first one out there. We're super excited about it. It is taking the industry by storm. I never really thought it would be as as high of a demand as it is but Um,

Jeff Morrow
10:02
so is it like a table lamp? Or can you kind of give us a visual of what it looks like without giving away any trade secrets? Yeah, sure.

Mandy
10:12
So a lot of companies that have UV Resin are using what they call nail lamps. So you know, when you go to the nail salon and you're putting your hand under there, and you're curing your nail polish, it's the same concept, only this lamp that I invented, works perfect for you the resin. So it's got the right wattage, it has the right type of bulbs, it has the right layout inside, so it's mirrored 360 inside so that it cures all the way around your product instead of just on the top surface. And it's cordless. So if you think about usability, when you're an artist, you have these big workstations, and you're, you've got all these cords coming in and all these things, right, you've got stuff everywhere, the nice thing about it is you can just charge it and then pick it up by the handle and take it to your workstation wherever and use it and not have to worry about cords anymore, which is huge.

Jeff Morrow
11:13
Wow. And so I got a feeling that our audience right now is been really piqued with interest very quickly, where can they buy all of this wonderful stuff.

Mandy
11:26
So we have a website, it's resinrockers.com. So they can purchase there. And we just are about to launch our big. How can I say this? We just got accepted to sell on michaels.com. So resin rockers is going to be available on michaels.com as well, which is super exciting.

Jeff Morrow
11:49
Congratulations. That's a really, really big deal. So that's our ESINROCKER s.com Correct. Yep, that's correct. And pretty much are you on Amazon or any place like that? Right? Yeah, right now,

Mandy
12:09
not on Amazon yet. The best thing about, you know, purchasing through us. And the reason why we retain so many of our customers is because I love teaching, what we projects. I love teaching those types of projects that we have. So we're notorious for education. And we are notorious for service. And we're notorious for our kids. So the one thing I always try to tell my customers is, my job is to take the guesswork out of the project, ya know, I don't want our customers coming to our shop and saying, oh my gosh, you have 2000 products, I don't even know where to start, you know, because it's super overwhelming, and I don't know what to get. And, you know, that's why we try to set up things from a beginner's perspective, not just a seasoned artist, but a beginner's perspective, so that they can come to our shop and say, oh my gosh, they have all these starter kits. They've got stuff that has everything in it, so I know exactly what to do. And as soon as they get their kit, they can get on my website, they can go to tick tock, they can go to Instagram, they can go to YouTube, and they can watch me make these projects from start to finish talking to them through it. And that's really huge. Because it just it really takes the nervousness out of it. Yes. And you know, resin isn't cheap. It's not something that people want to just gamble away gamble their money on. When they want to start a hobby like this, they want something that they feel confident doing. They want they want easy wins and that's what I'm here to get them

Jeff Morrow
13:55
well you know, I went on your website and I also went on your YouTube site and you do have a lot of videos that kind of make it as low as make it and take it where literally they could goes I saw one you did was this gorgeous little gold fish. With with with UV light and all of that stuff and it was just, it was spectacular.

Mandy
14:23
It's so fun to make those because with other resins, especially UV Resin in particular, you can only work in very thin layers. And my goal was to be able to develop a resin that you can cast in molds just like a regular epoxy and still get no bubbles, no yellow and that crystal clear finish so that it looks like a piece of glass when you're finished. Yeah, and now they can now they can do that. And it's it's it's really exciting to watch.

Jeff Morrow
14:57
So the thing that surprised me the most I'm sorry I jumped it bumped into. One of the things that surprised me the most is because I saw the name resin rockers and I thought, okay, they're going to have you know, 10 or 12 products about resin. But you have so much more than that on your website, you've got the tools, and the glitter and the molds and all of these things, give our audience a little bit of an overview of the massive array of products that you offer.

Mandy
15:31
So I'll tell you a little funny story about the product growth. So when I started this business, I was in my basement, and I had this little tiny studio and I was experimenting with all these different things that I could sell, like, maybe I could sell this, maybe I could sell this and you know, our customers would come to us and say, Well, I would love it if you carry glitter. Okay, great. Let's try a few that would sell out. And then you know, we'd get more and that would sell out. And so it just all these suggestions coming in from all of our customers allowed us to build this huge product offering that it was, it's truly became like a one stop shop for everybody. And after, you know, we outgrew the space in the basement, and it carried over to our storage room. And then it carried over to our living room and then it exploded to our kitchen. And you know, I've got my mom coming and she's packing at night and I'm rushing home on my lunch break because I was working full time at the time when I'm packaging. And my kids are up at night on the weekends packaging and it got to a point where we're like, Okay, this is crazy. Let's move. So we bought a bigger house in we had 1200 square feet in the basement and we made that our shop downstairs and cool. we outgrew it in three months. So then we ended up getting a commercial space. And that's where we've been for the last year and a half. And now we have over 2500 products in our store ranging from resin tools. We have pigments, we have chameleon pigments, mica powders, glitters, we have polymer clay shapes, so people that make snowglobe tumblers with the different shapes in them, we have over 300 Different shapes and colors that they can choose from, we kind of really have everything you need to get started and keep continuing to create at our shop.

