We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Aminna Taylor a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Aminna, appreciate you joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

I had my first son in 2020 and my second shortly after in 2021. And as a new mom, my self-esteem was at an all-time low – my body wasn’t the same and I just didn’t feel like myself.

There was a lot happening and going on around me, but I found a lot of it became manageable when I “dressed up”, particularly when I put jewelry on. I just liked how wearing jewelry made me feel and the confidence it gave me. My jewelry was a way for me to be ME – to showcase my personality and style as Aminna, not just as a mom or a wife.

However, our new family budget made finding high-quality jewelry that didn’t break me out difficult. I suffer from a nickel allergy, which makes a majority of jewelry available at large retailers an allergy trigger. And jewelry offered through e-commerce stores were expensive or often left me underwhelmed with their unboxing experience. These realizations lead to the birth of Twenty-Eight Minna.

Twenty-Eight Minna provides luxury, hypoallergenic jewelry that is affordable. We put a lot of emphasis on making sure our pieces are versatile and can withstand the many facets of our customers’ lives, while delivering the unboxing experience our customers deserve.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My passion for jewelry began in my adolescent years. When I was younger, I designed and sold handcrafted pieces at local art fairs in my hometown of Detroit. As I got older, jewelry became a way for me to express myself, and to boost my confidence and mood. I founded Twenty-Eight Minna to help women regain their individuality and identity, and to provide them a way to show their personalities while feeling confident, valued, appreciated, and empowered. As a full-time working mom of two, having accessories that are versatile and durable enough to withstand all that I do and encounter in my day is important. And being able to find jewelry like this on a budget was extremely difficult, so I decided to fill that need in the industry.

Twenty-Eight Minna provides curated and in-house designed jewelry that is high-quality, hypoallergenic, and versatile. Our jewelry pieces are made of sterling silver, stainless steel, and titanium base metals, and plated in genuine 14-karat and 18-karat gold; this is to ensure our pieces can be comfortably worn by all, even individuals with hypersensitivity to nickel, copper, and brass. Our jewelry is always packed and shipped in custom packaging to provide our valued customers with the ultimate unboxing experience.

As a small business owner, I am most proud about enhancing the diversity of the jewelry industry. Few jewelry boutiques are founded, owned, and operated by African American women, especially ones that offer luxury pieces. It is an incredible feeling to represent my community in an industry that needs more diversity.

Above all, I love that I can combine my passion for jewelry with my desire to give back and help others. I incorporated a permanent collection in Twenty-Eight Minna – the Pink and Blue Collection – as a way for me to give back to the African American community. Ten percent of the sales from the Pink and Blue Collection is donated to the Jack and Jill of America Foundation to support their various services, programs, and initiatives geared towards helping African American children and families nationwide.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

Several years ago, I used Etsy to sell various handmade items. At the time, I did not find the Etsy platform to be user friendly and I remember getting/being extremely frustrated with the amount of time it took to learn the platform and set-up my page. Additionally, there were high fees associated with selling on Etsy so my revenue after making a sale was low. After considering the cost to produce the items (my time and material costs) and how much I brought in, I decided it was not worth the time or effort.

This previous business venture failed, but when I was ready to try again with Twenty-Eight Minna, I did a lot of research on platforms, hosting sites, markets, etc. Through my research, I found a lot of larger e-commerce businesses and corporations used Shopify. Even small businesses and organizations that built websites for product-based companies recommended Shopify. Overall, I could only find good reviews about the Shopify platform and the user-interface, so I decided to build my website using Shopify. And am still using it.

Some individuals may say/think that Marketplaces like Etsy are easier because they provide an “easy” set-up and you do not have to drive customers to your page, but I disagree. Although I did not have to worry about marketing or advertising when I used Etsy, there was still a lot of competition! Being a new seller on Etsy meant I ranked very low in product searches and received little page views. So getting noticed was difficult and my sales were few and far between. Additionally, Etsy did not allow a lot of customization for page look and design. As a detail-oriented person and perfectionist, I wanted my page to look a certain way so the limitations in page personalization did not work for me.

There is a slight learning curve with Shopify, but it also provides a ton of options for customization. You can choose a theme through the Shopify Theme Store that allows you to take as much or as little control over the function, design, and look of your site as you want. And I love this! There are fees associated with Shopify (including a monthly fee just to use the platform), but I believe the fees are balanced out by the amount of control I have over my website.

To be successful, you will need to actively drive traffic to your site, regardless of the platform you use. And if I need to do the work anyway, I think it makes more sense to lead the traffic directly to my business website, than to send it to a large marketplace where potential customers can easily view and choose products offered by my competitors.

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

I enjoy designing jewelry, it is a way for me to use and explore my creative side; but I do not have the time, expertises, tools/equipment, or base materials to manufacture the pieces myself. So, I found several vendors who could manufacture my pieces and bring my designs to life.

I read online article after online article, and watched countless YouTube videos by small business owners on where and how to find good manufacturers. Many of these articles and videos also explained what they learned as they searched for their own manufacturers and, surprisingly, a lot of the information was helpful! And free!!

Before initially contacting vendors, I did not know how to manufacture my jewelry pieces; however, I learned many reputable manufacturers will take the time to explain the process. One of the most important things I learned is to always order a sample item (in every size, color, etc.). Samples are usually expensive since vendors have to make a single item, but if you are going to sale these items, you NEED to put your hands and eyes on them. The samples are a way for you to make sure the products are made the way you want and the quality accurately represents your business. Nothing is worse than ordering hundreds of pieces to find out the color is incorrect, your logo is printed backwards, or the print on your items is inconsistent.

When searching for a vendor for a particular project, I always contact more than one and compare them to one another to determine who I want to work with. Usually, I compare:
(1) the quality of the samples,
(2) the price to manufacture individual pieces,
(3) the production time,
(4) the shipping cost,
(5) shipment duration, and
(6) how easy it was to communicate with the vendor.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.28minna.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/28minna
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/28minna

Image Credits
Trevor and Ebony King of King Illustrations Jodi Long of KCCI 8 News Iowa