Real Fine Studio
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Hey, business besties. Welcome back to the Female Founder World Podcast. I'm Jasmine. I'm the host of the show, and I'm the person behind all things female found world. I'm chatting with Eliza O'Connor today. She's the founder and creative director of a jewelry rebrand called Real Fine Studio. We're filming this in la.
Eliza, welcome to the show. Hi. Thanks for having me.
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For people that dunno, real fine, what are you doing? So we're a fine jewelry band based in LA and we've been around for about three and a half coming up to four years. There's so much that I wanna get into in your story because I feel as though. There is jewelry is like a saturated market. Like I feel like there's so many jewelry brands out there. Mm-hmm. But somehow what you guys are doing is different and you are cutting through in a way that other people haven't.
And especially in the luxury market. Like, you know, when I talk to my team, the, particularly the, you know, the girls in the twenties. Like they're obsessed and they all want real fine, and it's like the brand that everyone wants now when they wanna buy something special. Look at your smile. [00:01:00] I love that for you
and I wanna know how you do that and how you did that. Take me back to the beginning. Okay. Well, I think there's a few things. I'm of the belief that there is room for everyone at the table. I think that's. A thing that I've kind of learn since living in America. I've been here for eight years. Mm. Changes your mindset, doesn't it?
It definitely does. Australia feels like a little bit more competitive and that there's not enough room, there's room for everyone. Some of my really good friends own jewelry brands. Mm-hmm. , I think for us and real fine. Being on the platforms that like our clients are on, and really directly speaking to them has been like such a big game changer. So obviously TikTok for us is huge, which I never, ever, ever would've ever thought, because to me I thought TikTok was like about selling like lower price point items like TikTok shop.
, but actually every, , majority of our engagement ring appointments come from. TikTok. This is so [00:02:00] interesting to me because I agree with you. I also, I think, , my gut reaction when I think about, oh, like a, promoting a brand on TikTok, I think a twin dollar moisturizer or Yeah. Protein powder, 200 pair of jeans at the moment.
Totally. Like that's kind of, that's where my head goes and, but then you think, okay, everyone's on TikTok including customers that are spending this. Exactly. Mm-hmm. And I think, you know, Pinterest was really the platform that. Jewelry inspiration came from and still is, but now they want that like personal connection and talking through pieces.
So I feel like TikTok, the way we use it as kind of Pinterest with voice. Interesting. Because we obviously, what do you mean? What do you mean? So, you know, when you're scrolling on Pinterest, you see a beautiful ring. Yeah. But like you read the caption, there's not a lot about it. I'm showing that like same beautiful image and then I'm speaking to the product.
So I'm like talking about the stone, where it's crafted, how we did it, the process, who the client was, [00:03:00] what the brief was, what the budget was. So I feel like it's like a buy-in to the story. Being on the platforms that our consumers and like clients are on. I feel like has made maybe us stand out a little bit more, and I think traditionally jewelry brands weren't on, weren't using social media in the way that.
It we do now. They were too precious about it. Yeah. And the feeds were very curated. Yes. I really don't like a curated feed. Yeah. , there's something about it, and that's just because purely I don't like as a consumer to buy from a brand that's super curated. Yeah. I kind of like to see the nitty gritty.
So we show a little bit of that, and I just feel like the brand is more personal. I love that. We're gonna get more into TikTok during this conversation, but I wanna share some milestones. Like what are some things that have happened over the last couple of years that you were just like, Ooh, that was a win.
Feel like our celebrity placement in like the first five months of real fine with who. So it was actually through Molly Dixon, who's an incredible stylist in [00:04:00] la. I was really lucky I met her out on a night out having drinks. , and she was like, tell me about you. What do you do? And I was like, I've just started to find jewelry brand.
And she was like, well, can you send it to me? I would love to get it on some of my clients. Molly Dixon, for those of you don't that don't know, is a huge stylist. She's known for like Sydney Sweeney, Hillary Duff, Bella Haddi. Wow. Like. Extremely, extremely incredible, , clients. So basically from that conversation, like a week later, she was styling Kami Mendez, and then that was my first placement, which was huge because in the jewelry industry, while I don't think celebrities directly convert to sales, they do verify a brand.
