We recently connected with Michelle Castelloe and have shared our conversation below.
Michelle, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?
This is a story about the risk of leaving a well-paying job with health benefits, while being married to a creative, self-employed husband and a mother of four daughters, to become my own boss and run a small business. There is no guarantee of salary, no health benefits, no guaranteed success, only hopes, dreams and strategy.
My entire life I knew I wanted to be some sort of Shopkeeper. Whether it would be a retail store or some sort of community-centric, customer facing business, I wanted it. All of my jobs that I felt most successful (by success I mean happiest) at were customer service focused. I felt least successful behind a desk. My whole life I knew that. Through all my different careers: working in retail, being a flight attendant, going back to work in retail, and then moving up the corporate retail ladder only to find myself behind a desk again. I just wasn’t happy. No amount of money or security could make time away from my family “worth it” coupled with a challenging work partnership, I knew I needed a change.
In January 2015, I remember talking to my husband and saying “I need to do something that makes me happy and it’s time for me to own my own business in our community”. With his support, in January 2015, we started looking into the future to what would become Moxie Mercantile. We went and talked to local business owners to see if they knew of anyone selling a building or with any retail space to rent. That led us to meeting Betty Mims, an integral woman for the start of our brand. It took eight months for Betty to come around to let us rent-to-own her once successful bridal shop, which had essentially been closed for a few years by then. Betty was 82 when we met and she was adamant that her property wouldn’t be bought by a developer who would tear it down.
By August 2015, she had finally signed a lease for two years with a clause for us to buy the building in 2017. I held focus groups all that summer, and I met more people in the community where I had already lived for 12 years. I shared my inspiration for the store, which was essentially finding independent artists and local makers who didn’t have a place for their wares, but also had a level of sophistication that I appreciated in their efforts and their art. The focus groups weighed in on examples of candles that I loved, handmade jewelry I found during my travels, and art in all forms, but also opened the door for more connections through each person’s network. Through these focus groups we narrowed down our search of product offerings and then, through the buying experience, I realized how important it was for me to be buying products that were also giving back to humanity. I didn’t recognize that off the bat, but once I started diving deeper into the “whys” behind brands, I found another passion to incorporate into Moxie. I realized that giving back was important to me (insert new hashtag #retailforpurpose) and it became part of our core values within the first a year and a half or two years.
We opened Moxie Mercantile in October 2015 while I was still working for Anthropologie. I legally researched any implications that owning/operating my own retail shop might have on my current job and came up clear. My goal was to walk away from Anthropologie in 2017 when I could buy the building that Moxie was housed in. 2017 came and went. I bought the building but was too scared to deplete my family of the “security” that was money. I struggled through almost two more years of double working, raising kids, being a wife, sister, daughter…none of which I was doing really well. In 2019, I took the final phase of my risk and left the corporate lifestyle behind. Have I looked back? Sure. Do I regret it? Not one bit. Only regret that fear kept me in an unhappy place for so long. Do I make the same money? Not even close. Is my life richer because of it? 10000%.
Michelle, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Hello! My name is Michelle Castelloe. I am (in simple terms) the owner/operator of Moxie Mercantile, a community-centric gift boutique based in Charlotte, NC with locations also in Matthews, NC and Fort Mill, SC. I also own Betty by Moxie Mercantile which shares a community in Charlotte with our original location, but focuses on clothing and kids primarily. A couple of my other ventures include Moxie Huddle: a consultant brand I created to help creative business owners understand their value and Stay Moxie: an airbnb experience based on if Moxie Mercantile were a home.
That being said, I am a wife and mother first. I have been married for 20 years to a wonderful, creative musician named Clifton. I have four daughters, Isabella (19), Lucy (17), Vivian (14) and Violet (just about 11). We have lived in Charlotte for 21 years. Before Charlotte, I lived in Santa Barbara, CA where I met Clifton.
I grew up in Westford, MA in a blue collar neighborhood. My mom was a cosmetologist. My dad was a floor supervisor at a factory. I have one brother who I adore. My parent’s divorced when I was 10. I grew up rather quickly in the 80s being a latch-key kid. Spent the summers with my grandparents and cousins. We all lived so close to each other back then.
I went to University of NH and majored in Sociology and Criminal Justice. I thought I wanted to be in forensics or some sort of legal support for victims. But here I am. Somehow I managed to get through four years of college while being 100% financially responsible for it. I worked retail all through college, multiple jobs at the same time. I thrived in being busy all the time.
