In short
Female Founder World Podcast Episode Summary
Episode Title
She Built Gen Z's Favorite Fine Jewelry Brand
Host
Jasmine Garnsworthy
Guest
Eliza O'Connor, Founder of Real Fine Studio
---
Episode Overview In this episode of the *Female Founder World* podcast, host Jasmine Garnsworthy interviews Eliza O'Connor, the founder of Real Fine Studio, a fine jewelry brand that has gained significant popularity among Gen Z and celebrities. Eliza shares her journey from selling custom jewelry via Instagram DMs in 2021 to building a successful brand that generates millions in revenue.
---
Key Concepts and Discussions
- Introduction to Real Fine Studio
- Founding: Eliza started Real Fine Studio nearly four years ago in Los Angeles.
- Target Market: The brand targets younger consumers, particularly Gen Z, and has become a favorite among celebrities like Sydney Sweeney and Scarlett Johansson.
- Navigating a Saturated Market
- Market Perception: Eliza acknowledges the competitive nature of the jewelry market but believes there is room for diverse brands.
- Social Media Strategy:
- Utilizes TikTok and Instagram to engage directly with customers.
- Highlights the importance of personal storytelling and authenticity in marketing.
- Going Viral on Social Media
- TikTok Success: A significant portion of engagement ring appointments come from TikTok, a platform Eliza underestimated initially.
- Content Strategy: Posts feature in-depth discussions of jewelry pieces, creating a personal connection with potential buyers.
- Celebrity Collaborations and Brand Partnerships
- Key Milestones:
- Early celebrity placements through stylist Molly Dixon helped validate the brand.
- A partnership with Goop, marked as a major turning point, connected Real Fine with the ideal clientele.
- Building Trust with High-Value Clients
- Celebrity Endorsements: They serve as validation for the brand, reassuring potential customers of its quality.
- Personalized Service: Initially relied on direct communication via Instagram DMs to engage clients.
- Growth and Revenue Milestones
- Revenue Growth: Eliza shares her journey of doubling sales month-over-month and hitting $1 million in sales by August of the previous year, later reaching $2 million.
- Product Development: Focused on establishing signature pieces, such as the heirloom signet ring, to create brand recognition.
- Self-Funding and Financial Management
- Self-Funded Business: Eliza has never taken outside investment, funding her business through personal savings and profits from other ventures.
- Financial Practices: Emphasizes the importance of separating business and personal finances, and shares how she manages cash flow.
- Operational Changes for Scaling
- Team Management: As the business grew, Eliza learned to delegate and bring on team members with specialized skills.
- Tools: Uses Monday.com for project management and a custom Excel spreadsheet for tracking sales and expenses.
- Challenges of Entrepreneurship
- Imposter Syndrome: Eliza discusses her struggle with self-doubt and how she eventually embraced her role as a brand leader.
- Work-Life Balance: Acknowledges the pressure of maintaining growth while ensuring sustainability.
---
Key Takeaways
- Authenticity Matters: Brands can stand out in saturated markets by being authentic and relatable on social media.
- Utilizing Trends: Brands must adapt to new platforms like TikTok to reach younger consumers effectively.
- Collaboration and Networking: Building relationships within the industry can lead to valuable opportunities and partnerships.
- Financial Prudence: Self-funding a business can lead to greater control and flexibility.
- Embrace Delegation: As a business grows, the need to trust and delegate tasks to a competent team becomes essential.
---
Additional Resources
- [Real Fine Studio](https://realfinestudio.com)
- [Female Founder World Resource Roundup](https://femalefounderworld.beehiiv.com)
- [Get 25% OFF your first VistaPrint order with code FFW25](https://www.vistaprint.com)
---
This episode offers valuable insights for aspiring entrepreneurs, particularly women looking to navigate the challenges of building a brand in a competitive market. Eliza’s journey exemplifies resilience, innovation, and the power of leveraging social media to connect with consumers.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Hey business besties, welcome back to the Female Founder World Podcast. I'm Jasmine. I'm the host of the show and I'm the person behind all things Female Found World. I'm chatting with Eliza O 'Connor today. She's the founder and creative director of a jewellery brand called Real Fine Studio. We're filming this in LA. Eliza, welcome to the show. Hi, thanks for having me. For people that don't know Real Fine, what are you doing? So we're a fine jewellery brand based in LA and we've been around for about three and a half, coming up to four years. there's so much that I want to get into in your story because I feel as though there is jewelry is like a saturated market like if like there's so many jewelry brands out there but somehow what you guys are doing is different and you're cutting through in a way that other people haven't and especially in the luxury market like you know when I talk to my team the particularly the you know the girls in their 20s like they're obsessed and they all want real fine and it's like the brand that everyone wants now when they want to buy something special look I love that for you.
