We recently connected with Kristin Rehkamp and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Kristin thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
La Vie Est Belle was founded in 2021 to raise awareness and be a resource for families experiencing youth mental health challenges. After our daughter experienced a mental health crisis in 2020, we found ourselves wanting to help other families on the same journey and raise awareness for children.
Writing became my therapeutic outlet and led to a blog on our store’s website (shoplavie.co). A uniquely raw and poignant look into a mother’s journey with youth mental health, it provides a voice that is not heard elsewhere. That collection of blogs has been turned into a book, entitled “Finding Us: A Mother’s Memoir of Braving Mental Illness with Her Young Daughter”, published fall 2022.
Creating a gift boutique rooted in the foundation of inspiring beautiful living allowed me to fulfill a lifelong dream. With a background in interior design and retail, I had long envisioned my own boutique featuring unique and beautiful items. With the need to be home with our daughter and a high-level corporate career no longer realistic, the opportunity presented itself and La Vie Est Belle gift boutique (online and brick-n-mortar in Lake Elmo MN) was formed. With the foundation that a percentage of net profits are donated to youth mental health initiatives, La Vie Est Belle is a gift boutique that gives back.
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 background and context?
La Vie Est Belle is a gift boutique rooted in the foundation of inspiring beautiful living and thoughtful gifting while making a difference.
We pride ourselves on providing personalized gifting solutions for all occasions. Every package is beautifully gift wrapped, includes a hand-written card. We also offer complimentary doorstep delivery in the St. Croix Valley area of Minnesota and affordable shipping throughout the continental United States. We are your one-stop gifting solution for all the holidays, wedding, baby, get well, thinking of you, new home…etc.
In addition, it is important to us at La Vie Est Belle to support other woman-owned businesses and local artists. Other than DEMDACO and Creative Co-Op, all other product in the store is unique and handmade by women, young girls and local artists we admire.
La Vie Est Belle hopes to be so much more than a simple retailer. We found and designed a retail space intended for “gathering”. A place for women, young women, families and our community to find joy, simply be, not over-think or over-plan…a place to gather, laugh, inspire, and find peace in the crazy busy of life. We host weekly events/classes with our local artists and allow our community to use our store at no cost to gather and celebrate.
We have been humbled with a number of local (and national) awards and recognition in our short three years (one year with a brick-n-mortar). It is an honor and so darn fun to know and serve our community with so many other admirable small businesses!
If you have multiple revenue streams in your business, would you mind opening up about what those streams are and how they fit together?
The greatest advice I have for any and all small business owners is to diversify your revenue streams and go-to-market strategies or approach. I would not ever recommend leaning into one and only revenue stream – risk is too great. I am a small retailer in Lake Elmo, MN. We are one of the fastest growing communities in Minnesota, but we were until very recently the only retailer. Risk and opportunity were and are both great. Relying on customers “through the door” was simply too risky for a non-tourist community with one retailer – we are not currently a weekend or shopping destination. For that reason, we came into the market with a strong mission/story, well-developed and tested ecommerce platform, brick-n-mortar store, and community events or gathering space. With different and multiple revenue streams we managed to turn a profit the first year of our brick-n-mortar store. In addition, the different revenue streams drive different go-to-market strategies or approaches. Sometimes we are talking about new product, another moment we are sharing a note about our mission or a difference we made, tomorrow we might share a new event we are offering or a private group we recently hosted for a local baby shower…. maybe it was a gift basket we recently did for a local builder to give to a new homeowner, or an upcoming promotion or collaboration with other local businesses.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
I did not have the capital to start my business. I had a powerful relationship I will forever be grateful for. At the time we wanted to start our business, our daughter was struggling with her mental health. She had multiple hospital stays. We helped one local youth mental health hospital raise dollars, design and prototype a beautiful 16″ Giving Bear by DEMDACO to be given to all youth admitted. A beautiful bear with a note from one child to another – a child that had previously stayed at the hospital letting another child know they are not alone, to be brave, and know they are loved. I reached out to my partners at DEMDACO and asked if they would take a risk with a mom who wanted to start a little online gift boutique called “La Vie Est Belle” in 2021. They said “yes”. I bought my first 30 products. I sold a product, would buy a product, sell two products, and buy two products…etc. Three years later we continue to expand, proud of our small accomplishments and forward momentum. Our greatest asset (our capital) has always been and will continue to be our relationships. Small businesses are never successful without the support of community and other small businesses/relationships. We are always stronger together.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://shoplavie.co/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lavieestbellegiftshop
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lavieestbellegiftshop
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/la-vie-est-belle-llc
Image Credits
Chelsea Madsen Images and Rachel DesJardins Photography