Cass Dimicco Turned $20,000 Into $1,000,000 in 1 Year (replay!)

0:00Hey business besties, welcome back to Female Founder World. I'm Jasmine, I'm the host of the show, I'm the person behind all things Female Founder World and today I'm chatting with Cass Dimicco, the founder of Aurium Collective. Welcome! Hi, I'm excited. You were just talking about a really funny connection and how we met each other before we were doing what we were doing now. Yeah. So back when I was mainly just doing content creation, you were an editor. Yes. And I remember - Like eight years ago. Yeah. Maybe more. Yeah. Might've been more. I think I still had a full-time job. And you would grow back in the day from being on, you know, Vogue.com or Elle.com and being in a street style roundup or whatever it'd be.

0:39And I remember seeing your name and messaging you being like, hey, if you ever need to use any of my street style content, feel free. And I feel like I remember meeting you, but yeah, I mean, our careers have both taken such different paths. But what a cool reunion. Yeah. Amazing. And so amazing to see what you've done now from that point. Yeah. I mean, same with you. And I hope I did actually feature, I did feature. Yeah, you did. Okay, good. Good, good, good. Okay. For people that don't know your brand, what are you doing? So we are an accessories brand and our motto is the art of accessorizing.

1:11So it's very much based on me and my personal taste. And it's all about dressing simply and let your accessories do the talking and let your accessories really elevate your looks. For people that are watching this on YouTube and Spotify, you're wearing your pieces now, right? Yeah, I'm wearing our earrings. Beautiful. Belts. As we'll get into the belts have really taken off. It's pretty crazy. But I think it's such an easier way to get dressed to just kind of have those staple pieces and then add accessories too. So you started in 2019. You started really lean what was the launch budget and what did it go to I want to say our budget was around 20 ,000 it might have been less I think we went from the idea to launching in about three to four months and we just kind of launched and went for it and we look back my husband and I on what we thought we would do that launch day and we laugh like we thought we were going to do like half a million dollars on the launch day but um I think we had a lot of traction in the beginning Our first year was really strong and that's kind of how it all was born.

2:14I felt like there was a white space for jewelry at the time. I think there's been so many jewelry brands that have come up since then. But at the time, I just felt like there was this need for a brand that felt like a fashion forward jewelry brand that was delivering things at a more accessible price point. Our brand has very much evolved throughout the years, but the beginning vibe has always been consistent. Yeah. And you did a million in revenue in your first year. Amazing. Yeah, it was crazy. Where did that, like, where did everyone come from? How did you find those people? So I obviously have been building my audience for quite some time, but when we launched the brand, I had around a hundred thousand followers.

2:56I wasn't like this major person. Because now you have 800 ,000, right? Yeah. And it wasn't like I was this major, major person, but I was definitely better back then about going on stories, talking to my community every single day. I was a bit more involved. And I think it had to do with that. And it also had to do with, I was living in New York. I had so many other influencer friends and every single person came out for me on launch. And we just had so many people wanting to wear our pieces. So we had just on top of obviously doing Facebook ads and ads, we did have a lot of organic support from a lot of girls who just genuinely loved the brand and the pieces and would share about it.

3:38And I think that's what helped us grow quite quickly in the beginning. I'm going to dive into all of those things that you just mentioned about your content strategy and what's working there, working with influencer partners, and a little bit more about your ad strategy in a minute. But something that really strikes me about you is I feel like you're someone who you kind of just woke up one day and you were like, this is the person I'm going to be. This is how I want to show up. And then you just did. And I remember watching that evolution as well as someone who was following you and knew you kind of, and you just did.

4:12You're someone who woke up and you're like, this is who I am, who I'm going to be now. And I'm this entrepreneur and this is my style and this is how I show up. I'm really curious about that and how you actually made that happen. Yeah. I don't know. I think I've always been a relatively confident person but then I also think there was a huge part of me that was disappointed of where I was at in life when I started the brand I felt like I had so many girlfriends who were such bigger influencers than me at the time I was so influencer focused on that as my goal and I felt like I was just kind of felt like I wasn't fulfilling what I was could do yeah and I think it also had to do with looking up to other women that I thought dressed so impeccably.

