We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Erin Dragoo. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Erin below.

Erin, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

Prior to Lunch Money, I was always the one behind the scenes. I was working with other small businesses to create their logos, build their brands, and help them tell their stories through social media. On top of that, I was also selling jewelry and helping my mother-in-law create and maintain the shop of her dreams. I would find myself up at all hours of the night updating her inventory, reworking her displays, and creating her social media content. And while I absolutely loved the work I was doing, after four years, I guess I finally decided that I was ready to be in the spotlight, tell my own story, and start doing things for myself.

So, the idea for Lunch Money struck around July 2021. For about a month, it floated around my head as just another idea; until I started talking about it with a friend, who encouraged me to follow through with it.

Over the next few weeks, I created an entire brand board outlining every aspect of Lunch Money; I made the logo and the color palette, designed the business cards, picked out what bags and tissue paper I would use, wrote out the mission statement, brand story, and what would set me apart from other retailers, and I even put together a photo lineup of what I imagined my first round of inventory would be. I also researched the demographics and the psychographics of Chandler to determine if Lunch Money would be a good fit for the area.

When I was done with branding and research, I printed it all off, and took the idea to my husband, who was incredibly supportive. With his background in finance, he walked me through what it would take to open a business, and how much I would need to start. We went and opened a Lunch Money business account at the bank, and I put in all the money I had saved up from selling jewelry and the projects I did for other small businesses, and my husband gave me some seed money to start, as well.

Then I had to do all of the boring legal stuff — I registered my business with the city, did all the tax stuff, spoke with accountants and insurance companies, and made sure I was ready to get my business off the ground.

With all that behind me, it was finally time to find a space. I already knew exactly what I wanted for Lunch Money’s home, so this might have been the most challenging part of the entire process. I had strict criteria: it had to be within five miles from my house, it had to be in a modern, well-kept shopping center, and it had to be small. I know I was a total nightmare of a client. In a month and a half, I fired one realtor, and turned down at least six spaces. But, when I saw that space in the Watermark Plaza, I knew immediately it was the one. That was Lunch Money.

I had my realtor reach out to the landlord. With no prior business experience of my own, and only a journalism degree, I was afraid that he would turn me down. Luckily, I had already done all of my research and branding, so I sent that over to try and nudge him in the right direction. After a few emails back and forth, and a couple of phone calls, he finally decided that he was going to take a chance on Lunch Money! I remember feeling so elated. Months of searching and waiting were finally over.

That was at the beginning of December 2021. I had an opening date set for February 1, 2022 and we still had renovations to do. I gave the contractors the paint color and the tile that I wanted for the space, and I remember a funny phone call with the property manager where she asked me if I was sure that’s what I wanted. I assured her that I was, and the renovations went on all through December. I got the keys to the space on January 1, 2022.

This was crunch time; I only had a month until my grand opening! I drew my floor plan on a little piece of paper, and I mapped out how I wanted the store to look, which came in handy when I was ordering furniture. All throughout December, I had been ordering everything I needed to fill the space: inventory, tables, clothing racks, bookshelves, mannequins, chairs, curtains, my flower wall, my checkout counter, my couch, etc. Most of the furniture came in these huge boxes, unassembled. We rented a U-Haul to bring all of the boxes to the store. The next week, my step-dad drove up from Tucson to help me unbox all of the furniture, put it together and place it according to my little drawing.

Once the furniture was all set up, I took the next week to set up all of the inventory, and I opened my doors on February 1!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Lunch Money is not just a quirky place to shop, it’s an experience. From the moment you walk in, you’ll be delightfully overwhelmed by the excess of color (especially pink) and the uniqueness of items. The most difficult question that I have to answer is, “What do you sell?” I sell a little bit of everything. To give you an example, I sell disco ball charms for your rear-view mirror, celebrity prayer candles, smiley face slippers, handmade clay earrings, bright clothes, cow print rolling papers, sweary mugs, pink dollar sign pillows, rainbow paper machè giraffe head wall mounts — see what I mean? You just can’t define that.

If I did have to define it, though, I suppose I would classify as a gift shop. And, as such, I do offer free gift wrapping and free gift suggestions, as I know navigating through the sea of items can be a bit taxing. Gift giving is one of my love languages, so I take pride in knowing that people can walk in to my store not having a clue what to get for their friends or family, and walk out with a beautiful, fully wrapped, ready-to-go present that they’re excited to give.

The name Lunch Money comes from the me that I remember from high school. Every Monday, my mom used to give me $20 to use on lunch for the week. But, instead of using it to buy lunch, I would take it to the mall after school and spend it on silly little trinkets and accessories. So, my store is filled with things that I would spend my lunch money on.

It took me a long time to discover what I was meant to do. I started doing hair when I was 18 years old, and stayed on that path until I was 22. I wasn’t happy with what I was doing, so my husband convinced me to quit my job and go back to college. I took my time in community college to explore different passions, but the one that I liked the most was my Communications class. After a lot of research, I enrolled in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and graduated in 2019 with a Bachelor’s degree. My emphasis was in Public Relations, and I had learned a lot about branding, social media and web design — so after graduation, I formed my own little brand, and I helped small businesses by designing their logos, strategizing their social media and creating their websites.

Throughout this time, however, I was also working with my mother-in-law at her boutique. I started off by helping her with branding. I created her logo, her color palette, her website, helped her narrow down her niche audience, and posted to her social media. Over time, I wanted to become more involved, so I started selling jewelry at her boutique. From there, I started to help with creating displays, and helping customers — more in-store work. Finally, I realized that I enjoyed what I was doing at her boutique more than I enjoyed my web design and social media business. So, I quit, and worked with my mother-in-law full time. I did this for another year and a half until I decided that I wanted a little store of my own; something that reflected my personality. Thus, Lunch Money was born.

There were a lot of twists and turns to get to where I am now, but I look back and realize that everything I did lead me here. My time as a hairdresser taught me color theory, which I use frequently in my store displays and fashion advice. My time at Walter Cronkite taught me how to have a cohesive brand, tell my story, design my own website, keep up with my social media, and how to research my audience. And my time at my mother-in-law’s store taught me everything I know about what it takes to run a business, how to create eye-catching displays, and how to order inventory.

So, if you’re reading this, and you don’t yet know what you want to do with your life: take it from me, you still have plenty of time. Keep trying things. Don’t give up.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

I’ve found that word of mouth has been the best advertising for me. Social media is wonderful, but that’s an avenue wherein you control the narrative; it’s not as authentic to me. When you give customers an amazing experience, more often than not, they can’t wait to tell people about it. I ask people how they found me when they come in, and I would say about 70% of them heard about my store from a friend.

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

To be honest, I think opening Lunch Money in Chandler was a huge risk in itself. During my brainstorming and research, I asked myself several times why a store like mine doesn’t exist here — is it because it’s a bad idea? Is it because the demographics in Chandler would perhaps be offended by some of my more raunchy products? Chandler is kind of known to be a safe, quiet city that’s ideal for young families. I had so many people suggest that I open my store in Tempe, as my product selection more mirrored the tastes of college kids. But I was firm on my location, and decided that I would take the risk.

Now I’m coming up on a year of being open, and I’m so glad I did. The Chandler community has embraced Lunch Money, and they love all of my offensive, sweary products. The moral of the story, I suppose, is not to judge a book by its cover. Go with your gut.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.lunchmoney.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lunchmoneyaz/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lunchmoneyaz
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/lunch-money-chandler