679: The $20 Jar of Salt Behind Her 9-Figure Jewelry Brand

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1:12So today's guest, Jennifer Fisher, founder of Hollywood's favorite jewelry brand, who bootstrapped her brand for 20 years and is now growing 50 % year over year. So if you're building a DDC brand, this episode is a cheat code. You're going to steal the$20 product she uses to acquire customers for refined jewelry, the exact Instagram pivot that tripled her sales overnight, and the one manufacturing mistake that nearly broke her entire business so you never have to make it yourself. This is 20 years of brand building lessons in one conversation.

1:46Hear the stories.

1:47Jennifer Fisher:Learn the proven methods and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship. Welcome to the Founder Podcast with Nathan Chan.

2:00Jennifer Fisher, welcome to the show. You spent 10 years working as a stylist before starting your company in 2005. Can you take us back to that moment when you couldn't find a dog tag for your son? and how did that one missing item turn into this massive jewelry brand?

2:20Jennifer Fisher:It's funny. Well, first of all, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I have always been that person that was looking for something different my whole life. And if I couldn't find it, I would make my own. And that's sort of how I've always worked. I was an entrepreneur since I was a child. And after having years and years of struggles trying to have a child, after going through chemotherapy when I was in my 30s. My oncologist didn't want me to carry a child. We had unsuccessful IVF surrogacy for years. And finally, I got pregnant. And that was my son, Shane. And when he was born, I couldn't find anything that I felt was worthy to represent him.

3:00Jennifer Fisher:I wanted something different. I had collected charms my entire life. And I always wanted to wear them on a necklace. And people were like, no one does that. You wear them on bracelets. And I'm like, no, I really want to wear it on a necklace. and I wanted to have his full name on it because it was such a big deal of what I had gone through. And I wanted to represent him fully, not just by a letter, not just by something that you walked into a store and bought. And I didn't want to look like every other girl on the street that was wearing the same type of mom jewelry. So I knocked on doors on 47th Street after being a stylist.

3:30Jennifer Fisher:For so many years, you're very resourceful and you can get things done very quickly. And I also don't like to take no for an answer. And I found someone to make me this very simple dog tag that I had sketched on a piece of paper and it said Shane, my son's full name. And I sourced a beautiful heavy gold chain and I wore it on a, just similar to this, on a heavy chain. And as a, as a stylist, I would wear it on set and everybody on set wanted to know what it was. And it was an instant conversation piece. And then once I told them what it was, they wanted to either purchase one for themselves or they wanted to, you know, tell someone about it.

4:03Jennifer Fisher:And I had the opportunity to make one for Uma Thurman. And it happened the day that she received it. She chose to wear it while she shot a Glamour magazine cover, which was fortuitous for me. And at the time, there wasn't really a lot of jewelry to represent your children. And I started making it for grips and gaffers. And I was doing small trunk shows. And I made Nicole Kidman's Bridesmaids gifts. And I sort of started, you know, remember when Us Magazine and Star and all of those magazines were a very big deal for celebrities and placement. I got a lot of placements being this celebrity mom jeweler before really was around.

4:44Jennifer Fisher:And that's really what happened. And one day I was in Soho in my apartment and I had orders strewn all over my bed. And my husband's like, Jen, this is a business. You need to start a website. so back in the day before anyone was really doing this i started a direct consumer customizable personalized jewelry brand online with very limited shapes and styles it was yellow gold it was about you know four geometric shapes but we started just getting orders and who knew everybody wanted to have something different wanted to represent their family in their own way the way that i did and that's how it was born there you go and this is pre-shopify right like Oh, please.

5:25Jennifer Fisher:I was on Magento originally. This was like, this was like, this was the stone ages. So if you compare now starting a DTC brand compared to back then, how much different is it? It is a night and day. Like you couldn't find anybody. You couldn't find anyone to do any of the design for the website. No one even knew how to build websites. It was like this archaic coding that was going on and it was just impossible. I can't even believe people were checking out. If I look back now, it's so wild. I mean, without having like the data, without having anything that you really were, we really need in this day and age to really run a successful D2C business.

