Solopreneur Sells $200K of Enamel Pins (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: I'm sitting down with solopreneur Amber Jordan, and Amber, you made $200,000 selling pins.

[00:00:06] Speaker 2: That's right.

[00:00:07] Speaker 1: Did you know there was such a big pin market out there?

[00:00:10] Speaker 2: Absolutely not. I like to tell people that I kind of fell into this by accident.

[00:00:16] Speaker 1: Because?

[00:00:17] Speaker 2: Because I started a whole different company and it wasn't doing well, so I added a few enamel pins to the site, and within a month I had sold $30,000 worth of pins and like zero dollars of the original product.

[00:00:32] Speaker 1: Wow. Okay. $30,000 of enamel pins. My first dumb question, are enamel pins, do they have anything in common with the enamel of our teeth? I don't think so. Okay. Good. So these are, no teeth were harmed in the making of these pins.

[00:00:48] Speaker 2: No teeth were harmed in the making of these enamel pins.

[00:00:50] Speaker 1: But these are rebellious pins, you call them, the company's called Rebellious Pins. What do you make someone a rebel?

[00:00:56] Speaker 2: So being a rebel is being true to who you are and not being afraid to stand up for what you believe in.

[00:01:01] Speaker 1: Interesting. I never expected a rebel to be so organized, but I saw images of your office and you have, I think you're like the number one customer of Container Store.

[00:01:10] Speaker 2: Probably. Yeah. I had to find some kind of way to organize all of these products so that I could fulfill them promptly.

[00:01:17] Speaker 1: Because when people want a pin, they want it fast.

[00:01:20] Speaker 2: Exactly. The unfortunate reality is they expect us to ship as quickly as Amazon and big businesses like that. And I try my best, but again, I am a solopreneur, so there's only so much I can do.

[00:01:31] Speaker 1: Yeah. What is the difference between a pin and a brooch, which is spelled brooch, brooch, brooch?

[00:01:37] Speaker 2: Yes. It is spelled brooch, but it's pronounced brooch. I mean, that must be all the time.

[00:01:43] Speaker 1: And I never made any sense. They should really re-spell that word.

[00:01:46] Speaker 2: They really should.

[00:01:47] Speaker 1: It's not used that often in vocabulary. They could just change the spelling. Okay. Yes.

[00:01:52] Speaker 2: The difference between an enamel pin and a brooch is really about how they're created. Brooches tend to be more stylistic. Sometimes they have pearls, sometimes they have jewels, things like that. Whereas enamel pins are created in a factory by a machine that creates a mold of the design and then you fill it in with color.

[00:02:13] Speaker 1: Do you think a rebel would ever wear a brooch? A rebel brooch?

[00:02:16] Speaker 2: I think so. Yeah. There's some really good ones out there. Maybe I'll start adding those to my collection.

[00:02:19] Speaker 1: There's some grannies wearing some rebel brooches out there. I feel like it's just like a different generation of thing. Okay. Who all going to be there?

[00:02:25] Speaker 2: Yes. That is a very popular pin and it's one of those questions you ask when you're invited to something and you're not really sure if you want to go.

[00:02:34] Speaker 1: That is, for me, the worst. When someone asks me who's going to be there, I just disinvite them to the party. What about Chile, please? Chile, please? Am I saying it wrong? I'm so bad.

[00:02:46] Speaker 2: You are. But that's okay. It's chow, please. It's chow. Child. Child, but without the d. Chow, please. Girl, I didn't know. Chow, please. I was like, Chile?

[00:02:56] Speaker 1: I was like, you're Argentinian pins. That's so funny.

[00:03:00] Speaker 2: But that brings up a really important point about the shop in general is who my target consumer is. And so these are phrases that if you grew up hearing them, you would know what they mean, right?

[00:03:11] Speaker 1: Well, I know what chow, please is. I just didn't know you spelled chow with an e. Chow, please. What's your favorite pin?

[00:03:20] Speaker 2: Oh, that's a good question. I have a pin. It's called, hello, I'm the rich auntie. And it's like one of those name tags, you know, when you like you're signing in and you're going to a new place and you put a sticker and it says like your name, it's styled that way. And it says, I'm the rich auntie.

