We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ashley Johnson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Ashley, appreciate you joining us today. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?
In 2020, the year of the pandemic, we were able to grow our business 112% even though we lost all of our wholesale accounts which at the time were 40% of our revenue. We immediately shifted our focus to e-commerce and completed two website updates, launched a strong email marketing campaign, and started doing Instagram Live Shopping Shows. In 2022 with the pending recession, we were able to grow our business 63%. When we launched in Nordstrom Hawaii we became the #2 bestselling eyewear brand in the store. We leaned into our partnership with Nordstrom and did a Trunk Show tour across the west coast. Even though Nordstrom was not bringing in any new eyewear brands into their stores, due to the recession, they made an exception to bring Mohala Eyewear into more stores. The more we are able to successfully grow our business, the more years of school are donated to Room to Read and the closer we get to our goal of donating 78,000 days of school.
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.
I am of mixed race and grew up in Hawaii, a place where cultures and races mix together naturally. I went to college at Santa Clara University, a segregated campus, where I often felt left out – instilling my lifelong passion for inclusivity and empathy for anyone who is not included. I’m obsessed with leveling the playing field. In Dec. 2017, I founded Mohala Eyewear an inclusive eyewear brand with 3 unique fits, various widths and adjustable frames to create the perfect fit for every woman. These custom glasses won’t slide, fall off, indent cheeks or touch lashes—and they look great, too! The film “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide” deeply impacted me as I heard the stories of rape, sex trafficking and the lack of value in educating girls globally. I set up a partnership with Room to Read to send a girl to school for each pair sold. We have donated 78,000 days of school to date. I’m passionate about impacting gender equality through girls’ education.
Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.
There are currently no eyewear factories in Hawaii and very very few in the U.S. The ones in the U.S. primarily produce their own branded products and don’t produce other brands. We researched this but could not find a viable option in the U.S. Our sunglasses are made in Shenzhen, China and we visited over 12 factories before selecting our female owned factory. We visited our factory regularly (precovid) and checked working conditions, cleanliness, and safety. The factory workers are given health insurance, room and board and are paid higher than industry standard wages.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
The Purge and Prune exercise I learned from Marie Forleo. I write down everything on my to do list a huge brain dump list of all the tasks. Then I go through the list and focus on what are the most important items that if I did them would make everything else easier or irrelevant – I write a 1 next to these items. I cross anything off the list that isn’t a priority to accomplish right away. Then I prioritize the whole list and rank each task from 1 – 5 in order of priority. Then I start tackling the 1s first. If I’m feeling burned out, scattered, unproductive or my mental health isn’t doing well I schedule some time to do an activity that sparks joy like spending one on one time with my sister, mom or a girlfriend or reading books for pleasure. I also ensure I’m exercising 4x a week in the morning before I start work. I find exercising in the morning increases my energy 100%.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://mohalaeyewear.com/
- Instagram: @mohalaeyewear
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mohalaeyewear/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC21m9zJLen8t2XzcIH0PIQQ
Image Credits
Kenna Reed (photographer)