We recently connected with Rick Rose and have shared our conversation below.
Rick, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?
Each decision we make in our lives leads us to this moment. I came to LA in 1999 to be Superman; I literally had the goal to play Superman and I took an opportunity with a job in television production to get to LA. Once I was here, I did anything I could to build a career in film and television, with that end goal of getting the chance to audition for the Man of Steel.
Bankrolling that dream required earning a living to survive. I worked jobs in production and did some extra work. I was a contestant on a dating show. I started a theater company and took acting classes. I landed a role in the biggest movie made to that date, and found representation. I continued auditioning and took roles where I got them, paid or not. I acted in industrials, animation voice work and I worked on student films.
On one of those student films, I had a co-star who was starting to design jewelry. She had designed her first piece; a pair of earrings. Seizing that opportunity, we built a company off that first piece of jewelry. Those earrings ended up on Cameron Diaz in the movie Vanilla Sky (2001). That singular piece sold well and we took some of the money being made to develop the next earring design.
I never imagined I would be starting a jewelry business and I frankly didn’t know where to start. Working through the governmental regulations, we also figured out where to source materials and find manufacturers. Then began the real education; Jewelry 101: a crash course on metals, stones and processes.
Within the first year of business, this cycle happened with the first five designs. We earned editorial features, celebrities would wear the designs and the sales followed. So did wholesale accounts. We had a few designs (with a couple different variations) and we started selling to stores in the US. Learning the wholesale fulfillment process with major retailers was an on the fly lesson. Make one mistake and the entire order could be rejected. Getting that experience was especially key when we were approached to sell in Japan, with a whole set of different business practices.
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?
In our second year of business, we decided to open a retail store, with our company partnering with an outside partner. The original concept was jewelry (us) and estate furniture (partner). Once again, starting from the ground up we did the work to figure out how to operate a retail store.
After opening, it quickly became clear that jewelry should be the main focus. While we had a jewelry design business and our designs were at the forefront of leading this retail concept, we also curated other designers to build a multi-brand collective. We adapted, added E-com and continued to build a retail brand. After four years, the ownership balance wasn’t productive and we bought out our partner. At this point, we rebranded and Roseark was born.
It was also at this point that I began formally designing. Through the process of building the jewelry line, my partner designed the jewelry while I handled production and the business end. I had spent those six years figuring out how to make the designs work technically and how to best bring them to market. I started the Roseark Jewelry line, which really took off with the introduction of the Roseark Sideways Cross Necklace, and also began handling the majority of special order designs.
When I met my wife, Kayla, she was a celebrity stylist with great individual style. She quickly starting working with Roseark and had some great ideas for designs including her first design, the Easton Necklace (named for our daughter). She’s grown into a tremendous designer, as well as bringing some needed balance to our company. We bought out my other founding partner and, together, Kayla and I have been taking Roseark in new and exciting directions.
I remain the only founding partner of Roseark still in control of the company. Roseark has been built into a brand that can sustain through ownership changes, trends, market fluctuations, natural disasters, global financial disasters and pandemics.
Have you ever had to pivot?
Owning a business requires the ability to bob and weave; pivoting is essential. Sometimes the pivot works. Sometimes there has to be a pivot off the pivot. It is essential to try and the struggle ultimately drives one forward. Roseark has been built through years of pivoting. I’d say the biggest pivots have come when it became clear that the company required a change in leadership in order to continue forward.
When the ownership group of the initial retail concept was no longer able to see a path forward, we pivoted to buy the partner out. Since the name of the retail brand was a combination of our company name and her company name, as part of the negotiation, she wanted a requirement to rebrand the retail business. The rebrand was a scary proposition because we had spent five years in the marketplace with that name. It was a big ask on the way out.
As we further negotiated, I realized how directly the name of the business was tied to my two co-founders. They had been the public faces; almost as though those two people were the brand. If one half of that identity was no longer going to be part of the business, it only made sense to rebrand. More importantly, I decided the new brand needed to be identifiable as itself. We are designers of jewelry and a multi-brand jewelry store. A person could not be the brand. This was the only way I could see to build a new brand in an ever changing marketplace.
So we pivoted and set down the road of imagining a new brand. It was 2007 and the internet was still in its relative infancy – especially as far as speed and accessibility. Ecom was ever growing and the domain was a key component. I wanted a single word for the brand and a word that did not associate with anything specific. The fewer the letters in the word the easier to type into the URL. My family name is Rose and I felt that was a good starting point. After a number of were tested, one name emerged.
Roseark
Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?
The initial financiers of our company were little plastic cards from whichever banks I had credit cards with. We have taken loans from family, a key friend and large financial institutions. We have never had an injection of capital or an outside financial partner. We have boot strapped this company from the start. Our clients are the patrons of our art and we rely on sales to keep our vision moving forward.
There is an incredible feeling when those sales are free flowing. The airy, almost soaring nature is intoxicating. Everything seems possible and the future appears bright. And then there are certain times of year, or during natural disasters and financial market turmoil, where sales slow and it is easy to have the opposite emotion in the grind of it.
When you live and die by the sale, or by the rising and falling numbers on the bank ledger, there will be moments where everything seems challenging and hope can wain. Those are the moments that try a business, a partnership and in my case, a marriage. Those are the moments where displays of real metal actually can further bonds and create a better future.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://roseark.com
- Instagram: @roseark
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/roseark
- Linkedin: @roseark
- Twitter: @roseark