4:56I love rosy and these super classy, chic women that I was just like, if I want to be anything in this world, it's that. I want someone to identify me as classy and chic and I'm just gonna go for it and redo my entire wardrobe and become this woman that I want to be. And I think that's what's fun about fashion. You can't redo my wardrobe now. I can, I've done it for a few girlfriends. Yeah, and I'll go through their closet and I'll tell them what looks good on them and what doesn't. But yeah, that's what's so fun. You can be anything you want to be. Like fashion's all about self-expression. So if you want to feel a certain way about yourself and stepping into that identity, you totally can.

5:37There's nothing stopping you from just being a completely different person. I love that. Okay. I'm going to be, I'm going to show up as I'm totally different tomorrow. Let's talk about the business now. I had to cover that off because it is something that I've been thinking about a lot as I look at what you've done and what you've built and how you show up as this amazing, confident founder who represents your brand so well. But I want to talk about the business side of things. So you launched pretty scrappily. $20 ,000 for a launch budget isn't a huge amount, but you were on the ground finding your own manufacturers, doing all of that kind of stuff.

6:09Talk me through how you found those partners. Are they still the same ones that you're working with today? No. So in the beginning when we were just jewelry we were we had a manufacturer in New York City and I would like Uber to their office and sit there and like do the cads and explain what I wanted and it was very scrappy and I have to admit I'm not proud of that product now our products are so much better now the quality of everything we do is way better but at the time you know we just kind of started and went for it and I think something I've been thinking about recently too is so many founders give the advice of just start and I do think that's so important and I'm so happy with that we did but I do feel like there actually has been some maybe negative effect of people who maybe bought from the brand in like 2019 or 2020 and the and the they didn't they weren't obsessed with the quality yeah so that has been a bummer where I'm like hmm maybe I need to start giving people the advice of it is important to just start but it's also important to be really careful about the quality of what you're selling from the very beginning because it can be hard to change someone's opinion if they've had a negative experience yeah that's actually really good advice yeah and but at the same time I'm really glad that we did just start there's also a lot of people who are like I still have all my jewelry from 2019 so it it's kind of hard to comment on but yeah in those early stages it was very much just me making what I thought was cool looking at inspiration from very high-end designer brands and just kind of doing it at a more accessible price point.

7:48I think what's really interesting is seeing you're doing this in jewelry a couple of other brands are doing this in other spaces but you have this positioning of being this really like beautiful luxury treat yourself kind of brand you've got the high quality product you're are you 24 karat gold? Yeah so everything is all of our jewelry is plated. Yeah I'm really focused on the jewelry because that's how I know you but I know there are other categories so it's all beautiful quality and then the price point is a just makes it so much more accessible I think than what you might expect for the quality and the positioning and it's kind of like okay I can get it for myself on like a birthday or something like that and I think that's really clever to find this find this like space where there's an opportunity to make luxury more accessible to people is that something that you did intentionally?

8:34Yes. A hundred percent. When, when I was launching the belts and the eyewear, especially even the belts, I was like, okay, I feel like I could go make a better belt than Kate the role. And it could be the exact same quality, but I feel like I can make it for a fraction of the price. So I think that's why it's really without diluting the brand as well, you know, like you're still this beautiful inexpensive. Like our AOV is three 50 yeah which is very very high especially in with like founder-led brands I don't really know any other brand that's any higher than that so um or creator founder brands um I think it's just very authentic to me I think when I feel like the world just does not need more crappy products like it's really just that simple and I think I treat something differently when I've like spent a little bit more money on it and it's better quality and it's something I'll know I'll have in my closet for 10 plus years it's not going to disintegrate or it's not going to be so of the moment that you look at it in 10 years and it's ugly and I think that's kind of why we do everything that we do Matt and I are so passionate about the craftsmanship behind everything and that's what I enjoy doing like we are working on other categories and we might scrap one of them because I can't get the price point down right and I'm like okay we probably would do great selling this but we're gonna have to charge quite a lot for it because I'm not really wanting to just go to China and do it yeah and like the positioning then is different for the whole brand and like does it make sense yeah exactly yeah so it's I think it's it's hard to figure out where where you should sit price point wise and my husband and I have been having a lot of conversations recently about how we're about to enter into a recession.

