Meet Erika Tijerina | Organizer

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

Hi Erika, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I rescued my dog Khloe back in 2019 when she was 2 months old. She was found bright and early one morning underneath my friends truck crying because she was lost and cold. I told him I could take her in, I always wanted a German Shepherd so I saw it as a perfect opportunity to get a puppy. On our new journey together, I realized she needed some girly dog accessories. I couldn’t find anything I liked in the stores, so I decided to learn how to sew and make her a collar myself. It took a few practices but I got the hang of it and had a great idea of starting a business to bring my creativity to life to share with other pet moms. It started with making collars for her to expanding to other dog sizes to even car sizes. I then began making bandanas for pets and found a neat hobby I enjoyed doing. I decided to name my small upcoming business “KhloeKo” after my dog Khloe. After all she was the whole reason I even started making the accessories.

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 think what sets KhloeKo different from other pet accessory businesses is my creativity. I sometimes draw out my designs or go off the trends people like such as amine or designs that match their pets personalities or name. I also have the option for customers to customize their orders that way they’re getting exactly what they want and fall in love with my work. I like my business to stand out and give my customers something they don’t see everyday. It is definitely not easy especially balancing this business on top of my regular 9-5 job. It was easy in the beginning to get my business started because it was during quarantine for Covid-19. Now that its grown so much and I have this huge supportive social media platform, I feel like it’s only the beginning still and there so much room to grow and make this something bigger than it already is. I want the take home message for people learning about my business for the first time to know it’s not a job, it’s something I absolutely love to do and will continue to do. It’s my happy place away from the real world responsibilities I have.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Houston is a fun city to come to if you’re visiting, when my best friends from out of town come I definitely have to show them some of the best spots here in town. One of my favorite places to hangout at would have to be the Railway Heights Market. This is where I usually host most of my markets as a vendor. The food there is amazing and there’s tons of other local small business vendors there to check out. Other fun places in Houston/surrounding areas are places like Kemah boardwalk, NASA space center, and our museum district. There’s so much history here in the city for people from out of town to visit and get to know a little bit more about us.
At night time it’s definitely the perfect time to hit up Midtown and check out all our fun rooftop bars. There’s Wonder Bar in that area too, which is perfect for selfie queens.
Another amazing spot is Minute Maid Park where the Houston Astros play ball. This atmosphere is great and it’s always a blast there during baseball season.

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?
I want to give a huge shout-out to my family and friends they have done nothing but support me throughout this journey of becoming a small business owner. Whether it’s one of my small markets or just preparing new items and ideas I can always count on them to be the biggest supporters in my life. We also can’t forget Khloe, she’s the main character in my business. She’s definitely the CEO and does a pretty good job modeling all my new products I create.

Website: www.khloeko.org

Instagram: Khloeko.inc

Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/KhloeKo.INC/