Aislyn and Gary
of Urban Maille ChainWorks

a jewelry business success story

© 2005 by Aislyn; all rights reserved

Urban Maille ChainWorks is a thriving cottage industry high in the Rocky Mountains making precious metal rings and kits, used by their customers to create beautiful chain and chainmaille jewelry. Though not yet two years old, the business has become wildly successful, a phenomenon that Aislyn, Urban Maille's designer, credits to their unwavering commitment to the highest quality in all they do... and a lot of good karma.

1) How did you come up with the idea for creating a niche business based on chainmaille kits and related items?

Before Gary and I were married, 12 years ago or so, we lived in Austin but he was on a contract in Denver, so we only saw each other for a weekend every two weeks. We were miserable being separated so much.

The worst time was 6am every second Monday morning when I would drive him to the airport to fly back to Denver. We used to pass this shop, I think it was a butcher shop or a deli or something, on the way to the airport. It had a pig on the sign. We would talk about having a business, something that would allow us to spend our days together and not have to be separated. We used to say it didn't matter what it was, even a pig store would be fine, as long as we could be together all day. That was our idea of heaven. *s*

So for all those years, we had a deal. Gary's job was to work on the present, meaning earning the money to pay the bills so we could live, and my job was to work on the future, figuring out what we could do as our business and getting whatever skills we would need.

I didn't know what I was doing most of that time. I started two businesses that never made any money. I did keep teaching myself things I thought I'd need to know, like graphics and html, but I also really suffered with depression because I felt like a leech for not earning any money or making any tangible contribution to the household.

We had new business ideas every week, but there was always something wrong with them; they required too much start up money or they required too much dependence on other people... or something.

Urban Maille was actually Gary's idea. I saw business in everything, but I knew I couldn't stand cutting rings all day, so I dismissed the idea and never mentioned it. I consider ring cutting to be a kind of torture. It's loud, there's a spinning metal blade involved, sometimes the rings become flying shrapnel and I find making them an altogether unpleasant experience.

It turned out, though, that *he* wanted to cut rings. He actually likes it. He asked me one day if I thought anyone would want to buy them. I'd have *loved* to buy rings instead of having to learn to make them and I thought, "I can't be the only one." I posted the question on a jewelry forum I frequent and there was a favorable response, so I thought we'd sell some now and then, just a little something on the side.

We were living in California at the time and neither of us felt that we belonged there, it just didn't feel like home. It was after the dotcom bust and the computer industry wasn't doing well, even in Silicon Valley where Gary was working at the time. He wanted to leave his job and was talking to headhunters and we were discussing where we'd be willing to move. We weren't feeling very enthusiastic about living in the areas on offer so far.

On his way home from work one day, we were talking on the phone and I was telling him about having written a tutorial for a particularly difficult weave and posting it for a forum friend who was having trouble learning that one. I told him that I felt bad because I wasn't able to include pictures, but she got it anyway, so it all turned out well. I remember there was a pause in the conversation and I thought the call had dropped, then he said...

"What if we made kits?"

It was like an idea bomb went off in my mind when he said that. I saw everything all at once, as it would be; the rings, the kits, the tiered system for learning the weaves, everything, in one blinding flash. He saw it, too, all in the space between his question and my shriek of excitement.

We talked nonstop about it until he got home, picked up in the driveway and just never stopped. There was no question in either of our minds that This Was It, The One, the idea we'd been searching for since the pig store. It was everything we'd dreamed of and more. Our enthusiasm knew no bounds. We'd been preparing the ground for a seed for so long and the seed had, at last, fallen.

2) What made you decide to take the plunge and turn your dream for Urban Maille ChainWorks into reality? Did you feel you were taking a big risk?

If you wait that long for something to happen, and spend so much time picking holes in every idea, when the idea comes along that you can't pick any holes in... well, we didn't need any more convincing. There was no wishywashyness, no wavering about how much to commit, nothing like that. We'd waited too long to doubt at that point, so we committed everything.

As I said before, Gary wanted to change jobs and we'd always wanted to move to Colorado. Once we knew our business was finally going to be born, we shifted our focus completely to making that happen. Gary started looked for jobs in Denver and I finished the contract I was working on, shut down my webdesign business and started looking for a house.