10:21And I'm like, I don't think we will are going to be in trouble because our business isn't based off being the most affordable brand. Yeah. So I'm hoping. Yeah. Everyone's just like, what are we about to, what are we about to be dealing with? I think that positioning and that pricing strategy is really interesting for anyone who's listening to this and they're trying to think of a business idea. I think taking that positioning and adding it and just applying it to different categories, different types of products and thinking if something is, is retailing for a couple of thousand dollars, how can you make a luxury modern brand and bring the price down and retain quality?

10:59And then there's like a white space in so many different categories. So I think it's a really clever like strategy to come up with a business idea for anyone who's looking for your idea. Let's talk about ads and paid ads. So your husband, is his name Matt? Yes. Yes. Okay. Your husband is your co-founder as well. And you guys work on the business together and he's been doing the paid ads yeah so he has a finance background he used to be a trader so he very much loves to sit on the computer and rejig the ads all day by the way yeah I couldn't think of anything worse than doing that exactly um yeah like on Christmas day and like Black Friday he doesn't go to sleep like he stays up all day and all night so we're currently looking to fill that position because we do think it could be taken to the next level.

11:43But we kind of go through phases to where we will just kind of shut off ads. Yeah. And we'll just kind of let organic roll a little bit. But obviously, when we go on sale, we see a huge spike in ads, because, you know, especially because we're more of a higher price point brand, when something goes on sale, we get a lot of new customers. So he's really the one behind it. And then I'm helping with the creative for the ads. And obviously, founder led ads are very helpful. like whenever I'm just doing an ad, speaking to the camera about the product or about the motto and everything, those always perform really well for us.

12:21That's really good to know. I feel like you would go really well on Pinterest. Is Pinterest a big platform for ads? Yeah, we have, we get a lot of organic Pinterest because like my photos are all over Pinterest, but we haven't really, I wouldn't say it's like a big percent Pinterest at all, but we have a lot of organic sharing on Pinterest. Over the last couple of years, you've also added new categories and that's been a big part of your growth, I'm assuming. Talk me through that approach and advice for people who maybe have one or two products and are trying to think of ways to grow their revenue.

12:54Okay, business besties, let's switch gears for a second. Real quick, I want to talk to you about this season's presenting sponsor, Vistaprint. They are sponsoring this entire season of the Female Founder World podcast and we love a supportive sponsor. so much so that we're actually working with Vistaprint ourselves to create the merch and all of those beautiful event perks that you know and love from our in real life female founder world events. If you haven't heard of Vistaprint, here's what you need to know. Vistaprint helps all kinds of business owners print all kinds of marketing products like super professional business cards, fun merch, eye-catching flyers and brochures, and a whole bunch more.

13:37And it's all completely custom. So you can do whatever you want. Whatever you're imagining right now, Vistaprint can print it. And if you're wondering if you're ready to be a designer girly, their easy to use website makes it super simple. Plus they have designers on hand to help you if you really need it. Right now, Vistaprint is giving all female Founderworld podcast listeners a little something 25 % off your first order at vistaprint.com. Use the code FFW25 at checkout and step up your branding game. We put a link in the show notes if you want to learn more. Yeah. So I do, I read a lot about people giving advice to just be very singular, do what you do best.

14:22But I think if we didn't launch these new categories, we probably would have like went under. Like I think launching the belts and eyewear, we spent almost a year and a half developing it and perfecting it. And it was a really big risk for us. We both put a lot of our own money into making that launch happen. And I didn't sleep for months. And then when it launched, it was so well received. I feel like there's a lot of people who just know Oregon belts. Like we basically become a belt brand now. And it's close to like 70 to 80 % of our business depending on the month. so that's been really interesting to see because I remember when we were talking about that my husband was even like belts like okay I feel like the eyewear is going to do way better but let's see and I was like no belts there's such a white space yes that's no one like owns it really yeah we're gonna crush it I know it and it's been such a game changer for us and that makes me so happy but we've never wanted to launch too many categories too fast because I think you also want to be known for something you don't want to be confusing about what you are and I think it's important to be very intentional and like slow and steady with launching new categories yeah I understand the advice that people have given you or have said to you about um you know finding what you're good at and like sticking to that one thing but I think that actually applies to multiple product categories because what you're doing is the luxury positioning yeah more like more still expensive pricing but like you know more accessible compared to that and then the high quality and it's just like taking that to different categories so I feel like it's not a distraction you're just like actually just focusing in on what you do as a brand really well yeah exactly I mean I'm curious to see what happens we have new other things coming and we've thought about maybe no longer selling jewelry no longer selling eyewear if like the other categories are really taking over we're like okay is it more is it better to be like simplified about what you are and but we'll see I don't know it's so hard because I feel like there's still so many people that love our belts or love our jewelry love our sunglasses yeah interesting yeah we'll see it's also like really cool to hear someone who is at your stage and I guess everyone who's from the sitting on the outside looking in on brands like yours you just assume everything is so figured out you've got the 10-year strategy you've got the plan and it's like you're sitting here saying actually I'm not sure if this category is the right one if we should discontinue something or launch something else.

