It’s time for another installment of Sellers You Must Follow, a series in which we introduce you to a seller you absolutely must get to know. Today we had the opportunity to interview Renee and Samantha, owners of Kids These Day Swimwear ("KTD Swim"), an absolutely fantastic line of children's merchandise. Check it out!

If you are an online seller or own a boutique and you haven’t seen KTD swim, I can personally vouch for it being of top quality materials and the most adorable, highly detailed prints you have ever seen. I think my two favs are “Friends Not Anemones” (beautiful sea anemone print) and "Class Clown" which features stunning, bold Clown Fish. It’s safe to say I am personally a huge fan of the products but I am also a massive advocate of supporting fellow small businesses and this is another one of my favorites, so enjoy the interview:

Tori (Owner, BigBrandWholesale.com): Where are you located and where do you sell?

Renee and Samantha (Owners of KTD Swim): We are Florida based and we sell online through our website KtdSwim.com, in boutiques and aquarium gift shops

Aquarium gift shops! What a brilliant idea! How long have you had your website for?

Our website went live in 2017

When did you discover your passion to sell swimwear?

Kids These Days is the creation of Renee Kuci and Samantha Stephan Dolman, an aunt/niece duo who are passionate about kids, fashion and fun. How we got started in the children’s swimwear market was simple. Renee used to have a difficult time finding swimwear for her daughter that was fun, beautiful, and covered her up in all the right places. Nothing seemed to fit all of her criteria. With her expertise in design and Samantha’s background in product development, we created Kids These Days to fill the void for boys and girls 6 months to 14 years old.

I can totally relate!  Buying comfortable swim trunks for my young teens was very difficult.  Yes, there's a lot of swimwear on the market but the comfortable pieces had poor designs. so you are 100% correct about the "void".  Next question; most of our readers are small business owners and online sellers. We all face struggles when we start our business, I imagine building a swim line from scratch must have been insane. Tell us a little about your journey to get where you are:

It was a difficult, time-consuming process trying to find reliable manufacturing partners. Once we did, we spent over a year on product development with extensive sampling to ensure we had the best designs, highest quality fabrics, and perfect fits. We used our samples to hold focus groups to learn and make sure we were designing product kids and parents were going to love. We realized as a brand we would only have one chance to make a great first impression so we weren’t going to launch until we were 100% ready.

How do you set yourself apart from other swim lines?

Realizing the children’s swimwear market was extremely saturated, we tried to differentiate ourselves by using real photography in our designs and focusing on letting kids be kids. “Keeping kids little, just a little longer™”, KTD offers fashion-forward, age-appropriate styles that cover kids in all the right places. Each suit features nature-inspired photography, mixed with bold, graphic prints.

Being that you are your own boss, how many hours a day would you say you list/ photo/ ship/ order/ design per day? How on earth do you find time for life?

Starting a business is challenging and time consuming but is also extremely rewarding. In order to be successful you need to be determined and self-motivated. We are constantly brainstorming, researching and designing to come up with the best product. It is not a 9-5 job. You find yourself waking up in the middle of the night with ideas and writing them down before you forget. It can be difficult to have a healthy work/life balance when you are starting out, especially when you work from home where there are distractions you did not anticipate but if you’re focused, structured and doing what you love, you learn how to make it work.

YES! I think every business owner can relate to those midnight ideas! I keep a memo document on my cell phone just for this!  What advice would you have for new sellers who just created their business but want to get where you are?

Be persistent and don’t take no for an answer.

Heck yeah! I think that is such great advice!  As a quickly growing small business owner, I know how hard it is to afford everything you need to operate. What are some splurges that you are saving up to buy for work, excluding inventory?

Office and storage space

Ha!  Us too!  We have over 7,500sq and need more!  Now it's time for some fun, personal questions so our readers can get to know more about you both as people.  What are your favorite colors?

Renee – blue

Samantha – blue

What are your fav food?

Renee - Italian 

Samantha – pizza

When you're not working, what are your hobbies?

Renee – painting

Samantha – sports, traveling (pre-covid)

Now that our readers know how awesome Kids These Days Swimwear is, how can they follow you online or find you to make a purchase?

You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or visit our website www.ktdswim.com.

What about our readers who want to purchase your merchandise to sell in their boutiques or on their websites or have questions for you? 

We are happy to chat!  Simply contact Samantha Stephan samantha_stephan@ktdswim.com or Renee Kuci at renee_kuci@ktdswim.com.  We look forward to supplying your business with incredible swimwear.  

Read Last Months Interview:  Poshmark Seller Midwest Thredz owner Andrea Webb 

Coming in December:  Interview with Lees Treasure Chest