6:06Yeah, there you go. So talk us through like, like how much did it cost to start this jewelry brand like early days?

6:13Jennifer Fisher:So I put in about, you know, initially it was like $5 ,000 around cash and that was like$50 ,000 around cash, you know, and it just was sort of like I bootstrapped this business just to grow. And we're just just reinvesting everything back into the business. And then we started putting a little bit more capital and just personal capital and just sort of just constantly. And we did that for almost 20 years. I mean, we were bootstrapping it. I mean, I could tell you stories through COVID, Nathan, of things that I had to do. I mean, I am so proud we didn't furlough one employee during COVID, but probably not a good business decision, but we stayed in business.

6:50Jennifer Fisher:I shipped every order by myself via Shopify out of our New York office that served as a warehouse so we could stay in business. Because the interesting thing is COVID hit and it was very quiet. And then four days later, we're all living in boxes like this. And what does everybody want and what can everyone wear? It's jewelry. So the business really exploded during COVID, but that's sorry to jump around, but no no no no no no no look i remember that i remember i'm i'm the same as you very proud we didn't let go of anyone during that time period then about a year later the great reset happened and a lot of people there was a lot of movement i'm sure you experienced that too and it was tough to go through that um but we were the same i remember that march just like late feb early much we even had customers that had bought from us and like bought from us over the years some of our educational programs and stuff and like not entitled to any refunds whatsoever and i remember there was one that was like i know it totaled up to about three four thousand dollars and the guy was just like give me my money back or i'm gonna write bad reviews and really like nasty stuff and he'd been a customer for like years bought over the years so he was like that just paints a picture of the time, right?

8:12Where people were just like, I need money. I need like, and it was so quiet. And then around that March period, like late March, it really started to pick up lockdowns, everything. We were the same. And it was a blessing and a curse because you thought that it was going to last forever once you're six months in, right?

8:31Jennifer Fisher:We experienced it. We had a longer tail on it, fortunately. So for me, I had a really fortunate experience of having a, I did a collaboration with a company called CB2. And I remember we were starting the press tour. It was like late February and people were starting to not shake hands. And we were doing the launch. It launched literally February 27th, right before the world shut down on March 13th or whatever it was. And 14th. And I had this collaboration that hit the website of 106 pieces of home decor priced at a perfect price point. And I literally was like, oh my God, what are we going to do?

9:09Jennifer Fisher:We just launched our collaboration. But then everyone was locked in their homes and everyone wanted to redo their houses at an affordable price point. So that really helped business. And that also got a lot of eyeballs on my brand because it was a totally separate lifestyle company. And at the same time, simultaneously, I was cooking with my salts that I had launched in 2017 on Instagram every day and trying to work with editors and magazines and getting like on Harper's Bazaar cooking banana bread. Like, and so that started to build my lifestyle brand while going through all of this. So I had the fortunate tale of coming out of COVID or in mid COVID and people still, I mean, business exploding literally in the fashion jewelry landscape that we couldn't keep up with order.

9:56Jennifer Fisher:So I had great things happening, but then I also had things that were incredibly challenging happening at the same time because we couldn't keep up. Yeah, I think that was the case for a lot of people. And then, of course, you know, costs of shipping and all that went through the roof and your air freighting and like all sorts of crazy stuff. Don't get me started on the gold market over the last two years. And we've gone from – and it's funny. I remember when gold was$1 ,700 an ounce. Now it's like insane. And then what people are saying is going to happen over the next, we'll see what's going to happen.

