We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jill, Jana, Jessica Horstman, Solheid, Tarwater. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jill, Jana, Jessica below.
Jill, Jana, Jessica, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear your thoughts about family businesses.
jgoods is a mother-daughter trio so we are close to the concept of the family business! Before jgoods was what it is today, it started as a daydream between us three. Over countless cups of coffee, happy hours, and family get-togethers, the daydream that is now jgoods was born. For years we had the desire to own a business together that would center on our values and hopefully make a positive impact on those that it served. jgoods is our daydream fulfilled! The family business was not completely new to us, however, it is in our blood! Our mom/grandma owned her own small business and was an inspiration to us as we built jgoods. While being in business with family may come with its unique challenges and dynamics we see it as a gift! Any good business is grounded in shared visions, values, respect, and motivated employees working towards those shared visions and values. Being in business with family allowed us to build from an already strong foundation of respect, trust, and shared values. This benefits us as business owners as we navigate the different functions of our business. We know each other’s strengths and opportunities and can easily leverage them effectively. This also helps us when we come across a challenge or disagreement. Being family we have a mutual understanding of each other’s triggers, soft spots, and worldviews, which may shape the way we see things. While we are continuing to learn about each other and ourselves through owning our business we do have a lifetime of experience already built with one another that typically could take years of working with a co-worker to build. The fear that sometimes holds us back from being honest with co-workers is far less with family and has helped us make better decisions and maintain trust. Not only are we family we also genuinely enjoy one another and consider each other friends. This makes going to work each day feel less like work and more like fun. Something we look forward to daily! This can sometimes be a barrier, however, as our work meetings often take twice as long as we take the first, at least, 30 min catching up and connecting. Owning a business is hard yet in our experience one of the most rewarding opportunities, we feel grateful to get to do it with family!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Hi there! We are jgoods, a mother and daughter trio who share a generational belief that life’s moments, no matter how small, are meant to be celebrated! In the big moments, in the hard moments, and in the just-because moments, we believe in the power of a uniquely curated gift to make a loved one feel special, seen, & heard. We experienced this firsthand from the women in our families before us. There wasn’t a moment too small not to be celebrated or shown up for. We used this shared experience to build jgoods. jgoods emerged from the desire to create personal gifts for those who share in our joy in giving and are willing to use this joy to be a catalyst for change in their families, friendships, and communities.
We are an online gift shop but with a different approach to shopping and giving. jgoods wants you to feel as good about the gift as the receiver does. How do we do that? Through our custom Thought Tags and unique gifts that come from quality vendors that you feel good about supporting. Each purchase is wrapped with care to ensure your gift arrives as though you were there giving it in person! We are really proud to partner with vendors that are paving the way for positive changes in their communities. You can feel good about the products your gifting from jgoods and be a part of making our world brighter one gift at a time thanks to our partners. A few of our partners include Cedar & Cypress Designs. They are a Minnesota-based company that partners with independent artisans in Haiti. The goal at Cedar & Cypress is to support others through job creation. By purchasing their handcrafted jewelry you are contributing to providing sustainable employment of their artisan partners in Haiti. Another one of our partners is Feya Candle Co. Feya Candle Co. was founded by Sarah Spitsen. Sarah wanted to create a company inspired by the strong women who raised her mirroring the way they lived- by giving back to others and making the world a better place. Every candle sold provides meals to children in need around the world, every bar of soap sold one is donated to a homeless shelter, and every reed diffuser sold provides clean water to places in need around the world. One more partner we are excited about is Freedom Studios. Founded in 2020, the owner of Simply Perfect, Penny Klinedinst along with Beth Gammel and Christin Majerus felt the tug to do something more in the community. Together they created Freedom Studios to create beautiful bath and body products as well as create meaningful employment for survivors of human trafficking. Freedom Studios partnered with the Non-Profit, Call to Freedom which helps survivors by providing safe housing, counseling, and treatment in South Dakota. Freedom Studios saw that a big part of survivors’ healing was to offer meaningful employment for the women Call to Freedom assists. Each product created in the studio is lovingly made by a survivor. At jgoods we continue to seek out vendors that share our values and allow us all to be a part of making the world brighter.
Our hope is that jgoods provides a meaningful way for you to extend your hand to all the special people in your life through our inspired gifting process. We are here to help make showing up for the people in your life easier with curated gift bundles and custom gifting options.
Our curated gift bundles include products in categories that range from bath and body, baby and new mom, statement pieces like jewelry and accessories, to houseware, tea & coffee, and journals & books.
