See inside the gorgeous Kendra Scott Headquarters

so I told you yes my dream a Dorito barn welcome it's so special to be sitting here in these stunning headquarters but 15 years in in the city where it all started but in some of those first days and weeks and months look like for you oh my goodness you know I remember them so vividly still you know I loved fashion I love design and you know I was able to create a little collection and I always say you know Austin is such an incredible community the supports local businesses and so I took this little you know tee box of jewelry when my son was born I put him in a baby bjorn he was three months old and we went stored a store here in Austin and then the last store actually sold all my samples so that I'd have enough money to produce the orders I had written I mean I started with $500 and so made every order in my extra bedroom of our house so to be sitting here in this headquarters with you fast for 15 years is really I could have never imagined when did you kind of feel the momentum shift from when you were doing the orders in your back bedroom to more stores in Austin to across the country you know I look back at it and there were some moments where we got some good breaks along the way so you know I remember when Nordstrom wrote their first order and getting that call you know I'll never forget Oscar de la Renta using my jewelry in his fashion show in 2005 and here we were this little company in Austin and he just saw my jewelry and someone and liked it and you know asked me to come to New York you know moments like that just helped gave us fuel to keep going because there were a lot of times it was really hard like how are we gonna pay rent how is I gonna make payroll how are we gonna continue to do what we're doing especially when you're doing it all on your own so you know I had personal guaranteed everything inside my life away and you know and it was really a challenge for us the biggest turning point was in 2010 so I started in 2000 - yeah so it took a bit right if this wasn't an overnight success in a lot of people you know always think they are when I see big successes they don't realize you know there's years that have gone on that journey years years of a lot of love and a lot of struggle and I really realized that we needed to make a shift I wanted to connect with our customer directly but in 2010 we opened our first retail store on South Congress and I will never forget it because we opened tonight and I was just hopeful that people would like it we wanted to create a really unique experience and there were people lined up around the block and were sure it was like oh my goodness and that was I think for us the biggest shift when we started touching and interacting with our customer directly that's when our company went right from here to here I've been so blessed to have great people in my life I have an incredible family I've got my mother here in Austin who still works with me she helps ship orders out of our dining room to Nordstrom oh she's so with me and having those people be your voice that sometimes because you'll sit there and you'll think I can't do this or I'm not good enough or I'm not you know able to do this and you have to have sometimes people to remind you you can do this and what you are doing is good and don't give up no I think what was important and a lot of entrepreneurs is not just sticking with it but being thoughtful enough to sometimes get a 360 of you and go what's not working and be able to you know change the formula so here we were plugging along doing something one way for eight years and I was like okay I was afraid to get into retail I was scared of retail and it took something big like the recession to happen to make me realize if I was gonna keep my business I had to do something radical which for me was retail and never be complacent you know every morning I wake up and I want to you know create something better for our customer and Wow her and surprise and delight her I've never complained like what can we do today that's gonna just blow her away so every piece of Kendra Scott has this kind of undeniable charm to it where do you bring in some of those style and creative inspiration so when I'm designing a piece I'm thinking about how is she gonna wear this could she wear it to the office could she wear it running to the soccer game could she wear it to a gala could she wear it to her friend's wedding so I'm always thinking about our customer when I design I think about a lot of our women I think about our you know 15 year old customer and our 80 year old customer and everyone in between and how we can make pieces that she's gonna love and enjoy these headquarters are truly incredible what were you hoping to create here you know you're sitting inside my dream I really wanted to create an inspiring place that people were happy to come to but it felt like you were walking into my home and have Perks that women would enjoy were ninety-eight percent women so we have a lot of fun things including our nail bar which I would love for you to come and sit yes come on we had a white hallway and I said this doesn't feel homey I want it to feel like you're in my house right so I made them trim out with all this molding and they're like Indra you do know this is an office and I'm like it's my home but even those little details were so important if I wanted everywhere you walk I want it to be pretty and then all of our conference rooms they're actually stones so if you reserve a conference room like this is the turquoise room okay come in the nail bar I mean let's talk about perks I mean a welcome talk about real you want your KS girl you get complement you get complimentary manis and pedis this is my dream come true isn't it a dream okay so you said a nail salon would be in your dream what else was in your dream here we have a family game room so if you pick up your child after work and you want them to just have a little bit of time there's coloring books and blocks and video games they can do their homework you know they have a fun place so you know we have a lot of moms we have ninety-eight percent women here we got a lot of new moms so we needed a place for them to be able to pump to breastfeed their babies and they can do that in our wellness rooms with cashmere blankets and if for Dre they're dedicated to Mother's Milk and they can watch their favorite television show so it's really us and then smoothie bar so my favorite thing that keeps me going throughout my day is this healthy smooth even we have complimentary smoothies all day long you can order them right to your desk and they'll get delivered to you yeah keep working does this smoothie coming to you this is so lovely so you've obviously created such a special culture here another big part of your culture is philanthropy why is that such at the core of what you do you know when I started this company it was after I lost my stepfather Rob to brain cancer and he told me three words before he passed which were you do good and when he had brain cancer his speech was one of the things that went and those three words really stuck with me because he was telling me to use the gifts I've been given to do good and you know we have a short time here on this earth and so while I'm here that was something that was really important to me is to make an impact to do something good and I'm really proud of our company because that really is what we look at every day is success but it's a special ladies thank you for this so much Kendra thank you for that gosh so inspiring beautiful nails a beautiful setting you just have to go get a smoothie yeah exactly thank you so much [Music] you

Channel: Taylor Ellison

Views: 26,068

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Id: icWw4oQRK9Q

Length: 7min 30sec (450 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 08 2017