715 Kegan Fisher: Co-Founder & CEO of Frank Darling

0:00Kara Goldin:I am unwilling to give up, but I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. You just want to make sure you will get knocked down, but just make sure you don't get knocked out. So your only choice should be, go focus on what you can control. Hi everyone and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world's greatest leaders. We'll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can't wait to get started. Let's go. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Kara Golden Show.

0:45Kara Goldin:So excited to have our next guest here. I'm a new fan. Fully admit, I had not heard of this incredible brand before and was introduced to it. And boy, am I such a huge fan. So Kagan Fisher is the co-founder and CEO of Frank Darling. And it is a modern fine jewelry brand known for its custom designed engagement rings, ethical sourcing and design forward pieces. So not just engagement rings that blend timeless elegance with today's expectations. Love it, love it. And since launching in 2017 with her co-founder, Jeff Smith, Frank Darling has grown into a national destination for discerning consumers with showrooms across the US.

1:40Kara Goldin:we'll get into that and how they operate overall which is really interesting but I can't wait to hear more about Kagan's background in industrial design and how that has helped her to build a smarter more personal jewelry experience and without further ado welcome so excited to to finally meet you and have you here and really, really excited. Hey, Garrett. Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited to be on the show. So I should note also, Jeff, my co-founder is also my husband. So we are a couple that started the brand together and we've been working together. I think this is the third company now.

2:25So we were sort of co-workers first and a couple later. So that's definitely, I think, informed a lot of thinking that went into the beginning of the brand.

2:36Kara Goldin:I love it. So let's start at the beginning. What inspired you and Jeff? As you just said, you're a serial entrepreneur. You've done other companies together. But what inspired you to launch Frank Darling? This message is a paid partnership with AT &T Business. Hey, everyone, Kara here. Let's get real about those early days of building a business, not the highlight reel, the actual day-to-day, the friction, trying to manage everything across time zones, across teams, across locations, and realizing how much depends on staying connected. I remember those days at Hint, a retailer call, an order, a decision, all of it.

3:20Kara Goldin:And you realize quickly, connection isn't a nice-to-have, it's the lifeblood of your business. As a founder, you don't want to think about your connectivity. You just need it to work every time. That's why AT &T Business matters. AT &T Business is the reliable provider for small business owners. And when you have that kind of reliability behind you, you can focus on what actually moves your business forward. Powered by AT &T Business, built to work. Get AT &T Business at business.att.com. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, at the beginning, obviously, like I mentioned that we were, you know, we're a couple.

4:05And so, you know, we've looked at the category ourselves. And I think the more that we looked at the category, the more we saw this sort of bifurcated market where on one side, you had these very old luxury jewelry brands like Tiffany and Harry Winston and Grapp, but just felt like totally out of touch with like the younger consumer and like I as a shopper like yeah maybe I'll go to browse for fun but I'm certainly like not gonna go to shop there it just doesn't feel accessible to me and it also doesn't like make the type of jewelry that like maybe I would want to buy and then on the other side of things that you had these like huge online sort of legacy.com you know diamond jewelry retailers the Blue Niles and the Brillianteurs and the James Allen of the world which felt like you know you could sort of have a better experience buying a$20 toothbrush online than you could buying you know a diamond an engagement ring.

4:53And it just felt like these companies and these platforms on the, you know, on the e-com side, they hadn't really evolved with the times. They felt very dated. They felt like they'd sort of like survived the dot com, but hadn't really like evolved since then. And meanwhile, you had this whole wave of like consumer brands happening and nothing was happening in the engagement space. So, you know, to us, that felt like it was a really interesting opportunity from a market standpoint. And then on top of that, we felt like they were catering mostly to male shoppers that like the rise of lab-grown diamonds was super interesting.

5:26Both Jeff and I have a background in 3D printing and technology. And so the idea that you could, you know, quote unquote, 3D print diamonds was awesome and something that we were just like super excited about. And I think beyond that, we saw that the way that customers were shopping had just completely changed and the market had moved from this idea where you had, you know, usually a traditionally male buyer that was buying something in secret for a surprise proposal. And then there was sort of this this engagement that happened after the fact and that had given way to like a much more sort of fluid customer journey in which now you have a couple that's shopping together they're looking to customize the piece they're looking for ways to make it personal and special and yes it's about the diamond because let's face it like diamonds are pretty but it's also about like the piece of jewelry and and what it means to them and felt like nobody was really speaking to that customer and and that the you know the brands that you saw online like they just felt so like boring and beige.

6:20And I don't know, there was this like pop up on this one e-comm site that I saw that was like, get her what she wants. And I was like, well, what if I want to buy myself what I want? And it just, you know, I just felt like it was really ripe for disruption. And that was the beginning. And also I think that we felt like we were naturally like came from backgrounds that would be good at disrupting it. We both have backgrounds in art. I studied industrial design, just studying art history. We both got into tech and sort of had like pretty long careers in the tech industry. And, you know, we wanted to get back to design and art and do something that was like more visual and exciting again.