1:01And I want to know how you do that and how you did that. Take me back to the beginning. Okay. Well, I think there's a few things. I'm of the belief that there is room for everyone at the table. I think that's a thing that I've kind of learned since living in America. I've been here for eight years. Changes your mindset, doesn't it? It definitely does. Australia feels like a little bit more competitive and that there's not enough room. There's room for everyone. Some of my really good friends own jewelry brands. I think for us and Real Fine, being on the platforms that like our clients are on and really directly speaking to them has been like such a big game changer.
1:40So obviously TikTok for us is huge, which I never, ever, ever would have ever thought because to me, I thought TikTok was like about selling like lower price point items like TikTok shop. but actually every majority of our engagement ring appointments come from TikTok. This is so interesting to me because I agree with you. I also, I think my gut reaction when I think about, oh, like promoting a brand on TikTok, I think a$20 moisturizer or a$200 pair of jeans at the most. Like that's kind of, that's where my head goes. And, but then you think, okay, everyone's on TikTok, including customers that are spending this.
2:21Exactly. And I think, you know, Pinterest was really the platform that jewelry inspiration came from and still is. But now they want that like personal connection and talking through pieces. So I feel like TikTok, the way we use it is kind of Pinterest with voice. Because we obviously, so, you know, when you're scrolling on Pinterest, you see a beautiful ring. But like you read the caption, there's not a lot about it. I'm showing that like same beautiful image and then I'm speaking to the product so I'm like talking about the stone where it's crafted how we did it the process who the client was what the brief was what the budget was so I feel like it's like a buy-in to the story being on the platforms that our consumers and like clients are on I feel like has made maybe us stand out a little bit more and I think traditionally jewelry brands weren't on weren't using social media in the way that we do now they were too precious about it yeah and the feeds were very curated yes I really don't like a curated feed yeah there's something about it and that's just because purely I don't like as a consumer to buy from a brand that's super curated yeah I kind of like to see the nitty gritty so we show a little bit of that and I just feel like the brand is more personal I love that We're going to get more into TikTok during this conversation, but I want to share some milestones.
3:45Like what are some things that have happened over the last couple of years that you were just like, oh, that was a win? I feel like our celebrity placement in like the first five months of Real Fine. With who? So it was actually through Molly Dixon, who's an incredible stylist in LA. I was really lucky. I met her out on a night out having drinks and she was like, tell me about you. What do you do? And I was like, I've just started a fine jewelry brand. And she was like, well, can you send it to me? I would love to get it on some of my clients. Molly Dixon, for those of you that don't know, is a huge stylist.
4:16She's known for like Sydney Sweeney, Hilary Duff, Bella Hadid. Wow. Like extremely, extremely incredible clients. So basically from that conversation, like a week later, she was styling Cami Mendes and then that was my first placement, which was huge because in the jewellery industry, while I don't think celebrities directly convert to sales they do verify a brand and I feel like that's kind of what I needed for people online and stuff to trust the brand was a little bit of verification. Cami Mendes, Sydney Sweeney, Scarlett Johansson was all in like the first six months. Wow. Eliza that's amazing.
4:58Which was pretty crazy. I remember like my mum being like wait what's happening like sending me a photo of Scarlett Johansson I'm like I know it's crazy and I think it's because I also put myself out there and you know I was trying to network and yeah meet as many people and tell told them what you were doing yeah and for those that were interested that was great so love Molly for like taking that chance on me and I think it was also when Molly was like coming up but at the time it just felt like a perfect pairing that was a huge milestone or notable memory I have and then probably also Goop. So we have an incredible partnership with Goop.
5:37That was the biggest game changer for us. We signed with them, well not signed, but we did our first trunk show in September of 2023. Okay. And that was a massive, massive turning point. It again verified us. It also directly connected us with our client, our ideal client, the girl that's shopping at Goop, the husband that's coming in to find a jewelry gift for his wife. Like it was really our dream partnership. So from there, I feel like we've kind of just, everything's been like chaotic since. In the early days, how were you getting your first customers? Were they coming through that TikTok content?
