Meet Jessica Navarrette | Boutique Owner & Entrepreneur

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jessica Navarrette and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jessica, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
My thought process for starting my own business was an easy but hard one. And although starting my own business wasn’t something I thought of until my late 20’s (you know what they say, never too late to follow your NEW dreams!) I was excited and ready to put in some work. Of course it is easy to ‘decide’ that you want to work for yourself and start your own business but it is the reasoning behind it that can push you to work harder, your WHY, and of course HARD WORK! I am always striving to be better than I was the day before and I do not like to sit and waste time. If I am not doing something productive with myself, I will make sure that changes. Now that I am getting older and beginning to start my very own family, I want to ensure my future family will be setup for eternity. I want to be able to give my family the life that we have dreamed of with no limitations. I want to be able to give back to our parents and our community. I want to be able to travel the world, experience new things and create memories. There is so much of this beautiful world to see, how can we be stuck behind a desk for most of our lives? And then that is when quarantine hit and my full time job was now temporarily remote. I took this as a sign to move forward. To do what you have to do to become better. So I started an online fashion boutique inspired by my favorite things and here we are, learning and growing each day! I am so very grateful for all the opportunities, people we have met and the fun times! I can’t wait to grow more and see where our journey takes us!

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I started my small but mighty business-owner journey in 2017. I created my first Etsy shop with my sister, which of course was inspired by my favorite thing (Disney!!- do we see a theme here?). I handmade and created t-shirts and accessories inspired by some of my favorite Disney movies, characters and parks. When I decided I wanted to start my boutique, I thought to myself – do not do Disney again Jess – people will not understand it and it is childish, so that is what I did, hid the inspiration that my shop would later come from. In the beginning, I played it safe and still made sure my boutique didn’t show any ‘kiddish’ references and stuck to marketing to ‘adults’. But this did not go very well for me. I was bringing in trendy items, posting consistently and engaging with my customers. I was doing all the things you ‘should’ be doing per a ‘start an online business’ guide book. Everything except being myself. I do not know what or how but something clicked in my head that said “Jess, stop conforming to everyone else and BE YOU.” So I did just that with releasing my first ever Disney(not sure how many times that word can be used haha) inspired clothing collection – The “Princess Diaries Collection”. And from then on, my business took a turn for the best. I didn’t feel like I had to block my creator portal or hide my imagination. I started to organize and re-structure my business so that both the customer and myself really enjoyed the process – from seeing an item and the inspo of it, to purchasing and receiving in a magical way. I began to create the content I wanted and felt comfortable and natural in it. Through all of this, not only did my business grow more (thank you all!!) but I, myself, grew as a person, business owner and my fashion has grown immensely (so many outfit possibilities!!)! I have learned that it is never too late to follow your dreams, it is ok to be young at heart and silly and still be professional and you can do all this while having a great taste in fashion! I believe the biggest thing is to be true to yourself. People love you for you, so give them that – the good, the bad, the silly!

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I love adventure and exploring! First stop would be coffee and exploring downtown Buckeye! Then of course, a trip to The Wildlife World Zoo is a must (obviously we get there early to see the animals waking up!). After visiting the animals and aquarium, dinner at Dillion’s KC BBQ is a must. Next, take a trip to Tombstone to visit the infamous wild wild west. Learn about some western history, watch the outlaw shows, try a few spirits and end the night with a ghost tour at the Bird Cage Theater. Next on the list, if we survive Tombstone, is Jerome! One of my favorite places – I love the spooky vibes! We would walk up and down the town, visit the shops and different little bars while grabbing lunch at Haunted Hamburger. Sedona is another very beautiful place to visit! We would stay a night in Sedona with a few of the red rocks. Wake up for a hike (so many good trails to pick). Then browse and shop the city shops while enjoying the Arizona outdoors. We would end the week with a little shopping at Arizona Mills and Tanger Outlets and ending the night at Roman’s Oasis for a drink or two and some dancing.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There have been so many amazing people who have encouraged and supported me from day one which I appreciate more than you know, but I would like to give a huge shoutout to my parents! Although divorced, they both are my biggest support team ever! Shoutout to my beautiful mother who is at every event with me, helping me with boutique decisions, hearing my goals and dreams and everything in between – to my dad who wants to know what’s next on the agenda, letting me use his home for photoshoots and the one who comments and shares almost everyone of my cringy boutique tik toks – he probably doesn’t know this but in the social media world we have now, this actually helps me out so much, so cringy or not, he loves them! I truly appreciate them both for the love and support. They never know what I am going to do next, but they trust me and support me! I can not wait to be able to give back to them and say thank you, for everything! I also have to give a huge shoutout to my fiance, who just roles with the punches but also will let me know when I should maybe take a step back and rethink my decisions, the one who hears my crazy ideas first and sees the visions come to life with me, the one there when decisions are hard and business gets tough – my little piece of inspiration, thank you!

Website: www.k-pixie.com

Instagram: @kpixieboutique

Other: Tik Tok: @kpixieboutique