6:56But yeah, and it felt like a really interesting category to do that.

7:01Kara Goldin:So your background in industrial design and advanced manufacturing is super unique to especially anybody who's working in the fine jewelry industry. So how did that background, I guess, really help you to do what you're doing at Frank Darling? Yeah. So I think I've always been really interested in how do you do custom at scale. That's been the thread in all the careers that are all the companies that I've worked at over my career. Jewelry is actually a really interesting category for that, especially the engagement category because it's all about like how do you make like one thing and make it custom and then do something entirely different the next time so we um you know obviously i know a lot about 3d printing so we immediately like integrated that into our manufacturing process what that means is like everything is made to order as opposed to like a lot of brands in the fine jewelry category where maybe they're holding stock and you're investing in that stock um or they're sort of like holding components and they're putting those together um what we're doing is worth making a cab model.

8:02We're 3D printing a model like of that CAD file. And then we're putting that into production and casting that single item. What that means is that like there's no added cost for us to do customization. It's built into our process from day one. So it means that like we can basically like make anything. So when customers come to us and they say, hey, I like this ring from your collection, but like make it with a square band or add double claw crongs or can I get side stones? Like the answer is always yes. And when they think that it's going to be a lot more expensive because they go to these other jewelers and those jewelers tell them that it's going to be way more expensive.

8:34And that's because like those other jewelers, they're using like models they already have or they're selling stuff they have in the case or they're like outsourcing the design or they're trying to find something similar. Whereas we're literally like asking what the customer wants. We're making like a physical sketch of it. We're actually making the CAD model and then we're 3D printing that model. And we go as far as to, if they want, they can order like a 3D printed sample of the ring to try it on before we actually make it. Which I think for a lot of people is really helpful because you're going to be wearing this ring for the rest of your life.

9:02And there's a lot of fear and uncertainty and people are nervous. And so the idea that you can just test drive it and make sure that you like the stone and the height and all of that, it feels really important. And I think it's something you have across us that people really enjoy.

9:17Kara Goldin:So it's one thing to have this thought that an industry needs to be disrupted or you're looking for a company that does this. But then it takes another thought process, I guess, a lot of steps along the way to actually launch a company around it. So what I'm saying it very, very nicely and thoughtfully, I guess, because there's a lot of work that goes into actually going and committing to this. So what was the first product that you launched with and how long did it take from the time you said, okay, we're going to go do this to actually creating that? Oh, man. And diamonds also, there's a really steep learning curve.

10:06The diamond industry is extremely insular and there's so much to learn and it takes so much time. So I think we started thinking of the idea in 2017. That's when we were in San Francisco. We were sort of toying with the idea about how it might be interesting to start something in the fine jewelry category. And we're like, we should probably read some Bain reports about the market. And I think over the course of like the next few months, like we realized there was a category, you know, that we were super interested in. From there, we probably spent a good year like trying and failing to raise venture funding.

10:40I mean, it was brutal. Like we just assumed we were definitely going to raise venture because our last company was VentureBaps. But this category, like the way the unit economics work and the way the sort of customer purchasing cycle works, it's just, it's so different from the traditional D2C model that I think that we had a lot of, like just a really hard time articulating that to, you know, in fundraising process, when people are sort of wanting to put it in the box of like, okay, this is what consumer looks like, this is what recurring revenue looks like, things like that. So spent about a year doing that didn't get anywhere.

11:12Finally raised a very small pre seed round actually met with like one of our very, very early pre seed investors the other day who he was just like, he was an angel. And we met him at like this hotel in, in Oakland, he was going to like a baseball game or something. And he was just like, how much money do you need? And I was like, oh no, 50K. And he was like, he wrote us a check for 50K. Thank you so much. I have a photo of that check to date. But that was like, we ended up raising only, I think about like 300, maybe 250K total. And that was it for the whole company. And we bootstrapped since then.

11:46And I'm so, so glad in retrospect that we have like decided to bootstrap and not gone down the venture pack for a variety of reasons. I don't think that the brand would be as successful and I don't think it would be growing as thoughtfully as it has grown had we gone down the venture path. So that was definitely a blessing in disguise. Anyway, so in 2019, we launched and 2019 was like radio silence. We launched with about 20 products, 20 ring designs. We had hired a jewelry designer who would come out of Tiffany. She was one of the Tiffany design directors to design the original collection. We still have a few of those rings in the collection, but almost all of them have now been redesigned from like, you know, customer insights that we've learned along the way.