10:28Jennifer Fisher:But, you know, we're working between having to work our margins on our fine jewelry was between, you know, 4 ,600 to 5 ,300 an ounce. And it's, that's, that's a lot, especially when we're dealing with weighted pieces of gold. So I'm fortunate that I also have the fashion component of my business and now my food and lifestyle component of the business to sort of keep everything going. Let's talk about that. So jewelry done really, really well, obviously moved to Shopify, grown over time. And, you know, in 2017, you started showing your real life on Instagram. So cooking, kids, and your sales tripled.

11:10Can you tell us exactly what it went from? I know it tripled. We've got some research that it tripled, but it went from X to Y. And can you tell us why you think that worked?

11:19Jennifer Fisher:You know, I think it worked because I started showing people exactly who I am and that I'm a real person. I walk my dog. I do my dishes. And I don't think a lot of designers really do that. You know, I think I would say more so my growth is going to also happen now over the next two years. Like we're expected to grow. I mean, we're 50 % up year over year now. And we're expected to be like, and like 200 % 3x in the business through like 2028. So which is really, really exciting. Because yeah, it's really, really exciting. Because there's so many, there's so many, there's so many aspects that go into it that the, the salt is a really interesting tool.

12:05Jennifer Fisher:It's not only useful and amazing. It has like an interesting cult following, but about 6 % of people that buy salt go on to buy jewelry. So yes, and it's so expensive to acquire customers these days, as you know, that this is a great customer acquisition tool. I've got kids at camp that are 12 years old that are obsessed with my salt. And then by the time they want to go buy their first pair of hoop earrings or something or have a, you know, a street 16 or a bar bat mitzvah. Maybe they're getting a fine jewelry piece for me that's not, you know, of the highest price point that we produce. So for me, I really want to try to bring them in and let them grow with the business.

12:47Jennifer Fisher:And so that's what's sort of interesting about us is that, you know, I always wanted to be an accessible brand, but aspirational. I was talking to a customer today in my store and it was so interesting that she said, you know, I really feel comfortable shopping here. And I think it's because they know who I am. They walk in there like, I know I've never met you before, but I follow you on Instagram and I, you know, you answer my DMs every day. So and that's true. I do. I speak to them every day. I love it because I see what's happening with the business by me being there for them and watching them grow with it.

13:24Jennifer Fisher:It's really, it's just, it's important. And the retail expansion has been helpful too. So you guys are on track over nine figures now. We are on track. What would you say some of the biggest growth levers are to grow, you know, 200, 300 % over the next year? Well, we can speak to my new JV partnership with Centric Brands, which opened up a really amazing set. I'm one of the only two joint ventures they have. The other one is Favorite Daughter with the Foster Sisters. And what's fantastic about this partnership is that I've been able to open up amazing resources for manufacturing operations systems.

14:04Jennifer Fisher:It's taken us from, you know, we really were like a mom and pop ice cream shop before. It's like, you know, before you really have these systems and structures in place, you're really just trying to figure it out. You know, making sure that the lights are staying on and making sure that everyone has the right insurance. You know, it's those types of things that you want to be able to give your employees that have really been game changing for us. Yep. So that JV opened up a lot for you. It sounds like data is very, very, very, very key for you guys. The fact that you, you know, you said that there's 11 % of people that buy your salts buy jewelry or nine?

14:43Jennifer Fisher:It used to be eight. It's about six now. um and i know listen i never started it's sort of like with the hoop earrings like i was a marketing major listen i've been in sales my entire life this is like what i love to do i went to usc marshall and i love marketing and early on for us because i didn't have the marketing dollars to really have true advertising campaigns or have you know now it's all ambassadors for jewelry i don't know if you know a ton about how the jewelry word works but like a lot of these celebrities are now contracted with jewelry brands to where they can't wear other jewelry brands it's really interesting yes but when i started it was very different um people were not as finessed and you know people just were wearing jewelry they were so happy to have jewelry to wear and to be loaned or to be gifted so i made sure because i was a stylist sorry this is sort of off track of what we were talking about but it does have relevance to what you were asking about the salt um i made sure that every stylist because i was once one had kits that they could use on set because jewelry for most for the most part is sort of a uh the last it's like the icing it's like sort of the last thing you know they've got the look together they want to make sure that the dress or whatever it is they're wearing is perfect and then they sort of make sure the jewelry is there at the very end and they don't a lot of stylists by that time don't have a lot of time to go and pull jewelry so i made sure that these stylists that i knew and i had relationships with had whatever they needed on on set or in their kit for their you know for their celebrities of what they're doing.

