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

Alright, Stacey thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with the decision of whether to donate a percentage of sales to an organization or cause – we’d love to hear the backstory of how you thought through this.

I collaborate with a few different charities and donate a percentage of sales of specific products to those charities. Especially in today’s political climate, any time you are aligning yourself with a cause, you run the risk of alienating other potential customers. That’s why I decided to go only with causes that truly resonate with me, and I’m OK if that means someone chooses another company because of it.

I work outside of my business to run a collection of diaper bags and diaper, so I designed a “mama” bracelet to support the charity, and a portion of the sales are used to buy items to donate to Lotus House Women’s Shelter, one of the largest women’s shelters in the country, located in Miami, FL.

In addition, I started an “Am Yisrael Chai” bracelet last fall, and a portion of those proceeds are donated to Zaka Search & Rescue. This organization has been doing amazing work doing search and rescue in building disasters dating back many years across the world, including here at home in Miami after the Surfside condominium disaster.

In the last year, they’ve had to turn a lot of their attention closer to home, working to support Israeli hostage rescues. I am Jewish, and I have ancestors who were killed in the Holocaust and who narrowly escaped such a fate. For the Jewish people, the state of Israel represents the basic premise that we can never be rounded up and systematically murdered again. To see Israel attacked in such a violent, unnecessary way, and to see the world shrug at that (and worse), that really got my attention.

Stacey, 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?

The premise behind my brand is that everyone should be free and proud to be themselves. That’s why I stay true to charities that matter to me, why I started designing accessories, and why I love making custom creations for my customers. There are very few custom requests that I would say no to, because as a person and a business owner, I respect that we all have different views, unique ways of expressing ourselves, and our own perspectives on life. I help people make the perfect gifts for family and friends, or the unique pieces that they can’t buy in stores that give them the confidence they need to succeed during hard times in life. My customers wear my bracelets to chemotherapy, my good luck charms to job interviews, and my necklaces to remember loved ones. Even my non-custom pieces can be combined in creative ways to create unique bracelet stacks and jewelry pairings. A gold chain is great, but a gold chain in juxtaposition to a neon happy-face chunky piece is something else entirely.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Some might call it “grit,” but I think it’s really actually a combination of being fully willing to fail miserably but fighting absolutely tooth and nail to make sure that doesn’t happen. And the older I get, and the more I do and see, the more I realize that most people aren’t really that keen on failing, so they don’t take those risks. And if they do, and they start to see things imploding, they find it easier to sink down underneath the disaster rather than prop it up. I think these are personality traits that a lot of entrepreneurs, iconoclasts, and insane people seem to have. But without them, it’s harder to be successful because you’re always playing it safe.

Here’s what I’ve done that isn’t safe:
(1) I’m aggressive in hunting down opportunities. I don’t wait for people to come to me with opportunities, though plenty of people do, but I’m not afraid to ask for a chance or a sale, or a meeting, because, really, what’s the worst that will happen? Someone will say no? Who cares.
(2) I didn’t plan everything to be absolutely perfect before going public. The brand has always been a work in progress. Because that’s what I am. That’s very on-brand for us. If we try something, and it doesn’t work, we just go another direction, or we burrow around it, or we hop over it.
(3) I do what I say. I don’t make empty promises. If I say I’ll donate to a charity, or show at an event, I do my absolute best to come through. I think that goes a long way in developing a reputation in your community.

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

Currently, I’m primarily selling in person at events, through texts from friends and acquaintances, and on Etsy. I have plans to launch a Shopify site later this year, but there have been a few setbacks with that. Etsy is great in many ways, but it has some limitations, so I’m hoping the Shopify site will help me get to the next level. What’s great about Etsy is that there is a built-in network of shoppers, people who have downloaded the Etsy app and regularly shop the site. It’s a great way to bring in new shoppers and followers. However, Etsy has limitations as to the type of promotions you can run, how you can ship/deliver services, and is basically set up to prevent you from developing your own email list, which is problematic for a brand. I think it’s a great starting place, but I do recommend scaling to a different platform at some point so you can start developing the email list and have more control over your promotions and delivery options. But then you lose that built-in network and are basically entirely responsible for directing traffic to your own site. A lot of entrepreneurs use both sites together, and I think that’s going to be my plan going forward as well.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.vicecitybeads.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vicecitybeads
• Other: https://vicecitybeads.etsy.com

Image Credits

Carly Terenzio