We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jamie Donaldson Ashley Hess. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jamie Donaldson below.
Jamie Donaldson, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you happier as a business owner? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job?
Owning our own business has been unbelievably rewarding. I don’t think we could ever go back to a regular job after running our own storefront. Having the freedom to work side by side with a friend while positively impacting our community has been one of the best outcomes of opening shop. We have learned a lot about ourselves along the way and have grown tons over the past year and a half. If there is one lesson we could pass on to others it would be to just jump in and get started. Whether you are ready or not the hardest step is the first one.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
Ashley and I own a local home decor shop in St Joseph called Juniper Lane. Our shop opened up in March of 2021 and we have been growing ever since! The downtown and Frederick area of St Joseph has really grown a ton over the past few years and we have loved being a part of that growth. Shopping local and from small businesses has been important to us since before we opened so to be able to open our own store and provide our customers with a unique shopping opportunity has been fun. We offer a wide variety of home decor items as well as interior design services. Our shop hosts pop- ups and seasonal events and we also reset the store seasonally so our inventory is always ever changing.
Have you ever had to pivot?
During the beginning of our business our initial concept was to be a pop up shop only. After looking into storefronts we were finding that the available buildings rent were more then we could afford and we were concerned with the amount of time a storefront would take. We both have young kiddos and spending time with our families was a priority we both agreed needed to be number one. We developed our initial plan and bought a small amount of inventory to get started with the hopes of growing our inventory as the business grew. As we looked into areas for us to pop up we ran into a lot of issues ranging from getting people to call us back, to finding businesses that would allow us to pop up for a short time, etc. After lots of unreturned calls and being told no we got a few events for Fall and Christmas under our belts.
The events were major successes and our customer feed back was better then we could imagine. But after each event we begin to realize the amount of time and energy it took to load, prep, and break down these events. We begin to think our initial plan was not going to be as great as we had hoped and knew we needed to adjust our plans.
Shortly after the holidays we came across a building that had become available and the property was something we couldn’t pass up. 1 year and a half later we could not be happier that we decided to take the leap and open the storefront.
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
Creating a shopping experience that is relaxing and fun has been big for us. We have always loved the feeling of small town shops and the unique products you can find in them. This has been a big focus for us and our store since we opened. We want customers to come in and have a good time, find fun and unique items, and leave feeling like they want to come back. Our events and open houses focus on this as well. From seasonal transformations, to collaborations with other local shops and artists, and free snacks and drinks during events we love making it an experience for our customers to enjoy.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://juniperlanehome.square.site
- Instagram: @juiperlne
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/juniperlne/