Love Is Project Update: Selling $4M+ Love Bracelets For A Good Cause
This is a follow up story for Love Is Project. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published about 2 years ago, check it out here.
Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.
Love Is Project is more than just jewelry. We create jobs for more than 2,100 talented female artisans in ten countries, supporting families, their children's school fees, and investing monetary proceeds toward various LOVE-packed projects.
We give agency to our artisans to empower themselves. Also, Love Is Project donates a portion of net proceeds to non-profit organizations. All of our bracelets are handmade with LOVE and reflect the pride and heritage of the artisan maker and the artisan’s home country.
Celebrate diversity and share what LOVE means to you. After all, LOVE connects us all!
Since launching Jan 2017, we’ve doubled our sales year over year, in 2021 thanks to our Shark Tank appearance, we are looking at over 3X sales growth.
Tell us about what you’ve been up to! Has the business been growing?
We were just featured on ABC's Shark Tank Jan 15th, 2021! Our sales have skyrocketed since.
Read about my Shark Tank Experience and my subsequent Shark Tank Effect Recap.
We were just featured on ABC's Shark Tank Jan 15th, 2021! Our sales have skyrocketed since.
Read about my Shark Tank Experience and my subsequent Shark Tank Effect Recap.
The dynamic duo currently consists of me and my mom, Gladys Lam, who works as our CFO/COO. Together we manage a team of contractors and agencies for marketing, distribution, and other services.
Be selective, thoughtful, and discerning on projects and partnerships that you want to pursue. Don’t say yes to everything.
Unearned media coverage:
We’ve had celebrities like Anne Hathaway, Jeff Bridges, Brooke Shields, Ali MacGraw, Bella Thorne, and the Creative Director of Gucci, Alessandro Michele, photographed wearing our Love bracelets—unsolicited by us. Over the years, Love Is Project has been featured on Good Morning America (11/2018, 3/2019), The Today Show (2/2020), The View (3/2020), CNN (3/2019), NBC Bay Area (7/2019), and Univision. We've also been featured in Oprah Magazine (2/2019), Paris Vogue (6/2020), Glamour Magazine, Refinery 29, InStyle Magazine, DestinAsian Magazine, Cathay Pacific in-flight magazine (9/19), Starter Story, and Mission Meats podcast.
Product Awards Received:
In January 2020, I was excited to win NYNOW's "best new product" for our photobook The Greatest Love Story Ever Told, and our Spread the Love deck of cards.
Our Mindanao bracelets from the Philippines were a finalist for Best New Sustainable Product at NYNOW 2020.
Personal Accomplishment:
Good Morning America featured me on Women's Entrepreneur's Day (March 8, 2019) The View in 2020, Today Show for Valentine’s Day 2020.
In Jan 2020, the Fashion Incubator of San Francisco at Bloomingdale’s selected me as a resident designer providing valuable mentoring advice.
Forbes just announced me on their Next 1000 list.
International Collaboration with Claudie Pierlot in Paris:
We partnered with a European fashion label, Claudie Pierlot’s CLAUDIE CARES initiative on collaboration, with 100% of proceeds to be donated to Green School Bali’s new agricultural teaching initiative. We were even featured in Paris Vogue!
Our Work From Home (WFH) social impact:
We, our artisans, and partner agencies all work from home. This helps to avoid a large factory footprint and cuts down on commuting time. For our artisans, they receive fair ethical wages for their region to be able to care for family and community. To them, every purchase means financial independence, water, and food security, educational opportunities, access to healthcare, situational relief with programs like those developed around Covid-19, and so much more.
Our Supply chain is flexible and scalable, not confined by physical factory capacity. The work-from-home (WFH) model suits our artisans. They can care for their family and community and not waste time and resources commuting. Our diversified supply change mitigates the risks of concentrating production from one country.
When the pandemic hit, launched our LOVE Grows program to provide our artisans and those in their communities with food independence.
The pandemic has wiped out tourism in the countries we operate in, which has taken down the crafts industry with it, causing a global food crisis. We are a lifeline for income to artisans, and these communities must remain stable. It has been stressful. In early April, I received messages from my Masai friend, Sammy, in Kenya worried that they would die from starvation first before Covid got them. I racked my brain thinking what we could do and I was inspired by the victory gardens from the World Wars and thought we could replicate the concept.
We were able to donate thousands of dollars to help these communities, funding food gardens and other agriculture projects. They have healthy food and another source of income, by selling produce
What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?
Our online advertising was our Achilles heel in the past, we paid our ‘tuition,’ we’ve turned a corner, and have established profitable and scalable targets to support our growth initiatives. Facebook and Instagram are moving targets and my best advice is to never get complacent. Keep researching and learning, and never put all of your marketing eggs in one basket (or platform)!
My biggest challenge has been wearing too many hats and spreading myself too thin. For the first two-and-a-half years, I was responsible for all parts of the business including product creation, marketing, sales, customer service, business development, and operations.
And without a business background in operations, accounting, finance, or digital marketing, I had to learn on the fly. With the help of my COO/CFO, Gladys (who is also my mom!), we are on a profitable trajectory now.
We are now able to manage our agencies to ensure a positive ROAS.
My strengths are my creativity, passion, and resilience, tackling all challenges with optimism and creative problem-solving skills.
It’s in my DNA to welcome and learned from every feedback, pursuing new skill sets, on the alert for new competitive technology advantage, and seeking the advice of expert coaches to mentor,
As a result, we have acquired a strong network of advisors.
My infectious LOVE of supporting women artisans also brought me close to abundant resources of global talents like minds. With their support, we are evolving our brand and product offerings. Now, I've been able to delegate the right tasks to the right talents.
See how we help our artisans when COVID 19 hits their home. Mentioned before is the LOVE Grows program;
Also, we realized the need for masks and started a new product line as well which benefits a community feeding program in Bali. During tough times, it's important that LOVE shows up.
What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?
We will diversify our digital marketing effort to expand into more channels.
With a very engaged customer base, we are confident we will be able to launch more “Hero products”.
A new quarterly subscription, A Dose of LOVE, will be launched soon.
We are excited that we have constructed a profitable and scalable business model that will support future accelerated growth when consumers are shifting to the online marketplace massively.
So many things happen spontaneously for us, I never know what new partnership or press opportunities might pop up. It’s exciting to just ride the wave.
Have you read any good books in the last year?
Guy Raz - How I Built This book & podcast
Melinda Gates - The Moment of Lift
Reading now: Barack Obama’s A Promised Land
In Queue: Brene Brown - Rising Strong
Adam Grant - Think Again
Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their business?
You really need to budget and commit to having all channels working for you when you have an eCommerce business. If you don’t, you’re not just leaving money on the table, you’re likely losing money as well as wasting your time. If you don’t know it, take the time to learn it.
Rome wasn’t built overnight, but you need to plan to gradually grow and what steps you need to get you to where you want to be. Know what you are good at and what you’re not good at. Try to delegate tasks you aren’t, but you still have to know enough to manage everyone.
Work smarter, not harder.
Be selective, thoughtful, and discerning on projects and partnerships that you want to pursue. Don’t say yes to everything.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
Those looking to reinvent themselves and their careers, read my blog post.
We will be looking for in the somewhat near future:
- COO
- Sales Director
- Social Media (Digital Marketing Director)
Where can we go to learn more?
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
Love Is Project has provided an update on their business!
About 1 year ago, we followed up with Love Is Project to see how they've been doing since we published this article.
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