How to Decide If You Should Double Down or Diversify With a Second Business

0:00Hey, business besties. Welcome back to Female Founder World. I'm Jasmine. I'm the host of the show and the person who ran all things from our founder world. Today I'm chatting with Christine Bartolillo. She's the founder of LB Fine. Christine, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. You are literally less than a year into your business and that's why I want to talk to you. I want to talk to people who are at all stages of doing this and I think that there's so much to learn from folks who are like scrappy, boots on the ground, getting traction right now because that is the space that like a lot of people in our community are in.

0:34But people that don't know LV Fine, what are you doing? I am a jewelry designer and I transitioned from being a, well, I'm still a hairdresser, but owning a salon. And that was my first career about a year ago. And you've been in business for like nearly 10 years, right? Yes. I'm going to talk to you about a few things. One of them is going to be literally like, how do you start a jewelry brand? And I think there's no one better to talk to about this than someone who is doing it or who has just done it. You know, we can speak to someone who started a brand 10 years ago and has made millions and millions in revenue.

1:06But there's helpful stuff that can come from those conversations, but really not about the scrappy getting started, getting traction phase. And so I'm going to ask you all about that. But I feel like this story about how you actually got into business is super, super helpful. How did you actually open your own salon? How did that happen? So I own it with my best friend. My husband owns a barbershop. We own the salon next door. And at the time I was working in the barbershop in the back. We had kind of renovated the space so that I could fit. We had the seating area where clients would wait in between.

1:42So it kind of was like a natural separation between salon and barbershop. And then at the end of 2019, my husband got a phone call from the landlord, who, funny enough, was in prison at the time. And he just said, oh, the storefront next door is becoming available. Do you want it? Since they were already there, did they want to expand into it? My best friend Jenna and I, we had been kicking around, do we open something together someday? So it just kind of seemed like the right thing. It fell in our lap. How does somebody open a physical space like that? What's involved and what are some of like the cost challenges to watch out for?

2:24So this space was a total gut. It's not very big. It's maybe. Where is it? Lower East Side. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So maybe it's 500 square feet. It's pretty narrow and long. It was a restaurant at one point, which is hard to imagine just based on the size and shape. But we had to pull everything out, build walls, build around sort of pipes and stuff that we couldn't move. So we found some contractors. And it cost, if I remember correctly, it cost probably$80 ,000. And we did it fully self-funded with savings. So it was about 40, 45 from me and 40, 45 from Jenna, which was scary. Definitely scary. Lucky we had it, you know.

3:15But then once you're open, and I think what was really, really scary, and this was, of course, scary for everyone, we opened middle of January 2020. And then in mid-March, shut down for COVID. and we had at that point just spent our entire savings on opening so you know there was that fear of what if this goes on who knows how long it's going to last luckily we got unemployment and all of that kind of stuff but yeah it was it was a little frightening so what does the the salon now is that you and jenna that are there do you have other stylists yeah we have What's it called? It's called Love Dunette.

4:03Dunette was my grandma. We have three other stylists right now. They are all renters as well. So they run their businesses out of our salon. And when me and Jenna were first discussing how we were going to run it and are we going to have employees? Are we going to have renters? If you're a salon owner and you have employees, you make a lot of money off of them. Neither of us wanted to, A, break anyone else over the coals. I knew what it was like to rent myself in another salon, and I wanted to give other stylists that opportunity. Yeah, we just wanted to build that kind of, like, community of people who are just running their businesses and just want a nice space to work in.

4:47How did the jewelry brand idea come about then? so funny enough in I think it was in 2016 about the time I started renting at my old salon I redid my engagement ring with a jeweler and I got completely obsessed at that time started thinking about even though I hadn't opened a salon yet had you know so many of these other steps hadn't happened yet, I really then started thinking, I think I would like to do that as a career. And I met with the jeweler who I'm still in touch with that had worked on my ring maybe a year prior. It took about a year to contact him and say, will you sit with me and just tell me what I need to do?

5:37How does this even work? And he did. And at the time, I left that conversation feeling overwhelmed and like, I can't do this. It's just too big. It's just too hard of an industry to break into. And then fast forward all these years, opening the salon, I never stopped thinking about it. I never stopped. Yeah, just kind of having that dream. And then one day at the beginning of 2024, last year, I just was like, I'm going to take one class. I'm going to just sign up for a class. Even then, I thought probably if I ever turn this into a business, I think I'd want to design. Like of all the aspects of jewelry, I think designing is what I want to do.