And I feel like that's kind of what I needed. For people online and stuff to trust the brand was a little bit of verification. , Kami Mendez, Sydney Sweeney, Scarlet Johanssen was all in like the first six months. Wow. And why is that? That's amazing. Which was pretty crazy. [00:05:00] I remember like my mom being like, wait, what's happening?
Like sending me a photo of Scarlet Johanssen? I'm like, I know. It's crazy. And I think it's 'cause I also put myself out there and. You know, I was trying to network and Yeah. Meet as many people and tell, told them what you were doing. Yeah. And for those that were interested, that was great. , so love Molly for like, taking that chance on me.
And I think it was also when Molly was like coming up , but at the time it just felt like a perfect pairing. That was a huge milestone or notable memory I have. And then probably also goop. So we have an incredible partnership with Goop.
That was the biggest game changer for us. We signed with them, well not signed, but we did our first trunk show in September of 2023. Okay. And that was a massive, massive turning point. It, again, verified us. it also directly connected us with our client, our ideal client. The [00:06:00] girl that's shopping at Goop, the husband that's coming in to find a, a jewelry gift for his wife.
Like it was really our dream partnership. So. From there, I feel like we've kind of just, everything's been like chaotic since in the early days, how were you getting your first customers? Were they coming through that TikTok content? Where was it coming through? Honestly, from, so I was in fashion for about 10 years.
Yeah. So I had a really incredible client network. They would honestly come from there in referral. So we didn't sell online till. I would say May of 2024. Oh wow. Okay. How were people finding you and ordering if you weren't Instagram? Literally like dms, this is so interesting to me.
This luxury space and people ordering through Instagram dm. Yeah. And then I would send them an invoice. So I obviously had the online store. Yeah. But we didn't have, like, maybe I sold one thing in 2022. , it was all via Instagram dms. Wow. So I wanna, I wanna back up a little [00:07:00] bit. Yeah. 'cause I wanna understand how someone becomes a jeweler.
Like this is just, I think when I think of industries that are like a little bit gate kept and feel like they'd be hard to break into, fine jewelry is one of the ones that I probably wouldn't bother touching. No, a hundred percent. How do you learn how to be a jeweler? So basically I was. Well, this is backing up a little bit, but Real Fine.
Studio first started as Real Fine People Studio. Mm-hmm. It started as a styling studio, so I started that and it was, I'd never really intended for it to be a jewelry brand ever. Through that process, I started doing custom pieces for my clients because they were sick of paying the traditional markup and jewelry, which is 500 to a thousand percent.
Wow. So they had the money there, but they didn't wanna pay the really expensive prices, which I totally get. So I started doing custom pieces. I got connected through a client to a jeweler. , and luckily [00:08:00] we're in downtown, like we're in la we have the third largest story district in the world.
We're so lucky, and I don't know if I could do this without having that here, like. That's just been a godsend. So I got connected. Once I met with that jeweler, we started working on custom pieces together, and then over the last four years I've just been introduced and introduced and it's kind of like a hierarchy.
So one of my current jewelers that I work with now is like vetted me for three years and wanted to make sure like it was gonna be a perfect match, and then he would see me there every day. And then finally we now started to work together. Wow. That is amazing. Yeah. So you literally, you just had to prove yourself for years before they would take a chance.
Yeah. 'cause it's, it's a really manual industry. Yeah. Everything's done on a handshake. Yeah. Wow. Like there's no emails, there's no, everything is written, my orders are written down on pencil, like pencil and paper, which is really hard to grasp when like everything is [00:09:00] done, you know, in today's world. Mm-hmm.
Like on email, you're selling on TikTok. Yeah. So then. It's just a different world. I wanna know how you establish, we've kind of, we've talked a little bit about it, but let's, let's like dive a little bit more deeply into this, how you establish that trust and build a brand with that high ticket luxury customer and how you cut through and reach them.
I think celebrity placement, brand partnerships, and then really refining our TikTok and Instagram strategy. Mm-hmm. , and then eventually just like, I feel like one day I woke up and I was like, okay, you're an actual brand now. You need to like stop having to like. Feel like every day you're like an imposter or trying to prove yourself.
And it was literally just like I woke up one morning and was, and had that thought sometimes I'm like, wow, that was easy. But then I think back of like the years where like, you know, the first two years of real fine. It was pretty tough and like [00:10:00] I, you know, I would go and source these vintage rings and do a find a vintage jewelry sale on Instagram and I wouldn't sell one thing and then I would be like, oh my God, this is so embarrassing.
