We recently connected with Jessica Handelman and have shared our conversation below.

Jessica, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? The world needs to hear more realistic, actionable stories about this critical part of the business building journey. Tell us your scaling up story – bring us along so we can understand what it was like making the decisions you had, implementing the strategies/tactics etc.

I am still actively working on scaling our business, but Instagram has been a huge help in getting our name out beyond our immediate circle of friends. We’ve also attended a ton of local events and handed out business cards wherever we could.

We also implemented a referral program to give people incentives to tell their friends and family. We’re fortunate to have a few really key clients who have actively promoted our bridal business.

Jessica, 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 am the founder of Jessica Jewellery, an online boutique of feminine and classic fine jewelry with a modern twist, based in Toronto, Canada.

I grew up in the wholesale gold and diamond industry, as the daughter of one of Canada’s premier wholesale distributors. With my eye for trends and my inside connection to the gold and diamond global supply chain, I saw an opportunity to disrupt the industry by offering excellent pricing on beautiful merchandise directly to the consumer with the exclusive service of a luxury concierge.

Jessica Jewellery began as a small Toronto-based business in 2015, initially as a favor to help friends with their special purchases. Since then, my business has scaled to become a global online boutique of fine jewelry, while still specializing in exclusive bridal and fine design.

Before starting Jessica Jewellery, I worked at my family’s wholesale jewelry manufacturing office, and later spent five years working at the Bank of Montreal in the Wealth Management and Investment division. I graduated from the Rotman School of Business at the University of Toronto, with honors, and a major in Business Strategy and a minor in Finance and Economics.

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

My business is self funded. I used my personal savings to make gradual investments in the business at a slow and steady pace. Because I have a finance background, my investments were/are very calculated and I managed to keep my overhead very low by having an agile business model,

Since all the capital is literally my own, I have and still do put in a lot of thought behind each major investment decision including but not limited to inventory, rental space, packaging etc.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

Yes! I started this business as a side hustle to see where it could go while I was working in banking. Once I reached a “full time” status (aka I was working full time hours during evenings/weekends), then I felt ready to commit to this job as my main career.

One key milestone was building a website which facilitated an increase in orders, with no limitation. I built my website on my own, kept it very low budget, but very professional so it took a while.

Getting some influencer content was helpful in boosting my social media presence but I was not exactly ready for the scale it brought (i.e. my website wasn’t live yet). I attended a ton of events and forced myself out my comfort zone by literally asking people for business and to give me a chance at showcasing my collection to them.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jessicajewellery.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jessica.jewellery/

Image Credits
Robins Nest