6:25But the first class I signed up for was like metalsmithing and bench jeweler classes under the advice of my jeweler friend who said you need to know how stones are set you need to know how the engineering of jewelry works before you can design it which I think is the best decision I made. I'm really curious about this concept of like you you have a business that's working right you're that business is still running and then deciding that you're going to pursue and launch something else. How did you decide? So once you've kind of like taken these classes, what were some of the things that you thought about and how did you make that decision to think, okay, I'm going to do this and I'm going to add a second business to my plate?

7:08I had always been dabbling in many things. My friends make fun of me because I've had about 80 different Instagrams over the course of the years. There was a pasta phase, a bread phase, a stationary, I had a stationary business. I was doing wedding invitations, but this felt, I think I was always as much as hair has given my life. I always knew it probably wasn't going to be forever for me. And I've, I think I've always been on this search for what is the next thing. And none of those other things, I never formed an LLC. I use that as a, as an example, because this was the first other thing that I tried that I was like, I'm going to just form an LLC.

7:55I'm going to just at least get that done in part because you sort of need to to be able to buy any of the materials. They're very strict in the industry. But that stood out to me as like this is an extra step I'm taking. And then honestly, the turning it into a business, I don't know that there was a moment that I decided this is what I'm going to do. It just kind of snowballed. I made an Instagram. I started posting my work there. And then more and more people just kept asking me to make things, a lot of custom. and there was one ring in particular that when I finished it I was like I'm a jeweler now like I'm a jewelry designer and I could call myself that and the running of both businesses is hard I thank god every day that I have Jenna she picks up a lot of my slack with the salon but yeah it kind of all just happened and then one day I was like oh I have two businesses are there any milestones that you've hit I know that the business is new but is there anything that you've hit that makes you you know like feel really proud or that you want to speak to I it's I'm not in yet but I am going to be renting a studio space soon oh maybe which is really exciting and I think that's like it's definitely feeling like the first time it's getting really real and a studio space is somewhere where you'll obviously like work but you'll also be able to have clients coming in so up until now I've if I have to meet with a client I'm saying can we meet at a coffee shop it's kind of weird when you're like pulling diamonds out and showing them stones and I need a you know private space to do that, but also a space to have my computer so I can do my CAD work and have my bench so I can do my bench work.

9:58So it'll be kind of a little bit of a combo studio slash office. Congratulations. That's so exciting. I really want this episode to be like a how-to for people who want to start a business like this. I think so many people think, oh, it'd be so cool to start a jewelry brand or an accessories brand. And then it's actually a super complicated industry to get into. Can you kind of let's let's turn this into a bit of a workshop. Like, sure. What do you do? How do you start a business in this space? So one of the things my jeweler friend had told me is that you really do kind of have to pick an avenue because every part of making a piece of jewelry is someone's specialty.

10:39So there's stone setters, there's what you call your bench jeweler, which will be maybe soldering components together and maybe doing some polishing but there's also polishers and you know there's many there's the designer but you can design and just hire a CAD designer to do the CAD for you or you can do the CAD yourself if you learn so I think while it is it is important to kind of have an idea of what part you might like and want to do. And I actually had a very hard time at the beginning with letting go of many aspects of it because metalsmithing was my first class. And I think the attention I was getting when I would like show up at work with a, even if it was just a basic ring, I had just soldered the prongs on, you know, and people were just like, you, my coworkers, you did this, like you did that.

11:43I, I had trouble letting go of that, but I knew that I had to because people started asking for more high value things and I couldn't afford anymore to just be learning on these pieces. so I do think that one of the first steps is thinking about where you'd like to be in the industry but also taking a lot of different classes if you can to see what part of it you really like and then do you have different like are you working with different people who have different specialties to kind of bring a piece of jewelry together yes and now I'm so so so grateful for all of those people because they just they just do those aspects it's like if you are if you want to start a clothing line you're probably not sewing the clothes yourself right I so like I don't have employees it's just me yeah but I work with particularly a stone setter who all does the finishing for my pieces so does the polishing and he has taught me so so so much And I think that is one of the harder things about entering this industry is nothing is public record.