So I would just make everything sold on Instagram. I would just say sold. Which I think also kind of like gave the look of demand mm-hmm. Before we actually had it. Yeah. And I feel like then it just came. I'm so, okay. I wanna, I wanna keep talking about the, the building, the luxury brand, but I'm really interested in this thing that you just said about how one day you just woke up and decided that you weren't gonna have imposter syndrome anymore.
Yeah. How, what do you mean? For the first two years of like building real fine, like someone would say like, I, I need a ring here in 20 minutes, and I would do everything to make that happen. Yeah. And I felt like at the end of those two years, like there was definitely traction, but I was like, exhausted. Oh my God, I feel this.
And like, you know, having to prove yourself and speak to every part of your business to get the [00:11:00] sale. Mm-hmm. After those like two years, I just like, I don't even know where the thought came from, but I was just like, you're a real brand now. , you need to start acting like that. And with that comes like boundaries, I guess with, with clients and with everyone else.
And that was kind of a hard transition because I set, I, I started real fine as such, like a, you need me at your house in 20 minutes with. Necklace options, I'll be there. I can't do that anymore because we are busy, we have structure. so I think it was just like a decision of like, not to torment myself anymore and be like, you have to do what everyone else tells you to do and like when they say it, and just, it was just a decision to step into the brand and myself as like the creative director and founder and just like, take on that role.
Mm. I love this view. That's such a different energy. Yeah. It feels good.
Was there like a revenue milestone or something that you hit that made you have that turning point where you're like, no, I'm a real brand.
I'm a real boss now? I think. [00:12:00] Basically all of last year, every month like doubled from the last month. So watching that happen, I was just like, wait, what's happening? Mm. And then we hit a million dollars in sales for last year, in end of August. Wow. Which was like a big milestone. Yeah. That I didn't really share too much just because I didn't want it to like look like.
Certain way. Yeah. But I, we did like celebrate it. Yeah. We got like 1 million balloons and like stared at them in the office. But that was great. Um, but then by the end of last year we double, like we hit 2 million. Wow. So yeah. Every month just real deal. Yeah. Apparently. I know God. This is amazing. I think it's important to share these milestones and also so that people, and like the beginning of your story so people can connect the dots backwards and be like, okay, you've started, you've like your [00:13:00] product wasn't selling and you kept going and you iterating and trying new things, and then you get to this point now where you're doing 2 million a year.
Exactly. How did you bridge that gap? Like what were the things that you changed from something not selling to now having this business is doubling every month? Like did the product change, did the branding change? Did the team change? Like what happened at the, how do we do this? Yeah. At a lot of trial and error.
Yeah. At the start, because we, we didn't have a lot of capital. I was just doing pieces that kind of were more classic. Mm-hmm. So like your tennis bracelet, your tennis necklaces. You can go out and see that across many, many brands. But I knew that we needed to be like known for a few pieces. I really wanted the like, oh my God, that's like a real fine ring, or that's real fine earrings.
Um, and that was always my like goal. So I think designing more real fine pieces, definitely, and then bringing that into the brand, like some [00:14:00] key pieces was a huge kind of like turning point. I remember just like crying one day in my jeweler's office being like, I don't like what? What else can I do? And he was like, I've been doing this for 50 years. You just have to keep going. Mm-hmm. So I would. Take a different photo of it, I would post it, I would say, on route to New York or for so and so, you know, and, and I kind of built the demand around it, which I think really helped.
Yeah. And it didn't feel great to do that. Yeah. but I think people wanna buy from a brand that's like other people have and then is doing well. And that was just, you've gotta create, you've gotta create that sense of hype. And if you don't do it, no one else is going to. Exactly. You have to your number one hype girl, a hundred percent or hype for your brand and then it's like crazy when the hype comes without you doing that anymore.
Like I feel like, oh my God, like people, people like this [00:15:00] and it, this is sold out and we are sending this many pieces. And it felt like all those like early days just like came to fruition. And obviously we still have like so much more to do. Such a long way to go. I feel like we're in a good place.
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You mentioned before about creating those, , pieces that you're known for.