6:19Where was it coming through? Honestly, from, so I was in fashion for about 10 years. So I had a really incredible client network. they would honestly come from there and referral. So we didn't sell online till I would say May of 2024. Oh wow. Okay. How were people finding you and ordering if you weren't? Instagram. Literally like DMs. So interesting to me, this luxury space and people ordering through Instagram DM. Yeah. And then I would send them an invoice. So I obviously had the online store, but we didn't have like maybe I sold one thing in 2022. It was all via Instagram DMs. Wow. So I want to I want to back up a little bit because I want to understand how someone becomes a jeweler.
7:03Like this is just when I think of industries that are like a little bit gatekept and feel like they'd be hard to break into fine jewelry is one of the ones that I probably wouldn't bother touching. No 100%. How do you learn how to be a jeweler? So basically I was, well, this is backing up a little bit, but Real Fine Studio first started as Real Fine People Studio. It started as a styling studio. So I started that and it was, I'd never really intended for it to be a jewelry brand ever. Through that process, I started doing custom pieces for my clients because they were sick of paying the traditional markup and jewelry, which is 500 to 1 ,000%.
7:45Wow. So they had the money there, but they didn't want to pay the really expensive prices, which I totally get. So I started doing custom pieces. I got connected through a client to a jeweler. And luckily we're in downtown, like we're in LA. We have the third largest jewelry district in the world. We're so lucky. And I don't know if I could do this without having that here. Like that's just been a godsend. So I got connected. once I met with that jeweler we started working on custom pieces together and then over the last four years I've just been introduced and introduced and it's kind of like a hierarchy so one of my current jewelers that I work with now is like vetted me for three years and wanted to make sure like it was going to be a perfect match and then he would see me there every day and then finally we now started to work together.
8:39Wow that is amazing. Yeah. So you literally you just had to prove yourself for years before they would take a chance it's a really manual industry everything's done on a handshake yeah like there's no emails there's no everything is written my orders are written down on pencil like pencil and paper which is really hard to grasp when like everything is done you know in today's world like on email you're selling on tiktok yeah so then it's just a different world i want to know how you establish we've kind of we've talked a little bit about it but let's let's like dive a little bit more deeply into this how you establish that trust and build a brand with that high ticket luxury customer and how you cut through and reach them I think celebrity placement brand partnerships and then really refining our TikTok and Instagram strategy and then eventually just like I feel like one day I woke up and I was like okay you're an actual brand now you need to like stop having to like feel like every day you're like an imposter or trying to prove yourself and it was literally just like I woke up one morning and was and had that thought sometimes I'm like wow that was easy but then I think back of like the years where like you know the first two years of real fine it was pretty tough and like I you know I would go and source these vintage rings and do a find a vintage jewelry sale on Instagram and I wouldn't sell one thing and then I would be like oh my god this is so embarrassing so I would just make everything sold on Instagram I would just say sold which I think also kind of like gave the look of demand before we actually had it yeah and I feel like then it just came I'm okay I want to I want to keep talking about the the building the luxury brand but I'm really interested in this thing that you just said about how one day you just woke up and decided that you weren't going to have imposter syndrome anymore.
10:35Yeah. How? What do you mean? For the first two years of like building Real Fine, like someone would say like, I need a ring here in 20 minutes and I would do everything to make that happen. And I felt like at the end of those two years, like there was definitely traction, but I was like exhausted. Oh my God, I feel this. And like, you know, having to prove yourself and speak to every part of your business to get the sale. after those like two years I just like I don't even know where the thought came from but I was just like you're a real brand now you need to start acting like that and with that comes like boundaries I guess with with clients and with everyone else and that was kind of a hard transition because I said I started real fine as such like a you need me at your house in 20 minutes with necklace options I'll be there I can't do that anymore because we're busy we have structure so I think it was just like a decision of like not to torment myself anymore and be like you have to do what everyone else tells you to do and like when they say it and just it was just a decision to step into the brand and myself as like the creative director and founder and just like take on that role.