12:57Like, who do you go to set stones? Who do you go to buy stones? Who do you go like all of it? You can't do a Google search. It's such I don't want to say gatekeep you because people are actually very to me. They have been very willing to give me their recommendations, but you need the recommendations of the people that came before them. to find anyone. And I think that is when I first started, it was definitely the most intimidating aspect. So how do you connect with those people then? Is it literally you're just, are you DMing other jewelry designers? Like what, how do you do that? It started with, I had done that just a couple of times, but I got most of my actual recommendations from My first class I was taking, I needed to cast.

13:46I needed a casting company to cast my pieces. They, you know, they have a caster that they work with and you get a student discount. And, you know, so that became my casting company. And then I was sent to, it's called a findings store, which is like all of your components to make jewelry, like clasps and chains and earring backs and stuff like that. I was sent there by my teacher as well. And I met the owners of that store. And at the time, I needed an emerald to buy an emerald. And this was going to be my first big stone purchase. And I was so scared. How do I know? How do I know if they're legit?

14:28And one of the owners of that store, he was like, you have to go see this person. Tell him I sent you. So I went to him. And then he recommended me someone. And then that person recommended me someone. One of the funniest things that happened. And it's it's how I found my stone setter who is I see him every week and we go over things for hours now. Like he's such a big part of my business. I met a a gem cutter so this this guy cuts his own stones and he's an artist like they're stunning and he's in I believe LA but he was coming to New York and he had posted on his Instagram that he was taking private meetings to just show the stones I just wanted to see them so I made an appointment with him and when I got we met at a coffee shop because he was like I'm not renting a space right now, but I can meet you at this coffee place.

15:24When I got there, there was a guy standing outside who I knew wasn't the guy I was meeting, but I had a weird inkling that he was someone he knew or he was there for some reason. And I just walked right by him. I went inside, I sat down and then lo and behold, I look out the window and I see the person I was meeting arrive and hug that man and they both walked in together and he was kind of like oh me and my friend are going somewhere after this I hope you don't mind that he's here I'm like no no it's totally fine and he ends up being a jeweler who like we all sat and chatted for a while and I asked him I so now I've bought this emerald that I needed to find but I don't have anyone to set the stone yet do you have a recommendation and he like took a notepad out of his bag and was like, write down your email address.

16:18I don't have a phone. I don't own a phone. I'll go to the public library tomorrow and email you my recommendation. And I, you know, I gave him my email and I thought I'm never going to hear from this guy again. And the very next day he emailed me and recommended my now setter. This is crazy. We had another Dory brand on the podcast a while ago and like her stories about dealing with the industry were very very similar like it is so old school it really is and it's one of the things I love about it the most because nothing runs that way anymore it's just really special how are your customers finding you or how are you finding customers well I've been very very lucky because of the salon and the barbershop It really kickstarted with clients hearing I was doing this, asking me to make things, saying, oh, I've always wanted this thing.

17:16Same with the barbershop clients. I'm making things for their wives or girlfriends or boyfriends, you know, or for them. And I think it's been I'm so lucky to have that. But I think it's been a natural thing that's happened because people who maybe have had ideas about something they wanted, a piece of jewelry, no one really trusts jewelers. So to have me, someone they already trust, I mean, some of my clients have been doing their hair for a decade or more, you know, start doing this thing. I couldn't believe when I first started how little experience I had, how much trust they were putting into me to create things that are a lot of money.

18:03And then because of those initial pieces I was making for my clients, getting those photographed, posting those on social media, and then I'll get a DM from someone, you know, trying to be better about social because it is feels like another job. But that's starting to snowball a little bit as well. That's how we found you. We found you on social. What kind of content's working for you? definitely people seem to be enjoying the storytelling aspect sometimes it's actually like a little upsetting because I'll post you know a ring I just finished that to me is like I'm so excited I can't wait to put this out there and it'll get 300 views but I've been doing these sort of just carousels of photos not even video on TikTok about the story how I started I just posted one about that emerald ring that I made that was my first real like real big one and people seem to really like that sort of I can't film so much behind the scenes which is hard because you just you can't be going into all these places you know like like an influencer recording everyone I want these people to like me but I am trying to take photos here and there when I can and just share the story.

19:24And I guess I'm also being pretty vulnerable about maybe not knowing what I'm doing right away during these projects. And I think people can relate to that. So they like it. Okay, let's talk about money and what it costs to start something like this. Yeah. What did it cost you or like, what were some of the big things that you had to spend on to get this off the ground? So even though I'm mostly designing now, I do have like a jeweler's bench in my apartment. So initial costs were definitely tools. Classes are expensive. Classes are definitely a big part of the budget. To learn how to do it. To learn.