Mm-hmm. And one of them is a very specific type of ring. It's called the heirloom ring. Is that right? Yeah, the heirloom signe. The heirloom signe. And this is like completely taken off and change your business. Can you tell me about it? Yes. So I first, and for the people watching on YouTube, let's like show it.
Yeah. I can't read to hold on. Here we go. [00:17:00] Yeah, they're beautiful. I'm gonna try and. So basically you can choose different colors. They come in different, um, like color on color and they have cute names. People use them for birthstone rings, um, or like they're so pretty. Gender reveal. We've been been doing Oh, cute.
Um, also college rings. But I first designed the heirloom signe in January of 2024 and the first one was the green one. Meadow. And I posted it and people loved it, but it, you know, maybe we sold a few, it didn't feel like it was like this big thing. What did they retail at? They start at 1390. Mm-hmm. And they go up to 26 90.
Okay. They're all, um, solid 14 karat gold natural stones, um, and diamonds. Beautiful natural diamonds. It kind of didn't take off. And then. I was thinking about it and I was like, maybe, I know people like an opt-in and they like a choice if they know it or they don't. It's, [00:18:00] it's just true. You wanna look at something and be like, I'll take that one.
So I remember I had a bunch done for a trunk show that we were doing and I put them all on my finger and I was like, wait, these look like insane. So I took a photo and posted it and that photo went crazy on Instagram. We then started getting a lot of orders and then so Hadley, who's our junior designer.
She was like, oh my God, I'm gonna make one for my college ring. I just graduated USC. So she made the ruby and I was like, oh, I'd never thought of doing that because you know, in Australia, what am I gonna do? Like QT colors like blue? No. Um, we don't have like that connection, I feel like, to our school. So she did that and she made a TikTok about it and she was like.
college rings are so ugly. Look at the one I've just made. It's real fines, heirloom sign. You can choose your color. Like, email me. I remember she posted it and she was like, oh my God. Her inbox was just, I think she got like 18 [00:19:00] messages. 18 emails in like four minutes. Wow. And we were all like, oh my God, what's going on?
So I think. That was like incredible from her to see her vision for that ring because it was totally different to what I thought it could have been. And then now the LM Signe has become like a college ring for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people across America. Wow. Which is pretty cool. Give me another example of a really specific post mm-hmm. That worked on TikTok that helped you sell more jewelry. Okay. Definitely I, our cool girl engagement ring, which is just a take on a classic trilogy. Brilliant round trilogy ring. Mm-hmm. I posted that ring and it kind of did well on TikTok for like the first day, and then I woke up the next day and it.
Went completely viral. I think it's got nearly 700,000 views. Wow. , and something like 15,000 saves crazy. We have [00:20:00] sold like maybe 30 of those. Wow. From that post. And it's the same email every time. It's a sweet guy that's gone. My girlfriend keeps sending me this on TikTok. I'm guessing she wants it. And they'll either say, can you let me know the specs so I can take it to a jeweler near me?
In which case I always let them know we can make it. We, we make rings for like globally, we send every day. So then usually they go with us, which is pretty cool. Like we've been sending rings like Minnesota, Mississippi, like the places I've never even been. But that TikTok, I mean, also highlighted us in the world of engagement rings.
So I try and do, every time we do an engagement ring, I try and talk to it because people are really interested. They wanna know like the details, how it looks on, does the diamond have fluorescence? Like I get into kind of the nitty gritty. But that, yeah, that post went crazy and we still, we probably get 10 inquiries a [00:21:00] day for it.
Wow. I wanna talk about funding because you're talking about jewelry that costs a lot of money to make. You are like, we designed an engagement ring and do it. Totally. And I'm looking at these and I'm like, that's like a lot of money worth of jewelry sitting on the table here. Yeah. Uh, you, so how did you get the money to start this and to grow it and to have inventory on stock to sell?
Like how do you manage that? It's taken years. Yeah. Probably to this point, I would say the past six months till we're really holding inventory. Yep. So. It's actually a fun story. I have never taken investment. I've never taken a dollar from anyone. It's completely self-funded. Good for you. Which was really important for me.
Mm-hmm. I just, I wanted to do it on my own and I probably had something to prove to myself and that's why I kind of just knuckled down on that. So I had some savings set aside and then basically. The money I got for the initial inventory is from a watch I sourced [00:22:00] in San Francisco for a client. So what we're eight months into real fine existing in the world.