16:50And it's really helpful and affirming to hear someone say that because we all have that. Of course. I think it's so important to share that it's been a really hard road for us. You know, we're not exactly super proud of where we're at for five years. You know, we were - I think you're hard on yourself. We're really hard on ourselves. I think you're really hard on yourself. I think that we just wish we were much - But like neither. Yeah, yeah. I get it. That's totally normal. And I think that's good to share as an entrepreneur that because we all feel the same way. And I think it's important to share that it really hasn't been like an easy breezy five years for us by any means.

17:28Like Matt and I have had so many blood, sweat and tears. The amount of times we're just like wanting to give up over the years has been a lot. So I think that's important to share because I think I never want to present me or the brand in this like perfect light that it's just been slow and steady. amazing growth growth the whole time because that's very much an anomaly that people just like skyrocket really fast we've been growing very slow and steady and I keep trying to tell myself slow and steady wins the race yes I slow that's very relative like yeah you know all relative slow and steady because again from the outside the numbers that you guys are doing and the celebrities who are wearing your brand and the traction that you've had is incredible but I totally understand you're very clearly someone who has really high expectations and goals for themselves.

18:18So yeah, go get it. But also be, be proud of where you are. I want to talk about celebrity partnerships. You started getting celebrity interest within your first month. Yeah. What happened? It was insane. We were on Bella Hadid within the first month. How? Honestly, it was really organic. I - You guys are like friends or something? No. No, okay. No, I'm guys, I'm not an Epo baby or like a socialite or anything. I'm really random nobody. Someone I know was is her stylist assistant she used to work in pr and then she became a stylist assistant and just put her stuff i had like asked me for all the necklaces when we launched and it was just there during a fitting fitting and bella hadid picked it up and wore it a few times it was crazy so i think that's been a big part of it is every single celebrity we've been on the product just we've been able to get our foot into the door where the product is in the room and the celebrity picks it so I think that's a big testament to us and the quality and the designs and the styles you know it's never been this paid for placement or everything has been completely organic a lot of times we're just like gifting them super like I'll sit and be like okay what do I think Haley would wear from this new collection I'll try to like guess and you're just kind of waiting around hoping they wear it but you can go like a full year of gifting so much stuff and not seeing anything.

19:40So it's kind of very hit or miss. And I do think celebrities have a different, they don't move product the way they used to. I think it's very much more of like a brand credibility thing. We had an earring that Haley Bieber, like a hoop that Haley Bieber wore in 2020. She wore it quite a few times and it was a bestseller for over a year. And we weren't even really using, like, I feel like we actually don't do a great job of shouting from the rooftops that were on celebrities. But do you reach out to press and say, you know, they wore this? And do you have someone doing that for you? Yeah, we go in and out with PR.

20:17I think PR is such an interesting part of the business. We've gone, not gone through, but we've like changed up who we use for PR quite a lot over the last five years. It kind of depends on in the moment what we're feeling like we need. so last year a lot of the year we had someone who just was really great at celebrity gifting like she had the addresses and she did the gifting but the strong suit wasn't as much of like articles or other strategies around it so then I'm like okay I haven't had any great articles so then I like worked with someone who helps with articles but it's been hard for me to find someone who's really good at all three different aspects of PR I feel like there's different people for different things that you need.

