We had the good fortune of connecting with Sophie & Izzy Uwins and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Sophie & Izzy, can you talk to us a bit about the social impact of your business?
We believe that our products, particularly our hero product, The Annotator, makes student life easier and more efficient. We found that having stationery tools specifically designed by students for students is a unique void we can fill.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Our journey started at school. We were forever switching between pencils and highlighters when annotating textbooks. One day we came up with a simple hack to combine them, by taping a highlighter to a pencil. Soon we noticed our friends started doing the same thing.

When we showed our parents, they went to get us a real product that would do the same thing. But they quickly found that none existed. So we decided to design one ourselves and start a business: SOZY Pencils and The Annotator were born.

We love to design and create new products and so proud our products are sold in 50+ stores Nationwide.

It wasn’t easy and still isn’t. But, we do the best we can with the time we have outside of school. When we are selling in-person at Trade Shows, we are on fire and typically get the most orders from buyers. It’s so exciting. But, it’s really hard to market our products online, if we aren’t in-person.

One of the biggest challenges we faced was getting the prototype right. There were times we wanted to give up but we stuck with it as we really believed in our product. Then, getting The Annotator manufactured during pandemic was even harder as most manufacturers wanted to make masks, not pencils. Finally, getting the colors exact on the metallic lines was hard and it took over 1 year to master it. We were just patient and didn’t give up.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Here is the exact itinerary we just did with our best friend who was in town from London visiting: -Casual walk with our dog in the morning
-Check out some sample sales
-Picnic at Manhattan Beach with Chinese Chicken Salad from Joan’s on 3rd
-Volleyball on the beach
-Go into unique stores, like Annabelle’s Book Club in Studio City
-Walk around Century City Mall and get a boba from Wushiland
-Movie
-Late night swim
-Ice Cream at Salt & Straw / McConnell’s

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
HAYLEY ANTONIAN PRESIDENT | FOUNDER SCENARIO PR
818-398-4718
Hayley.Antonian@scenariopr.com

Lori Caden
COO & Co-Founder, Caden Concepts, Belly Bandit and proof.
lori@cadenconcepts.com

Website: https://www.sozypencils.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sozypencils/

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