Angela Mary Vaz is a 29-year-old Illustrator and Blogger living in Bangalore, India, with her two labradors. 

Her Blog Stray Curls (started in 2018), teaches women how to create fun and creative online businesses to make money from home. She uses colorful and funny illustrations to help make learning more fun! 

She teaches SEO, Email Marketing, Sales Funnels to primarily stay-at-home moms and college students. 
Can you tell your readers about your background?
I was born and brought up in Abu Dhabi. But I am an Indian, originally. 

I am an only child who grew up loving drawing and writing. 

I’ve been drawing ever since I was 3. After finishing my degree in Computer Science and Engineering, I knew I could never work a corporate job. It was something I wasn’t passionate about. 

I wanted to have dogs and care for them while working from home. I tried to use my drawing and writing skills and build a business. So, I decided to become an Illustrator and Blogger, and I’ve never looked back since.

What inspired you to start your business? 

Most people believe that you need to have some sort of formal education before starting a business. 

With almost no formal training in arts or building websites, I started my online business freelancing for clients - building websites, graphic designing, and so on. 

I’d take online classes and read and research 12 hours a day or more just to get ahead of the curve, all the while saving money for my dream job - to draw and write for a living. 

Back then, SEO and marketing were easy because it was so scarce, and I could land website clients in a sinch. 

I used the money I made freelancing to jump into illustrating and making comics. I worked with brands like Dove, Himalaya, and Wella for their branding, and I learned that anything is possible if you know how to market yourself. 

I knew I couldn’t work with clients forever. I wanted some sort of passive income, so a blog was the way to go.

I also wanted to help women like me who were struggling to make ends meet to make money from home. And I wanted to make that information easy to digest - hence Stray Curls was born. 

Where is your business based?
Although I live in Bangalore, my business is entirely online. It’s available and accessible to anyone in the world.

How did you start your business? What are the steps you took?
I started a website, and it took a few months to understand how SEO and traffic worked. I knew my target audience - women at home who wanted to make money with their online businesses. 
Then I got started writing and publishing blog posts. I knew I had to stand out from the rest of the blogs to attract more traffic - so I did what I did best. I added illustrations and humor to every single post I published. And the rest is history!
What has been the most effective way of raising awareness for your business?
I believe a potent combination of using unique images I’ve hand-drawn myself and SEO has helped me gain traffic and become popular in the online world.

What have been your biggest challenges, and how did you overcome them?
The biggest challenge I’ve faced as an Online Business Owner is that there is no one to tell you what’s right and wrong, and there is no fixed income waiting for you at the end of each month.
So, it involves a lot of tweaking and experimenting and, most of all - consistency. Because if you don’t believe in yourself, then no one else has a reason to either.
I’d tweak and write down my results. If a particular strategy didn’t work, I’d drop it and focus on a new one. When something worked, I did more of that.
By holding myself accountable and doing monthly analysis reports, I overcame this challenge.

How do you stay focused?
When you love something, it cannot possibly feel like work. However, I hate doing tasks like researching for keywords or editing and proofreading posts.
So, an excellent way to get through tedious work is to work on something exciting for a bit and then get back to your big task. For instance, if I’m tired of researching keywords, I’ll work on the blog post featured image for a bit and then get back to the task! It works!

The best way to be productive and stay highly motivated is to keep yourself accountable. I am a pen and paper girl, so I write my tasks in my Blog Planner and Notes app.
I also like to take breaks. After every 45 minutes, I take a 15-minute break by playing with my pups, playing the piano, or catching up on reading my current book.
This helps me get back to work fresh and pumped up!

How do you differentiate your business from your competition?
I add a lot of humor and illustrations to my posts.
And this has been my biggest differentiator. I find it’s super easy to explain SEO and Sales Funnels to a person when you can make a lot of jokes and draw diagrams.
I also have a lot of freebies on my website that will help anyone who wants to get started building an online business from scratch. If they require additional help, they can always purchase add-ons like my courses and books.

What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business? 
Email marketing, hands down.
I’ve always loved telling stories. And I’ve found that if you can weave kindness and generosity into your marketing, you can get people to relate to your writing, and you will build a stellar business. 

What’s your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?

1. Plan everything. Create goals and break down those goals into tasks. This will help you create bite-sized jobs you can do, and it won’t seem so daunting.
2. It’s very easy to compare yourself to others. Do not do that. You’re comparing your beginning to someone else’s middle. They’ve probably spent tons of sleepless nights to grow their business to that point. So, put your head down and work hard, and you’ll get to where you want to be!
3. Monitor your growth every month to accelerate your development. Every month, write down what worked for you and what didn’t. Accordingly, tweak your strategies. List steps you can take to overcome these roadblocks.

What’s your favorite app, blog, and book?
My favorite and most used app is Apple Notes. It’s simple, clean, and is highly versatile. I find it most convenient because it syncs with my desktop, phone, and iPad.
I read a lot of food blogs for easy recipes, minimalist blogs to help me declutter and live a simple life, and multiple self-help blogs because the learning never stops.
I am an avid reader, and I read everything from graphic novels to business books. One of my favorite books that I reread every year is Love for Imperfect Things. It’s a beautiful book that teaches you to let go of control and love with a pure heart.

What is your favorite business tool or resource?
Facebook business groups.
People are so loving and helpful in general. And reading through people’s problems and seeing how kind people are just fuels me to do better in life and my business.

Who is your favorite business role model? Why?
I have way too many to count.
I appreciate and adore many men and women in my field. Each of them has their unique strengths, and they’ve used them to get further ahead in their lives.
Some of them are Meera Kothand for Email Marketing, Debbie Gartner for being super helpful in Facebook Groups, Jay Shetty for marketing, and many more.

How do you balance work and life?
My life is a timetable.
I have a dedicated amount of hours for work in a day, and I never cross that. I do not let my work overlap with my family time. 
My family and my pups come first.
And with my spare time, I read, play the piano, learn French, meditate, journal, cook, research, and walk. 
I’m able to do all of this via to-do lists. 

What is your favorite way to decompress?
I love cuddling with my pups and reading. I also enjoy talking to the people I love or hanging out with them.
I love spending quality time with my family and dogs.
It’s the one thing that helps me let go completely.

What do you have planned for the next six months?
I do plan on releasing a new eBook and eCourse and I’m excited to get working on it.
My readers have been asking me for a long time to cover these topics and I can’t wait.

How can our readers connect with you?
www.straycurls.com