We were lucky to catch up with Jasmine Meade recently and have shared our conversation below.
Jasmine, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?
Appcycled, as a brand, was really born by accident. I had a friend getting married, and wanted to gift her a special personalized jacket, but didn’t want to use all new materials. I’ve always been on the environmentally conscious side, so reducing waste when I’m making things is important to me. The first jacket got a lot of love, so I took on a few more commissions. From there I created a facebook group to share my current projects just with family or friends who were interested in what I was up to. A few months in to that the group had grown to over 1,000 people and I had a long list of commissions I was working on.
A friend reached out that summer and asked if I would be interested in participating in the local farmers market. I expanded my products to be able to have some things ready for sale instead of solely commissions and set up. I did a couple other pop ups that summer. At one of the farmers markets a family friend came up to me and mentioned opening up a brick and mortar store in our downtown area. This was pretty far from where I envisioned the brand going any time soon, but looked in to her recommendation, and sure enough I could see a path to get the brand to the next level pretty quickly.
By the end of that summer I had a location locked down, and was building up inventory for the grand opening. We did a grand opening in October, 8 months after the brand was born.
As I’m typing this we have been officially opened as a brick and mortar for a year and 8 months. In that time we have certainly grown. We have become somewhat of a community hub; hosting comedy nights, poetry slams, assorted pop ups, food trucks, and so many more events. We have expanded our offerings from just upcycles vintage, streetwear, second hand finds, homewares, and are lucky enough to be able to feature some other local artists and artisans. Though we have grown and shifted, we still remained commited to our original vision of sustainability, conscious consumption, and highlighting appalachian people of every kind.
Jasmine, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I have always been a creative and environmentally conscious person, so I think the fact that I’ve created a brand centering around eco conscious creations and ideals is no surprise. Appcycled was born from upcycles. For those unfamiliar, the word upcycle means “reuse (discarded objects or material) in such a way as to create a product of higher quality or value than the original.” We take this idea and apply it to second hand or discarded fabrics and garments in order to reduce waste.
It doesn’t take much research to find staggering numbers surrounding the amount of textile and garment industry waste we are creating currently. Even our donated clothing and items most likely end up going to a landfill in less than a year. Taking this problem and finding a creative and still desireable solution is the core of our vision.
We have grown a lot to include other brands, types of clothing, homeware, artisan makes, but everything still falls under that umbrella vision of sustainability and protecting and celebrating our Appalachian roots.
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
I started my venture in to the business world very inexperienced. I didn’t exactly comprehend how to get loans, and wasn’t really interested in starting out behind anyway. I started very small and out of my home. As I grew each month I would just put the last month’s earnings in to new inventory or materials. By using this method I was able to scale up with no debt, though it may have been a little slower than the typical route of securing a loan.
There were definitely times when the ground felt a lot shakier because of this, so I’m not sure if it’s something I can recommend for everyone, but it worked for us! And it allowed us to not have to worry about loan payments in our overhead, and allowed us to become fully profitable quicker.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
The biggest lesson for me to unlearn, and I’m still working on this today, is to stop glamorizing the grind. We all hear if you have that entrepreneurial spirit or want to be a business owner that it isn’t 9-5, its all day, or it isn’t 40 hours, its all hours, or you don’t run a business, it runs you. All of these sentiments are a sure fire way to ensure you’re burnt out and maybe not even that successful. Especially if you’re not firing with all pistons because you are burnt out and tired.
When you’re running your own business its easy to go in early, stay late, and bring it home. The biggest lesson to take away is to set firm boundaries with yourself from the beginning. This way there is always a self care safety net to bring you back and ground you in to why you started this venture in the first place.
Contact Info:
- Website: appcycledky.myshopify.com
- Instagram: @appcycledky
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/appcycledky
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCibC-iwikzBwFcppHASM1DA