We recently connected with Colleen Waguespack and have shared our conversation below.

Colleen, appreciate you joining us today. Do you manage your own social media?

The challenge with social media is that it is always changing and success is based on the speed of getting content up that is relevant to your current audience based on what is going on that particular day and moment culturally. Quality content that is true to your brand is important and in the case of Fig & Dove, it’s also important that we are promoting products on a daily basis that are currently in stock for the season or holiday we are promoting.

In the beginning of our business, I hired outside agencies to help with social media, but it wasn’t effective. Professional photography and content from an outside agency was cost prohibitive and often they were promoting items we had low or no stock of and the amount of communication needed too get things right took too much time away from the daily running of our business.

As iPhones and the use of filters and lighting became more sophisticated, we realizing the content we could produce in-house was equally, if not more effective because it could speak to the moment. If there was a national tragedy that day, we could move quickly to a more spiritual and uplifting post over something that seemed trite in the face of what was going on.

Today we create all of our own content, but we do use an outside agency to help with ad placement on Meta and Google which we have found to be an effective balance.

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

Fig & Dove is a luxurious collection of professionally curated home décor and gifts for all occasions, inspired by interior designer Colleen Waguespack’s deep experience and timeless style. Since 2015, we’ve collaborated with talented artisans across the country to offer beautiful, handcrafted items that complement the well-appointed home with collectible treasures.

A graduate of the LSU School of Interior Design, I began my career as a project interior designer for commercial architecture firms in Washington, D.C. After ten years; she returned to Louisiana to join the acclaimed New Orleans interior design firm, Holden & Dupuy. As clients asked me and my colleagues to decorate their homes for the holidays, she often struggled to find ready-made décor worthy of these elegant interiors. To find a better solution, I approached artisans with whom I had previously collaborated to create distinctive, high-quality items with superior materials and workmanship. Educated and discerning shoppers, I trusted, would appreciate the difference. And they did.

I introduced my first curated holiday product collection as Fig & Dove in 2015, then launched my own practice, Colleen Waguespack Interiors, in 2016. With enthusiastic customer interest and continued artisan collaborations, Fig & Dove strives to set a new standard for year-round home décor and gifting for all occasions. We’re here to help you build a new collection, add the finishing design touches, or find a unique gift that delights your recipient. With personal attention and professional expertise, our team will help you select it, style it and share it for generations.

We’re so thankful for all of our friends who’ve made Fig & Dove part of their traditions. We hope that each piece becomes a family heirloom, rich with memories and stories for years to come.

Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?

I started Fig & Dove in 2015 just in time for the first Christmas season. Our niche was high- end Christmas decorations created through the eye of an Interior Designer who wanted to create timeless Christmas decor that fit seamlessly into traditional and modern homes that you could collect and cherish year over year. We definitely hit a note that had been missed in the market and were picked up by countless national publications.

We started as a direct to consumer website, but a year later, based on the number of stores that had called inquiring about wholesale we went to market in Atlanta and sold to stores as well. Our second season at market we were able to secure large orders from Nordstrom and One Kings Lane as well as stores across the United States. At the same time I connected with another woman entrepreneur in New Jersey who told me she had invested in technology to bring the cost of manufacturing in the US down to compete with overseas prices and convinced me if I gave her all of our orders and specs based on the volume of the order she could competitively produce our products on time, on budget and keep us from having to source from three different countries which is what we had done the previous two seasons.

To make a long story short she produced nothing. She took all of the money we had in down payments plus a lot more and though we had weekly “progress calls” and they sent diligent updates, it was all false. Financially it was a disaster and emotionally it completed deflated my entrepreneurial spirit plus put my family at risk financially. It was devastating. If I hadn’t listened to basically every single How I Built This podcast and through that learned that most businesses had gone through something like this I would have folded the business. I thought through my “podcast MBA” and realized the common thread in the other businesses was that when the chips were down they found a way and kept going. And so we did.

Mentally moving on meant thinking hard about the lessons learned. What we learned from this experience is if something sounds too good to be true, it is. We didn’t tour the manufactures factory/ workroom. We took her word that what she described was legitimate. Often when your’e a start up you think you can’t afford that trip, but in hindssite you can’t afford to not take the time to do your due diligence on a big decision like this. We also have never put all of our eggs in one basket again. We manufacture multiple places. During covid, Peru shut down manufacturing, but we were still able to get plenty of product out of India.

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

We design the core “Fig & Dove” line of products, but we outsource manufacturing. We manufacture all over the US and in China, Peru and India. Whenever we introduce a new product, we start small and manufacture in the US. We also typically start a new product direct to consumer to make sure it resonates with our customers. Once we know a product will resonate with a larger audience we manufacture it overseas at a better price point in higher volume so we can get it to wholesale pricing to sell to stores.

What we have learned about sourcing is you have to look at the item and know which country produces the material that item is made of. We produce our cotton items in India, Alpaca in Peru, and acrylic in China. Sourcing is all about researching and networking. Getting to know other brands and having “brand friends” is critical because often our sources come from friends in similar but non- competing industries.

Contact Info:

• Website: figanddove.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/figanddove/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/figanddove/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fig-dove/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCILtymu6vSI_KwLJBzaWMoA
• Other: TikTok – https://www.tiktok.com/@figanddove – (@figanddove)