Rachel Blumenthal On Why There’s Always Time To Invest In Your Side Hustle

“I don’t have enough time.” Hands up if that statement rings true. Forgive me, though, because I have to stop you right there. In most cases, that’s a lie. Because let’s be real, if you have time to scroll through Instagram and binge-watch on Netflix, you have time. We’ve been talking a lot about living intentionally this month so an exploration about how successful women are utilising their time is something that made sense to explore so my interview with Rachel Blumenthal might help.

She found herself as a business-owner by accident. A girlfriend of hers begged her to feature a ring she’d made from some beads she picked up on Sixth Avenue. After reluctantly allowing her to shoot it, the feature ended up being a full-page profile in Lucky magazine on the ring and the brand. Orders flooded in. Daily Candy picked it up and her site racked in 250k hits overnight. There were no costume jewellery brands doing what she did at the time so she jumped at the opportunity. Her evenings were spent fulfilling orders and hand-making everything at home, all while juggling her role in the press department at YSL by day. She’s since sold that business and gone on to launch two more, the latest of which has just raised a whopping $19.5m, and she credits her ability to utilise the time she has as one of the cornerstones of her success.

If you’re struggling to muster the motivation to set aside time to dedicate to a side project, Rachel shares some great advice about powering through those tough times: “I don’t believe people don’t have enough time – if you’re passionate, excited and committed, there’s always time to make it happen and figure it out… I had a sense there was an opportunity in front of me to make something big of it. I knew if this was going to be successful, it needed my complete dedication.”

ON THE ART OF THE SIDE HUSTLE: When I first started, I was making everything myself. It was exhausting and my hands were always cut up. I remember staying up until 3am one night making and tagging jewelry with my YSL intern at the time (@shionat of street style fame) for a trunk show at Henri Bendel the next day. I don’t believe people don’t have enough time – if you’re passionate, excited and committed, there’s always time to make it happen and figure it out. Even today, though I’m obscenely busy, I still find the time (though maybe less than before) for things I love. For me that’s reading fashion and home decor magazines, shopping in stores and doing hot yoga. I find that when my job is creative, I feel less of a need for my personal projects to be as creative and vice versus.

ON MAKING THE DECISION TO GO FULL-TIME WITH HER JEWELLERY LINE: When orders started flooding in after my Lucky feature, I saw it as an opportunity to see what I could make of it. I didn’t expect the business would become the next eight years of my life, but I also knew I was onto something that was worth devoting the time to seeing through. Ultimately it was my boyfriend, now my husband, who encouraged me to take the leap. He’s the risk taker and believes everything works out. Given the feature in Lucky and a fast follow feature in Daily Candy plus trunk shows at Henri Bendel and a large order from ShopBop, I had a sense there was an opportunity in front of me to make something big of it. I knew if this was going to be successful, it needed my complete dedication. I figured I would beg my boss at YSL to take me back in 6 months if it didn’t work but I was willing to take the risk. I was 23 when I launched the business I definitely came up against challenges based on people’s perception of my age but I was too deadly focused on what I was building to get caught up in it. I was extremely naive and I actually think that naiveté gave me the confidence to pursue my goals.

MANAGING CASH FLOW IN THE EARLY DAYS: At the time, I wasn’t receiving all of my orders at the same time so I could space them out to protect the cash flow (plus, margins in costume jewelry are really good!). I literally started with a few hundred dollars. I would go to the bead stores on 6th avenue in NYC, buy materials, hand-make the jewelry, sell it at a mark-up, get paid within 30 days and turn around and take the profit to buy more materials for my next orders. Over time it wasn’t that simple but the simplicity in the beginning made taking the risk less scary.

WHY LISTENING TO CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM FOR BUYERS IS INVALUABLE: It’s just a part of the business but the greatest lesson I learned was the importance of being flexible to your buyers in the early days. As you grow the business, you can implement less flexibility to streamline and increase efficiencies but in the beginning, getting them to say yes often just meant listening and being flexible (offering another color, a simpler design for a lower price, a faster ship date, etc.).

HOW SHE GOT FEATURE ON OPRAH: We worked closely with her team at O Magazine and they were incredibly supportive of the brand. This is a long-winded story but when I was deciding if I should leave YSL to pursue the jewelry brand, Neil (my now husband, then boyfriend) was over at my apartment and we were talking through my options. James Taylor was playing in the background as we discussed what was a very difficult decision (I loved my job at YSL). Fast-forward 5 years later and I was working from home one day, listening to Oprah in the background. James Taylor was on the show and as I looked up to see Oprah introduce him, I noticed she was wearing my necklace and James Taylor was playing the exact same song (Fire and Rain) Neil and I had listened to 5 years earlier when I decided to pursue the business.

ON WHY SHE DECIDED TO SELL THE BRAND: I was introduced to the company I licensed my brand to by one of my buyers. I got to know them and the team members. It was clear that they could add value by leveraging existing infrastructure and knowledge and drive efficiencies through the business. I had also personally hit a learning curve and I looked at working with them as an opportunity to grow. The deal also enabled me to start exploring new opportunities through that transition, which was exciting to me.

HOW HER SECOND BUSINESS, CRICKET’S CIRCLE WAS BORN: I never intended to build Cricket’s Circle. In fact, after I licensed Rachel Leigh, I sat at a desk every day trying to come up with the next great idea. I didn’t have any great ideas that personally resonated with me (the most important characteristic when deciding if you should launch a business). As I’d share my mediocre ideas with friends, I’d also discuss the personal frustration I had just experienced as a new parent. When I was pregnant with my son, Griffin, I desperately wanted one master list of what to buy. Instead, I received dozens of spreadsheets and brain-dump emails passed from experienced moms to newbies like me. I knew there had to be a better way, which is why I started Cricket’s Circle – to be the short-answer solution for moms.

ON HER NEW PROJECT, ROCKETS OF AWESOME: Much like when I started Cricket’s Circle, the idea for Rockets of Awesome came from my own experience when I became a mom. I was excited to shop for my son, but I quickly found it to be a chore to find stylish clothes that didn’t cost a fortune. I had to either spend way too much time looking around, or sacrifice style or value. When I heard the same frustration from the Cricket’s Circle community, I knew I could create a solution for parents that answered the need for a highly personalized, thoughtful experience instead of the disjointed, time-consuming process that seemed to be the only option. Rockets of Awesome was created to simplify the process of shopping for kids and deliver stylish, high-quality clothes at an incredible value.

WHY SHE DECIDED TO FUNDRAISE: Raising money is a big decision to make as it fundamentally changes the dynamic of your business, the expectations of growth and the ownership structure. It’s also very hard and anyone that says it’s easy is lying. We typically start by speaking with investors that we have existing relationships with or those in which we have a warm introduction by someone trusted and reputable. From there it’s a lot of sharing, conversations and negotiation. We have raised $19.5M to date which we are tremendously proud of. We raised from investors who we have spent a lot of time building relationships centered around trust, vision and aligned values. Raising money is a privilege you are given to build your dream responsibly. At the growth trajectory we have planned, and the depth of technology and data science we are building, self-funding a business of this complexity wasn’t an option. We will be putting our capital toward further building our team, the infrastructure for scale and exceptional customer experiences for our incredible members.

ON HOW THIS VENTURE HAS BEEN DIFFERENT FROM THE FIRST TWO: It’s more complex than anything I’ve ever been a part of! The team size, operational challenges, data science and technology sophistication and overall responsibility is simply at another level of scale. Everyday I’m responsible to the customer, my team and our investors.