[00:03:39] Speaker 1: Oh, and it's for the woman that didn't have the kids.

[00:03:42] Speaker 2: It's for the woman who, not necessarily, it's for the woman who aspires to or is already living like a rich life. Someone who likes to travel, someone who likes to go to good restaurants and likes to have a good drink, like things like that.

[00:03:55] Speaker 1: Are you a rich auntie?

[00:03:57] Speaker 2: Oh yeah. I'm definitely a rich auntie.

[00:03:59] Speaker 1: Tell me about like, now I want to talk about the solopreneur journey because, you know, it's not easy to start your own thing. And I feel like listening to you talk and I get that you are your company, like it seems like it's one thing. So can you just talk about that? Like what being a solopreneur means to you and how you figured out, I know pins took some time to get to, but the overall voice of your company seems so you.

[00:04:25] Speaker 2: Yeah. No. Yeah. That's a good question. Being a solopreneur, I feel like it's one way towards having more freedom to do what you want with your time and kind of write your own story. But it did take quite a while to get to this point. I've tried and failed and tried and failed so many times with so many different business ideas. But I think the heart of being a solopreneur is that you just keep going and eventually you'll you'll find something that sticks.

[00:04:51] Speaker 1: Does it ever feel lonely to you?

[00:04:54] Speaker 2: No, I have a really good network of other entrepreneurs.

[00:04:57] Speaker 1: What is the difference between a solopreneur and any other entrepreneur?

[00:05:02] Speaker 2: I think a solopreneur has to figure out ways to do it all. I think other entrepreneurs, when they start out, they might already have a network that can help them along. They might already have people they can go to for funding, or they might start out with a team and just start out by themselves. But as a solopreneur, you've decided that I'm going to make this happen, whether anyone's going to help me or not.

[00:05:29] Speaker 1: So I love that. A solopreneur does it all. How does technology help you do that?

[00:05:35] Speaker 2: Without technology, I wouldn't have a company. I manufacture overseas. I have to communicate with my manufacturers. So sometimes that's via video chat, just different interfaces to make sure that we're having a conversation. It's expensive to manufacture, so I want to see the products before someone manufactures thousands of them. So it wouldn't be possible or it would be a whole lot harder if I didn't have these tools at my disposal.

[00:06:02] Speaker 1: Do you aspire to kind of keep this a solopreneur venture or do you aspire to scale it and bring on a team? What's your future vision for Rebellious Pins?

[00:06:13] Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely want to scale the business. So I feel like I'm at a place now where I can start to think about the future of Rebellious Pins. I don't foresee it needing a whole bunch of people, but a handful can really scale this thing to a million dollars or more.

[00:06:32] Speaker 1: Amazing. And your top customer has how many of your pins?

[00:06:36] Speaker 2: I know she's ordered almost 20 times, so at least 20, but she's probably got 40 to 50 of them.

[00:06:45] Speaker 1: Do you have now like Rebellious Pin collectors, I guess? You know what?

[00:06:50] Speaker 2: Maybe I do. You don't know.

[00:06:53] Speaker 1: Outside of just me, obviously. You are obviously a Rebellious Pin collector. Has there ever been a saying that's too rebellious to put on a pin for you?

[00:07:04] Speaker 2: There are some phrases that I would not put on a pin, and I will not say them out loud.

[00:07:10] Speaker 1: But you'll thank them? Yeah.

[00:07:13] Speaker 2: Okay. I'm still a lady, you know, like at the end of the day.

[00:07:17] Speaker 1: You might be a rich auntie, but you're still a lady. Exactly. I love asking people when I meet them on Zoom, I really want to know if the height that I think they are is the height that they are. So I think you are five foot four. Am I correct?

[00:07:29] Speaker 2: Spot on.

[00:07:30] Speaker 1: Really?

[00:07:31] Speaker 2: Yes. Spot on.

[00:07:33] Speaker 1: Do you have a guess for me? I would say five-six. Spot on, girl. What? Child, please. You're saying that to make me feel better? I'm not trying to make you feel better. It's so nice to meet you. Thank you very much, Amber.

[00:07:50] Speaker 2: Thank you.