We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jolene Kraus a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jolene, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Ben and I lived in San Fransisco and went to a friends house where we noticed her chandelier and asked where she got it. She said that she ordered the parts online and made it herself. A year later, we moved to Los Angeles where Ben is between TV shows (he’s working in production at the time), and he makes a light fixture to sell on Craigslist for extra income. It sold fast, so he made another one and another one. Since they were selling fairly quickly locally, we decided to create a brand, make it a legit business and sell them nationwide. We started on Etsy but also designed a website and Instagram. This was when Instagram was just starting, and I saw a contest where Emily Henderson and several other bloggers had created a hashtag for a competition with Domino Magazine to get featured by submitting a photo of your home. We submitted one, got accepted into the contest and that helped launch our business. At the time there was maybe one other company making lights similar to ours so we knew we were onto something. Several years later I had a gut feeling to add hardware to our portfolio and posted some prototypes on our Instagram. That’s when Sarah Sherman Samuel reached out to us and asked if we would be interested in a collaboration. Of course we said yes, and the rest is history!

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.

I am an Interior Designer by education and experience. I have been in the design world for nearly 20 years, which includes Commercial, Hospitality, Residential and even Television design. Ben went to school for Film and Production and worked in Reality TV when we met. Together we have Park Studio. At Park Studio we design and manufacturer lighting, hardware and furniture, sold to designers and direct to consumer. We are so proud to say that we started at the kitchen table and have been able to successfully create a brand that has been specified by amazing and talented Designers and Architects. We are a small business, and everything is manufactured in Los Angeles and Dallas so we can proudly say our product is made in the USA.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

We have always been self funded. I worked several jobs in the very beginning to be able to support Ben going full time with Park Studio.

Do you sell on your site, or do you use a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc?

We started our business selling on Etsy. After working with Etsy for several years, we felt like their fees were really digging into our profit (which then just made us have to raise our prices), so we are fully direct to consumer / designer through our own website. We also tried affiliate marketing through Shareasale, but that was also challenging for us to have enough margin in our pricing, but keep reasonable prices. Our current struggle is the price of metal continuing to increase along with our vendors pricing.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.parkstudiola.com
• Instagram: @parkstudio_la
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/parkstudiola
• Twitter: @parkstudio_la
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@park___studio?_t=8fzEyuKa6vb&_r=1

Image Credits
Ben & Jolene Photo – Lauren Bauer Photography Dining Room with Large 2 Brass shades pendant – Dluxcreative The rest of the images Ben Kraus took