20:06Yeah. Where do you learn how to do it so I took in-person classes at a couple of different studios in Manhattan I I think that's really difficult for people who are not in a major city where do you find these classes and what about inventory like are you everything's made to order in the beginning like how do you how do you get that going when you're trying to keep a budget lane inventory is definitely if you're just creating a line like I do have another jewelry friend who has has a beautiful brand as well and she she creates her her pieces and hopes that they sell I would like to do that someday you know have it would feel wonderful to have people want exactly what I've already made because just to know that they love what I'm doing, but that is very, very expensive.

21:06So for me, I don't have inventory pretty much at all. Everything is made to order. And a lot of even the smaller items like charms and whatnot, they're still customizable. So you're still choosing your gemstones or diamonds that you want on it. You're still choosing the initial, maybe the letter you want on it. So it wouldn't make sense to stock every letter and every gem combination. I do think made to order is a fantastic way to start because your only prices might be higher because you're, you know, casting these one off things one at a time and you're not buying in volume in bulk. But it's a wonderful way to know that when I make this thing, I already have a client for it.

21:56And what about actually like building your website, getting your brand, like what are the costs there and what are some of the tools you're using? So I probably stupidly do everything myself. I tried to use Shopify. I was very sad because I, I do pride myself on pretty much being able to teach myself anything I try. and I could not figure out how to use Shopify. If you can use CAD, you can use Shopify. It's crazy to me. I shouldn't say I could make it work, but I couldn't make it look like how I wanted to look. So I switched to Squarespace and I did my salon website through Squarespace myself and now LV Fine.

22:42And it's just much more user friendly. If you're a big e-commerce business, it might not be as great as Shopify but at the time I mean I'm just starting so I'm like I just need something that I can make look beautiful and I can do myself I think Shopify is definitely the more like scalable option but Squarespace when you're getting started can be just a really like like you said you can make it look good really easily totally okay I want to end with asking you for a resource recommendation or a couple of resource recommendations stuff that's been like tools books anything's been helping you as you've been building the business I love the tablet you're using right now I've never like I've never seen anyone and everyone always asks me it's the most like tech bro thing about me is that I have this I love it I got one not that long ago actually and it's called a remarkable it's called a remarkable I I have an iPad and procreate and I was like oh shit is it worth getting but it is nice having that so the remarkable as you know is there's not any there's nothing distracting on it you can't go to an app you can't do anything really but take your notes and draw your sketches it's like a digital pen and paper yes it is it's it's like it's like the and it's like the kindle version or the the writing version of kindle almost so i love the remarkable i started making because one of the harder things about making jewelry is keeping track.

24:13You have however many clients you're working on at one time. And I'm I'm very used to with hair. I have one client and then they're gone and that service is over. I have so many things going on at once. And then one person's stone is at GIA getting graded and the other person's ring is getting polished. And the other one I need to cast again because the first one didn't. It's like there's so much in different places. The Remarkable has been great because I make like a notebook in there for every client, you know, or a folder. And then I can just write everything I need in there. Another resource that I used to use for when I was making stationery that I love is HoneyBook.

24:55Have you heard of HoneyBook? I have. Yeah. I I'm sure there's many, you know, programs or like client project tracking, client tracking programs like it, But because it was somewhat familiar to me because I had used it in the past, I was like, oh, wait, I could use HoneyBook for this too. And that's been so nice because you can send contracts and invoices. And it's great to have all your files in one place. So when I'm sending renderings to clients. So for people that don't know what it is, like what exactly do you use it for? It's like project management. So, you know, you put all of your – similar in a way to like creating client folders in the Remarkable.

25:35you create all your clients all your projects and you can add you can add them to it as well so you can email through honey book but it'll still like come from your gmail and you know they can email you back and you can send photos and videos back and forth and it's contracts like i said and it's just a really great way to keep track and keep communication in one place i love that christine thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing with us how to start a jewelry brand and all of the traction that you've had so far. It's very cool to see. And I'm excited to see where LV Fine is going to go as well.

26:08Where can people find you? Where can they find the business? My website, Instagram, TikTok. It's all LVFine.com or at LV.Fine. Yeah, that's really it. We'll put that in the show notes. Thanks so much. Thank you for having me. 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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