We recently connected with Sara Shaul and have shared our conversation below.

Sara, appreciate you joining us today. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?

When I first started, I was a one woman show juggling motherhood and trying to build a fine jewelry business as a side hustle to my 9-5. Fast forward a few years and I now run a seven figure E-commerce company together with my husband and a growing team of incredible people.

My scaling process was threefold.

I first examined all the processes in the business and optimized them to be as efficient as possible. This step was crucial because I didn’t want to scale without having the infrastructure to support it. For example, I implemented a new SKU system to better keep track of inventory, created a photo database where all images and videos could be located and used with ease for promotional content, and started documenting in great detail all the steps involved in the fulfillment and customer service processes so that I could eventually pass these roles on to new hires.

Second, I looked at what was already working and increased its exposure. I made all best selling items available on additional third-party platforms as well as built our own website to expand our reach.

And finally, I used our existing strategy to provide additional value with expanding into other products and categories within fine jewelry. We pride ourselves on providing the highest quality fine jewelry at honest prices so we won’t branch out into different product types until we can provide that same quality and competitive price point. I’m happy to say we were able to do just that with multiple new product types.

Sara, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My parents are refugees who came to the United States in hopes of a better life for their family. I grew up watching how they built a successful business in the jewelry industry despite all odds and their story of perseverance is really what inspired my entrepreneurial spirit.

Growing up in the jewelry industry, I noticed how retail brick and mortar stores inflated pricing for fine jewelry to what I thought was an exorbitant level. Fine jewelry was traditionally thought of as a luxury product not everyone could afford and was most commonly gifted to women by their partners.

At the same time, I saw fashion brands selling low quality plated metal jewelry at even higher prices and using deceiving messages in their marketing to make the products seem longer-lasting than they were.

I started Design Gold Jewelry to flip that script. I had access to the same high quality fine jewelry sold in stores, but realized an online business model could help me cut out all the middle men and greatly reduce the end price for my customers. This would give women everywhere easy access to fine jewelry at honest prices. The kind of jewelry they could wear everyday, to sleep in, shower in, work out in— and not have to worry about tarnishing.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

I started off selling jewelry on Etsy. Etsy is a unique e-commerce platform because its buyers are looking for high quality finds as opposed to buyers on eBay or Amazon who are typically looking for a deal only. This allows you to experiment creatively with your product offering as opposed to investing all your energy in perpetual price wars with competitors.

I recommend anyone who is looking to start a physical products based business to start on Etsy. Their platform and algorithm truly gives newcomers an equal opportunity to make it big. When you first start out, the Etsy algorithm pushes your listings to the top of search results pages to give them a chance at making sales. Based on how they perform during this initial opportunity, the algorithm then decides where to place them going forward.

I am forever grateful to Etsy and my customer base there for allowing me the opportunity to provide them value and becoming loyal repeat customers until today.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

Turning my side hustle into my full time job was not easy. My professional background was in Online Marketing for high tech companies, very different skill set than what is necessary to make an eCommerce Fashion brand succeed, but I was able to take the general principles I had mastered and apply them to my own business as well.

I started with listing a small collection of 3 basic chain necklaces for sale on Etsy. Looking back at the first iterations of my online listings is laughable. The pictures were blurry and unclear. There weren’t enough angles shown to give people a good idea of the scale or size of what they were buying and the packaging I shipped items in left a lot to be desired. Somehow I gained traction in those early days and was able to slowly build things up.

What made the biggest difference in allowing me to quit my 9-5 was hiring an experienced mentor. I can’t stress enough how important it is to seek guidance from someone who has already done what it is that you are trying to succeed at. Instead of throwing paint at the wall and experimenting with different strategies, the business mentor I hired gave me crystal clear advice tailored to my specific business that helped me fast forward my success.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.designgoldjewelry.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/officialdesigngoldjewelry