My roommate, who's also a good friend from school, is a real estate agent, so she was up at a conference in San Francisco. She is at like a dinner with a CEO of a big company, real estate company, and the CEO was like, I'm trying to find this watch. It's, you know, protect Philippe, it's, I can't find it. No one can get it.
And God bless Ainsley. She was like, I know someone who can get it, because I had just started. Like going into watch sourcing as well, but like vintage Cartier. Mm-hmm. Like $6,000. Mm-hmm. Uh, watches not half a billion dollar watches. Mm-hmm. Yeah, differently. Um, so I, yeah, she was like, I, uh, I can find someone that can do it, like, gimme your email.
She'll do it on Monday. So I get like a voice note being like, Hey, I need you to get this watch. I told him You can do it. And I was like, oh, I can [00:23:00] do it. I'm like, send me it through. She sends it through and I'm like. Oh, okay. Like I can't, this is a half a million dollar, I think it retailed for 300,000 at Patek, but as you know, it's like a, it's same as Hermes.
It's like a buy-in. Mm-hmm. They're never gonna sell it without a existing profile. So I literally just googled the watch, Googled how to buy it, like you know, how many are made. I wanted to know as much as I could about the watch before I like game planned on what I was gonna do. I ended up getting connected with a watch dealer in Miami.
We found the watch, which is crazy because he'd, he'd been trying to find it. He couldn't. It took us a month. It was stressful. Very stressful. I found it. We were about to go into escrow, which by the way, I had no idea what escrow was. I was on a house. Yeah, it's usually like a large amount of money.
Yeah. So I was on the call with my watch dealer and my client. About to buckle. 'cause I was like sweating because I'd never sourced a watch, but I was a [00:24:00] watch dealer. Yeah. Um, I didn't know what I was talking about really. So they were like, oh, obviously we're gonna put this watch into escrow and I am googling on this call, like, what is escrow?
And then I was like, oh, yep, yep. Of course, of course it's going into escrow. , about, , five minutes before it was going into escrow, the, the. Uh, watch dealer said that it had been worn for like half an hour, which I'm all about being completely transparent. Mm-hmm. I let my client know he didn't want it anymore.
He wanted brand new. So back to the square one. We ended up finding it a week later in Hong Kong. Came via arm guard. I had to like fly to San Francisco and I remember being like on the plane. If you pull this off you like this, you can never doubt yourself again. Mm. And like making that a clear thought.
And I pulled it off and it went through and I used some of that money as well. It wasn't a large amount of money, but like some of it to then. Invest in [00:25:00] my first inventory. Wow. That is such a good, that's like one of the best. It's crazy getting started founding stories I've heard. Yeah. That's wild. So you used that debt, the first inventory.
Mm-hmm. And then from there, has it just been, you're reinvesting mm-hmm. Profits amazing. When did you start paying yourself? Maybe six months ago. Yeah. And I pay myself just a small amount. Yeah. Um, I, do you give yourself a salary or just like take money out when it's there? Just, I just take out. Same. Yeah.
Yeah. What do I need to live this month? Yeah. I'll text Elise and I'll be like, can you pay me? I need some money. Elise is your team member by the way? Yeah, Elise is our head of ops and like my partner and everything, she came on really early with real fine and she's incredible and definitely key player and why we are in the position we're in. I don't look at the money in like, real fines account as my money. Yeah. Which I think is healthy and helpful. Mm. Um, so there's like a clear distinction. I feel like [00:26:00] my personality and like, I love really nice things. It could have really gone the other way.
So I'm like really happy that I, I just don't, it none, nothing about it. I feel like I can touch, were you clear cut from the beginning about separating personal and business finances? Or was it a bit messier? I feel like a little bit messy to begin with. Yeah. But I was really good about getting like business bank account business credit cards.
Yeah. And then also keeping my personal just to kind of, it makes it easier with tax season. I wanna talk about some of the things that you've put in place to be able to scale this from kind of you. Mm-hmm. Pulling a couple of pieces of jewelry together and selling them on Instagram DM to where it is now.
