We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful RACHEL MIFFLIN & KAREN VICK. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with RACHEL MIFFLIN & below.
RACHEL MIFFLIN &, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?
4 months ago the ladies of MKT found out that the retail store front they had been renting was being sold. At the time Karen and Rachel were extremely worried about the future of their company and what path their business should take. After a lot of deliberation and prayer the ladies decided to completely shift gears. In April 2023, MKT Clothing Co moved to a new warehouse location and closed their retail store front. The ladies now operate as a website only boutique with select pop up events hosted in their newly renovated warehouse space. They have gone back to their “roots” as a boutique vendor as well as continued to share their cute products during their live sales and curated website. The ladies are excited for the future and for the opportunities this new business model will provide!
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
MKT Clothing was founded by best friends Karen and Rachel in 2017. At the time Karen owned an ice cream shop and Rachel owned a wedding gown store. The ladies have always loved finding new creative outlets and they were specifically looking for a new project that they could do together. Rachel has a major in Fashion Merchandising and Marketing and Karen has always been known for her love of design and décor. So they decided to combine their passions and open a clothing pop up shop within the ice cream shop.
The best friends decided to dedicate MKT Clothing Co. to providing modern, affordable fashion for women.
Shortly after the ladies founded MKT Clothing Co. Karen found out that her husband, Tony, was diagnosed with ALS. After becoming his sole caregiver, Karen decided that she could no longer run her ice cream shop. The ladies had a tough decision to make about the future of the pop up clothing boutique. They decided that between the two of them and some amazing employees they could make the leap of faith to branch out to their own storefront. Now 6 years later, the ladies have never looked back!
Founded as a creative and therapeutic outlet for two friends who were in need of some positive energy. What started out as our “happy place” has now turned into an nationwide clothing boutique. Shop online or in-person, either way these two best friends will be doing a high five with every purchase.
Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?
We were very fortunate in funding and starting our business. When Rachel started her bridal shop, Ivory & Lace, she went about securing an SBA loan. She had to pitch her business idea and get approved by the bank. When Karen started her ice cream shop she completely self funded the project from waitressing and saving her money. Since MKT Clothing Co. was started as a pop up shop inside the ice cream shop we didn’t have to worry about overhead costs. We each wrote a check to our new company, MKT Clothing Co. for $500 and then used that money to purchase our first shipment of clothing inventory. After than initial round of inventory, we were able to sell enough merchandise to help fund the move to our own location!
We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.
We have been friends since high school (almost 20 years ago eek!). We both attended a small rural school called Crest Ridge in Centerview, MO. As cheesy as it sounds, we realized just how well we worked together when we became co-captains of our high school cheerleading squad. Since then we have developed numerous projects and business models together. We are very much are the ying to each other’s yang. No matter what gets thrown our way, we have always said that together, we can do anything.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.mktclothing.com
- Instagram: @mktclothingco
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mktclothing
- Other: Follow Karen’s journey as a caregiver to her husband with ALS on instagram and tik tok – @thekaregiver