HerMoney Podcast Episode 212: Kendra Scott On Entrepreneurship, Motherhood, And Giving Back

Trying to make the most of hermoney podcast episode 212? You are in the right place. Below we break it down in plain English, with practical tips you can actually use.

Key Takeaways

• A very special chat with jewelry industry titan Kendra Scott, all about how she got her start, her advice to future entrepreneurs, and what...
• Jewelry industry magnate Kendra Scott may be best known for her classic designs and dazzling baubles, but she is truly loved for her philant...
• Over the last decade, her company has donated $30 million to local, national, and international causes, and just last year, Kendra built the...

A very special chat with jewelry industry titan Kendra Scott, all about how she got her start, her advice to future entrepreneurs, and what we can all do to make it through coronavirus.

Jewelry industry magnate Kendra Scott may be best known for her classic designs and dazzling baubles, but she is truly loved for her philanthropic and educational efforts. Over the last decade, her company has donated $30 million to local, national, and international causes, and just last year, Kendra built the Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership Wing at the University of Texas in Austin, where young women are learning how to rock the C-suite, and form their own amazing companies. (And who better for them to learn from than Kendra herself , her company now has a billion-dollar valuation and 2,000 employees, 90% of whom are women. YES, she also teaches!) 

We’re so honored that Kendra chose to join us for this very special Mother’s Day episode, where she opens up about what it was like to start her company with just $500, and a newborn baby boy (literally) strapped to her chest. That was back in 2002, when the country was still reeling from 9/11, and Kendra shares some candid insight into some parallels between what companies are facing now in the wake of coronavirus, and what we went through then. 

Kendra says that she was inspired to start her business for several reasons , she wanted to create products that she wanted to wear, but either couldn’t find, or couldn’t afford. She also wanted to be able to be present as a mother, but stay involved in the fashion and design worlds that she loved. She also talks about how philanthropy drove her from the very beginning , even when she had no money to give, she would donate a pair of earrings or a necklace, whatever she had, to a worthy cause. 

She also offers up some hard truths about her first failed business venture , a hat company , that she was forced to close after five years. She says that an entrepreneur’s journey will bring numerous gifts, but that some of them will be painful. She discusses the importance of not giving up after your first failures. “Those real life-lessons were the greatest gift, even though in the moment, ouch! They hurt,” she says. “Sometimes what we think is going to happen doesn’t always happen, but that might be because there’s something better , a bigger opportunity, waiting for us.” 

When Kendra first started her jewelry business, she was working out of a spare bedroom in her home, and she had to sell all her samples just to have the money to purchase materials to fulfill her first “real” orders, which brought her $1,265. When she got that check, she says, “I came walking in the door like we had just won the lottery. I said, ‘Baby, we’ve got ourselves a business!’” 

Kendra also opens up about how she’s coping with coronavirus , on March 16, she closed all 108 of her stores, and is now able to do curbside pickup in some stores. She shares her advice on how fellow entrepreneurs (and all of us) can make it through this time. “This is not going to last forever. We are going to get through it together. As a country and as a world, we are going to come out of this so much stronger, so much kinder and more empathetic than ever before,” she says. 

After coronavirus, Kendra predicts there will be an incredible need for the human touch , people will need gathering places, to see their friends, and to be together in community places. She predicts that although things will be different at first, retail will continue to thrive… And some of us (especially us Southern girls!) may need to adjust our behavior for a few months. “I’m a Texas girl. I’m a hugger!” she says. 

In Mailbag, Jean and Kathryn talk about shopping and confidence-building experiences, and some of the retailers we love most (We’re looking at you, Von Maur, and of course, Kendra Scott!) We advise a listener who is expecting a baby, but who has also suffered financial losses during coronavirus , specifically she’s wondering about 529 contributions and life insurance. We also hear from a high-risk listener who is worried about returning to work after coronavirus given that her job does not offer work-from-home flexibility. She’s wondering if she should find a new job or quit her old one in order to protect herself. Lastly, we connect with a listener in New Zealand who is curious about prioritizing starting her business in the middle of the pandemic vs. building up her emergency fund. Also, in Thrive, Jean dishes on how you can get your credit reports free every week from now through April 2021.  

Transcript

Kendra Scott: (00:02) I wasn’t having big dreams. I wasn’t thinking I’m going to build a billion dollar brand and open stores all over. I was just thinking, how could I contribute to our family unit, do what I love, be a good mom and give back. That was really it.

Jean Chatzky: (00:21) HerMoney is brought to you by Fidelity Investments. Fidelity is committed to helping clients through any market conditions with financial planning and advice when you need it most. Learn more at Fidelity.com. HerMoney comes to you through PRX.