And, and one of the things you told me about before, um, we got on the show was about, , some of the systems that you put in place, like literally last December and how that's changed things for you. Yeah. Talk me through what you've done and how people can replicate it. Yeah. There's a few things we use monday.com.
Yeah. Which is great because. Everyone's across it. Everyone can check it. When they come in. We're still like getting in [00:27:00] the, , mind frame of checking it every day. Mm-hmm. And like multiple times a day. But when, you know, at any given time we have 15 to 20 engagement rings in, that's where all the info is.
Yeah. So then instead of, you know, Elise asking me about a size, we check there just cuts down some of the fluff. Mm-hmm. Um, monday.com is great. We also use an incredible, and I don't know if this is like. A tool, but if you can get a really good Excel, Excel spreadsheet going, that kind of changed the game.
I'm embarrassed to say I recorded my, like sales on a Word document. Um, and then I met my boyfriend who is like an Excel genius and he was like, show me how you like recording your sales. And I'm like, pull up this Word document. And then I had to like manually count at the end of the month, like how much I made, which is nuts.
Um, and he built me the most incredible, incredible Excel spreadsheet. Mm-hmm. Every cost boxes, packaging, literally [00:28:00] everything you can think of. And then it pulls into like monthly. Yeah. So. If you can find someone, I think you can also outsource that and have someone make it for you. You can totally outsource that if you don't have investment banker friends.
Yeah. Like go and outsource that because it's, yeah. It's that. I even see, like me seeing that every day mm-hmm. I has like tripled what we've made. Yeah. Wow. Um, just, just being able to visualize visual. Yeah. Yeah. And like it's motivational. Yes. And like I check it every morning, every night. I see what we've made for the month.
The year where our expenses are, like it literally tracks everything. Um, and that has been a huge, huge game changer. And then what else? I'm trying to think. monday.com I use chat GBTA lot. Oh yeah. Controversial. No. Tell me about chat. GPT. How are you using it? Um, I, I, I think more women need to be adopting AI immediately.
80% of chat GPT uses are men stop, and they're mostly around the age of [00:29:00] 25. And so you think about if AI is gonna be what is shaping Yeah. The future. And it's, it's happening in the next like year or two and women are not using it and are not shaping it. Like we have to get involved immediately. Okay.
Totally. So like totally. Tell me exactly how you're using it and everyone listening, go and do it. Like, go and try it. Yeah. Chat. GBT is literally my best friend. I speak to it like I would speak to a human, so now it like obviously knows me. Mm-hmm. So, I don't know if you know this, but sign up, get an account, and then tell it about yourself, tell about your business or whatever.
And like over time it learns you. So I don't really have to prompt it that much. Mm. The way in which I use it, that is, I would recommend other people to use it, is in the morning. I'll voice note it. I have the app on my phone. Yep. And I'll brain dump everything that I have to do. Yeah. Amazing. Because there's like a so many little things.
Pick up a backing. Yeah. Drop this. I'm never gonna remember it. So I brain dump it all. And then I say to it, prioritize this list for me so [00:30:00] I know what I need to do first. And. What could wait till tomorrow if I don't get through it, and then it just does it for me. Yeah, clever. Instead of googling and searching for something, I just ask it the question.
Ring size conversions. When we're talking, like globally, like, uh, things like that when I'm shipping, , internationally, I ask for like, tariffs, tariff codes, what the, , like duties would be. I just, I use it like a pa. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. When you think about the next couple of years. How do you think about like maintaining this momentum and continuing to grow? Is that something that makes you feel excited or something that makes you feel anxious? Anxious? It keeps me up at night. , it stresses me out. I am a perfectionist. I high, I hold myself to such a high level that like.
I really want real fine to be on the up and up. Yeah. But I was even recently just back in Australia and my brother is in private [00:31:00] equity and I was talking to him about the business and he was like, you need to slow down and if you have a dip in sales for a month, it's okay, but you need to bring on some more people to help you.
Yeah. Because you need to get ahead of the curve. So like to me, making lesson than we did last month would be like a really bad thing. Mm. But he was like, you need to reframe that. Put the brakes on a little bit and hire. Do you have a business or a leadership coach? No. Like you should talk to somebody that's not Chatt PT.
Honestly, I think I should do, but just like have someone who can help you. I've got someone I'll recommend to you as. Okay. Amazing as well. Would love that. I've put her in the show notes. I've recommended her on the show a thousand times, Barbara, , that for ages and she's awesome. Just to help you like zoom out Yes.
