Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Geneve Hargitt. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Geneve , appreciate you joining us today. Quality control is a challenge almost every entrepreneur has had to focus on when growing – any advice, stories or insight around how to best ensure quality is maintained as your business scales?

In the jewelry industry (handmade or manufactured) I have found that as there is growth, quality can sometimes suffer or be the biggest challenge. This is especially true if you sell gold products, as the cost of gold has tripled in the last 10 years. I’ve seen some companies hike prices beyond what’s affordable. I think part of what sets us apart is that we are handmaking our items and can really focus on what we can do and control within our resources, helping us maintain quality jewelry that is affordable.

One of our most important values within the company is to create ultra high quality pieces that last through daily wear. We don’t just focus on trendy items or making things inexpensive (though our products are affordable of course), but rather continuing to better each product as time goes on.

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?

My name is Geneve, I’m a mother of 3 girls and founder of Seaflowerjewelry.
I actually started Seaflowerjewelry while at home with my eldest daughter.
At the time I was spending time making a very different style of jewelry and I found that no matter what I did, after a few wears the jewelry would turn or tarnish and I started searching for something that lasted.

I found out about Gold Fill and from there created pieces with 14k Fill or Sterling silver, which at the time really only existed at some department stores (and for 10x the cost too).
I started sources precious and semi-precious gems and incorporating those into my designs and customers realized after a few wears that there was something different. Regardless of showering or gym workouts, our pieces look the same! to me that’s so important, because if you’re going to use materials like emerald + opals and so on, they should be set into something that lasts too. It’s better for the environment and bypasses the concept of buying something for the right now trends. Our products are more sustainable.
What also makes us different is that everything is handmade locally. I have a small team and we really love what we do.

We get genuinely so excited for our customers when they create a new layered necklace look, bracelet stack or solitaire ring custom made just for them in their size. We are not making things in bulk and having it sit in a warehouse somewhere. We are real people hand making pieces for our amazing customers one at a time.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I think as a business owner you really find out what you’re made of. There’s definitely always stops, setbacks, and so on. But what I have found to be the biggest challenge is actually more of a mental thing, friends or certain close persons not believing in the mission or what growth can happen.

The first step always always starts within yourself and I am nearly 100% self taught in the industry.

I’ve always been into creating things from scratch but I just didn’t know what I could accomplish if I just kept going.
The best thing I’ve ever done is just not give up when things got hard, and that’s really part of being resilient and being successful.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

So when I started it really started off small, it was more of a hobby or just seeing how things went while at home with my first child. A family member heard me mention I wanted to start making jewelry and they handed me some cash (not much it was less that $100) and that is what funded some basic materials.
I sold some things to friends and found a local store that started carrying some pieces of mine and every time I made some money I just kept reinvesting the small amounts of money back in. It took much longer to build and grow but at the time that worked best for me as I was home full time with my kids and I really valued that time while they were still young. We’ve pretty much grown 1.5x each year and plan to continue in that way! We are so thankful for our local community and customers.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://seaflowerjewelry.com/
• Instagram: https://www.etsy.com/shop/Seaflowerjewelry

Image Credits

Aubrey Stock Photography