Rising Stars: Meet Tana Williams

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tana Williams.

Hi Tana, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Stray Dog Designs (DBA Fetch Designs) is a female-owned business comprised of myself (Tana), my wife Angela, and my twin sister Teri. Trooper is our rescue dog and the mascot of the business. We all spend a lot of time on our pontoon boat out at Lake Pleasant and found some very unique pieces of driftwood. My sister Teri thought it would be very cool to mount one on a base for a centerpiece. Her son recently moved out of state and left all of his welding equipment behind so we thought that we could mess around with it and make some type of base. I had some exposure to welding but had not had any formal training so my sister and I took a 1.5-hour class for the basics and started practicing in my garage. We made our first centerpiece that now adorns Teri’s dining table. Now we make frequent trips to the lake to scour the beaches for unique pieces. It can take a full day to put one piece together because we cut the steel bases and rods, grind, weld, and grind some more. We paint each one and then the driftwood has to be drilled and mounted. We think the pieces really add some nature to any room – with plants it feels like a little bit of the outdoors is brought inside.

We are all dog lovers and wanted to make our rescue dog, and dogs in general, a focal point of our business.  We give 5% of our proceeds to a local shelter. What we would love most is to be able to donate enough to truly make an impact in the shelter so they can do what is needed for the dogs they care for.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Struggles…OMG, we are all in our mid 50’s (except for Trooper is between 4-5 yrs old!) so social media has been the biggest challenge! Easy to create a website…not so easy. Instagram…what’s a reel? And we need to post daily? really? Teri’s son is an IT genius so we received a lot of assistance from him. My niece is a business owner so I received a couple of tutorials from her on Instagram. Angela takes care of most of the social media but she also works full time so that is our biggest struggle. Also, getting our equipment set up was a challenge. We couldn’t figure out why our welds were so ugly, porous, and not holding up.

We didn’t know that our welder was set up for TIG welding instead of MIG which meant the terminals were in the wrong orientation and we were using the wrong gas. At one point we were not using gas at all because we thought our regulator was broken when in fact we had been sold an empty cylinder of gas! Now that we have everything set up properly our welds look fantastic, but it took some time to get there!

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My sister and I always wanted to have a business together where we could use our skills. We are both good at building, using electric and hand tools, and love to tackle any DIY project around the house.

Previously, I was an Environmental Health and Safety Coordinator who oversaw the safety of a large number of welders in a manufacturing plant. I never welded but was exposed to a lot of it. So when my nephew left all his welding equipment behind we had to find something to weld/create!

Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
We are still “just starting out” but from the beginning we wanted this to be a business, not just a hobby, so we treated it as such and I think it has shaped my attitude regarding putting the necessary time and effort into being creative and having a successful business that gives back to the community.

Contact Info:

• Website: fetch-designs.com
• Instagram: @fetchdesigns22