This episode of Side Hustle Spotlight features a Q&A with Melinda Spigel, designer and founding father of the jewelry brand Melinda Maria. Almost two many years ago, Spigel was by hand-threading beads at her local Starbucks and competing on game shows for seed money. Now her side hustle-turned-full-time business does tens of millions in sales a 12 months, and her clothes have been worn by celebrities like Jennifer Lopez, Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, and more. Answers have been edited for length and clarity.
Photo credit: courtesy of Melinda Maria. Melinda Spigel.
What was your day-to-day occupation or most important occupation when you began your side hustle?
My side hustle began early. I designed jewelry at a very young age and sold my first pieces in highschool. I definitely didn’t price it right and probably wasted money, but I used to be fascinated by jewelry, stones, and anything I could make with my hands. Growing up, I had a lot of side jobs as a makeup artist, a TV production assistant, and a jeweler. I used to be joyful doing all three, but my passion was jewelry design.
When did you begin doing this and where did you get the inspiration?
I fell in love with jewelry and every little thing related to it at a very young age, probably around 10. I’d go to my local bead shop, Rings & Things, and spend every last penny of my babysitting money to get supplies to make pieces. I feel blessed to have had a passion and obsession for it. The inspiration got here from the pure joy of creating pieces and then when I began selling them, the added bonus was loving how people felt when they wore them. One thing I would like my kids to find is something they love so much they’ll’t wait to get up the next day and that keeps them up at night pondering about because they adore it so much!
What were the first steps you took to start your side hustle?
I quickly realized I needed to expand, but I didn’t have the business acumen to get institutional funding – so what do you do? Go on game shows! I went on a series of game shows and won, like Hollywood Squares, The price is right and dodgeball competitions to earn some money so I could quit my other side jobs and focus solely on jewelry. Rule number one of an entrepreneur: be resourceful, feisty, and agile.
Photo credit: courtesy of Melinda Maria
Product-market fit was a gradual process and it began to dawn on me that there was a market for the stuff I used to be making. At the time, it was mostly wholesale, so I collected samples and went door to door, and inside a week, I think I had a purchase order from the top five stores in Los Angeles for about $30,000. We quickly established wholesalers in New York and Los Angeles and opened a lot of accounts. With that revenue, I used to be able to hire a few people over the next few years, but I kept a very lean team to grow with the retained earnings.
What were the biggest challenges you faced while building your side hustle and how did you overcome them?
The list could go on and on, but the biggest challenge was having the confidence to take the risk and start a business. It really only took one person (my now husband!) to consider in me. Some people say the best way to build a business is to follow your dreams, but that is not at all times realistic because when it’s a hobby there is no pressure, but as a business it’s crazy pressure. Realizing that the majority of the pressure was self-imposed insecurities and having the courage to push through it was a big challenge.
Surrounding yourself with others who have faced challenges and don’t have egos is essential to the natural maturation of a business, but a more specific challenge for me—having been an artist first and not having gone to business school (although I have since attended the CEO program at Harvard Business School)—was understanding the fundamentals of business finance.
How long did it take you to see a regular monthly income? How much did you earn from this side hustle?
Consistency is subjective; to this present day, there are no guarantees of consistency, and things may be unpredictable. Embracing uncertainty, being agile, growing as a student of the industry, and obsessing over customer feedback are things that have been ingrained in me since day one. The brand has seen slow, regular growth since the starting because the initial goal wasn’t to skyrocket to the top, but reasonably to create a brand aesthetic that may stand the test of time and be something I could at all times find joy in, even in the face of enormous challenges.
Photo credit: courtesy of Melinda Maria
I didn’t start this company to make tens of millions of dollars—I began it because I used to be fascinated by jewelry, and that made me joyful. Money wasn’t my driving force at all; the quality of the brand and doing something I loved that also made people joyful was my biggest driving force. I fell in love with the creativity of the business. The brand went from nothing to $1 million, then $2 million, then $3 million, and so on in a pretty linear way. But in the starting, it was possibly $200,000, but I paid myself enough to survive. I moved into a room with my younger sister’s friend and sold my automobile to buy an older used automobile and reduce overhead. I paid myself a nominal amount to put every little thing back into the business. I did that for many years. We’re growing possibly 10% 12 months over 12 months, but at the time I wasn’t pondering in those terms because I used to be just interested in building the brand, paying the bills, and doing something I loved. It wasn’t until about 2015 that I began focusing on the business side.
Could you tell me about your experience turning a side business into a full-time job?
The experience was about setting realistic goals and never forgetting that I wanted to enjoy the journey and the process, not necessarily have a financial end goal. That philosophy still holds true today, and while the business is much larger than it was when it was a side hustle, it’s at all times been a fun learning and creating experience — but it’s still a job because you wish to create a lasting brand, not only a momentary financial success.
The experience I have today still jogs my memory of when I went full time to Melinda Maria: fun, difficult and rewarding because it was a hell of a journey along the way with lifelong learnings. One of the biggest changes was managing and feeling responsible for people. It was a different stress than simply providing for yourself. I take very seriously the indisputable fact that people have bills and families to maintain.
How is growth and revenue looking now?
Brand awareness and revenue growth has remained regular to this present day. This 12 months we are on track to hit over $30 million with good profitability. We are focused on profitability because we didn’t resolve to just grow revenue and add extra pressure. So the year-over-year growth is higher in terms of revenue, but the growth in vital areas like awareness, charitable giving and our team’s ability to embrace our brand mission of bringing out the fun side of fashion, in my opinion, outweighs the revenue numbers. Being more successful means we may give back to charities and reward our customers with things like our “Live at Five” competition, which is the ethos of our brand. Last 12 months we were able to gift our customers $2.5 million value of jewellery, which I think is bloody fun!
Photo credit: courtesy of Melinda Maria
What do you enjoy most about running this business?
Creating while learning. All firms teach not only about the business or industry, but also about the power of a strong community and a mission-driven team. I’m continually inspired by employees, the rollercoaster of industry trends, and even competitors who continually show that we are all in this together. In the face of all the challenges, what you learn is way more rewarding than the size of the company, and the journey of doing it with a strong internal network makes it much more enjoyable today.
What advice would you give to others who want to start their very own profitable side hustle or run a full-time business?
Everyone says, “Follow your dreams or passion,” but that doesn’t at all times translate into lasting success. Define what success looks like in your mind, which may include much greater than just revenue and company size. Let go of the ego and understand that it’s often a collaborative effort of a great network of individuals and facing adversity to allow you to achieve “success.” Create something that permits you to enjoy the journey along the way, because the journey may be long, and no amount of monetary success can replace the satisfaction of feeling such as you’ve grown as an individual. Finally, if your version of success means being in it for the long haul, then be authentic to your vision and be okay with carving your name on a small piece of a very large pie, reasonably than trying to dominate all of it at once.
This Women Entrepreneurs® This article is a part of our series in which we describe the stories, challenges and successes of ladies running a business.