Ambitious, work minded and determined, Taline Postajian is the epitome of a lady boss who does it all; she’s an entrepreneur building "In The Posts", a boutique design studio focused on branding and social media management all the while working towards her business MBA.   Please introduce yourself. Tell us about why you decided to create In the Posts?  My name is Taline Postajian. I’m a graduate student at Pepperdine Graziadio Business School pursuing an MBA. I run a freelance social media curation studio on the side. My journey with ‘In the Posts’ began earlier this year at the beginning of lockdown sort of by chance. It started out as a favour to a friend, helping her curate a pretty Instagram feed for a project, and quickly took off as soon as she told her peers about it. The pandemic created this fantastic scenario where people, either furloughed or working from home, now had the time to pursue their side hustles which all start with a social media page.   What quote do you live by? “You can.”   What is the most difficult aspect of running your own business? I think one challenge the majority of business owners are facing right now is keeping clients or maintaining sales during this recession. Unemployment is at a record high and businesses are hurting. It’s especially hard to hire a social media person to your team if you’re not maintaining sales. So it’s a trickle-down effect.    When there are setbacks how do you continue to stay motivated? Setbacks are a natural part of life. Approach them with a ‘what can I learn from this’ attitude.  It’s okay to feel demotivated or sad. But don’t allow it to take over. Instead ask yourself “How am I going to do better next time”. And write it down. When I’m facing a setback, I journal about it. I open a Google doc and write about what went wrong, and in detail, how I’m going to fix it and make sure something similar never happens again.     Describe a typical day in your life. Morning: I wake up around 8:30, shower and do my skincare routine, make some coffee and head to my office downstairs. I catch up with emails and ITP work in the mornings and evenings. The day to day is pretty exciting and no two clients are the same. I do a range of things from creating posting schedules with captions and hashtags to creating media kits, to coordinating brand partnerships whether they are brands or influencers. Afternoon: In between, I do homework which entails a lot of reading and watching recorded lectures. I have class two nights a week and am currently taking finance and marketing.  Evening: Later in the day, my boyfriend and I FaceTime for about an hour, give or take. He lives in Texas, so we try to spend our evenings together. If it’s not too late, we’ll typically watch something after dinner (we’re currently loving Servant). Texas is two hours ahead, so after he goes to sleep, I’ll get back to work until around 11:00. Then I’ll head back upstairs, do my skincare, hop into bed and read until I fall asleep.   Where do you see yourself and your business in five years?  It’s a dream of mine to continue growing In the Posts while also focusing on school and hunting for my dream job. In order to do this, I would love to expand my team in the near future to help me run things and be able to take on more clients. In five years, I’ll have my MBA, hopefully my dream job, and a team helping me run In the Posts.    If you could give one piece of advice to our readers, what would it be?  Don’t compare your chapter one to someone else’s chapter twenty. I would always compare my timing to others’ whether it be with school, career, relationships, etc... It’s crucial to find peace in your own timing. Look to others for inspiration but realize that you’re an individual with unique experiences. Keep your goals in sight and work toward them every day. The timing in your life is what’s right for you and the sooner you embrace that, the happier you’ll be.   Who is your style icon?  Celine Dion forever and always.   How do you define success?  There is no one definition or persona of what success looks like. It’s unique to each individual. To me, it means being happy with who you are, and what you do, regardless of whether you’re the head of marketing of a company or a stay-at-home mom.    What is the part of your life experience you would alter if you had the chance to? I would have done internships while I was both in high school and college. I had ideas about what I thought I wanted to do but it took me a very long time to actually figure it out - which is totally fine. As I said before, everyone’s journey is different and follows different timing.    W: IN THE POSTS: TALINE POSTAJIAN IG: @TALINE.POSTAJIAN / @INTHEPOSTS.CREATIVE