12:29And we had our try at home kit, which was like a try at home, a Warby Parker sort of kit where people could order three samples. They could try them at home for a week. It's a free service. And then they send them back to us and we still do the try home program and it's super successful. And during COVID especially, I mean, it was like wildly successful because people love to be able obviously to try the rings on at home. And I think there's something nice about like, I don't know when you go engagement shopping it's like this sales it's an assisted sales experience because of the value of the objects you're looking at which can be really uncomfortable for like a new shopper and so the idea that you could just start at home with your partner on the couch I think feels really um really comforting um but um but anyways go back to 2019 so it was basically like it was horrible but we uh we probably those first first six months in market I mean I don't know that we sold more than 40k at the time we had like just moved back um to Brooklyn.

13:18We were to launch the brand, obviously. We hadn't taken a salary, I think, in two years. So it was like everything we had, we'd run out of capital at that point. We were just self-funding from savings. And also then we closed on an apartment in Brooklyn. And I was like, okay, if we don't, like, basically we hadn't gave ourselves until December, like when the closing happened. And I was like, if we don't figure out like how to make money by December, like we're going to have to get jobs. And I really like did not want to get a job because I am not employable. Like I've been working for myself my entire adult career, uh, with the exception of like two years.

13:52So like I, like we had to figure out a way to make it work. And, uh, but we had no money because at the point, like we had run out of capital and, you know, we're just self-funding it. So, um, we started, you know, thinking about like, how do we do things that, that don't scale? I wrote probably like a hundred blog posts, um, for the website. I would just get up every morning and like write blog posts that were SEO optimized and try to figure out a start ranking for, um, you know, keywords that people were searching for. And quickly, we had some breakout successes there that actually still drive a ton of traffic to our website.

14:20There was this how not to buy the lapgrown diamond article online, and that that like went wild. And then we did a whole series on how not to do this. And all those articles performed really well. And so that was exciting because it started getting traffic, but like, we still weren't getting sales. It was rough. And also, we were like looking in Airbnbs at the time to waiting for this apartment to close. So So it was just like, it was a really like not great, like time of, time of life. Jeff and I were running back and forth from this like Airbnb sublet in New Jersey to like the diamond district to like pick up and drop off diamonds.

14:52And it was cold and it was just like a really, like really not great couple of months. And then at some point it was like October and we, you know, we were like, we have to figure out like how to make this work and how to sell stuff. And I said that people kept requesting rings that we didn't sell. And so it was like people wanted to buy rings, but the rings were never in the collection, right? So I was like, maybe we should just like start selling like whatever people ask for. And let's just like do it. And then if we do it and we buy things, then we can modify the collection. But at least we have revenue coming up.

15:23And so we built like the initial iteration of the ring quiz. And it was basically a type form quiz where people answered 20 questions and they told us what they were looking for in a ring. And then when I got all those answers, I would literally make a CAD model for them of the ring that they requested with like no upfront charge, like no nothing, no strings. Like I just like make the CAD model. I didn't even know how to make like jewelry CAD models, but I figured it out. And they were not the best, but I did it. And overnight, like A, like people started like requesting things, so many things that it was like no longer sustainable for me to like keep making these CAD models.

15:58So we had to switch to like illustrator like sketches. And B, people started buying things. And we went from like maybe 10K in revenue in November to over 100K that December, which was amazing. So I was like, oh my God, maybe we don't have to get jobs. I really, really did not want to get a job. And so that was like a huge breakthrough. And after that, we just kept doubling. Like every month was double sales of the month before up until March and COVID hit. And then COVID hit and we were just like, okay, you know, this sucks. What's going to happen? We applied to Y Combinator. We got rejected from Y Combinator.

16:35I was like, are sales going to stop overnight? How are we going to like do anything? And we just pushed through it. And what we found was that we launched the virtual consult model. That was really successful. Our try at home program was really popular. And those kept like building and growing. And I guess the only piece of it that, you know, we struggled with was during those sort of like early months, we were doing this thing where we would book co-working space by the hour, and we'd invite people to come to the co-working space to like see their diamonds. And that became a problem once COVID started.

17:12But pretty soon thereafter, like once we got through that first wave, we got an office and we started scaling the retail portion of the business as well. Wow.

17:18Kara Goldin:That's incredible. So when you think about the core of Frank Darling, it's very custom, right, what you're doing for people, but it's also ethical sourcing plays such a huge part of your brand, local artisans. Can you talk a little bit about that and things that maybe that's not even how consumers would necessarily describe you, but it's something that I'm sure as a founder, you care a lot about. Totally. I think consumers would describe us as transparent, and all to me goes back to the same place. There's so much distrust with the diamond jewelry industry, and there's so much confusion and product confusion, sourcing confusion, marketing confusion, and it's really kind of wrapped up in that.