How did I get to where I am now? After college I worked in a restaurant and retail at the same time. I almost got married and stuck in that time warp…but then I got a job as a flight attendant. It got me away from my home town (hard to do on a waitress salary) and forced me out of my comfort zone. I was admittedly running away from MA/NH and found myself based in San Francisco at 24 years old and loving life. I was free!! ha ha. Being a flight attendant was so fun at the time. I had no responsibilities other than bills. I traveled the world and saw places that I likely would never have seen on my own. I met people from all over the place and fell in love with CA. Eventually I moved down to Santa Barbara with a flight attendant friend. It was a time of life! whew. Those days were something!!! I met my now husband there in 1999. We dated, moved in together, life got expensive, so I picked up a second job in retail! Always went back to retail! I relied on retail during the period after 9/11, as fear grounded me. I took at voluntary furlough from the airline and worked full time in retail locally in Santa Barbara.
Eventually, Clifton and I got engaged and moved back east to NC. I was still employed by the airline, but started working in retail here. I was a store manager for a cosmetic brand, then moved into working for Anthropologie at the store level in 2005. Those beginning days at Anthro were so wonderful. It was like being your own business owner without the stress of the actual business (so I thought). We had lots of autonomy to run our stores as we needed based on our communities. The best part? The brand was growing and my hard word was getting recognized. Shortly after I had my second daughter, I got a promotion to Store Manager. Fast forward to my third daughter, I got a promotion to Senior Visual Manager…and then fast forward to 2013 and after baby #4 I became a Regional Visual Manager. Recognize a pattern here?!? Well…I was done having kids. What did that mean for my career? Ha Ha.
In 2015, I found myself in a very challenging working partnership. I knew I needed to make a change and that is when I settled on starting my own business. I wanted to see the people in the community again. I wanted to impact customers and see their smiling faces. So…with every child (Moxie is my 5th baby!) came a promotion. Eventually the entire business restructured at Anthro. I became a Brand Director and was overseeing millions in sales from Maryland to Miami. It was a lot! I was traveling all the time. I missed my kids and my husband and I was overall mentally exhausted trying to be all the things…until I wasn’t. A restructure came yet again in 2019 and it was my turn to go. YAY! ha ha. I was torn though. I knew I wanted to be my own boss, be free to make business decisions, but I had put 14 years into this brand and supported its growth from 70 stores to 225. It was both emotionally exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. I worked closely with a life coach to support me in this leap. Which really was to focus on fear of not having “enough”.
Now, I am able to do all the things that fill my cup! I spend loads of time with my kids and husband. I am as busy as I choose to be (by nature I like to be busy). I work closely with my community through philanthropic efforts supported by the sales at Moxie. I give back every day, with every purchase made at the shops, to so many different causes. I have friends who became integral employees and employees who have become family. I have watched customers grow their families and it all just feels right. As a community, the Moxie families celebrate together, grieve together and grow together. It’s all I could have imagined and more. This is likely why people tell us we are “different” from other boutiques in the area and something we are so proud of. Recently, I won an award from the LGBTQ+ chamber of North and South Carolina as “Ally Professional of the Year.” This recognition isn’t something that typically comes to small boutique owners, but it proves that when you have your heart in your business, you can fill your heart with gratitude.
Sorry—this is a lot!
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
Authenticity. I laugh, I cry, I get overwhelmed, I solve problems and sometimes create them. I am human. I am honest to a fault, but kind. I’m not going to lie, my work history at Anthropologie gave me some street cred, even though I never wanted it to. I used to intentionally not tell people where I worked because it would open up a can of worms with questions and I never wanted to burst their bubble of excitement to tell them my experience. That being said, I actually never used my 14 years experience to boost myself in the eyes of my community. At this point, most people don’t even know my history and while it formed some of the business sense I have, it also formed some of the “how I don’t want to be” things that I practice every day.
Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?
I don’t recommend this in hindsight, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do! To open Moxie, I used my personal cash funding of 10k that I had saved. 10K of business credit, 10k of personal credit and then 5K cash that my best friend put up so I could actually have bags for people to put merchandise in. I ran out of money in the inventory/upfit phase and didn’t have enough for packaging materials. My father also pitched in 5k for the upfit of the storefront which included refinishing floors and painting walls. When I ran out of money I pulled the bandaid off and opened the doors quietly to all the people who came to my focus groups. This generated enough to start paying back some debt and get up geared up for a grand opening about a month later.
You see, I still manage a ton of financial fears. Always afraid I won’t have enough money to pay my people (hasn’t happened yet in 8 years), afraid of owing anyone money (hence the reason I used credit cards…the plastic feels less personal) and afraid of asking anyone for money.
I actuality, my business plan was telling me I needed about 75k to get off the ground, but I did it with less! I love the challenge of beating a budget!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.moxiemercantile.com
- Instagram: @moxiemercantile, @bettybymoxie, @moxiehuddle
- Facebook: moxie mercantile, betty by moxie
- Linkedin: michelle castelloe