Listen to this articleA COUPLE has turned a side hustle into a multi-million dollar enterprise in opposition to all the chances – now they’re lapping up their success.
Diamonds consultants Olivia Landau and her husband Kyle Simon have a highly effective office in the centre of New York the place they run their fashionable jewellery enterprise out of.
Kyle Simon, Olivia’s husband, observed a ‘gap’ in the diamonds markets[/caption]
Their agency – The Clear Cut – is a web-based jewellery enterprise which is simplifying the diamond-buying course of and educating prospects alongside one of the best ways.
Olivia – a fourth-generation diamond skilled – and Kyle met all through a Geological course and quickly fell in love and married.
While they’d been relationship, Olivia organize a jewellery weblog that helped of us understand how diamonds are processed.
The weblog was an on the spot success and so she and Kyle piled their time into creating it into a full-time enterprise.
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Olivia’s father, grandfather and great-grandfather had been diamond cutters or sellers so it’s no shock that she would proceed the family commerce – even when her mom and father discouraged her and warned the commerce was in decline.
“I fell in love with diamonds and gemstones and I guess it was in my blood all along,” Olivia said.
After her graduation, Olivia started to work for Tiffany & Co.’s flagship retailer on the engagement flooring which is the place she “really fell in love with engagement rings and diamonds specificially”.
She knowledgeable entrepreneur.com: “But I wanted to be a little bit more hands-on, so I left Tiffany to work at a large diamond wholesaler here on 47th Street.”
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Kyle, who had moreover accomplished a diploma at Columbia Business School, observed a hole in the market.
When all his associates started getting married, they’d flip to him for steering realizing he had a connection to the diamond commerce as a result of time he spend in Sierra Leone creating a fair-trade diamond-mining agency.
“So they’d be like, ‘Hey, know a guy who can get me a deal on a ring?’” Olivia said.
“And since I was the one working on wholesale, I was the guy. So I would educate everyone, pick out their diamonds, create their custom rings, and it turned into this fun thing I did on the side.”
Her enterprise boomed.
“I realized that most people didn’t know the very very first thing about purchasing for a diamond.
“There was information online, but no one knew what to trust or believe. So I started The Clear Cut for our friends to read about the dos and don’ts, the four Cs.”
The 4 C stand for decrease, readability, shade and carat.
She moreover created a presence on Instagram and between 2016 and 2018, transformed her side hustle into a fully-functional enterprise.
“Strangers across the country were DMing me and sending me their life savings, and I would create a ring and ship it to them,” she said.
Kyle said: “Transitioning to full-time was pretty intimidating. I had just spent two years at business school and racked up a fair amount of debt. And Olivia was selling things on the side, but the demand was very sporadic. So it was like, Is there enough here to support [ourselves]?”
The couple had been accepted into a Tech starters programme in 2018 which unlocked £105,000 in funding and used a few of the money to assemble software program program to bolster the one jewellery-buying course of.
Their software program program, known as gem., presents prospects a chance to design their very personal bespoke rings on-line.
They would work together with Olivia or a Clear Cut workers member in a 15-minute session the place they see a assortment of hand-picked diamonds for his or her analysis.
Once the consumer is joyful, they go away a deposit, and the ring goes into manufacturing. When it’s achieved, it’s shipped off to the consumer.
The portal moreover gives them entry to their appraisal, GIA certificates and even an non-obligatory NFT for purchase.
Also, their tech generates a QR code for each stone and prospects can observe it by means of the manufacturing course of.
Now engagement rings are their biggest-selling merchandise.
“Nowadays, young people at that age that they’re going to get engaged have all looked on Instagram and TikTok for inspiration for their rings,” Olivia said.
The Clear Cut educates prospects regarding the diamond-making course of[/caption]
“They know exactly what they want, and they also don’t must compromise the usual, what it looks like, or spend an extreme quantity of for it each.
“When we began, we had been the purchasers, so we really understood these needs and tried to fulfill of us the place they’d been.
“We’re democratizing that private jewellery experience that was once only [accessible to] celebrities or really wealthy people, [and we’re] making it at an affordable price point, for anyone, anywhere.”
She added: “We always [prioritized] education first, which seems pretty straightforward these days, but this industry is very opaque and traditionally likes to guard a lot of secrets and not be super transparent — that’s how it always operated.”
They moreover elevated their social media pull by web internet hosting weekly Q&As that would accumulate “hundreds and hundreds” or questions, giving the company additional consideration.
By 2019, The Clear Cut secured a common stream of repeat prospects and extended its range to pendants and tennis bracelets.
Since then, the company has doubled its growth 12 months over 12 months and divulges no sign of slowing down.
In 2020, they made the Forces 30 beneath 30 itemizing.
Starting out with barely any cash, the couple made “more judicial” decision when it bought right here to their money day-to-day and ploughed it into scaling up the company.
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“We were able to invest in tech and build a very scalable, resilient company,” Kyle outlined.
“So regardless of what the past four years have thrown at us, we’ve always been able to succeed, and we may be entering a recession, [but] we are battle-tested and disciplined.”