11:45I love this view that's such a different energy. Yeah feels good. Was there like a revenue milestone or something that you hit that made you have that turning point where you're like no I'm a real brand I'm a real boss now I think basically all of last year every month like doubled from the last month so watching that happen I was just like wait what's happening and then we hit a million dollars in sales for last year in end of August wow which was like a big milestone that I didn't really share too much just because I didn't want it to like look like a certain way yeah but I we did like celebrate it we got like one million balloons and like stared at them in the office but that was great um but then by the end of last year we doubled like we hit 2 million.
12:42Wow. So yeah, every month, real deal. Yeah. Apparently I know God. This is amazing. I think it's important to share these milestones and also so that people and like the beginning of your story, so people can connect the dots backwards and be like, okay, you've started, you like your product wasn't selling and you kept going and you iterating and trying new things. And then you get to this point now where you're doing 2 million a year. Exactly. How did you bridge that gap like what were the things that you changed from something not selling to now having this business that's doubling every month like did the product change did the branding change did the team change like what happened at this how do we do this yeah at a lot of trial and error yeah at the start because we didn't have a lot of capital I was just doing pieces that kind of were more classic so like your tennis bracelet your tennis necklaces you can go out and see that across many, many brands.
13:38But I knew that we needed to be like known for a few pieces. I really wanted the like, oh my God, that's like a real fine ring or that's real fine earrings. And that was always my like goal. So I think designing more real fine pieces definitely and then bringing that into the brand, like some key pieces was a huge kind of like turning point. I remember just like crying one day in my jeweler's office being like I don't like what what else can I do and he was like I've been doing this for 50 years you just have to keep going so I would take a different photo of it I would post it I would say en route to New York or for so and so you know and and I kind of built the demand around it which I think really helped and it didn't feel great to do that yeah but I think people want to buy from a brand that's like other people have and is doing well and that was just you've got to create you've got to create that sense of hype and if you don't do it no one else is exactly you have to be your number one hype girl 100 % hype for your brand and then it's like crazy when the hype comes without you doing that anymore like I feel like oh my god like people people like this and it this is sold out and we are sending this many pieces and it felt like all those like early days just like came to fruition and obviously we still have like so much more to do such a long way to go I feel like we're in a good place okay 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.
15:30So 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. And 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.
16:12Plus 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. You mentioned before about creating those pieces that you're known for and one of them is a very specific type of ring. It's called the heirloom ring. Is that right? Yeah, the heirloom signet. The heirloom signet and this is like completely taken off and changed your business.
16:51Can you tell me about it yes so I for the people watching on YouTube let's like show it yeah I can't read hold on here we go yeah they're beautiful I'm gonna try and so basically you can choose different colors they come in different um like color on color and they have cute names people use them for birthstone rings um or like so pretty gender reveal we've been doing um also college rings but I first designed the heirloom signet in January of 2024. And the first one was the green one, Meadow. And I posted it and people loved it. But, you know, maybe we sold a few. It didn't feel like it was like this big thing.
17:36What do they retail at? They start at$13.90 and they go up to$26.90. They're all solid 14 karat gold, natural stones and diamonds. Beautiful. Natural diamonds. It kind of didn't take off. And then I was thinking about it and I was like, maybe I know people like an opt-in and they like a choice. If they know it or they don't, it's just true. You want to look at something and be like, I'll take that one. So I remember I had a bunch done for a trunk show that we were doing and I put them all on my finger and I was like, wait, these look like insane. So I took a photo and posted it and that photo went crazy on Instagram.
18:18we then started getting a lot of orders and then so Hadley who's our junior designer she was like oh my god I'm gonna make one for my college ring I just graduated USC so she made the ruby and I was like oh I'd never thought of doing that because you know in Australia what am I gonna do that cutie colors like blue no um we don't have like that connection I feel like to our school so she did that and she made a tiktok about it and she was like college rings are so ugly look at the one I've just made it's real finds heirloom signet you can choose your color like email me I remember she posted it and she was like oh my god her inbox was just I think she got like 18 messages 18 emails in like four minutes wow and we were all like oh my god what's going on so I think that was like incredible from her to see her vision for that ring because it was totally different to what I thought it could have been and then now the LM signet has become like a college ring for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people across America which is pretty cool.
19:25Give me another example of a really specific post that worked on TikTok that helped you sell more jewelry? Okay definitely our cool girl engagement ring which is just a take on a classic trilogy brilliant round trilogy ring. I posted that ring and it kind of did well on TikTok for like the first day and then I woke up the next day and it went completely viral. I think it's got nearly 700 ,000 views and something like 15 ,000 saves. Crazy. We have sold like maybe 30 of those from that post. And it's the same email every time. It's a sweet guy that's gone. My girlfriend keeps sending me this on TikTok.
