Photo credit: Sharon Nazarian
Big City Vegan is run by Sharon Nazarian and her sister Leslie, one an ex-Wall Streeter and fashion lover, and the other a savvy, web guru and designer. Together they provide a cruelty-free shop offering anything you can think of to stock your vegan home, from baby items, to iPhone cases, to snarky message tees. Vegan Mainstream talked to Sharon about how it all began and what her goals are for the future, as well as how she utilizes social media to get the vegan retail world to take note.
Vegan Mainstream: So, the obligatory how you first became vegan question.
Sharon Nazarian: I’ve been vegetarian most of my life. When I was 10 or 11, I decided I didn’t feel comfortable eating meat. I kind of stayed in and out of that in my youth. It’s not a popular decision! I had the ideas early on that I didn’t really want to eat meat and animal products.
About five years ago, I thought to myself, “Why am I eating any animal products?” so I decided I would just go for it and be vegan. It just seemed like the right decision, not just for health reasons, but for ethical reasons as well. At the time, I didn’t really have an in-depth understanding of all the cruelty that went on in factory farming, but in the last year or so I delved in and learned a lot more.
VM: What was your background before Big City Vegan?
SN: I was in finance for over ten years, investment management on Wall Street. I decided when I left that I really wanted a career change, to do something different. I had a jewelry business for a while, but that’s sort of been on hiatus. I was laid off a year and a half ago and it gave me some time to think about where I wanted to go with my life and what I wanted to do. I had the website from years ago, and I really thought I would put my whole effort into it. I become more engrossed in the vegan world and really built the site up over the last year and a half.
VM: So, you’ve always had an interest in jewelry and fashion. Was your jewelry business a springboard for Big City Vegan?
SN: Not as much. I actually had a separate website for my jewelry, which I marketed to different boutiques around town and did trunk shows, but you’re right, my interest in fashion jewelry and fashion in general has always been with me. I’ve always had my own style anyway. I pair up T-shirts and make them into different things. I used to be a dancer so, you know, you make your own clothes; always tearing things up and creating something new. I’ve always loved the fashion piece of it and always wanted to go to fashion school, but never did.
A big key to why I started the site was because I always wanted to look cute and fabulous while being vegan, and I found it difficult to find really good vegan fashion. Of course things have changed over the last two years, there is more out there now. But, to find things that are cute and to identify that things are vegan in the first place, there weren’t the labels as much as there are now. If I’m going to go through all this effort to try and find great vegan products, why don’t I build a website so other people can benefit from my knowledge as well?
VM: Well, according to a documentary I just saw, Fashion in Film, Flashdance says you aren’t alone in cutting up your clothes. So, when did you start Big City Vegan?
SN: It was actually in 2006. I started the website and didn’t really do much with it. My sister and I were in on it together. She’s the webmaster and graphics design master and she built the site. I’m the content person and everything else behind it.
VM: How is working with your sister?
SN: Oh, it’s peachy keen all the time! [laughs] No, it’s good. We both have a completely different perspective in terms of the work. I’m coming from one end and she’s doing a lot of the business aspect and the website, but we collaborate on the products we put together. So, one part of the site is the shopping, the fashion boutique where you can buy all kinds of great fashion-related merchandise. Then, we have one of the largest collections of vegan message T-shirts and gifts. She’s in-house so she creates all those and we work together on what messages to put on those items.
VM: So, you do design some products yourselves?
SN: We design all the vegan message T-shirts and jewelry. We have two stores, one on Cafe Press and one on Zazzle. We have stuff for babies and adults; housewares; electronics and iPhone cases; all kinds of products.
[Big City Vegan has merchandise on Zazzle and Cafe Press]
VM: How do you find the other products you feature?
SN: I am always vigilant and out there searching for new designers or brands that are vegan and cruelty-free. There’s so much today, it’s sort of exploding. More and more, even bigger brands, are saying there’s a market for, or there’s something good about eco. The market is growing, so to constantly be searching and looking is an important part of bringing those options to the marketplace.
VM: Have you seen an increase in competition since you started?
SN: Absolutely. There’s so much growth now. It seems like everyday, you wake up and turn on your computer and there’s a new website, there’s something new! Which is great! It gives people more options and places to go. Everybody has a unique way of doing business, or they bring different products to it. But, you’re right there are a lot more people in the game than even a few years ago.