16:10Jennifer Fisher:So I was fortunate enough at the time. So I would get a lot of celebrity placement because I made sure everyone had what they need in their bags and their assistants would just pull out whatever it was. And we would get amazing placements with the fashion jewelry, more so than the fine jewelry, you know, and magazine covers, we made sure magazines had what they needed. And so then on set, they're like, just pull out. And I always, you know, the way I design jewelry is intentional. I, I design jewelry for, I want jewelry to be evergreen. I want jewelry to be on your, you know, for you to wear it every day.

16:42Jennifer Fisher:And for someone to not really remember, oh, that was that big blue stone thing. I remember she wore that a week ago. You know, I want people to be buying this jewelry to wear it as evergreen. But back to you about the salt. So that's how the marketing thing ties in. So the salt thing, too, it's just sort of this like really easy marketing tool that I didn't intend to. It's a really delicious salt that I stand behind that I literally made and I had no intention of getting into the CPG business. How did you make it? Like, talk me through that. I've been in a hairnet in the factory doing it myself because so it started because I have Hashimoto's and my doctor wanted me to be eating protein every day in the morning.

17:22Jennifer Fisher:And I couldn't find anything to put on my eggs in the morning that didn't have garlic or onion in it. I literally I scoured every single gourmet grocery store to find a salt blend and everything was sort of like it was like a barbecue rub or like potpourri. You know, it was like something rosemary. So you don't want to put on your eggs in the morning. And so my father, being from Santa Barbara, California, and my father would always ship me his lemons and avocados. And I would always zest the lemon rind from the lemons and dry it on the side of my stove. And so one day I just made this little concoction of all my favorite things.

17:54Jennifer Fisher:And I started seasoning everything with it. And I remember one day, Kevin, my husband, was like, this is really good, Jen. What is that? I said, it's that concoction thing in that bowl that I made. And he's like, this is really good. And so one day, as one does being an early adapter to Instagram, I posted my egg avocado toast. I don't know if you remember when like suddenly avocado toast blew up and everyone was posting it. And I put it on my jewelry account. And the crazy thing was, this is before DMs. And I posted it and like it exploded. People were like, first of all, you can cook. I'm like, well, why wouldn't I be able to cook?

18:25Jennifer Fisher:That's so funny that you assume just because I'm a designer, I can't cook food. That's so weird. The assumptions people make. And then it was like, well, where can we buy it? What is it? And editors started asking me and I was like, oh God, we have to figure out how to package this. And that's literally how it started. A small co-packer, and I would be in there zesting lemons and drying it and I have videos of me mixing it in Uberance. So how many jars of salt do you reckon you'll sell this year? Oh gosh, I don't know. We sell millions of dollars of salt. It's insane. It's literally like culty.

19:01Jennifer Fisher:It's wild. So we have a new flavor. So we're kind of what we're doing now is ourselves. So there were three flavors. Now there's four flavors. And we used to make these little travel packs for people to travel with them. And now we're making these little vials that people can carry them around because people literally take them to restaurants. Kids pack them in their lunches when we had the little travel packs, but it wasn't very friendly for the environment. I didn't like that it was a disposable. I wanted something that could be refillable. So we're doing these little glass jars now that people can take with them.

