Aaron Schekorra has been busier than usual lately. When he is home from work, he spends many hours making merchandise and mailing orders, sacrificing sleep.
He intended to take a break from his side business throughout July, but those plans have changed. A social network turned Schekorra’s side hustle into a surging shop, with orders rolling in for Pride flags, LGBTQ-friendly stickers and T-shirts.
Schekorra owns and operates OwnYourPride.com, an online merchandise shop that specializes in messaging that supports LGBTQ rights. In early July, TikTok designated his business as an official TikTok Shop, and that has been fantastic for business, he said.
“I’ve made close to $2,000 in the last 48 hours,” Schekorra said on Thursday. “I’ve spent about 24 hours over the last three days filling orders, and I’ll spend a good chunk of my free time handling more.”
From filling a niche to a big-time pitch
Schekorra started OwnYourPride.com in 2022 after seeing that the quality of available Pride merchandise was not very good. Pride flags were either too expensive or would disintegrate and unravel quickly.
The president of PFLAG Springfield/SWMO, Schekorra often found himself at LGBTQ-themed festivals that had no vendors selling Pride flags.
“People were asking where they could get one, and the answer was typically Amazon,” Schekorra said. “The quality wasn’t there, and shoppers weren’t supporting a queer-owned business, so I decided to start one.”
After learning a lot about flags and how they are made, Schekorra was able to locate a supplier that offered a good middle-of-the-road option — a flag that would remain durable through several outdoor seasons without breaking the bank.
He and his husband, Daniel Schekorra, added stickers, keychains and clothing to their list of offerings. Daniel Schekorra works in marketing and developed a few designs that have become best-sellers.
Aaron Schekorra uses a combination of mass producers and his own creation process. He has taken over a room of his family’s house, where he prints vinyl stickers and screen-prints custom-designed T-shirts.
A particularly popular item is a Pride version of the new city of Springfield flag: It places rainbow stripes inside the horizontal white stripe. In addition to flags, the design is available on T-shirts, buttons and stickers.
The online shop had enjoyed some good success for the effort that Schekorra put into it. He said he never considered this a serious business effort.He was celebrating his most successful month after June’s Ozarks Pridefest. He planned to reinvest the profits back in the business for restocking and adding new merch items.
But the last few days left that record in the dust.
Taking a gamble with TikTok
TikTok is a social network that focuses primarily on sharing short videos. Its popularity has increased over the last couple of years.
Recently, TikTok rolled out its own shopping network, where people can use the service to find goods or services based on their interests. A TikTok shop features a select amount of merchandise, allowing the business to operate within TikTok’s app instead of sending customers to a separate website.
Schekorra said he didn’t use TikTok much; he relied mainly on Instagram and word of mouth to show his products. Taking quality photographs is much easier to do than creating quality videos, he said.
He took a shot and applied to be a TikTok Shop. OwnYourPride.com's application was approved at the beginning of last week, and Schekorra made a short video about how he was now open for business.
“I decided to launch with about half of the items that we offer on the website,” Schekorra said. “I made a video announcing that, and it went to less than 20 followers.”
While he was sleeping...
That’s when the TikTok tide rolled in. Being an official TikTok Shop meant the app gave Schekorra’s business extra exposure. He went to bed on July 3 with about 20 followers.
By Thursday, he had more than 1,000.
Follows don’t pay bills, however — orders do. Those came in, as well.
“On the Fourth I got maybe 20 orders,” Schekorra said on Thursday. “The next day I had 40 orders.”
During his interview with the Daily Citizen on Thursday, he received 12 orders in the about 30 minute-long talk. By the end of the day, he had more than 200. He received another 250 on Friday.
The orders on his website have also gone up — a perk of surpassing 1,000 followers is that TikTok allows users to publicly share a website.
The surge was so significant that Schekorra placed his store in vacation mode, so that he could catch up. While he has plenty of products, he needs time to get everything mailed.
“These may not be numbers that qualify as viral on TikTok,” Schekorra said. “But there have been way more eyes on my business than there even has been.”
Results of the rush
Schekorra doesn’t believe this rush on his products means it’s time for a change in career. He works as a spokesperson for the Springfield-Greene County Health Department, and does not want to quit that job. He also wants to continue volunteering for PFLAG, and is working on earning a master’s degree in health.
OwnYourPride.com was created as a way to fill a gap in the LGBTQ community, he said. Schekorra said its success required a village of people helping, from the word-of-mouth advertising to helping work a booth during a festival.
While Schekorra and his husband didn’t think running the business would be a walk in the park, they were not expecting this sort of demand.
“I have no interest in quitting my job to run a business,” Aaron Schekorra said. “But I didn’t expect that this would be a part of the calculus ever. I was ready to go on hiatus after Pride, but if there is an opportunity to grow, I want to take advantage of it.”
The challenge is figuring out exactly what that growth looks like, Schekorra said. While he is thrilled with the attention and sales from TikTok, he is the only employee packing those orders for the mail. Schekorra is spending a lot of his personal time mailing out merchandise in order to ensure his job and volunteer position don’t suffer.
He also knows that as fast as the TikTok tide rolled in, it could roll out just as quickly.
“The optimist in me wants to say that this is an ocean level rising, so that it will be more consistent,” he said. “The realist in me knows there is a newness at work, with our first time engaging brand new customers. I’m hoping to reach more people for more constant business, because that offers more opportunities for my family.”