Our custom gift option allows you to collaborate with us to curate the perfect gift for your event. We will take your brand, theme, and intention for your event and help you create a thoughtful gift for your guests: Wedding favors, welcome gifts, corporate events, showers, party favors, and more. From design and product selection to wrapping and delivery, jgoods is here for you!
Meet the jgoods gals!
Wondering who thoughtfully, carefully, and lovingly wraps and sends our gifts? Meet Jill, the brain and heart behind our operations!
3 fun Jill facts:
1. Loves being Grandma to the sweetest toddler and a couple of lab pups
2. When she’s not wrapping jgoods gifts with care or finding the best high-quality products for you all you can find her up north at the family cabin or playing in the dirt of her gardens
3. Giving to Jill means, Joy
Wondering who manages the jgoods website? Meet Jess, the brain and heart behind our website design.
3 fun Jess facts:
1. Loves calling the beautiful state of Colorado home for the past couple of years
2. When she’s not keeping our website easy to navigate and a warm, welcoming place to be you can find her with her husband exploring the mountains or enjoying a local brewery
3. Giving to Jess means, connection
Wondering who brightens your social media threads and keeps you in the loop with all things jgoods? Meet Jana, the brain and heart behind our marketing!
3 fun Jana facts:
1. Loves being a Mom to one adorable yellow lab, Spud and baby boy on the way!
2. When she’s not connecting with you all on social media you can find her with her husband and pup cooking meals on their Traeger, crafting yummy cocktails, or baking a delicious treat to share with friends and family
3. Giving to Jana means, showing up
Let’s continue to show up for one another in the big, small, & in between!
Come experience joy in giving at jgoods!
Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?
When jgoods launched we started by offering curated gift bundles and build your own gift bundles. As we continued to grow and get our feet on the ground we introduced custom gifting. This was a service we were and still are really excited to offer. It allows us to connect with clients, hear their stories, and understand their values and intentions for the event they are curating a gift for. We love being a part of helping our client’s set the tone for their event. Knowing how much this service means to us, you can imagine how we felt when we received our first inquiry! The first custom gift we curated was for a corporate client for a leadership meeting they were organizing. The inquiry came with a tight deadline and a tight budget. On top of those challenges, it was also our first custom gift so the process was brand new for us. When we learned of the deadline and budget, we had to discuss if it was something we could take on. We wanted to make sure if we said yes, we would be able to deliver. We decided to take on the client and were determined to provide a meaningful experience for our client with the outcome being a gift they were excited to give their employees. We took a moment to celebrate and went right to work. Due to the tight deadline, we had about 24 hours to take the theme and intention of the meeting and find products that aligned that would also be delivered in time for the meeting. We worked off of adrenaline, each vendor’s response guaranteeing they could get the product to us in time was our fuel. Our pulse raced for a week straight anxiously anticipating each product delivery. In the end, after a couple of close calls, all products arrived just in time for us to wrap and deliver. It was the busiest few days but the end product was something we were really proud of being a part of. The appreciation from the client was worth it! We also learned so much about the custom gifting process and have been able to grow since that first client. We think back on that experience to remind us of the reward that can come from calculated risks, to not shy away from hard work, it will be worth it, and that each new opportunity is a gift because it means it’s an opportunity to learn and grow!
Any advice for managing a team?
Being a new, small business, we have experienced the highs and lows of getting our business off the ground (and still are!). Failure comes with the territory of owning your own business. This can be challenging to navigate and impact morale. We have been intentional about how we maintain high morale as a team/business. One strategy that has had the biggest impact is reframing. Since we are an e-commerce store, we attend community events/pop-ups throughout the year to connect in person with our customers. While we have financial goals for these events, we have learned to reframe and also place focus on non-financial goals for the events to maintain our motivation and morale. Some goal examples include: Connecting with each customer that comes to our display, meeting at least one new fellow business owner who is also at the event, passing out at least 5 business cards, or asking a returning customer about their experience with our business. While these goals aren’t focused on the profit they are valuable and contribute to the long-term success of our business and morale. These goals also ground us in our purpose, bringing our focus back to the customer experience, and how jgoods is providing a meaningful way for others to extend a hand to all the special people in their life. Since jgoods believes that all of life’s moments are meant to be celebrated, we take time to create these goals, reflect on them and celebrate them. This practice has helped us maintain high morale and motivation.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://jgoodsgifts.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/j_goods_gifts/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jgoodsgifts
- Other: Email: [email protected]