19:33Jennifer Fisher:It's a great conversation piece too. For nothing more, people pull it out at a restaurant, people are like, what are that? When I go out at night, I carry little vials of salt and I hand those out to people instead of giving them my Instagram. I'm like, here. It's funny you talk about it. I actually, I don't know if you know this, but in Australia, chicken salt is a big thing. I need to do a little more research on like chicken salt. I bought some for the first time online from someone I just saw on Instagram. It looked epic because I love chicken salt. So tell me exactly what it tastes like, like exactly what it is.

20:06It's really hard to describe, but if you put it on, like even just like, let's just say like you know i'm into my training i'm getting married soon like so i might have some like pretty bland chicken if i just get a bit of chicken salt and sprinkle on it it just makes it way more tastier um and like it's nice to have on chips or french fries and uh yeah it's it's hard to describe how it tastes or what it is but i'm pretty like i'm pretty sure it's a big thing here

20:35Jennifer Fisher:in australia chicken salt i'm gonna i'm gonna check it out and figure it out but i'm also gonna send you my salt so you can taste it because I think my salt tastes good on chicken. My salt tastes good on everything. It's a pre-seasoning and it's a post-seasoning, so it's a final seasoning, but I think that you'll enjoy it. Then we'll have to do a comparison and follow-up to see if you like it better than chicken salt, and I'm going to want your honest opinion. Okay, done, done, deal. You talked about Instagram, and I think this is a really interesting one for people. You've been doing stories, showing behind the scenes, taking people on a journey.

21:11But you did it for a long time on your main account, your jewelry account. But now over time, I can see you're building out your personal. And what advice would you give to founders when they are starting their brands? Do you create a separate personal or do you just do it through your company brand? Because it's something that gets people caught up. And if you could have your time over again, would have you started your personal sooner and starting to grow that or talk me through that?

21:39Jennifer Fisher:No, I think the way that I did it in 2012, like I literally like did it right when I signed on immediately and I'm happy that it was my brand. I do wish that I started showing more of myself earlier. You know, I, the funny thing about Instagram is I thought I had to be more polished on it. I thought I had to look a certain way. And what's so interesting is now it's a 360 of that. I actually feel that my jewelry brand Instagram looks a little too polished and I want to take it back to the way my personal account looks a little bit because my personal account is so engaged because that's really where my, you know, my hardcore followers sort of like the daily people for, you know, now I'm doing fashion and everything on there too, which is something else that we should talk about, which is really interesting what this has turned into.

22:33Jennifer Fisher:But, you know, Instagram is a funny thing. I think it's the best communication tool out there in order to get feedback from your customers. I love using it for that. I'm never going to be one that's going to do, you know, there's so many things. It's so crowded on Instagram now. I'm not starting a TV show on Instagram for my brand. I'm not doing a lot of those things that people are doing. do I want to start live shopping? Absolutely. That's what I want to do. That is that live shopping to me is exactly where I want to be going with my brand on every check. Like I, I mean, whether it's like, is it whatnot?

23:16Jennifer Fisher:What is it? You know, where are we going to be doing? And I actually just made an investment in a company that is working on a live shopping platform. So I'm very curious about that space. And that's a space that I see, I'm doing it already on my personal account, basically with my fashion. And I'm converting via ShopMy to my jewelry account directly also to other brands. So I'm getting like brand deals out of my personal account, which has a very small following, but it's also tied to my jewelry account okay can we talk about this a little more because this is interesting because because look live shopping has been massive in china and then we saw that it was popularized well not popularized but it was like what kim kardashian did with skims like that was that was crazy in the last year like how they did that and i think in western culture it's going to be picked up a lot more now so i agree with you this is a trend and I think just the concept of live streaming is a growing trend like you look at creators now and they stream on twitch or kick right they do the youtube and then they get they do the streams and that's how they get the clips and then they get the clippers and then like like that's what's where it's going so so I'm curious talk me through how this works Do you, you know, if you have a following, are you going live on Instagram and are you telling people it's happening or you're just doing it?