We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Allyssa Woodford Sisters a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Allyssa, thanks for joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
In 2016 my sister, Amy, asked me to figure out how to make a locket that has both a high-quality image inside of it, and is protected from wear and tear. She had been looking for one for years while traveling the world as a model,. but could never find the company doing it the way she had in mind. I’ve always loved making jewelry, and we were already running our photography business together, so it felt aligned to solve this problem for her.
I figured it out through a lot of trial and error, and eventually we started offering our first line to our photo clients.
In late 2017 we launched The Locket Sisters from the kitchen table of our childhood home. I still remember the first orders coming in, one in particular from Michigan, and thinking, “How do they know we exist??”
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
Before this work, I managed programs in the non-profit world. Specifically, I worked with kids who were at-risk of being pulled from their homes for abuse, neglect, and abuses of power by the systems that make these decisions in Denver, Colorado. From there I went to more hopeful work, connecting kids with mentors from the community. After that I managed an after-school program in St. Paul, MN, and then was promoted to oversee all of the volunteer programs in the largest affordable-housing organization in the Midwest.
I loved that work! I love the non-profit world. But something deep within me told me it wasn’t my long-term trajectory. I left that work after my daughter was born in 2014. I knew my sister and I were going to start a photograph business, but I had no idea I’d end up where I am today. I’m often stunned thinking back to how brave I was to make that leap.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
We funded our work in the beginning by keeping our cost-of-living really low, and re-investing profits over and over and over until there was finally enough for a reasonable wage, then enough for a good salary, then enough to hire more people. Essentially, I didn’t make any money for the first five years of business. Now, I make significantly more than I made in my previous career.
How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.
Our lockets are exclusively available online directly through a website we built ourselves. We don’t sell through any other platforms. For a while we partnered with UnCommon Goods, but realized that there are benefits within our platform that allow us to connect with the customer’s reasons for wanting a locket, for wanting to hold a locket close to their heart, that are important to our creative process. We make space in each order for our customers to share about who will be receiving the locket they’re ordering, and to tell us about the photos they’ve chosen, too. It’s so moving to read such intimate details about their lives, to connect with their humanity, to be connected for a short period with their connections.
That energy that we put into each piece, that reflection upon each person’s reason for ordering in the first place, is something our customers can feel when they receive the finished piece. And because it’s become an essential part of our work, it feels more aligned to keep our process on our website.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://thelocketsisters.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thelocketsisters/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thelocketsisters
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@locketsisters1436
- Other: https://www.pinterest.com/thelocketsisters/_created/
Image Credits
Images credits to Woodford Sisters Photography and Genuinely Jo