A great many entrepreneurial journeys start with frustration.
Most of us have found ourselves shopping for a product or service that doesn’t yet exist. We visit store after store, exasperated. “How has no one made this simple thing yet?” we ask.
A few of us take that frustration and turn it into something extraordinary.
One of those few is Kendra Scott.
Just a few months after giving birth to her first child, Scott set out to make the kind of jewelry she liked but wasn’t seeing in stores. Jewelry made with semiprecious stones was out of her price range. “Trend” or “costume” jewelry she could afford wasn’t what she wanted either. She knew that some semi-precious stones were affordable – so why weren’t they used in accessible, beautiful pieces? She decided she could create what didn’t yet exist.
Scott didn’t have a team of designers, or eager investors waiting to back her idea. All she had was $500 and the strong hunch that other women wanted the same thing she did.
From her spare bedroom in her Austin, Texas home, Scott crafted her first collection. She worked while her little one slept. Once the collection was finished, she strapped her son into a baby carrier and put her jewelry samples into a tea box. Together, mother and baby walked into stores around Austin asking owners to take a look.
Like so many entrepreneurs, the first thing Scott heard was No. But then came her first Yes, and then another, and another.
As more than one entrepreneur has discovered, initial success presents immediate challenges! Scott didn’t have enough money to purchase the materials needed to fill the orders she was receiving. So, she sold her samples, taking her inventory to zero, and raised just enough cash to fulfill her orders.
It was far from glamorous. And while it was an unlikely beginning for what would become one of the nation’s best-known jewelry brands, at Hall of Giants, we know that America entrepreneurship is so very often the story of unlikely beginnings.
Scott’s business soon grew far beyond that spare bedroom in Austin. Today, her company has more than 150 stores across the country, doing more than $500 million in annual sales with a workforce of more than 3,500. And though she’s no longer CEO, Kendra Scott remains the company’s majority shareholder. She has another title too: CVO, or chief visionary officer.
Entrepreneurs come from every walk of American life. We’ve found that they have a few things in common – and one of those is summed up in Scott’s current job title. Every entrepreneur has vision.
Not so long ago, Kendra Scott walked through a mall, visiting store after store, wondering why she couldn’t find what she was looking for. She turned that frustration into a vision and then transformed that vision into a business. That business now thrives by giving shoppers something they want at a price they can afford. And it all started with samples in a tea box, and a baby boy along for the ride.