We knew houses cost much less in Colorado than in California and our current house had appreciated a lot while we lived in it. The high tech job market in Colorado was bad and we knew that we could end up without an income if we moved there, so we poured our efforts into figuring out just how much money we could scrape together and how long we could live on it, if we had to.

The difference between what our current house sold for and what the new house would cost was going to be the money we used to start the business. Our credit was good and we knew we could live on credit cards for quite a while if it came to that. It wasn't comforting to contemplate that possibility but again, we'd been praying for this kind of opportunity for so long and we were so sure we could make it happen that we were willing to take the risk for the possibility of living our dream.

And yes, it was a big risk. But the risk never felt as big as the opportunity and there was never any question of passing it by. *s*

3) What did you do during the dreaming and planning phase to prepare for your official startup?

It took months to find the job and the house, quit the old job and sell the old house and move us, our menagerie and all our worldly goods to the mountains. During that time, we couldn't buy anything for the business because it would just be more stuff to store and then move. That turned out to be such a blessing.

Because I couldn't do anything to rush the process, I had plenty of time to think about the details. I started designing the website, because it was one of the few things I could work on in the chaos of moving. The look and feel of the website came from that visionary flash I had when Gary first mentioned the idea.

I spent a lot of time working out the details of the structure for the kits so that the techniques learned build on each other in a natural progression. I made chains in every conceivable ratio until I got just the right fit and made a chain that I felt was the most perfect example of the way that weave should look. Then it became the model for the kit to come.

I wrote the instruction books for the first three kits during that time and hunted up sources for everything from clasps to printing to packaging. Being the perfectionist that I am, this process took quite awhile.

4) How has Urban Maille evolved as you've gone along?

I didn't know there would be project kits when we started. I worked out the structure for the weave kits, with each kit teaching a new weave, very early on, but it wasn't until later, after we moved and the first kits were available, that I realized I also needed a way to teach the various uses of each weave.

Once the idea presented itself, it was so obviously the thing to do that we reworked our whole structure in one day to accommodate project kits between each progressing layer of weave kits. We based it on the old guild structure in which a person progresses from apprentice to journeyman to master because we're very aware of the fact that we're teaching an ancient art that could have died out, if not for those of us who love it, practice it and pass it on.

5) What's the most challenging aspect of operating a business that involves filling and shipping orders?

Remember when I said that it was Gary's job to work on the present and my job to work on the future? Well... that future is now the present, but there's always more future to work on.

Filling and shipping orders is now the present, that's today. It has to come first. Designing new kits, writing books, choosing new tools and components and planning what comes next is the future.

A successful business means a lot of work in the present, which makes it very hard to get time to work on the future. I love the fact that we have so much business, but sometimes it's really hard to be patient and wait for time to work on the next new thing because I'm so excited about it all.

So right now, our biggest challenge is in streamlining every process we have so that we can continue to get our orders out in a timely fashion, despite getting busier every day, and still leave time for me to design the next kit, write the next instruction book, and get it all ready to go before our much beloved customers, impatient for a new kit to come out, show up at our door with torches and pitchforks. *L*

6) What's the biggest success you've had with your business, and how did you achieve it?

It's hard to pick the biggest thing in a string of big things. The speed at which we became profitable was probably the most amazing thing. I opened the site in March of 2003 and we had our first sale three days later, while Gary was shoveling us out from a blizzard. I ran out in the driveway in my bathrobe and snowboots shrieking about it and we danced in the snow.

An hour later, we had our second order... and it was over $500. We both went wide eyed and realized this was really going to go. There was a lot more snow dancing that day. *g*

Ring sales were steady and we were delighted with our five or six orders a week, then the first kits came out in July. Sales jumped and we were even happier. We still had enough money to get by for a year, so we felt like we were doing great.

In October we placed our first ads, to appear in December, then Gary's job folded. It was scary, but we decided to bet on ourselves and our new business and he didn't look for another job. By November, sales had increased to the point that I couldn't do it by myself, so it was good that he wasn't working.

When the ads hit in December, our knees buckled with the flood of business. That's when we *knew* we were going to be ok. *s* Sales have increased every month since we started.

7) Have you changed anything about your approach to selling your own finished jewelry since you started Urban Maille?