Jeff Morrow
17:39
Well I you know, as I was looking through one caught my eye, and I always find that odd just little things. But it was called like a quick drip or a drippy pen where you could just like I see it in cake decorating all the time where the drips go down the side of the cake. But you had this on a pen, just tell our audience a little bit about that unique product.

Mandy
18:01
Yeah, so this was actually something that inspired me when I was going through videos on tiktoks, I saw all these tumbler artists and pen artists putting these drips on their pens. And you know, some of our competitors had some thickening agents that they were adding to their epoxy and using that as the drips. But the problem is with epoxy, you have to get it just right. Because if it starts if it's too runny, it runs too far down the cup. So then I started thinking like, what are other people using so I started researching and I saw people were using puffy paint. So they were using puffy paint around the rooms of their pens and their tumblers as that drip. But the problem with puffy paint is it takes over 24 hours to dry just like the epoxy, right? And it's really hard to get it just right. There's imperfections with it. It's just not the same. So I thought what if? And I said what if I was able to invent a product or a formula that was just as opaque in color in UV Resin so that we could let these artists save a day. You know, saving a day in the creation industry is just like, oh my gosh, it's like mind blowing, right? Yeah. So I came up with this idea to make a UV Resin formula specific for the drips that has the right viscosity. And viscosity is thickness. And you can control the drip because you cure it right at the at the moment. You're like oh, that looks awesome. Put it under that layer and it sets it in two minutes. Two minutes. Really? Yeah. So so now I just fixed another pain point for our customers that are making these drips on their tumblers and pens because they're saving another day and they're saving with the waste. There's a lot of waste in the resin art industry because you have to test a lot of things. And you might make mistakes. And you learn from those mistakes just like you do everything else in the world and having the right products to save you the time and the headache is

Jeff Morrow
20:14
key. Yeah, I was I was, before we got into this, I was going to ask you if you know, how do you think you've developed such a following? But gosh, it would seem to me that you're really offering them a one stop shop for everything as it relates to resin art, right?

Mandy
20:33
Yeah, that's exactly right. And, you know, I encourage my followers and my customers to come to me with pain points, because that I love challenges like I will take you on a challenge. And I don't know if you have seen the snowglobe tumblers people make
J
Jeff Morrow
20:52
where I have not told me about it. Oh my goodness.

Mandy
20:55
So people are taking the these acrylic, basically plastic tumblers that are double insulated, and they're drilling holes into the bottom of the tumbler. And then they're adding glitter and clay pieces, and basically a mixture of Elmers glue and water to it. And they're making a snowglobe tumbler out of it. So they were sealing the bottom of the snowglobe tumblers with like I've seen at all I've seen people using furniture bumpers that they're trimming with scissors. I've seen people cutting glue sticks, like pieces of glue sticks and shoving it in the hole. And then they're using our resin to seal the bottom. And I thought, Wow, this seems like a lot of work trying to, you know, cut pieces and trying to fit pieces. And I said, What if I developed a mold, that was the perfect plug for these tumblers in a different formula that was flexible, so that it worked well with our other resin formula. And so that's exactly what I did, I developed the mold that that would fix this problem for them. And I developed a formula to go with it that's flexible. So they can cast their own plugs from their own workstation that fits the hole that they make perfect, and then seal it in with our UV resin. And they save so much time. And they feel good about the products that they're selling because nobody wants a leaky tumbler. Nobody wants me one that cracks and breaks. And I mean, these artists are pouring their heart and soul into these projects for their customers. And they want to feel good about what they deliver to them. So I feel good knowing that I can solve the pain point for them. And they feel good that they're delivering something good to their customer.

Jeff Morrow
22:45
No kidding. So I guess the biggest things that make resin rocker products different is your innovation is your you jump in and tell me what is it that makes it so much different than everybody else.

Mandy
23:00
So one of the things is innovation, for sure, because we use so much research and development here to create products that do solve those pain points, right. But the other thing is the quality, because a lot of companies will just sell to sell and we aren't in the business of selling to sell. We're selling because we want our customers to feel good about what they're delivering to their end customers. And we have you know, we're kind of in a sweet spot in our industry because we have a lot of customers that have their own businesses. They have their own Etsy shops, their own websites, their selling tumblers, pens, badge reels, you know, all of those types of things to make a living. So if we can offer them a one stop shop that has the best of the best in resin supplies, they will be able to save time and money and feel good about what they're delivering to their end customers.