20:14I'm guessing she wants it. And they'll either say, can you let me you know, the specs so I can take it to a jeweler near me, in which case I always let them know we can make it. We make rings for like globally, we send every day. So then usually they go with us, which is pretty cool. Like we've been sending rings to like Minnesota, Mississippi, like the places I've never even been. But that TikTok, I mean, also highlighted us in the world of engagement rings. So I try and do every time we do an engagement ring, I try and talk to it because people are really interested they want to know like the details how it looks on does the diamond have fluorescence like I get into kind of the nitty-gritty but that yeah that post went crazy and we still we probably get 10 inquiries a day for it.
21:00Wow I want to talk about funding because you're talking about jewelry that costs a lot of money to make like we designed an engagement ring and I'm looking at these and I'm like that's like a lot of money worth of jewelry sitting on this table here yeah uh you so how did you get the money to start this and to grow it and to have inventory on stock to sell like how do you manage that it's taken years yeah probably to this point I would say the past six months till we're really holding inventory yeah so it's actually a fun story I have never taken investment I've never taken a dollar from anyone it's completely self funded which was really important for me I just I wanted to do it on my own and I probably had something to prove to myself and that's why I kind of just knuckled down on that so I had some savings set aside and then basically the money I got for the initial inventory is from a watch I sourced in San Francisco for a client.
22:03So what we're eight months into Real Fine existing in the world, my roommate, who's also a good friend from school, is a real estate agent. So she was up at a conference in San Francisco. She is at like a dinner with a CEO of a big company, real estate company. And the CEO was like, I'm trying to find this watch. It's, you know, protect Philippe. It's I can't find it. No one can get it. And God bless Ainsley. She was like, I know someone who can get it because I had just started like going into watch sourcing as well. But like vintage Cartier, like$6 ,000 watches, not half a million dollar watches.
22:45Yeah, differently. So I, yeah, she was like, I can find someone that can do it. Like give me your email. She'll do it on Monday. So I get like a voice note being like, hey, I need you to get this watch. I told him you can do it and I was like oh I can do it I'm like send me it through she sends it through and I'm like oh okay like I can't this is a half a million dollar I think it retailed for 300 ,000 at Patek but as you know it's like a it's same as Hermes it's like a buy-in they're never going to sell it without a existing profile so I literally just googled the watch googled how to buy it like you know how many are made I wanted to know as much as I could about the watch before I like game planned on what I was going to do.
23:26I ended up getting connected with a watch dealer in Miami. We found the watch, which is crazy because he'd been trying to find it. He couldn't. It took us a month. It was stressful, very stressful. I found it. We were about to go into escrow, which by the way, I had no idea what escrow was. I was on a call. Yeah, it's usually like a large amount of money. So I was on the call with my watch dealer and my client about to buckle because I was like sweating because I'd never sourced a watch but I was a watch dealer yeah um I didn't know what I was talking about really so they were like oh obviously we're going to put this watch into escrow and I am googling on this call like what is escrow and then I was like oh yep yep of course of course it's going into escrow about five minutes before was going into escrow the the uh watch dealer said that it had been worn for like half an hour which I'm all about being completely transparent I let my client know he didn't want it anymore he wanted brand new so back to the square one we ended up finding it a week later in Hong Kong came via arm guard I had to like fly to San Francisco and I remember being like on the plane if you pull this off you like this you can never doubt yourself again and like making that a clear thought and I pulled it off and it went through and I used some of that money as well it wasn't a large amount of money but like some of it to then invest in my first inventory wow that is such a good that's like one of the best it's crazy started founding stories I've heard that's wild so you start to have the first inventory and then from there has it just been you're reinvesting profits amazing when did you start paying yourself maybe six months ago yeah and I pay myself just a small amount yeah um do you give yourself a salary or just like take money out when it's there just I just take out same yeah yeah what do I need to live this month yeah I'll text Elise and I'll be like can you pay me I need some money Elise is your team member by the way.
