Welcome to Small Business Saturday! Female business owners rock! Female business owners in dresses rock even more! That is why we’ve decided to feature Becki, a long-time good friend who is delving into the business world alongside of her husband Jeremiah. The two of the are co-owners of White Whale Tattoo, a quality tattoo studio that specializes in custom design. Basically you come up with an concept and Jeremiah turns it into a work of art that gets to be a part of you for life.
In December, I featured Becki in My Closet, a weekly series looking at one woman’s personal style. In said hang out, we sat down on the couches of their apartment that sits above their studio and had a nice chat about careers, business and life.
Where does the name come from?
So White Whale is a reference to Moby Dick and that is Jeremiah’s absolute favorite story of all time. Favorite book … he loves Moby Dick so much. I think what really resonates with him about Moby Dick is the u-shaped journey. Basically like very similar to Jonah and the Whale, but also same themes in Moby Dick … basically having to go through the lowest point in your life in order to reach your destiny and what has been planned for it.
What made you decide to be a co-owner with Jeremiah? You have your own career in both the education and non-profit sector and could easily just stay there. What makes you want to join him in running the show?
Well I think initially, we met at work. A lot of people will say “I could never work with my husband or my wife. They would drive me crazy!” And we’re the opposite. We work really, really well together, so it made sense that we work together. I really enjoy the non-profit sector. I think I’ll volunteer in some capacity or maybe work part-time somewhere. But the dream has always been to work together again and basically just be our own boss. Who doesn’t want that? So Jeremiah has this talent … this incredible gift and it just made sense to open our own business.
And for you to have a role in that.
Yeah because I had all these ideas about how to make it more of a pleasant experience for people. You go into a tattoo shop, and they usually are kind of dark and dingy. They kind of feel cluttered or dirty. They shouldn’t because it’s a medical procedure. You should not have to wonder when the last time they dusted was. You want it to feel clean. So I think our idea for keeping it super simple is just we want people to come in and we want it to feel clean. But also like it’s sort of a … getting a tattoo is a rite of passage and it’s this cool experience to go through this rite of passage. It’s almost zen like how you would feel if you got a massage or did yoga. Clean, contemporary and not a lot of stuff going on. Just very focused on the art.
What kind of response have you gotten to that?
It’s been great. I’ve second-guessed myself a lot. Anywhere where I’ve designed anything or created any space, I always feel like I’m second-guessing myself and thinking “does this really look good? Is this how I really want the space to look?” I feel like emphatically no, it’s perfect. People have come in the door … it’s kind of funny because you see this space from the outside … you weren’t really sure where the door was and it looked kind of like a secret spot. But then people would come in and we like “woah oh my gosh! I had no idea the space would look like this inside! This is amazing!” It’s very similar to how we wanted people to feel. It’s very clean, crisp, comfortable and kind of zen.
Why Walnut Hills?
I’ve always felt a connection to this neighborhood. I’ve always really enjoyed Walnut Hills and everything it has to offer. The development that’s happening here is grassroots mixed with some developers. I really like that they’re taking abandoned buildings and turning them into spaces. It feels like we fit with this community.
What do you want the future to be for White Whale?
This is basically like our starting point. We’ve talked about starting other shops in the future but them having their own name, own vibe and own thing. They would still be tattoo shops but they would have their own unique vibe. We’ve talked about not even having them in Cincinnati. So maybe putting them in cities we would like to live in part-time. We’ve talked about New Orleans, which is our favorite city. We’ve talked about Seattle. We’ve talked about a bunch of different places where we could see ourselves opening another shop. We’re kind of bouncing back and forth between a couple places.
That sounds like the life man.
That would be wonderful. That’s far down the road or maybe not far down the road.
So what are some things you want to do with the space now? I know you’ve talked about having art opening maybe.
Part of the beauty of leaving it so simplistic is it lends itself to … with it being a tattoo shop, you can just fold up those tables and roll out those chairs. Tattoo stations are on wheels, so you can just get it out of there. So it just becomes this empty space that could be used for a yoga class on Sunday morning or a musical venue. An art opening. It could be used for a lot of different things. And ultimately, if we’re not using it for the time we’re tattooing, we want people to take advantage of the space.
How does it feel to be a female small business owner?
It’s great. I’ve got my partner, so I think it’s way less intimidating than if I tried to start something on my own. I think having somebody who is on your team. It’s like not a problem. We’re 50 50. And it’s funny because we met with our team of lawyers … they came up with our contractor’s licensing, agreement … all of that. They helped us come up with our waiver. Everything that we need to make sure everything was ready to go. And one of the things that they made us do is come up with a “what if you guys get divorced? You’re 50 50 owners. If it was 49 51, the 49 would have to sell. So if the relationship fails, what happens to the business?” We were like “oh, that’s never gonna happen! That’s a stupid question!” And our lawyers were like “no, we need to decide this now.” So we kind of made a joke out of the whole situation. So we said okay, we’re gonna do this thing called the coin-flip show-down, if this day ever comes in our life. Of course not, so we might as well make a mockery of it. So the coin-flip show-down is written into our business licensing. We would both have to show up dressed as Kenny Powers and we have to flip a coin. And if you don’t dress as Kenny Powers, you forfeit.
Why is While Whale the best place to get a tattoo?
White Whale is just a different shop. You walk into any tattoo shop and you will feel the difference. You can talk to anybody and anybody who has been tattooed by us will give you a similar story. So tattoo shops have this reputation for being like this elitist space where everybody’s covered in tattoos who works there and if you’re not covered, you’re lame. “We’re not gonna talk to you. You’re not worth our time. Like what do you want? You probably want some stupid, small tattoo. We’re not even going to give you the time of day.” It feels very judgmental. It’s hard to be in a space like that. People feel very uncomfortable going into a space where they feel like they’re going to be judged. Nobody wants that.
Yeah and then you’re missing out on this whole market of people.
Yeah so our shop is very welcoming. People come from totally different walks of life. People come in who are covered in tattoos already who want more and there are people who it’s their first time getting tattooed. We want everyone to feel comfortable and like they can ask questions. The last thing you want is to be in a space where you’re getting something permanent on your body and you don’t feel like you can ask a question or say “hey, can we change the placement? Can we move the stencil?” There’s this kind of air of judgement that happens there. Our customer service is just a really, really big part of what our shop is about. You come in and we offer you a beverage. You can take as long as you need deciding the placement. If you decide you don’t like what we’ve drawn up, we can totally re-do it. Everything is able to be changed. And Jeremiah is just really warm and welcoming guy. He’s also a phenomenal artist.
How did he get into tattooing?
Basically Jeremiah moved to Guatemala and he basically took a sabbatical. Jeremiah started doing volunteer work in a gang prison. He was teaching the guys English. The guards would actually lock him in and stand on the outside … they did not want to be in there. They were like “these men are dangerous. Good luck!” And Jeremiah is like “no, they’re great.” Anyhow, he talked with the guys and a lot of them were wanting to leave the gang life but could not because they had gang tattoos. So if we leave with gang tattoos, we’ll be killed. So Jeremiah had this idea “hey, you know what? I’m going to bring down the best tattoo artist in Cincinnati.” So a friend of his who had done some tattoo work for Jeremiah volunteered to do cover-up work free of charge. So he asked Jeremiah to sketch some stuff for the cover-ups. So all of a sudden you’re seeing gang tattoos covered up by beautiful works of art. The guys are just wowed. You were literally seeing lives transformed. So theh this friend asked if he wanted to apprentice under him, which is crazy because he had never taken an apprentice before. So this was seven years ago.