18:10And the whole ongoing argument between lacron diamonds and natural diamonds like doesn't help because it's just more, you know, more sort of like compounding confusion on top of that. So from the beginning, we were like, let's just be as transparent as possible. That's where the name came from. Frank was all about being transparent. And Darlene was like, you know, very like F. Scott Fitzgerald, like, you know, Darlene, the romance portion of it. But, you know, we were like, we're going to tell our customers everything, like the good, the bad, the ugly. We're going to let them make up their own mind.

18:40We're going to provide them as much, you know, information as we can. If we don't have the answers, we're going to find the information. And it was all about kind of like opening up that box and creating, you know, a space that people felt comfortable in, asking the questions that maybe they didn't even know to ask and could really like facilitate that dialogue with us. So that was a big part of it. At the same time, you know, I think one of the beautiful things about made to order and one of the reasons that I've always been so excited about it, like as a manufacturing model throughout all the different, you know, roles that I've had kind of in and around manufacturing is that it is like a zero waste model.

19:14So it's like, you don't hold any inventory. We have no inventory across any of our showrooms. We don't make anything until the order is actually placed. And let's say a proposal falls through or like, you know, maybe they want a different ring. It all goes backwards. So the gold gets melted down, the diamond gets returned to the supplier. And, you know, it's like, it's like it was never made. And so that's, I think, from when we think about like the future of manufacturing, that's always been really exciting to me is like, how do we do manufacturing, especially in like the fashion sector without having all the waste that comes out of it?

19:45Kara Goldin:Yeah, definitely. So you've expanded beyond the original engagement rings. You talked a bit about this, but just to zero in on some of the other things that you do, I have these gorgeous earrings that I have on and also ring, not an engagement ring, but I like to play around with my wedding ring engagement rings and wear different rings. But you've also gone into tennis bracelets, pendants. So when you think about your company since the beginning, obviously you were super focused on one thing. How has the consumer sort of expanded your company in terms of, you know, have you seen a dramatic shift from being, I guess, now that you have so many more consumers that are coming back time and time again, they want more pieces.

20:40Kara Goldin:There's this trust, I would imagine, that they have with you that you get it and it's custom. But do you feel like you're doing more earrings or rings or what is kind of the biggest shift. Totally. So we think of ourselves as like diamond forward engagement and fine jewelry. So absolutely. Like when you go through like the engagement ring sort of process with someone, it's really emotional and you form this incredible relationship with a customer. And some of the designers on our sales team, like people send them gifts, they send them photos, they invite them to their weddings. Like it's like, it's pretty wild.

21:15So, and it's, yeah, it's really, it's a wonderful experience that you have with someone and there's definitely trust that comes out of it. So I think we started doing those other types of pieces because people were coming to us and said, I have a wedding coming up and can you do my earrings? I want to make this, you know, really interesting pair of reversible drops, you know, or can you make my necklace or I want to get an anniversary present or push present. We're having kids, you know, and it's really fun also because you get like the highlight reel of like your customers' lives. And so, you know, you haven't heard from them in a year and all out of the blue, they're like, hey, we're having twins, you know, and it's just like, what can you do?

21:49And it's so awesome. So I think that's a really fun car. And it's naturally, you know, caused us to spend through those other categories. Right now, engagement is still our biggest, but we do, uh, on like bands, whether it's like wedding, stackable anniversary, just because right hand, like we do a ton of just like diamond forward bands. Uh, the trend is definitely moved in that direction. People love to like mix and match their stack and also like customize with different rings. I think often people find after they get engaged, like maybe, you know, they don't want to wear their ring all the time.

22:19So it's nice to have some like more casual, you know, bands that like also feel fancy, but are like more practical from like a day-to-day perspective. And so we do a ton of work like that. And then we have tennis bracelets and pendants. The pendants are really fun because people are often picking out like really fun, like weird stones for that. And going forward, we're definitely going to be expanding that part of the brand as well. Thinking about how we can kind of like take a design and collection forward approach to it. Design has always sort of like been at the foundation of what we do. And a lot of our breakout styles have been because we've taken a more like design forward practical approach to the category.

22:54I mean, our clutch engagement ring, which has now been like copied by like pretty much every brand ever, has like become a verb at this point. Like people will literally ask this, oh, can you clutch it? And meaning like, can you make it a half bezel? And we're like, no, that's our style. So it's, yeah, it's sort of funny to see how that's happened. But it's because we're thinking about things like how do you make it durable? How do you make it low profile? How do you make it not snag? And that I think is the industrial design background where a lot of people approach the jewelry category from a like, let's make it pretty and like, let's add decoration.

23:27Whereas we're thinking like, how do you create something that's going to last, that people actually want to wear and that's beautiful? And it's like the trifecta of those three things, not just like another piece.