Support my fight against art theft

 In 2017 I got very, very sick and was hospitalized right before Christmas. During my recovery I started going for long walks and drinking a ridiculous amount of water to try to regain my health. During those walks, I kept wishing that I had some kind of purse that could hold my tumbler in between sips – and at that moment an idea was born.

I filed a patent for my cup-holder bag on February 7, 2021 (63/153,700). After lots of preparation and a fair amount of anxiety about whether or not anyone would want them, I listed my first batch of bags for sale on November 19, 2021. They sold out within hours. I was shocked! My next sale, in February of 2022, went viral on TikTok and I sold thousands of bags in a matter of days! I never thought I’d ever be able to afford a house, but thanks to my bags I closed on my dream home on November 30, 2022.

But then the knock-offs began sprouting up. It started slowly late last year; I was briefly able to play whack-a-mole and protect my hard work. But then one of the Amazon sellers filed a counter-complaint. Wild, right. Amazon gave me a 10-day window to prove that I had filed a lawsuit or else they would allow the knock-off to be relisted. Like most self-employed artists, I couldn’t afford a lawyer, let alone a lawsuit. Amazon opened the floodgates and now the market is overrun with cheap copies of my bag. Influencers on Tiktok and Instagram promote these knock-offs and get millions of views, while my videos of my original bag can’t get traction anymore. The market for my own product has been stolen, and as a result my business and my life as a whole have crumbled.

I haven’t wanted to talk about this because I’ve been worried that mentioning the cheap knock-offs would send people flocking to Amazon to buy them. But at this point they’ve hurt my business so badly that I had to sell my house, so I don’t know if speaking up about it could inflict any more damage than it already has. You may have seen my house, it went kind of viral over the summer when I put it up for sale.

 

Right now I am really struggling to keep my business (and my life) afloat and finding it difficult to make ends meet. While the knock-offs of my bags show thousands of sales, my original bags barely get any attention now. My house still hasn't sold yet so with each passing month my situation gets worse, my debt compounds, and the odds that I will ever regain control over my own product feels less and less likely. I would love to be able to hire a lawyer to help me tackle this but right now I can't afford it.  If you would like to support me in my fight against the counterfeits, here are some ways you can help:

💖 Buy a purse from my shop and do NOT buy a knock-off

💖 Share my story - I have posted about it on all of my social media channels