21:03I know one of my friends was trying to raise for her brand. So she did a really big push around like the numbers of what she was making behind the brand to hopefully get better employees to get better this. So it's kind of depending on what you feel like you're needing for the business right now. I'm like, we haven't been on any celebrities in a while. Maybe we need to hire a celebrity gifting person again. So I think that kind of helps too. There's always someone also helping with that. What does the team look like now? So you mentioned you get agency freelancer PR support who else is building this with you last year we only had two employees and then in January we hired three new employees at the same time oh wow as in two months ago yeah okay and so we're really excited about that I still feel like I'm so in the weeds of how much I do on the day-to-day and so is Matt yeah I can't even imagine a world in which I'm like delegating and have free time during the day.

21:59But I still love everything that I do so much. I'm still extremely hands-on, the only person handling design and production. My husband will handle like reorders, but I'm handling start to finish all the designs. And we just brought on someone for wholesale to help with that because it's just so much work fulfilling everything. And then we hired someone to help with social media and then someone who who is like a brand manager who helps with like emails and other like bigger initiatives. You mentioned wholesale there. Can you talk me through when you had your first stockist and why you went with them and what your retail footprint looks like now?

22:38Who are you working with? Yeah. So in 2020, in the first year of starting the brand, we launched on Revolve. It was around a month before COVID. And it did really well. But COVID happened. We had such bad supply chain issues that we were like, okay, we don't want to sell our product to Revolve for, you know, a fraction of the price. We want to have it for ourselves. So we just decided to no longer fulfill orders for Revolve and no longer just do wholesale. So we started revisiting wholesale again last year. So at the beginning of 2024, and it was honestly mainly from after launching belts we just had so many people reach out to us so Nordstrom Neiman Marcus shop up revolve forward a bunch of boutiques they all reached out to us every single wholesale account we have has just emailed us it's been very seamless and easy and we're kind of just like I'm very much the type of person that's like if they don't want me I don't want them but if they want me great you know like you don't want to beg someone to have your brand and like I don't know I'm just not that type of person.

23:45Yeah, I get it. It's like you're trying to be a magnet rather than going after it. So I want to talk about the money piece of all of this. You're fully bootstrapped. You started with that$20 ,000 investment. Do you think that you have put in significantly more since that first$20 ,000 investment? Are you paying yourself from the business? Like what is this business support? Like is it supporting you yet? Like where are you at? So yeah, I think it's important to be like open and honest about these things um they're not hobbies they're businesses and we need to talk about the money piece of course yeah um and so i've never paid myself a dollar for him i am lucky that i might simultaneously while this happening is happening my content creator business has been thriving with very little effort and then my husband also like still trades yes to be a big trader so that's where we have a lot of our personal income and i think that's important to share because i think a lot of people think like i don't know assume that like our parents are super wealthy or whatever it is but behind the scenes it's very much not a struggle but it's it's not easy and yeah and i feel like we don't get to do a lot of things that we would want to do because we don't have the extra cash but i think in the end it's helped us with like appropriate amount of growth.

25:07And maybe one day, I don't know if we will ever bring on investors. Yeah, talk to me about that. It's hard because I've been actually, a lot of very reputable VC firms and venture capital people have been wanting to get on Zoom calls with me. So I have been taking the calls, obviously. And it's so hard to not get sucked in when someone is like, oh, we took this brand from 700K to 100 million. in three years with our investment. And I'm like, wow, that sounds nice. But at the same time, I think, I don't know, it's hard. I also had a meeting with a very reputable company and they do a brand that's doing very well.

25:50And it was interesting. They were like looking at our belts. And the first thing he said in terms of the business was, I want to go to China and do all your belts there instead. I can do it for X, Y, Z cost instead of what you're paying. and it looks the same, like showing me them. I'm like, that doesn't look the same. That's not the same to me. That looks very different. And I think I don't want to be like a sellout, you know, never say never. Obviously we're all in business, but at the same time I feel so close to the product and I'm really proud of it. And I think that our customers and audience really enjoy our products and I want to stay true to that and be able to grow from the word of mouth of how great the quality is or how much they love the brand versus always being the most, having the biggest profit margin to run this huge business.