25:37Yeah Elise is our head of ops and like my partner and everything she came on really early with Real Fine and she's incredible and definitely a key player and why we are in the position we're in. I don't look at the money in like Real Fine's account as my money. Yeah. Which I think is healthy and helpful. So there's like a clear distinction. I feel like my personality and like I love really nice things it could have really gone the other way. So I'm like really happy that I, I just don't, it none, nothing about it. I feel like I can touch. Were you clear cut from the beginning about separating personal and business finances or was it a bit messier?
26:15I feel like a little bit messy to begin with, but I was really good about getting like business bank account, business credit cards, and then also keeping my personal just to kind of, it makes it easier with tax season. I want to talk about some of the things that you've put in place to be able to scale this from kind of you pulling a couple of pieces of jewelry together and selling them on Instagram DM to where it is now. And one of the things you told me about before we got on the show was about some of the systems that you put in place, like literally last December, and how that's changed things for you.
26:46Talk me through what you've done and how people can replicate it. Yeah, there's a few things. We use monday.com, which is great because everyone's across it. Everyone can check it when they come in. we're still like getting in the mind frame of checking it every day and like multiple times a day but when you know at any given time we have 15 to 20 engagement rings in that's where all the info is yeah so then instead of you know Elise asking me about a size we check there just cuts down some of the fluff um monday.com is great we also use an incredible and I don't know if this is like a tool but if you can get a really good excel spreadsheet going that kind of changed the game I'm embarrassed to say I recorded my like sales on a word document um and then I met my boyfriend who is like an excel genius and he was like show me how you like recording your sales and I'm like pull up this word document and then I had to like manually count at the end of the month like how much I made which is nuts um and he built me the most incredible incredible excel spreadsheet every cost boxes packaging literally everything you can think of and then it pulls into like monthly yeah so if you can find someone I think you can also outsource that and have someone make you can totally outsource that if you don't have investment banker friends like go and outsource that because it's yeah that I even see like me seeing that every day has like tripled what we've made.
28:21Yeah, wow. Just being able to visualise. Yeah, and like it's motivational. Yes. I check it every morning, every night. I see what we've made for the month, the year, where our expenses are. Like it literally tracks everything. And that has been a huge, huge game changer. And then what else? I'm trying to think. Monday.com. I use ChatGBT a lot. Oh, yeah. controversial no tell me about chat gpt how are you using it i i think more women need to be adopting ai immediately 80 percent of chat gpt users are men and they're mostly around the age of 25 and so you think about if ai is going to be what is shaping yeah the future and it's happening in the next like year or two and women are not using it and they're not shaping it like we have to get involved immediately so like tell me exactly how you're using it and everyone listening go and do it like go and try it chat gpt is literally my best friend i speak to it like i would speak to a human so now it like obviously knows me so i don't know if you know this but sign up get an account and then tell it about yourself tell about your business or whatever and like over time it learns you so i don't really have to prompt it that much the way in which i use that is I would recommend other people to use it is in the morning I'll voice note it I have the app on my phone yeah and I will brain dump everything that I have to do yeah because there's like oh so many little things pick up a backing yeah drop this I'm never gonna remember it so I brain jump it all and then I say to it prioritize this list for me so I know what I need to do first and and what could wait till tomorrow if I don't get through it and then it just does it for me.
30:07Yeah, clever. Instead of googling and searching for something, I just ask it the question, ring size conversions when we're talking like globally, like things like that. When I'm shipping internationally, I ask for like tariffs, tariff codes, what the like duties would be. I just I use it like a PA. Yeah, interesting. Yeah. When you think about the next couple of years, how do you think about like maintaining this momentum and continuing to grow is that something that makes you feel excited or something that makes you feel anxious it stresses me out I am a perfectionist I high I hold myself to such a high level that like I really want real fine to be on the up and up yeah but I was even recently just back in Australia and my brother is in private equity and I was talking to him about the business and he was like you need to slow down and if you have a dip in sales for a month it's okay but you need to bring on some more people to help you yeah because you need to get ahead of the curve so like to me making less than we did last month would be like a really bad thing but he was like you need to reframe that put the brakes on a little bit and hire do you have a business or a leadership coach No.
31:24Like you should talk to somebody that's not chat cheapy TV. Honestly, I think I should do. But just like have someone who can help you. I've got someone I'll recommend to you as well. Would love that. I'll put her in the show notes. I've recommended her on the show a thousand times, Barbara. I've got ages and she's awesome. Just to help you like zoom out. Yes. And make a plan. Yes. And yeah, slow down to go faster later. I think that would really help you. Yeah. So we kind of, that was the aim this year. we had a pretty crazy February so what do you mean crazy what happened just really busy off the back of Valentine's Day we weren't initially going to do our trunk show in LA just because of the fires we didn't like feel like it was right but group were like please like customers want to smile and you know and so we did do it and it was really successful now we're gearing up for New York so we actually had February was our second largest month we've ever had and it was in competition with December which is always going to be crazy.