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Jean Chatzky: (00:35) Hey everybody, I’m Jean Chatzky. Thank you so much for being here with us today on HerMoney. I want to take just a sec and wish all the moms out there listening, including the dog moms, the cat moms, the plant moms, and my mom a very, very happy Mother’s Day this weekend. I hope that you are all able to do something to celebrate yourselves even in light of these current restrictions because we all deserve it. Our guest today - we are so excited about this - also happens to be a mom and when her son was just three months old, she started her business in the spare bedroom of her house with just $500 in cash. That was back in 2002. In 2010, she opened her first retail location and today our business has a billion dollar valuation, 108 locations and employs more than 2000 people, 90% of whom are women. Some of you may already know who I’m talking about. If you could see me and my dangly beautiful earrings, you would know that I am joined today by jewelry industry titan, Kendra Scott. Her colorful designs may be on your ear lobes or your fingers as I speak. And I got to say Kendra, it has been a long time since we had the whole team as excited. Not everybody shows up for every show. Kendra signed on. We’re recording this through zoom, because we’re all at home and Kathryn is here of course, but our social media manager, Christine Burke, is here sporting her earrings. We are all quite excited about this.

Kendra Scott: (02:24) You’re very zoom chic, is all I can say. Well, you guys like all fabulous in your jewels. I love it.

Jean Chatzky: (02:31) If we were in our studio in New York, Charles our engineer would be telling us to take off our earrings and bracelets cause he’d be afraid they would jangle against the mic. But I’m just going to go with it.

Kendra Scott: (02:42) Hey. This is a new day.

Jean Chatzky: (02:44) Yeah. Kendra is also, I mean you are so admired for your incredible products, but we also have to mention that you really know what it means to give back and that since 2010 you have donated $30 million to local, national and international causes. And just last year you built the Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership Wing at UT in Austin. So, so incredible. Thank you for all you do and for being here.

Kendra Scott: (03:16) Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited. I absolutely love your podcast. Numerous of those women that you spoke about that work with me, listen to it and love it as well. So thank you for having me on.

Jean Chatzky: (03:28) For sure. For sure. So let’s dive in and start talking about your company. I mean, starting with $500 that’s really something. A lot of businesses, Spanx was started with $5,000 and I’ve talked to a lot of entrepreneurs who started with $5,000 but not 500.

Kendra Scott: (03:50) Well, it wasn’t exactly like I sat there and said, I’m starting a business today with $500. We didn’t have a lot of money in the bank and it was right 9/11. So here it was. I was had a newborn son. It was early 2002 and it was a scary time and I was trying to figure out how could I be a present mom for this new amazing little baby that I just brought home, but also do what I love, which was fashion and design. I’ve loved it since I was a little girl, but more importantly for me, I wanted to do something good for my community. I had recently lost my stepfather to cancer and realized that we have a really short time on this earth. And he taught me that lesson of, use the gifts you’ve been given to do something good. And that really just stuck with me. So when I had my little boy, I really wanted to create a business that allowed me to be a present mom and create that for other women. Create products that I wanted, that I couldn’t find, and products that I couldn’t afford. I mean, I loved semi-precious stones. I loved color. But everything out there I couldn’t afford as a new young mother. So I wanted to create something that was attainable for women. And then the third part was I wanted to do good. I wanted to help my community, but I was broke. So I would just, anytime anybody would call me and they’d say, Kendra, can you donate to this charity with a silent auction item or a raffle? I decided early on that I would never say no. That I could always make a pair of earrings or a necklace and that I could do that at that moment. And that just grew from there.

Jean Chatzky: (05:27) What is so striking about when you got your start is how similar I think things are to today. I mean people are at a place where they are so frightened. Resources are more scarce than they’ve been and for awhile. And I think we’ve got a lot of our listeners who are thinking, you know, maybe I don’t want to go back into that office. Maybe it’s time for me to try to do my own thing, to try to put foot in front of the other. What do you say to them?

Kendra Scott: (06:00) You know, I think sometimes it is the struggles in life and these challenges that come across that make us stronger. That give us a new and fresh perspective on what’s key. On the things that we may want to do. And sometimes you have to have these big moments of impact. These things that just stop you in your tracks and you say, whoa, what’s going on? To really open your eyes to maybe something new and different. And you know, I think for my life, I look back on a lot of those moments. The ones that were the most challenging really in a lot of ways were the gifts. At the time it didn’t feel like it. A lot of them were painful and, you know, my first business failed. I had a retail hat company and I had it for five years and I worked in that little store open to close seven days a week. I could barely hire anybody. And after five years of trying to make it work, I had to close it. And I think for a lot of people it’s like, oh gosh, well that’s it. You know, it’s scary to think about going into business again. And so after that closed, I had to go get a job. You know, I had to go work. I worked for a magazine, I got a job. I missed though being control of my own destiny and I missed fashion and design. I missed that customer interaction. And when I had my first son, that was a whoa, stop you in your tracks moment. As numerous of us moms know, you your first born, when they hand you that baby in the hospital and they look up at you with their little eyes, it’s like everything in your life that you thought was key is suddenly so not key.

Jean Chatzky: (07:37) Yeah.

Kendra Scott: (07:37) Right? I mean, it’s a feeling that you can’t describe until you’ve got that little little baby in your arms. And so that was a moment

Final Thoughts

The bottom line: a little research on hermoney podcast episode 212 goes a long way. Compare your options, watch for seasonal offers, and never pay full price when a better deal is one click away.

Originally published at savingswitch.com.