CREATING THE HYPE
Our Story
About the CEO
Chelsey Rogers graduated with her MBA in 2011 and began working as a banker. She started acrylic painting at home as a way to relieve stress from her everyday job. She loves painting with acrylic paint and actually prefers painting realism while all of her classes are very abstract. She began showing friends how to do small projects over the years and realized she liked teaching. She decided to switch out of banking into teaching and taught middle school math for two years. Her husband accepted a job in Dallas so she decided to apply for a high school art job. She got the job and taught high school art for 4 years in the DFW area before quitting in 2019 to take ColorHype full time. She knew she wanted to run her own business one day so merging the two passions was the most obvious choice. The photo to the right was taken mid-pandemic, her home studio became the place where she filled ink bottles, mixed paints and shipped kits. It’s a mess but a reminder of the dedication it took to save the business.
The Beginning of the Hype
Chelsey started the company in January of 2018. Prior to starting ColorHype she had been teaching paint and sip style classes on the side of her full time high school art job. When she started this new venture she knew she wanted something exciting, less structured and easy for the masses. She introduced the 3 main classes (Acrylic Pouring, Alcohol Inks and Paint your Pet) in the first six months and they were very well received. She knew to make a sustainable and competitive business model that she would need to offer variety to keep people wanting to return for more. She also wanted to meet people where they were so she offered her classes at local wineries and breweries across the DFW area, which kept the overhead low. By May 2019 the classes were selling very well so she left her high school art job to pursue ColorHype full time.
The Pivot
In March of 2020, the classes were 2 months sold out in advance with over 200 people who had purchased tickets when the pandemic hit. She knew she had to act fast so in order to give an option to those that had already purchased tickets or risk going in the hole since she had already purchased those supplies. She offered to make them a kit and send them a link to a video she made of herself teaching the class. This worked well and then her client base heard she was making kits and asked if they could purchase to do them at home. Chelsey opened a Shopify store and sold over 200 kits in the first weeks. By April she learned how to ship the kits nationwide. In May she was able to acquire a small warehouse space to store materials to allow for bulk buying and lowering costs. In May she hosted her first virtual corporate class with McKinsey & Co. She shipped the kits to the participants and they all met online to create together. In September she started working with corporate offices like Dell, Toyota and Frito Lay for virtual classes. By the end of 2020 ColorHype had sold over 5,000 kits. Overall, the pandemic challenged us in so many ways but it also opened the door to an entirely new way of business that has so much potential for growth and scaling. We are so excited to continue to create with people across the US!
Chelsey has been interviewed on multiple podcasts like Side Hustle School, Hobby Hustler, You Got to Meet Her and others. She loves to inspire others to chase their dreams and sharing tips that helped her along the way. For any inquiries about scheduling Chelsey for media, please fill out the contact form below.