46. The Secret Sauce to Success with Nicole Wegman, Jewelry Entrepreneur and Founder of Ring Concierge

What are you good at? What is your “secret sauce?” And more importantly, what are you not good at? What should you get help with so your company can grow?

These are some of the questions posed by today’s guest, Nicole Wegman, the founder and CEO of Ring Concierge, one of the fastest-growing fine jewelry companies in America, which focuses on designs for women, by women.

Nicole founded her company with just a $2,000 investment in 2013 after ring shopping with her now husband in the Diamond District in Manhattan. At the time, it seemed like every other jeweler was an antiquated, generational, family-run business. Few had any kind of ecommerce presence or understood millennial shopping behavior.

I’m excited for you to hear Nicole’s journey of self-funding her business, to growing a team and how she became profitable. She’s done some pretty badass stuff, and is full of great advice for all the founders out there.

IN THIS EPISODE:

Nicole’s background in the fashion industry (majoring in fiber science and apparel design at Cornell, then working at Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s) and how she fell into the jewelry world How starting things very small and investing profits back into the business each year allowed Ring Concierge to be fiscally responsible, privately-held, and self-funded How Nicole acquired office space, grew to a team of 60, and became one of the first in her industry to utilize Instagram The pros and cons of starting a business with funding vs. without, and the power of transparency The magic of hiring people who can help you with the aspects of the business you’re not comfortable with, and the importance of relying on your gut Why Nicole hired a CMO, and how she’s thinking about leveraging other social media platforms to create a Gen-Z funnel

LINKS/RESOURCES MENTIONED

Connect with Nicole on LinkedIn. You can follow Ring Concierge on Instagram and check out their website!

Nicole also recommends The Lean Startup by Eric Ries, which is what she read when she started her business.

Sarina is a career coach and consultant who works with startup leaders and entrepreneurs. Connect with her on her website, on Instagram, via email, and check out more episodes of the Career Memos podcast.