We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Meredith Quill a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Meredith, thanks for taking the time to share your stories 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.
I had been making jewelry for years, mostly for myself and close friends. After my third child went off to preschool, I needed a way to feel productive and creative, so I started a small jewelry line out of my kitchen. I beaded bracelets and put together pieces that my friends and friends of friends all loved. After about a year of selling out of my house, I set up an Etsy shop and started selling jewelry to a wider customer base. After 5 or so years of selling on Etsy, Alli Webb (Dryer founder/Shark Tank Shark!/entrepreneur) received one of my necklaces as a gift and posted it on Instagram. I sent her a thank you message and we started chatting about jewelry and how I ran my teeny, tiny business. Alli had a lot of thoughts on how to scale the business, which all sounded great to me, and like nothing I had ever thought about doing. It took a few months to hammer out the details of our partnership, but together we created Becket + Quill, and we’ve slowly been growing the business. We took the business off of Etsy and moved it to Shopify, created a new website, rebranded the packaging, and built out the collection. We are entering our third holiday season, and we have learned so much over the last few years. The biggest mistake I made was not finding the joy in the process, which is the best lesson Alli taught me. I was not great at customer service at first, but I learned that patience and kindness win people over every single time. Also, we spent too much money on packaging- one of my biggest regrets! But we have streamlined our packaging, which is better for us as a business, for the customer, and for the planet. We are still figuring out how to grow BQ in the very saturated market of jewelry, but we’ve learned that making jewelry that we love, with very affordable pricing, will be our ticket to success.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I have been making jewelry since I was a teenager, and come from a family of passionate jewelry lovers. The reason I started making jewelry again as an adult was because I was priced out of the jewelry market. I couldn’t find cute pieces that fit my budget, which was very small, and I always loved giving jewelry as gifts. So I started a company that makes affordable, beautiful jewelry, that is perfect for gifting. I love helping customers figure out the perfect piece for themselves or someone who needs a little sparkle. I design all of our jewelry, but I also answer every single customer email, and package every piece of jewelry, so I’m deeply involved in the process top to bottom. We make almost every piece in the collection in downtown Los Angeles, so we have a very quick turnaround. And I love the challenge of last minute gifting!!
Have you ever had to pivot?
We started our business as direct to consumer only, during covid, and at that time, online sales were great. Everyone was at home shopping online so having a DTC business was ideal. But as the world opened up, and people were leaving their houses to shop in person, our online sales took a big hit. At first, I was adamant about not doing wholesale, because I thought we would have to raise our prices, which I was unwilling to do. But my very smart business partner convinced me that we needed outside revenue to keep our business running. So we started reaching out to stores to carry Becket + Quill, and we have had a great response. We have greatly expanded our customer base by having jewelry in stores across the country, which in turn increases our online sales. That was a big shift for me, as I only intended to sell our pieces online, but seeing our sales grow from store partners has been really great. And I learned a valuable lesson that you cannot be married to your ideas! You have to be flexible when you start a business, and listen to people who have experience in creating other successful businesses, like my partner Alli Webb.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
The initial capital for my business was a few hundred dollars that was left in my bank account from residual checks for old acting jobs. I went downtown and bought a bunch of beads and started stringing jewelry in my kitchen. I didn’t have any sales channels, I would just walk around wearing the jewelry and people would ask me where I got the necklace or bracelet I was wearing. I would say “I made it- it’s for sale” and they would buy it off of me. That is how I kept my business running – selling what I had on hand. Cut to a few years later, and a mom at my kids’ school asked me to make necklaces for party favors for her birthday. One of the guests at her birthday was Alli Webb, who had started many successful businesses, and she loved the necklace, and the price point at which I was selling my jewelry. Over the next few months we talked about starting a new version of my little jewelry business, and she invested in what is now knows as Becket + Quill. So Alli’s investment really catapulted me into a whole new world and took my baby business and made it into what is it today.
Contact Info:
- Website: becketandquill.com
- Instagram: @becketandquill
- Facebook: becketandquill
Image Credits
Cam Webb & Andrea Rell