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Carley Ochs admits that almost everything she has done for her jewelry company, Bourbon and Boweties, has been a gut decision. But for the most part, those gut decisions have worked out quite well.
The 31-year-old CEO founded the business in 2002, when her friends encouraged her to sell the bracelets she would make as gifts. Today, her company sells 50,000 bracelets a month. The bracelets are sold in 2,000 stores throughout all 50 states, and are also distributed in the Caribbean, Canada, Europe and South Africa. They are also sold in big-box retailers including Bloomingdales, Nordstrom and Von Maur. The company recently received requests from the “Today Show” and “Good Morning America” for more press.
Though the business has grown exponentially, the set-up of the company hasn't changed. Ochs has continued to work with local women, mostly moms and teachers, as contractors who get paid by the number of bracelets they create. The women have two days a week where they can drop off finished product and pick up supplies. She has about 200 contractors.
But it wasn't always a well-oiled machine. In fact, in 2014, the company was hit with an unexpected slap on the wrist. At the time, Ochs and her coworkers had been operating out of her grandmother's garage for several years. That was until that summer, when code enforcement knocked on the garage door, and told them they had two weeks to move the business out.
Looking back, Ochs acknowledges that it probably looked pretty suspicious to neighbors in the small Brandon neighborhood that they had “50 or so minivans pulling up a day to a side garage, walking out with a paper bag,” she says.
Forced to move out, Ochs partnered with a local real estate agent to look at properties where the company could grow. They found a perfect space off Linsley Avenue in Brandon, renting 3,000 square feet for the first five months, and quickly pushing into the full 6,000 square feet space.
The move ended up perfectly “coinciding with the growth that we were having” and occurred right when the company started to receive its first orders from Nordstrom, Ochs says. “It allowed us to fulfill big stores and not be so cramped,” she says.
With the layout of the new space, the company installed a pegboard along 3,000 square feet of interior wall where it placed all of the jewelry that has been checked for consistency and inventoried. It also has dedicated space for its accounting, creative, IT and PR departments and some extra room where it can work on new product development.
Though she says she would “move back in the garage” if she was allowed, she knows the move was for the best for the company to be ready to expand. “We could double in size again with the current space we have,” Ochs says.
For other entrepreneurs operating out of home or their garage, “do it until you can't do it any longer,” Ochs says. “Allocate as much as you can invest back in the business and in yourself.”
Gut decisions got Ochs to the place she is today, but with growth like moving to a new warehouse and learning how to set up an inventory system, Ochs realizes she has to start looking for help. The company, she says, cannot continue to make “green” decisions.
“A lot of entrepreneurs have a hard time admitting when they can't do something and they try and take too much on,” she says. For Bourbon and Boweties, Ochs believes the company could expand even faster with a seasoned CEO or CFO, and has been looking for her replacement so she can focus on other aspects of the business. “I've grown it to what it can grow to,” she says.
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