We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Coast Collective Started by: Lindsay Wotherspoon and Kaci Myhra a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Coast Collective, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

We do custom gifting in our area with a focus on supporting local businesses and local goods. We have a found a niche in the real estate and lending sector, as this area tends to be lagging in creativity with their client gifting. From real estate friends and colleagues we’ve continued to hear the typical closing gift was a bottle of wine or a gift card. Many agents wanted to give something more personal, but didn’t have the time or lacked ideas. We realized this was a great niche for our curated gifting, as we are able to work with individual agents and lenders to create memorable and unique gifts to each of their clients.

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

We started Coast Collective in 2023 as a fun side hustle and a way to channel our creativity and love of gift giving. We met in 2016 when we both moved to the West Suburbs of Chicago. We had similar career backgrounds, both recently leaving our corporate pharma and medical sales positions. Kaci moved from Seattle and Lindsay had moved from Boston, and even thought we came from opposite coasts (hence our company name) we had so much in common and quickly formed a friendship. Fast forward through 8 years, new babies and houses, and our dream to start a business came to fruition.

Our passion for gift giving, great customer service, and supporting local businesses is the reason we started Coast Collective. What began as creating Valentine’s Day boxes for friends, moved into custom baskets and boxes for special occasions, then the real estate and lending sector.

In our research and working with clients, we find that everyone wants to give the “perfect” gift, but doesn’t have the time or knowledge of what makes a great gift. We are able to work with our clients to understand the recipient and occasion for the gift and curate something that is unique, meaningful, and beautiful. Working with local vendors to include their items in our baskets is something we strive to do with every gift. With most of our customers being in the West Suburbs, providing a local touch is a way for them to connect with their community. The addition of greenery and/or fresh flowers to gifts is our special touch, as we feel the addition of something ‘living’ truly makes the gift feel fresh and custom.

As we continue to grow Coast Collective, we look forward to working with clients in the greater Chicago area and meeting the needs of our customers. We all know how wonderful that feeling of giving an incredible gift can be, and our goal is to always provide that heartwarming feeling to every occasion.

“In gifting others we lift ourselves.” -Anonymous

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

The upside of starting a gifting business is that there was little overhead or capital to get started. With only 2 partners, we were able to put in our own money(about $1k each) to start the LLC, create marketing materials, and purchasing inventory. It’s been about a year and we have been able to run the business out of our homes, utilizing guest bedrooms and closet space for all the supplies. We are hopeful that one day we will be big enough to have our own office space, and potentially look for investors to our custom gifting business.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Referrals! We’ve started to grow by asking satisfied customers if we could provide our service to people in their network. We are finding that it has been an avenue of consistent growth over the last few months. We have also used these customers to provide us with any and all feedback, we are finding it to be such a gift to have them in our corner to help us improve and grow.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @coastgifts
• Other: email coastcollectiveinc@gmail.com