I really don't make any effort to sell my jewelry, other than just putting it on the website. I don't have any other sales venues, I've never advertised it and so far I've turned down the gallery offers I've had. I think there will be a time when I'm ready to pursue those things, but right now I'm not. It does sell, but not briskly. Of course, it doesn't get made briskly either, so it works out. *s*

Making jewelry is my luxury and it gives my ring customers ideas and that's all I want from it right now. It's still a very personal thing to me and for now, that's ok.

8) Do you and Gary do everything yourselves, or do you have help - such as with your ring and kit production, your website, packaging, filling orders, accounting, etc.? (If not, do you plan to hire help in the future, or farm out any parts of your operation to independent workers as you grow?)

We have an accountant and a patent attorney to keep us out of trouble, but everything else we do ourselves. We've never worked harder in our lives and we very much look forward to hiring help. We'll probably have to do it before Christmas this year because last Christmas was brutal and we're still growing.

We're saving to buy land in SW Colorado for our future animal sanctuary - our ultimate dream - where we'll build our forever house and a nice barn workshop for Urban Maille, so the longer we can do this alone, the more we can save for the dream.

Ideally, we'd like to get the land and move before we hire people so we can keep them always, but at the rate we're growing it's doubtful that we can do it alone for that long.

9) What's the biggest mistake you've made in your business, and how did you correct it?

We've made mistakes on orders, sent the wrong kit and things like that, but ridiculous as it sounds, I can't think of a big mistake. It seems like this happened very fast, but it happened fast after 10 years of dreaming and planning and preparing in every way we knew how.

Neither of us have marketing backgrounds. Gary was a software engineer and I didn't even get to finish high school, but we were business people without a business for a long, long time... so we had time to plan how we'd do *everything*, from packaging to employees. We couldn't have done it the way we did if we hadn't spent so much time thinking about what we'd do, if we ever had the chance.

I have really come to believe that good business happens when preparation intersects opportunity. *s*

10) Does Urban Maille creep into other parts of your house, or does it stay in the basement?

It stays in the basement except for the photos. They need more light, so all that equipment is upstairs. And I make jewelry upstairs, so one corner is strewn with rings and wire and gems all the time. *s*

11) What's the best thing you've done so far for your business?

The best thing we've done is throw out everything we've ever heard or read about competition. Competition doesn't exist for us because we don't think that way.

Our philosophy is that a rising tide lifts all boats, so we don't step on others to try to lift our boat. Instead, we try to raise the tide. We help everyone else as much as we possibly can because we believe there's no better way to help ourselves. You get back from the world what you put into it. *s*

12) Do you foresee Urban Maille evolving over time into something different than it is now?

Not different, just more. We have a lot of ideas for how we'll expand our business, once we have employees and space to spread out. The hardest thing is keeping all those ideas on hold until we have the time to develop them. Time is our most precious commodity.

13) What's your absolute favorite part about your business?

The best part for me is watching people fall in love. I put a lot of effort into making our kits a really perfect learning experience. I want everything to be just right so that the learning is a joy and a pleasure; the best rings in the perfect size, crystal clear instructions, beautiful packaging, the finest tools, all the little extras, simple and elegant, with everything you could want right at your fingertips.

When a person sits down with one of my kits and makes something so beautiful they can't believe they made it themselves, I feel their burst of joy when they tell me about it... and I still get tears in my eyes. It sounds silly, I know, but that's how I felt when I made my first chain and I feel it all over again, every time I get to help someone else have that experience. I *love* that. It's an incredible pleasure for me.

14) If you were just starting your business today, what's the first thing you would do?

Dream... of all it *could* be, not just what I'd be satisfied with. Most people think that it's hard to make money doing something you love, so they dream small. They think, if I could just pay for my supplies, or if I could just make a little extra money, or if I could just make enough to pay the bills, I'd be happy.

If that's as big as you dream, and then you're fortunate enough to get everything you dreamed of, well, it isn't very much, is it? It's like winning a thousand dollar lottery. That thousand bucks is nice, but if you have the incredible good fortune to win a lottery, wouldn't you rather it was a billion dollar lottery? If you dream of all it *could* be and then you just get half of it, well... half a billion dollars is really nice, too. *s*

15) Do you have any other advice for jewelry artists and people with other jewelry-related small businesses?

