Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Laurel Ryan. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Laurel thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights 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.

When I first started out making jewelry it was only supposed to be for friends and family. After some encouragement from my family I decided to start an Instagram to see if I could turn it into a business. This meant making a website and taking tons of product photos. Every day I would spend an hour and go through and like photos based off hashtags if whoever posted looked like they were in my target market. This helped grow my account from a few followers to a few hundred followers. One day I got a message from a shop asking if I offered wholesale. It wasn’t an option that I had thought about exploring but since the opportunity arose I decided to take it. After making up a line sheet to send to her I emailed about 50 local stores my line sheet and a bit about my business. After my first year, I was in over 25 stores. Since then I have continued to grow wholesale by signing up for wholesale websites like Faire and Abound which has helped expand my reach, by going to wholesale shows on the East Coast, and by continuing to email stores. Doing the wholesale shows took a big investment. The first show I planned to go to I spent $3,000 on a booth space but a few months before the show I realized I was not going to have the help I needed. I reached out to the company and they refused to refund my money. Being such a small business that was really a hard blow. Taking the risk on another show was scary but worth it. On the retail side, I have been continuing to scale by going to local events and doing pop-ups to help build brand awareness. These have been a crucial way to not only scale sales but also scale my offerings. Being able to get direct feedback from customers on what they want to see is huge. That has helped me figure out where to expand collections and where to add on completely new products like my new laser engraved homeware items. Being in business is all about rolling with the punches and going with the flow. Being flexible to grow with the opportunities that arise is huge but it doesn’t happen over night which I think a lot of people get frustrated with.

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 started making jewelry when I moved to Cape Cod in 2016. I was new to the area so I picked it up as a hobby to keep me busy. After making items for family and friends I decided to see if I could turn it into a business. 6 years later Nautically Northern can now be found in over 250 stores across the country.

Nautically Northern started as a line of hand-stamped jewelry. Our jewelry items are designed to help bring a little piece of someone’s journey to the surface where they can see it, feel it, and share it with others. Recently we expanded into laser-engraved homeware items as well.

The custom items I make can evoke really strong emotions. Sometimes when people pick up their order they start to cry. Being able to make something that means so much to someone is what drives me. I have been able to meet so many amazing people and hear so many great stories it makes all the sleepless nights and hard work worth it.
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How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

When I first started out I was really focused on jewelry. I had no other plans on expanding into anything else. After doing a few wholesale shows I recognized a pattern. People would either stop in or walk by and mention the booth and product were nice but they just didn’t sell jewelry in their store. After multiple comments like this, I decided to start asking what kind of store they had. The most common response was a kitchenware store. In order to start capturing those sales I decided to purchase a laser engraver. This was a large purchase that was totally different from anything that I had done before. It was a big learning curve and required a bunch of new inventory that I didn’t have. Once I launched the line it was all worth it. The feedback was amazing and it has really helped scale the business into a whole new market.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

One of the things that I think has helped build my reputation in my market is by putting myself out there. I try to be transparent about the brand online showing my personal life, behind-the-scenes work, and business struggles. I also am also usually at every show and every event. When I am at events or just answering messages I make sure I always take the time to make sure the customer gets what they want. I am always happy to do custom work if that is what it takes to make the customer happy. Some of those custom ideas have even become permanent offerings. Showing people that there is a human behind the company has really helped build my reputation.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.nauticallynorthern.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nauticallynorthern/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NauticallyNorthern