This Side Hustle Spotlight Q&A features Melinda Spiegel, the designer and founder behind the jewelry brand Melinda Maria. Nearly two decades ago, Spiegel was hand-beading pieces at her local Starbucks and competing on game shows for seed money. Now, her side hustle turned full-time business sees multimillion-dollar sales each year, and her pieces are worn by celebrities like Jennifer Lopez, Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez and more. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Melinda Maria. Melinda Spiegel.
What was your day job or primary occupation when you started your side hustle?
My side hustle started early in life. I was designing jewelry at a very early age and sold my first pieces in high school. I certainly didn’t price it correctly and probably lost money, but I was obsessed with jewelry, stones and anything I could make with my hands. As I got older, I had a lot of side hustles as a makeup artist, a production assistant in TV and a jewelry maker. I was happy doing all three, but my passion was really with jewelry design.
When did you start your side hustle, and where did you find the inspiration for it?
I fell in love with jewelry and everything related to it at a very early age, probably around the age of 10. I would go down to the local bead store, Rings & Things, where I would spend every last penny of my babysitting money to get materials to make pieces. I feel blessed that I had a passion and obsession for it. Inspiration came from just the sheer joy it gave me creating pieces, and then later, when I started to sell them, an added bonus was loving how they made people feel when they wore them. The one thing I want my kids to find is something they love so much that they can’t wait to wake up the next day, and that keeps them up at night thinking about it because they love it so much!
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What were some of the first steps you took to get your side hustle off the ground?
I quickly realized that I needed to grow but didn’t have the business acumen to get institutional funding — so what does one do? You go on game shows! I went on a series of game shows and won, like Hollywood Squares, The Price Is Right and a dodgeball competition to get a chunk of money so that I could quit my other side hustles and focus solely on jewelry. Number one rule of an entrepreneur: Be resourceful, scrappy and nimble.
The product-market fit was a gradual process, and it started to occur to me that there was a demand for things I was creating. At the time, it was mainly wholesale, so I gathered up my samples and walked door-to-door, and in one week I think I had a purchase order from five of the best stores in Los Angeles for around $30,000. We quickly retained wholesale showrooms in New York City and Los Angeles and opened a lot of accounts. With this income, I was able to hire a few employees in the next few years, but I kept a very lean team to grow on retained earnings.
What were some of the biggest challenges you faced while building your side hustle, and how did you navigate them?
The list can be endless, but the biggest challenge was the confidence to take the leap into business. It really just took one person (my now husband!) to believe in me. Some say the best way to build a business is to chase your dream, but that is not always realistic because when it’s a hobby, there is no pressure, but as a business, it’s insane pressure. Recognizing that most of the pressure was self-imposed insecurities and having the courage to push through it was a big challenge.
Surrounding yourself with others who have faced challenges and do not have an ego is essential in the natural maturation of business. However, a more specific challenge for me — because I was an artist first and didn’t go to business school (although I have since attended a CEO program at Harvard Business School) — was understanding the basics of the business’s financials.
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How long did it take you to see consistent monthly revenue? How much did the side hustle earn
Consistency is a subjective matter; to this day, there is no guarantee of consistency, and things can be unpredictable. Embracing uncertainty, being nimble, thriving as a student of the industry and being obsessed with customer feedback are things that were rooted in me from day one. The brand saw slow, consistent growth from the start, as the initial objective wasn’t to skyrocket to the top but rather to create a brand aesthetic that could stand the test of time and be something that I could always find enjoyment in, even in the face of immense challenges.
I didn’t start this company to make millions of dollars — I started it because I was obsessed with jewelry, which made me happy. Money didn’t drive me at all; brand quality and doing something I love that also made people happy was my biggest driver. I fell in love with the creativity of business. The brand went from nothing to $1 million, then to $2 million, then to $3 million and so on in a rather linear fashion. But in the beginning, it was maybe $200,000, but I just paid myself enough to survive. I moved into a room with my little sister’s friend and sold my car to get an older used car to lower my overhead expenses. I paid myself a nominal amount to pour everything back into the business. I did this for many years. We would grow maybe 10% year over year, but I wasn’t thinking in those terms back then because I was just interested in building a brand, paying my bills and doing something I loved. It wasn’t until maybe 2015 that I started to hone in on the business side.
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Could you tell me about your experience transitioning the venture from side hustle to full-time business?
The experience was all about setting realistic goals and never forgetting that I wanted to enjoy the journey and process, not necessarily having an end financial goal. That ethos still rings true today, and even though the business is much larger than it was when it was a side hustle, it’s always been a fun learning and creating experience — but always still a hustle as you want to create a lasting brand and not just a flash-in-the-pan financial success.
The experience today still feels like when I transitioned to full-time Melinda Maria: a fun, hard and rewarding experience, as it’s been a hell of a ride along the way with lifelong lessons learned. One of the biggest transitions was managing people and feeling responsible for them. That was a different stress than just providing for myself. I take it very seriously that people have bills and families to provide for.
What does growth and revenue look like these days?
Growth in brand awareness and revenue remains consistent today. We are on track for well over $30 million this year with healthy profitability. The focus is profitability because we chose not to go just topline growth and add the extra pressure. So, year-over-year growth is larger in terms of revenue numbers, but growth in important areas like awareness, charitable endeavors and our team’s ability to embrace our brand mission of revealing the fun side of fashion, I feel, is outpacing the revenue numbers. Having more success means we get to give back to charitable organizations and reward our customers with things like our giveaway “Live at Five,” which has been our brand ethos. Last year we were able to gift $2.5 million worth of jewelry back to our customers, which in my opinion is pretty damn fun!
What do you enjoy most about running this business?
Creating while learning. All businesses teach things about not just business or the industry but also the power of a strong community and team focused on mission. I am constantly inspired by employees, the roller coaster of industry trends and even by competitors that continue to showcase that we are all in this together. In the face of all the challenges, what you learn is far more gratifying than the size of the company, and the journey of doing it with a strong internal network makes this even more fun today.
Related: She Started a ‘Fun’ Side Hustle — Then It Earned $100,000 and Became a Multimillion-Dollar Business: ‘Beyond What I Could Ever Have Expected
What’s your advice for others hoping to start successful side hustles or full-time businesses of their own?
Everyone says, “Follow your dreams or passion,” but that doesn’t always translate into sustainable success. Determine what success looks like in your mind, which may include a lot more than just revenue and company size. Let go of ego and understand that it’s usually a combined effort of a great network of people and facing adversity that will help you achieve your “success.” Create something that will allow you to enjoy the journey along the way, as that journey can be long, and no financial success will replace the gratification of feeling like you grew as an individual. Lastly, if your version of success means being in it for the long haul, then be authentic to your own vision and be fine with carving your name on a small piece of a very large pie rather than trying to dominate it all at once.
This Women Entrepreneur® article is part of our ongoing series highlighting the stories, challenges and triumphs of running a business as a woman.