26:43I don't think that's really my goal. Yeah. You said before, you mentioned that you still, you really love the work that you're doing every day. I look at where you kind of started, where you were when you started the business and primarily you're working as a creator creator and it was you and your husband doing this together and now you've kind of got this team that's building and things are probably getting a lot more like complicated and I'm curious about what your relationship to entrepreneurship generally and like being a founder is I was talking I was like texting my husband literally this morning he's in Australia right now I'm here my baby's there like I'm being on a plane doing all these different episodes and and filming for the show and I was like I don't like I don't know I don't know why I'm doing this like this is so hard I could just do totally I could just do something else that would be so much easier and probably pay me more so I'm always really curious how do you feel and it probably changes day to day right it changes day to day you know today depends on what day you catch me on if Matt and I had a fight the night before I think I think it's important to really share that it's it's hard you know but nothing in life that's easy is you know is as fun you're really on this journey and I think if I didn't go for it and try to see what I was capable of I would regret it that's it isn't it what am I capable of yeah I think I would probably have such a deep sense of regret but then I also have so many friends who are amazing moms and that's what they do full time and I'm like wow that's really nice yeah but like hey do you want to come hang out at 12 on Tuesday and I'm like no I can't yeah I get that but I think I think at the end of the day it's I haven't had the extra layer of being a mom yet so right now it's very much selfish but I do have the struggle of like running a business with my husband and you know every second of every day revolves around the brand and how well it's doing, how well, what's going on.

28:49So it's, it's definitely stressful, but at the same time, I'm so proud of myself. And like, I feel like I get to also express myself creatively. And that's really special too, because, you know, I have like a closet full of my creations. Like how cool is that? Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. Before we wrap up, I want to ask you what your launch strategy is when you launch a new category, just in terms of marketing? What are you doing? Yeah. So we used to do a very interesting marketing strategy when, which I think is a good strategy to do. If you don't have a lot of budget, Matt and I would like go on a cool trip and he would just shoot me and I would story and take videos of like, this is what I'm wearing to dinner.

29:32These are the earrings I'm wearing to dinner. And it all felt very organic because it was now that I have a team. And now that we are also trying to move the brand away from just being about me, which I feel like it very much is. I would say that majority of our customers don't know who I am. And so we have a launch coming up actually next week and we have a really strong rollout for it. We're really, really excited. So we're doing like a teaser of the reason why we chose kind of the theme around the campaign and what the designs were inspired by kind of, we're doing like a full week of teasing it basically.

30:10amazing so I'm excited to see that come to life I think this is the strongest like rollout of a collection we've ever done so I'm I'm so excited to see how that goes it's going to be very much it's called the heritage collection so it's very much like western inspired so it was really fun to play into a lot of the things and the shoot was outside with horses and okay I can't wait to see this yeah it's really cool and I styled the whole thing myself yeah wow like with my own clothes So that's also another piece of it that I think is really important is you can obviously do this very cool like editorial thing.

30:49And I think there's a time and place for that. But at least for us and our audience, they like it to have this element of like they can save the outfit and they can envision themselves wearing the product with said outfit. Yeah. When we've done like very editorial looks, I think it doesn't resonate as much. Someone's like, oh, I'm not like. As a customer, that feels right. Well, I'm not going to be wearing that in my own life. I feel like a big part of following along on the brand is about getting an outfit inspiration. The last thing I want to ask you is for resource recommendations, something that people who want to do what you're doing can go and check out.

31:25Yeah. So I am very much love podcasts. I feel like I'm very much an auditory learner and I will think of a brand or come across a founder that I just really want to know more about. And I'll just binge episodes of that. I love that. Parasocial mentorship. Yeah, exactly. And I think that's so helpful because sometimes I'll say, oh, I love, I want to be that brand one day or like that brands and being able to hear their story and just like feel that connection with them is so powerful. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm so impressed by everything you've done since I saw you last like eight years ago.

32:02Yeah, we've come a long way. And I think this is so nice. I think it's great to give other female founders advice and tactical tips. We're all in this together. We appreciate you. I just wanted to jump in and end the show with a quick thank you and shout out to all of our paid Business Besties subscribers. Business Besties bypass literally years of networking by getting access to all of the people that you need to build your dream business. You also get invited to exclusive monthly group business coaching call sessions where you can speak to experts and founders and ask them all of those questions that you just can't Google.

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