32:19So the slowing down plan hasn't really kicked in yet but we have just hired someone who's starting end of March. So how many of you are there now? There's five of us which is crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy and you know a lesson in me like I really have to learn to delegate and this is my time to release some control and I've got incredible girls working for me. So I'm excited about our team like coming together and I think the fifth edition, Nicole, who starts end of this month, is going to be incredible. She has a fine jewelry background for 10 years. I just feel like having some expertise is just what we need.
33:03So I'm super excited for that and I think from there I'm pretty happy with having a small team, bringing everyone to full time and just like being small but mighty. Yeah so you've started you started with one person who is Elise who was kind of like yes you're two IC right hand person with everything yeah and then who came next? Then we brought on Hadley our junior designer she started in September of last year. She's designing the jewelry. Yeah she designs with me she has an incredible eye so she's great and she's also 23 so she connects with gen z yeah not to make myself sound so old but like the college rings was her idea like she can kind of hit that client that we weren't maybe hitting before yeah and it's so important because that client you know in the next five years are going to start looking at engagement rings and we want to be a top of mind so that was yeah important so hadley started in September.
34:00Full time or a consultant? Consultant. Yeah. So she's part time. And then Ellie is our studio assistant and like marketing coordinator. And she started in January. Wow. So you've really gone from just you and Elise to like being this leader and manager. Are you liking it? I'm not the best delegator. So it's been like a bit of a struggle because I'm, I'm sometimes such a perfectionist that I would just, I'm like, I'll just do it myself. Easy to do it myself. Easy. but that obviously can't grow that way no you can't and I remind myself that every day that like if we want to scale and like teach people and then when I teach them and they do it and I'm like oh okay yeah everything's okay it's exciting to have a team and like having that extra support has felt really really good but probably need to lean into like delegating a little bit more what's your end game I actually don't know I never started real fine I don't even know what I thought it was going to be but I never was like I want to start a really successful jewelry brand never it was it just like kind of organically unfolded now like obviously that I've seen the potential I'm like oh I want to be a really big jewelry brand but like not in the traditional sense like I don't want you to see me at Saks and Bergdorf's and like everywhere I want it to be selective so I'm just kind of like going with the flow I also just think that you probably are one of those people that are like a natural entrepreneur this isn't your first business you've had a you had a cafe before this yes and so I think some people go out to solve a specific problem and then there are other people who want to be entrepreneurs and so they want to build a business yeah totally and I feel like maybe you're the second one yeah I definitely yeah I wanted the freedom of working for myself yeah and I also just in like previous jobs I work so hard and I treat every like brand that I've worked for as like my own I want to do that for myself yes I don't want to build up someone else's brand when I can give it all for myself yeah and my brand so that's kind of led me to yeah keep being I guess in businesses that I own Eliza thank you so much for coming on the show and congrats on everything you've built thanks 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.
36:23Business 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. You can cancel anytime. Head to bestie.femalefoundaworld.com or click the link in the show notes for more.
From the publisher
Real Fine Studio founder Eliza O’Connor is on the Female Founder World podcast with Jasmine Garnsworthy! Eliza started selling custom jewelry in 2021 through Instagram DM, and now has built her heirloom jewelry company, Real Fine Studio, to be a favorite of celebs like Sydney Sweeney and Scarlett Johansson, has collaborated with brands like Goop and Heaven Mayhem, and is bringing in millions of dollars in revenue. Eliza shares the way her brand has been able to find virality and product-market-fit, on both TikTok and Instagram, how her team has helped her scale, and the BTS on some of her amazing collaborations.
LINKS
Get 25% OFF your first VistaPrint order using the code FFW25 at checkout: https://www.vistaprint.com
Get the Female Founder World resource roundup https://femalefounderworld.beehiiv.com
Become a Business Bestie subscriber: bestie.femalefounderworld.com
Check out Eliza’s business: https://realfinestudio.com
Jasmine’s business coach recommendation: http://beboldgroup.co