And make a plan. Yes. And. Yeah. Rather than like us slow down to go faster later. Yes. I think that, , that would really help you. Yeah. So we kind of, that was the aim this year. , we had a pretty crazy February, so What do you mean crazy? What happened? Just really busy off the back of Valentine's Day. . We weren't [00:32:00] initially gonna do our trunk show in LA just because of the fires.
We didn't like feel like it was right. But group were like, please, like customers wanna smile and, you know. Yeah. And so we did do it and it was really successful. , now we're gearing up for New York, so we actually had, February was our second largest month we've ever had. Wow. And it was in competition with December, which is always gonna be crazy.
So the slowing down plan hasn't really kicked in yet, but we have just hired. Someone who's starting end of March. So how many of you are there now? Five. There's five of us. , which is crazy. Crazy, crazy. Crazy. And. A lesson in me, like I really have to learn to delegate and this is my time to release some control.
Mm-hmm. And I've got incredible, uh, girls working for me. So I'm excited about our team like coming together and I think the fifth edition, Nicole, who starts. It's end of this month is gonna be incredible. She has a fine jewelry background for 10 years.
Mm-hmm. Just feel like having some [00:33:00] expertise Yeah. , is just where, what we need. So I'm super excited for that. And I think from there I'm pretty happy with having a small team, bringing everyone to full time and just like. Being small but mighty. Yeah. So you've started, you started with , one person who is Elise, who was kind of like Yes.
Your two IC right hand person Yes. For everything. Yeah. Uh, and then who came next? Then we brought on Hadley, our junior designer. She started in September of, so she's designing the jewelry? Yeah, she designs with me. , she has an incredible eye, so she's great. And she's also, . 23. So she connects with Gen Z.
Yeah. Not to make myself sound so old, but like the college rings was her idea. Yeah. Like she can kind of hit that client that we weren't maybe hitting before. Yeah. And it's so important because that client, you know, in the next five years are gonna start looking at engagement rings. Mm-hmm. And we wanna be a top of mind.
Mm-hmm. So that was, , yeah. Important. So Hadley started in September [00:34:00] full-time, or a consultant? , consultant, yeah. So she's part-time. , and then Ellie is our studio assistant and like marketing. Mm-hmm. , coordinator and she started in January. Wow. So you've really gone from just you and Elise to like being this leader and manager.
Are you liking it?
I'm not the best delegator. So it's been like a bit of a struggle because I'm, I'm sometimes such a perfectionist that I would just, I'm like, I'll just do it myself. Easy to do it myself. Easy. , but that obviously can't grow that way. No, you can't. And I remind myself that every day that like, if we wanna scale and like teach people how to do, and then when I teach them and they do it, and I'm like, oh, okay.
Yeah, everything's okay. , it's exciting to have a team and like having that extra support has felt really, really good. But probably need to lean into like. Delegating a little bit more. What's your end game? I actually don't know.
I never started real fine. I don't even know what I thought it was gonna be. Mm-hmm. But I never was like, I want to start a really successful jewelry brand. [00:35:00] Never. It was, it just like kind of organically unfolded now, like obviously that I've seen the potential. I'm like, oh, I want to be a really big jewelry brand.
But like. Not in the traditional sense. Mm. I don't want you to see me at sacks and Bergdorfs and like everywhere. . I want it to be selective. So I'm just kind of like going with the flow.
I also just think that you probably are one of those people that are like a natural entrepreneur. This isn't your first business. You've had a, you had a cafe before this. Yes. And so I think some people go out to solve a specific problem.
Then there are other people who wanna be entrepreneurs and so they wanna build a business. Yeah, totally. And I feel like maybe you are the second one. Yeah, I definitely, definitely, yeah. I wanted the freedom of working for myself. Yeah. And I also just in like previous jobs, I work so hard and I treat every like brand that I've worked for as like my own.
I wanna do that for myself. Yes. I don't wanna build up [00:36:00] someone else's brand when I can give it all for myself. Yeah. And my brand. So that's kind of led me to, yeah. Keep being, I guess in businesses that I own. Eliza, thank you so much for coming on the show and congrats on everything you've built.
Thanks for having me.
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