Starting in an Apartment → $500k/Month Niche Jewelry Biz

🏖️ Creative Entrepreneur fun one-liner:

Why do entrepreneurs always write with pencils? Because they know it’s important to always 'erase' their mistakes.

Onto Today’s story….

Julien Plouffe, founder of Moonglow Jewelry,

grew his unique handmade jewelry business from scratch to over $500k/month.

People choose a meaningful date like their birthday or anniversary,

and MoonGlow Jewelry customizes their jewelry, with the moon phase associated with that particular date.

Now he makes $500k/Month.

Here is how he did it.

Julien was not good at school.

He loved socializing and was friends with everyone.

When he turned 16, the school principal told his father, that Julien should quit school and work for him.

So at 16 years old, Julien dropped out and began working, for his father's traveling pitch business.

His father was selling infomercial-type products in fairs across the United States.

Julien kept traveling to fairs and sold the products.

Most products Julien sold were either passing trends or did not hold his interest.

In 2011 at a fair called The Big E in Springfield, his life changed direction.

Julien was selling a special type of jewelry, for the first time and the sales were great.

This Jewelry featured necklaces with images of the moon, based on special dates, such as birthdays or anniversaries, provided by his customers.

People loved the idea and the products.

Over the course of the fair, Julien realized this product could have huge growth potential.

He broke off from his father’s business and, decided to focus on building his own business along with a partner.

He named the business as Moonglow

They started the business in Julien’s apartment.

With just the two of them, Julien hit the road to peddle the Moonglow line at comic conventions, fairs, markets, and anywhere he could entice buyers.

He loved interacting with customers and telling the Moonglow story.

One time he ran out of money.

So he sold his car for $16K to be able to pay for his next events to sell Moonglow in person.

Within a couple of years, the scrappy team grew to four traveling salespeople, selling as much Moonglow as they could pack in their vehicles.

With the revenue from fairs and events, they decided to build their first website.

They used an agency from San Diego and paid $3000.

It was terrible, pictures were horrible, the branding colors were not consistent and the flow was off.

But at this time, they were focused on fairs and events and less so on internet sales, so they didn’t put much focus on the website.

Even though, the site was bad, sales still trickled in.

But a growing business comes with growing pains.

Constant travel drained Julien’s time and energy.

Julien realized that the non-stop hustle of their small operation, would only take Moonglow so far.

He decided to do something about it.

In 2013, Julien invested $10,000 to rent booth space, at a large B2B jewelry trade show in New York City.

He showcased the Moonglow lineup to wholesale buyers from across the country.

They loved the Moonglow products.

Orders started flooding in from stores wanting to carry this hot new items.

In a single day, Julien recovered his entire trade show investment from his new wholesale orders.

He instantly knew focusing on wholesale partnerships would fast track Moonglow's growth.

By 2014, Moonglow grew into a steadfast brand seen everywhere, from luxury shops to Comic Con conventions.

But Julien knew that to reach the next level, he needed to double down on ecommerce and digital marketing.

While their current website contributed modestly to overall sales, it had been hastily built years before.

So they rebuilt their website. .

They kept close eye on conversion rates, branding and photography.

They also hired an SEO agency and their organic traffic increased drastically.

They also hired a digital marketing agency to orchestrate paid social campaigns.

This early investment on social media marketing paid huge dividends over time.

They reinvested a lot of their early profits back into marketing.

Julien says he makes a lot of mistakes.

But he says “I write them down to make sure I don’t do them again.”

When COVID first hit, things got a bit quiet and sales slowed down drastically.

Julien was a little scared.

But to his surprise all of sudden, sales really spiked.

When sales picked up, he ordered a lot of jewelry boxes, but there was a problem.

There were shipment delays and they were stuck with no boxes.

They panicked a bit but they were able to scramble and find a temporary solution.

“There's always a fix or a way out.” Julien says.

They also started spending on Facebook and Instagram ads.

They slowly started to increase the money they spent on Ads to over $1 million annually.

These targeted digital ads became the top referrer to Moonglow's website.

They started to generate over $5 million in direct jewelry sales per year, due to the Ads.

They also got in TikTok and saw some nice organic virality with about 3 million views.

Moonglow started attracting more than 50,000 visitors per month regularly to its website.

Slowly, this scrappy startup run out of an apartment grew into a business generating $500k/month.

Julien says “If you believe in it, go all in.”

8 Reasons why they succeeded:

1. Kept looking for ideas

Julien dropped out of school at 16 to work for his father's traveling pitch business,

selling infomercial-type products in fairs.

He gained first-hand sales experience across the country at fairs and events

He kept looking for good business ideas and finally found his idea.

2. Validated his idea

Julien discovered Moonglow jewelry when he was selling them at a fair and,

Customer loved them and

they were selling well, and he knew this had potential.

3. Believed whole-heartedly

When Julien ran out of business funds one time, he sold his own car for $16k

He re-invested this money into securing booth space for more events to sell Moonglow

4. Kept expenses low

Julien started Moonglow operations out of his small apartment to conserve costs.

This allowed directing more money to growth instead of overhead expenses.

5. Invested early profits into building a professional digital presence.

With the early profits, Julien hired agencies early on to improve branding,

SEO, and digital marketing.

He continually reinvested revenue back into marketing and website optimization.

This increased his sales dramatically.

6. Tracked Mistakes

Julien admits making many mistakes but says he writes them down to learn.

He knew that making mistakes is normal,

but he knew he should use them to get better not shrink down.

7. Doubled down on what worked

Once Facebook/Instagram ads started bringing in good sales, they doubled down.

They slowly started to increase the money they spent to over $1 million annually.

They started to generate over $5 million in direct jewelry sales per year, due to this.

8. Looked for Solutions instead of panicking

One time, when sales picked up, they ordered a lot of jewelry boxes, but there was a problem.

There were shipment delays and they were stuck with no boxes.

Instead of panicking, they found a temporary solution.

🍰

Hope you liked the story and the strategies which made him successful.

Keep Zoooming!

Yours “Anti-Stress” Vijay Peduru