How I Bring In $350K A Year Selling Jewelry | On The Side

i think my aesthetic in a nutshell is the girls that get it get it like if you know you know my name is maya porterial i'm 27 years old and i made 350 000 last year for my side hustle so right out of college i wanted to initially be a fashion designer i realized designing fashion is really expensive and i had a hard time making the money in order to get the patterns made get the samples made and actually produce and sell the line so i was only a month and a half in and i was sitting in the office with my two associates and i said i'm gonna start a jewelry brand and they thought i was insane they probably still think i'm insane because i pulled it off so i really only started this business with roughly two thousand dollars it took me about a month and a half to develop the idea get the process going and i started with just a single ring so initially when i found my suppliers they had private label and private label means that you can essentially put your name on a design they already have so cad is pretty much a 3d render of your concept so you have the top of the ring the bottom of the ring what the inside detail looks like if they're gonna stamp your your company name inside it gives you a 360 view of the ring and then once i found my first product i called her ria it took me forever to think of that name i went on babybabynames.com for that one i found maria and i was ready to go damian was one of the first influencers who gave my business a real shot she was the first influencer to post my jewelry which kind of started the trickle of other girls wanting to work with me and respecting the brand she just randomly posted her new nail set her new acrylics and my one ring and from there i got my first sale and believe it or not i was under pricing like crazy that ring cost me maybe seven dollars to make and i sold it for 18.99 and was very excited about it my first month it was like zero zero but then by the fourth month i went from zero to five hundred dollars and then 500 quickly became a thousand and then a couple months in i was doing 10 000 a month now 10 000 a month means you know we can we can we can finally pay for the subway so once i started to get a consistent 10 grand a month i knew this business could actually change my life in a real way so i know 10 000 may sound like a lot but believe it or not because i was testing influencers trying to run ads constantly buying products constantly buying packaging i didn't take home as much as you may think at that time i was probably taking home only 3 500 of that 10 grand within six months of running this business i was beginning to see i could do a six figure year and then from there i began taking classes on ads writing captions how to find influencers that class alone scaled my company to a point that's unimaginable that three thousand dollar class probably made me 700 000 because facebook ads has become an extensive part of my business and it can't run without it and from there that 10 grand became 30 grand [Music] everyone thought i was crazy because i was working two full-time jobs i would work during my lunch break i would bring my laptop to my job during my lunch break i would eat in the basement by myself trying to talk to my manufacturers trying to dm influencers trying to make money while i'm at work on break and then i would go home and essentially as soon as i got home i would begin my second shift because believe it or not now that you made some money you have to get the product out so bless my family they would hear me pulling tape until 3am it was so loud that my stepdad makes jokes about having nightmares of hearing tape because my mom does it now i don't pay myself a huge salary mainly because my business pays a lot of my expenses and i like where i live so i try not to put too much weight on my business by paying myself a lot and having all of my personal expenses come out the business [Music] monk is a nice little salary we go from boss employee to mom and daughter kind of chaotically through the process but my mom herself is an entrepreneur so she was very easy to get on board mom's a tough negotiator you know so we had a conversation about her salary her role and now she helps assist in the packaging the customer service and the kind of the overall she's also like kind of my assistant i piggyback ideas off her i don't essentially believe in going into debt for a piece of jewelry to me jewelry is expression jewelry is supposed to be fun jewelry is supposed to be lived in over the years my collection has grown quite a bit when i first started i only made rings now i do rings earrings ear cuffs necklaces anklets expanding into men's jewelry expanding into stationery for the girls [Music] a day job gives you cash flow to risk it all a day job gives you the time to step out of your comfort zone because now i'm in the process of automating my business i did the hustle i did the grind now i want it to work for me and you'll realize you get to a point where you you can burn out if you're constantly constantly beating the pavement every single day to make those sales so this year it's more about building systems and being stable and being more profitable versus just growing the crazy numbers and then never actually having profit i want to be more customer-centric this year i'm starting a non-profit for my business to help other small female owners in the future i used to struggle with the concept of i have to show people i'm selling things i have to photograph behind gucci bags and you don't it's kind of a waste of money to me but you don't have to be a social entrepreneur to be a successful entrepreneur you

Channel: CNBC Make It

Views: 836,858

Keywords: CNBC Make It, How To Make It, Entrepreneurs, Starting A Small Business, Business Success, Small Businesses, Finance Tips, Career Tips, Work Hacks, Lifehacks, Money Management, Career Management, Managing Business, million dollar business, small business, how to start a business, jewelry, on the side, Kitten Co

Id: 78m999_j2HM

Length: 7min 32sec (452 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 26 2022