After multiple layoffs, one entrepreneur went all-in on her pet portrait side hustle. She took a pay cut but has more freedom and isn't 'bound by meetings from 9-to-5.'

• After several layoffs, Emma Sadler decided to go all-in on her side hustle: custom pet portraits.
• She started Taleology in 2023 while working in tech and turned it into a full-time gig in 2024.
• She took a pay cut, but doesn't have to worry about layoffs and enjoys more freedom with her days.

Emma Sadler was working in hospitality in early 2020 when the Covid pandemic first swept the nation.

She immediately lost her job as a restaurant manager at the Danny Meyer-run MoMa in New York City.

"That was when I sat with myself and was like, 'Okay, I think it's time to make a change. The food industry is going to go downhill,'" Sadler, who was 29 then and a single mom, told Business Insider. "My daughter was still relatively young and I'd missed out a lot on her life, and it was only going to get harder for me careerwise in the food and beverage industry. If I wanted to continue to move up, it would just be more hours and more time away from her."

She decided to pivot into tech. It was a natural transition for Sadler, who had experience working on websites for the smaller food businesses she'd worked at. In 2021, she landed her first job as a UI/UX designer.

She lasted in tech for nearly four years.

"I unfortunately did get laid off in 2022 from the company I was working at and then I got laid off in 2024 again. I realized that kind of a similar thing was happening in tech that had previously happened with the food industry during Covid," said Sadler.

From tech to small business: Taking a pay cut but gaining more control and freedom

After the second tech layoff in 2024, Sadler reevaluated her situation, much like she did in 2020, and felt like it was as good a time as any to go all-in on her side hustle: making custom pet portraits and accessories like keychains and pet tags, which she'd been doing since 2023.

The side project served two purposes: It provided extra income that she could draw on if she lost her job and provided a creative outlet for someone who grew up making art.

"Tech is very screen heavy. It's a different type of creativity, and I've always been a very tactile artist," she said. "I really wanted another outlet where I could make something physical and not just something digital."

She settled on custom pet accessories because it was something she personally wanted but couldn't easily find.

"A lot of what's out there for keychains or magnets or portraits are all based around designs because they're more scalable," said Sadler. "But I had mutts. They're unique. They have their own personalities. And so that's kind of how it started: I want a keychain of my dog, but none of these really look like my dog."

To test whether other people also wanted custom pet portraits and accessories, Sadler applied for a pop-up event in Brooklyn so she could interact with customers and get feedback. She continued doing in-person events around New York and started profiting after the 2023 holiday season, which confirmed that she was onto something.

By the time she was let go from her day job in early 2024, "I was like, it's now or never. I have these skills, I've been building this business, people are interested, I really enjoy this personally as a creative. I have this opportunity where I can go ahead and bet on myself and see what happens," recalled Sadler. In a worst-case scenario, "it's not as successful, and I have to fall back on being a bartender or pouring myself back into the job market search."

In the six months since committing to her small business, Taleology, Sadler has earned more than she anticipated.

"I definitely didn't think I would be making five figures in my first year," she said. BI confirmed her five-figure revenue by looking at her Shopify dashboard.

With so much more time to dedicate to the business, she was able to focus on growing her online presence in addition to the pop-up events. TikTok Live, in particular, helped bring in new customers.

"I had a spike of growth thanks to TikTok, but I think now my steady growth is coming from word of mouth and from people genuinely caring about the uniqueness of the craft that I offer, as well as the seamless experience that I provide," said Sadler, whose typical turnaround time is one week from when a customer places an order. "I know I'm not Amazon and I never will be Amazon, but I do know that there's a lot of small businesses that can take a very, very long time, especially for something that's custom."

Her monthly income hasn't come close to surpassing what she was earning in tech, and she does some freelance work as an email marketing designer and presentation designer, she noted: "Do I think it could eventually one day get to pay my salary? Yes. But as of right now, in the first year, it's definitely not comparable with that, which is why I do have some part-time jobs to help supplement because I do want to put as much of it back into the business. I don't want to really pay myself right now if I can avoid it."

In the meantime, she has peace of mind knowing that her earnings are broadly in her control. She expects fluctuations — the end-of-year holiday season is much busier than January and February, for example — but she doesn't have to worry about layoffs and her income abruptly halting.

"Building something that's your own definitely comes with a certain level of contentment — knowing that it's something, to a degree, that you control," she said.

Her day-to-day as an entrepreneur looks a lot different than it did as a corporate employee, and she prefers it: "The main difference is the freedom. You're making your own schedule. I'm not bound by the meetings from 9-to-5 that I have to attend. I get to structure my day how I want."

That said, there are tasks she has to do as a one-woman operation like social media and admin that, for her, are "not really that fun," she noted. "But creating and getting to communicate with customers brings me so much fulfillment that it shadows all the other stuff that I have to do as a business owner."