Shopping is only one component. There are other components to the site. One is the news, events and interviews I do. Really, I do a lot of video and podcast interviews, which is a fun aspect to the site. Bringing interesting stories on the site. I covered the red carpet at Farm Sanctuary’s gala this year. That was really exciting. I had a professional photographer and we did video interviews with celebrities. We put together some nice videos and put them up on my YouTube channel. Things like that are fun and engaging.
VM: What’s your process for doing interviews? How did you get started doing that?
SN: I think I just wanted to talk to these people! I contacted Doron Petersan like five minutes after she won Cupcake Wars. I was like, I want to talk to Doron! She was so much fun, running around all over the place and she made these cupcakes that all these non-vegan people were drooling all over. I wanted to find out what was going on with that girl, and look what she accomplished. I just got into it having conversations with people and learning about them.
[The interview with Doron on Big City Vegan. For more recent interviews, go here or check out the Big City Vegan blog.]
VM: So you just kind of call them up and say, “Hey, I’m with this blog, do you have a second?”
SN: Yeah, I guess I’m bold like that! It can be a little intimidating sometimes. I think what I’ve found is that, because I have been bold enough to just reach out to people, is that people feel good that you want to talk with them and help get the word out about their projects. The other thing is this connection through the shared vision, ideals and values of being vegan. There’s just a shared common ground. There’s a willingness and a genuine desire to share, collaborate and support each other. I think everybody wants to advance the cause of a more compassionate lifestyle. Or maybe I just wear people down!
VM: I see you have a Paper.li site. How do you go about using social media to promote BCV?
SN: I’m a very social person to begin with, so I could hang out on Facebook and Twitter all day and not get anything else done! I do think those avenues are important and they’re a great way to connect with people. Things like Paper.li you can set up and they keep going on their own, so there’s always a connection. You’re pulling in stories and putting them out. It’s something that even if I didn’t have time to go on Twitter, there’s always something and I’m pulling stories from people I’ve put on a list who I know are quality sources or have great websites. I know they’re going to be talking about good things people should know about, so I want to promote and support them.
[Paper.li is a content curation service. It enables people to publish newspapers based on topics they like and treat their readers to fresh news, daily. Check out Big City Vegan's pages.]
I do spend time on Facebook and Twitter. I just opened Google+. I haven’t quite figured out what it’s all about, just that it’s important. I try and dabble in all that. It’s a social thing, so it comes naturally to me. I do think it’s important in building a brand, though I don’t know if it’s trackable in the scheme of things. I also do cooking demos and things like that, and my interviews. YouTube is the search engine of choice for people in their 20s. Not being there, you might be missing an audience. So, I try to do a mix of things. I also started a podcast and that’s something I’d like to do more of. It’s a great way to connect with people and get more stories out.
VM: Have you seen an increase in people knowing your brand since you started using social media?
SN: Yes, definitely. I’ve been getting more and more followers on a regular basis. A lot of it is new people are coming on Twitter everyday. I see my numbers increase and if you talk about something that’s popular, traffic comes up more. There’s so many different ways to get more people interested in your brand.
My sister’s really good with all the SEO and web stuff, driving traffic and other kinds of things you can do. I’m actually going to think about building something on the site with tutorials and things like that.
VM: You also just did a big website makeover, correct?
SN: I did! My sister and I were buried. We spent I don’t know how many hours straight. It was like the whole Thanksgiving weekend. It was an HTML site and I always had the blog in WordPress, so anytime I would need something I’d have to call my sister. We should have set it up a long time ago so it’s all in WordPress. That was a really huge thing. It definitely looks a lot better. It’s very user-friendly. I also just expanded a lot of the products we have. But there’s always more to do!
VM: Is there anything new in 2012 you’d like to talk about?
SN: There’s a lot of things I want to accomplish in the spirit of taking veganism to the next level. So, in terms of plans for 2012, we are going to make the site more interactive, encouraging people to share their stories. We’ll be continuing to expand our product line. I’ve been working on some e-books and plan to do more podcasts and cooking videos. People seem to get a kick out of my cooking demos. I’m not sure if they’re laughing at me or with me, but either way, if people are learning about more ways to enjoy good vegan food, that’s all that matters. I also have a bunch of ideas incubating and am working on some projects that will reach out to the non-vegan world in a fun way. I’d love to do another red carpet event like my video coverage of the Farm Sanctuary Gala this year.
