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

Jordan, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Almost every entrepreneur we know has considered donating a portion of their sales to an organization or cause – how did you make the decision of whether to donate? We’d love to hear the backstory if you’re open to sharing the details.

$5 of every product purchased at jojorings.com is donated to charity. Our charity partner changes every 2 months.

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?

JoJo Rings is a jewelry brand that upcycles old keys into unique, one-of-a-kind jewelry. We started with just rings, and now we’ve also added wraps (which can be worn as bracelets, necklaces and anklets) and chain necklaces.

The brand was born when I made my first few rings out of keys from my late-grandmothers’ house— special keys to me. I then realized that everyone has a special connection to a key. It could be your first car, house, or keys to a special place— like mine.

JoJo Rings is based on 3 guiding principles: individuality, sustainability, and social good. Our products are all essentially one-of-a-kind just like all of our customers. We want you to embrace what make you unique. All our products are made with recycled key which would otherwise we left to landfills. And lastly, we donate $5 of every product purchased to charity. I am very passionate about giving back, so when I started the brand, I knew I wanted to have some sort of donation aspect.

Two things stand out to me that I really love about the brand. 1. We love making custom rings for people. It’s so much fun getting to hear the story behind someone’s special key and even better giving them a final product of something they truly cherish. And 2. I couldn’t be more grateful for all of the amazing people and organizations we’ve gotten to know and work with through our nonprofit partnerships. We also love giving our customers the ability to feel good about their purchase because they know a portion is donated to a better cause.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

We love getting the chance for potential customers to see our rings in person, so attending trade shows was a really big part of the expansion of our brand when we were first starting out. Through the trade shows, we were able to get our rings and wraps into boutiques and gift stores so that customers could see them in person. I think it’s a huge difference seeing our rings in person and trying them on each finger. Many times, people don’t even know their ring size, so it’s much easier and more fun for people to try them on in-person and touching and feeling the product versus ordering online. The ‘experience’ is definitely important to people loving our brand.

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

A really important part of building the business from the very beginning was manufacturing. Obtaining a patent was really important to me when we first launched. Once we were able to manufacture our products the right way, and efficiently, I worked very hard on the patent side of things. It took about 2 years, but I can happily say that protecting our concept of key rings was a big part of our brand!

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.jojorings.com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/jojo_rings
• Facebook: Facebook.com/jojo.rings