Jeff Morrow
23:56
Wow. Well, I You get me excited just to want to try it myself. And I probably would glue my fingers together. So. So let's say it's somebody like me that they're just starting out? What would be your best advice for just a rookie like me?

Mandy
24:16
I would say one of the things that I tell people is step out of your comfort zone a little bit.

Jeff Morrow
24:23
That's I've been told that before. I know I hear Yeah.

Mandy
24:27
You know, but it's true. And I never would have been able to do this. I never would have been able to start this business if I wouldn't have stepped out of my comfort zone. You know, when I first decided to do this, I thought never in a million years would I ever quit my full time job. I've I've been you know, working as a full time mom for you know 18 years and I thought oh my gosh, I would give up my salary. I would give up my safety. I would give up everything if I did this full time and The more that growth that we had with our company, the more I was like, I think I have a real thing here. Like I have like, I have a shot here. And there were tons of tons of nights when I was scared. I was I was, I was, you know, stressed. I was like, Did I make a mistake? Did I, I didn't know there were so many mixed emotions. But at the end of the day, I would wake up every morning and say, You know what, it's a new day, I just have to keep going. There is no choice. I keep going. Because I believe in myself. And I try to tell my customers to just keep going and believe in yourself. Because if you step out of your comfort zone, there's something in it for you. There's definitely something in it for you. And it

Jeff Morrow
25:40
is such sage sage advice. So if our audience out there, do you guys encourage people to contact you with questions and thoughts and, and new ideas?

Mandy
25:53
Absolutely. I mean, we, you know, that's the one thing about our business is our customers love us. And I love them. I love them, because they will come to me and they feel comfortable coming to me and saying, Hey, I just can't get this, how can What am I doing wrong, and they know that they can reach out to us and we will guide them step by step on. You know, here are here are our suggestions, here's what you can do that might help your process or might help save you time, or here's a product that might suit what you're trying to do a little bit better. And the most gratifying thing for me is to see all the new faces that come into our shop. Our retention rate is about 46%, which tells me that these people are buying more than once. They love what they get, and they're coming back. And that's huge. But I also love the fact that 60 per you know, 60% of these customers are our new, we're inspiring new people to try new things. And even if they have been seasoned resin artist, they're still coming to us and buying their supplies with us. And that's a huge compliment to us.

Jeff Morrow
27:06
Oh my goodness, you you've done an awful lot literally taking it from zero to where you are today. Again, that if they wanted to see all of this, it's Give me your web address again.

Mandy
27:20
Sure. It's resinrockers.com,

Jeff Morrow
27:23
resinrockers, and you're also on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, all of those. So we

Mandy
27:32
are on tik, Tok, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and we are just about to launch twitch.

Jeff Morrow
27:40
I don't even know what Twitch is. So I'll just leave it at that.

Mandy
27:46
Which will be really interesting because they'll be able to see me and my hands. So we always joke because on tick tock Instagram, you know, when I'm teaching, it's always my hands because I like to have a close up of what I'm doing so that they can do it with me. And now they're going to have two screens, one with me talking to them and one with my hands up close, which will be nice.

Jeff Morrow
28:08
Oh, I love it. Well, we've we've kind of come to the end here. Is there anything I forgotten to ask you?

Mandy
28:17
I would say the only thing is that one thing that sets us apart from other companies like like ours, is the fact that we're not just a company. But I'm a creator too. And that's important because no other companies really dedicate a huge. They don't dedicate a lot of time for the education part of it that kind of gets lost because they're running their business. And one of the things that I feel we're doing right is we're still educating as we go so that we can teach and inspire people.

Jeff Morrow
28:56
Well, I gotta tell you, you've inspired me. You are a an absolutely wonderful entrepreneur and innovator. I'm hoping that I'm hoping that as we as you grow, that there will be opportunities for you to come back on talk to us a little bit more about what's new, what's innovative, because I know this is going to be a subject that our audience absolutely is going to love listening to.

Mandy
29:27
Oh, I appreciate it. This has been so much fun. I would love to come back. I appreciate your your candor and you having me on here. It's been a lot of fun.

Jeff Morrow
29:35
Mandy, it's been our pleasure. You've been listening to art supply insiders. Check back with as often as we talk about the world of art and craft supplies. If you'd like to hear more of these podcasts, please hit the subscribe button on your preferred podcast provider. We'd appreciate it if you would tell a friend if you'd like to show your support. Please consider going to our website and hitting the support button at Art Supply insiders.com