We recently connected with Elizabeth Dansby and have shared our conversation below.
Elizabeth , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
Annét Chatoyer was founded after I (Elizabeth Dansby) sought the help of Ashley Gentry to start a business. This was the idea, to start a business. I decided I didn’t want to be a replaceable puzzle piece for someone else, but rather, after becoming a mother, I knew that my purpose in life was to be an irreplaceable piece for my own legacy. While finishing my Master’s of Business Administration degree, I was able to choose a topic for my thesis and I chose Kendra Scott. Her story intrigued me. She was a college drop out who had recently become a billionaire, she was passionate about her work and she was prideful of the legacy she built her family. It was all so relatable. At the time, I was wearing a business casual wardrobe to work everyday, and nothing made me feel more empowered, and less like just another replaceable piece for someone else’s puzzle, than a fun statement that truly showed who I was and captivated my personality. During this time Covid-19 hit the nation, and I like many others, had a choice to make. I decided to quit my corporate job and take the pandemic as an opportunity to start building my own legacy. I knew the perfect partner to help with this. Ashley’s mother had just passed from cancer, not too long before I reached out. Ashley was good at her job, as a corporate controller. She understood the financial aspects of building a business much better than I did, and she was extremely resilient. All qualities that I knew would be great assets in a partner – and she was fashionable, she knows way more about fashion and trends than I do, it’s up her ally. One day I simply sent Ashley a text message that said “do you want to start an earring company with me” she brushed the text off, thinking I wasn’t serious, but then remembered that she had purchased multiple patterns to start a fashion business earlier that same week, so my text was met with acceptance. We didn’t know what we were going to do, on a facetime she picked up a bead embellished earring and she said “we’re going to make earrings like this” I thought… there is no way. Neither one of us could sew, how in the world are we going to do this? We tried. We watched many youtube videos, invested in thread, and beads, and sequins, and needles. We spent late nights trying to complete designs, and to this day we are both the proud creators of two unfinished pairs of earrings. We knew that our making the earrings was not feasible, nor sustainable. Ashley then said, we’re going to outsource the work, and the rest is history. From there is was a snowball effect of finding the right manufacturer, researching why we should choose certain countries, what skill set do our teams have to offer, etc. We have since had designs made in four different countries, travelled to meet with our team in India, and are now expanding our teams to additional parts of the world. Each piece we make is met with extensive excitement from our customers as well as multiple sell outs and multiple reorders.
We named the company Annét Chatoyer. Annét after Ashley’s mother, an artist and every bit the fun, bold, and colorful person that Annét Chatoyer represents. As passionate as I am about building a legacy my daughter can be proud of, Ashley is equally as passionate about the legacy she is building for her mother’s memory. The name Annét is, what we feel, the perfect fit for our brand. A timeless name enveloped in sophistication. We added Chatoyer – meaning to shimmer in French, both Ashley and myself are proud of our French heritage and upbringing that played such a pivotal role in who we are to this day.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Annét Chatoyer is a statement accessories brand. Annét Chatoyer was founded in 2021 as an idea between the two owners and founders when Ashley Gentry and Elizabeth Dansby decided to take the skills they had learned building businesses for other companies and build their own. Early in the starting days, both girls decided that their company was going to be a symbolism of women empowerment. Encouraging women to have an aspect of boldness, brightness, and color is how the two remind the Annét Chatoyer community that they’ve always got someone in their corner when they add Annét Chatoyer to their wardrobe. Coming from backgrounds of finance and accounting (Ashley) and sales and marketing (Elizabeth), the two knew their specific skill sets would lead to a brand that stands out from the crowd. Taking elements from design work that they admire, Ashley and Elizabeth design all pieces in house. After researching fashion design and techniques, Ashley and Elizabeth sought out the worlds best artisans in India to have their pieces handmade. As Annét Chatoyer continues to grow, the founders continue to widen their education of varying trends, techniques, and the history behind fashion, which takes the two to many corners of the world to work with artisans who will supply the brand with top of the line framework for their products. While the brand started with the focus of earrings, the girls also continue to reach outside of their initial earring lineup and dip into other accessories such as brooches, headwear, and scarves, with each piece designed with a deep meaning of encouragement. The slow fashion approach that the two founders pride their brand on, ensures the best quality of craftsmanship as well as design exclusivity in the market.
Ashley and Elizabeth work diligently on all aspects of the brand. During the course of only one year, the pair has learned aspects of entrepreneurship head on. Raw exposure to supply chain management, as well as international business negotioations – to name a few skill sets learned along the way, has given the founders the ability to grow in ways they never would have imagined during their first year in an industry they had not mastered before entering.
During the first year of business, Annét Chatoyer has had the honor of partnering with brands like LoveShackFancy, gained exposure in all 50 states, multiple countries, received an invitation to membership in the invite only The Scout Guide community, seen features in publications such as Tidbits and The Style Blue Print, and have been honored to have been featured on both the How’d She Do That podcast as well as the So Can I podcast. The two have utilized outside resources such as their membership to The Female Founders Collective, expert advice from inside the field, connections within the LikeToKnow platform, and leveraged their time with The School of Styling to gain additional expertise knowledge on scaling and marketing.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Both Ashley and myself initially started our journey in corporate America working for firms that encouraged a culture that ultimately leads to burnout. Unfortunately, we know this is the case for many working Americans. For myself, personally, I feel like if I don’t have a sale, or a new account, or an execution of a new design – things that really can take months to accomplish, then my day, month, and week, are all failures. This isn’t true. I’ve had to learn that success ranges in many aspects and simply following up with emails may be what success looks like that day, especially for a small business that is ran by two employees. I’ve had to unlearn that trying your best is not pushing yourself to the brink of exhaustion or burnout. Not every definition of success ends with a multimillion-dollar profit at the end of year one.
How did you build your audience on social media?
The story of how we built our audience on social media is still ongoing. After learning from successes and failures with social media, we can say with certainty that each industry, each brand, each person, is going to different. There is no equation that gives you a 100% follower engagement rate. The whole process is going to be trial and error, but definitely have a plan. Invest in quality photos, don’t be afraid to use them time and time again, sit down and strategize to some degree and most importantly show up! Produce content regularly so your audience can consistently grow. With social media the “if you build it they will come” mentality can be useful. Figure out who you want to come, and give them relatable content – consistently.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.annetchatoyer.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/annetchatoyer
- Facebook: facebook.com/annetchatoyer
Image Credits
Emily Songer Photography