Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jessica Thornton. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Jessica , thanks for joining us today. So, let’s imagine that you were advising someone who wanted to start something similar to you and they asked you what you would do differently in the startup-process knowing what you know now. How would you respond?
If I had to start completely over from scratch I would do way more research. Everything I have now I’ve learned it by researching and I’m still learning along the way. I believe if I focused on trying to obtain a grant for my business to assist me with my supplies and inventory my business would of sky rocketed, probably not right out the gate but having the right materials in order definitely could of helped me.
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?
I’m Jessica owner of Dress with Jess. I became interested in becoming my own boss in 2020 when Covid hit. I sell women clothing and teddy bear slippers. I started off just doing pop up shops to sell my items. Over the years I’ve grown and really put a lot into my business. I’ve created a website and now my customers can now know exactly what I have in stock by just shopping and browsing my website. There’s a lot of competition in the boutique world, however my business stands out because I make sure I carry the hottest fashion pieces and have competitive prices. I’m proud of myself because I work on my business frequently nothing is ever perfect to me. My website for example, I created it all by myself and there’s still things I’m learning with that , but if I pay someone else to do it I’ll never learn how to do it myself.
Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?
In the beginning I used vendors from China. Using vendors from China are always hit and miss due to quality of clothing. I used to order bulks of clothing and test the clothes first before selling them. Now since I have my LLC and sellers permit I now use US based wholesalers with better quality clothing. My business stands out because not everyone can provide good quality clothing for a good price, but I can.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
So I’ve built my audience one social media platform at a time. I went from zero followers to 1k followers on all of my business platforms all except instagram. That is the last platform I’m currently working on. One thing I’ve been doing is following suggested accounts who have similar interests in things I post. Also, hashtags help out as well for others to find you and follow you. TikTok is a great platform, I’ve had several strangers reach out to me from tiktok regarding Dress with Jess. It’s an amazing feeling when this happens! I encourage my customers to tag me after they’ve purchased from me to also gain new followers from their friends. Also I’ve been creating more content this really helps.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://dresswithjess.bigcartel.com/
Image Credits
The black set I’m wearing in my personal picture is a set from my collection