This is a loaded question because every time someone asks me for advice, I end up pouring out about ten times more than I knew I had. *L*

I think it's important to realistically weigh the skills your business needs against the skills you have and your inclinations.

For example, one of the reasons that Urban Maille is doing so well is that the skills it needs are almost all skills we already had or skills that suit our natures. I was already a web designer, good with graphics, a good writer and good at explaining complicated things. Gary was already good at business in general and good with tools.

Some things neither of us were good at were things we knew we *could* be good at, so we learned them, like jewelry photography.

Other things we needed, like accounting and legal skills, are things that neither of us are ever going to be good at because we don't like them. Learning things you don't want to do and won't ever be good at is a waste of time. Those are the things you should pay for or barter services for.

You have to look at the value of your time and measure it against the results you can realistically expect from yourself. Accounting isn't that expensive to pay for, so it's a good thing to outsource. Web design is a good thing to outsource, but web maintenance probably isn't, so if you pay someone to design your website, make sure it's designed in such a way that you can keep it updated yourself. Photography is expensive on an ongoing basis, so it's better to learn to do that yourself, if you possibly can.

A website can be a wonderful thing and absolutely invaluable, if it's well done and well maintained. It's a store that's open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, accessible from everywhere in the world and you don't even have to pay someone to man the counter. It's hard to beat a deal like that. But if you don't have and can't get the skills to do it well yourself, you'd be better off focusing on other sales avenues rather than putting all your time and effort into doing something you hate that doesn't represent you well in the end, anyway.

It might seem ok to take on something you really dislike at first because you might not be spending that much time doing it. But if you get your wish and your business is successful, you're going to spend more and more time doing it and soon you'll be hating life. You have to look to the future, see that coming, and make arrangements you can be happy with long term.

Printed material and packaging is another area like this. That is your face to the world and it's really important that it represents you well and looks good. This is not the place to pinch pennies and do it yourself unless you really know what you're doing. Unless you're a graphic artist, spend your time doing what you do best, then use the money you earn from that to pay a professional to design your logo, packaging and printed material.

That one time fee will ensure that your business looks like a business and not a hobby. Especially on the web and through the mail, people need a reason to feel confident that your business is legitimate before they send you their money. A professional look and feel does more to give them that confidence than anything else I could name.

Once you have a professional look and feel and all your ducks in a row, you need people to be able to find you. Advertising is key, but you have to know how to make the most of your advertising dollars because it can be crushingly expensive if you don't.

Advertising to a wide, general market costs a *lot*. Advertising to a narrow niche, however, is very reasonable. The narrower the market, the less it costs to reach it.

This doesn't mean that you have to narrow what you make, it just means that you have to narrow what you advertise. If you make a wide variety of things, pick one thing that you like to make and that you're really good at, perhaps mothers' bracelets, and then advertise just that one thing. Your target market is mothers and people who love them, so do your advertising where you can expect to find those people.

Think outside the box. Is there a way to reach new mothers through the maternity ward? Perhaps the local hospital would let you sponsor the page on their website where they put up the pictures of new babies. All the relatives go to that page for their first glimpse of the newborn and if they see your advertisement there, they might decide that's the perfect gift for the new mom. While they're placing that order, they might see something unrelated that they'd like to order for themselves and they might become frequent customers... but they'd never have found you without that ad for the mothers' bracelets.

If you don't make something that specific, then your target market is people with the same tastes as you who don't mind spending money on jewelry. Where would you be hanging out and what would you be reading if you were wealthy? That's where you need to advertise. If you'd like to sell your bracelets for $200 but you wouldn't buy a $200 bracelet, then you are not your target market. If you aren't your target market, then don't base your prices on what you'd spend. Your target market is people with the same tastes as you who *would* spend $200 on a bracelet... all you have to do is figure out where those people are and get your lovely work in front of them. Figure out where those people are and you're 90% of the way to making those sales.

Note from Rena:
Aislyn, thank you so much for taking us on the journey from the planning stages of Urban Maille to its current success. I'm especially inspired by the attention you and Gary put into even the smallest detail, and how every aspect of your products is designed to evoke the golden age of chainmaille. :o)

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