What I’ve been working on (and who I’ve been building it with)

Hello to my favorite corner of the internet!!

My ghosting this letter has been for my favorite reason… I have been busy.

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For a couple of years now, I’ve been working on my next venture after wrapping up my first 10-year tenure in entrepreneurship. Try as I might to branch out into other sectors—my heart has been, and always will be, in independent retail. And that’s exactly where this new business is focused.

I started my career in independent retail at age 19. I remember practicing how to say the high-ticket prices of some of the most expensive items in the mirror before work just to make sure my voice didn’t crack. As far as first-time retail gigs go, Kiki—curated by its fabulous namesake—was as good as it was going to get in south Louisiana. The days were marked by the smell of Diptyque candles and merchandising stunning bespoke handbags and artisan jewelry.

Like all great long-lasting relationships—it was love at first sale.

I loved the energy of retail, the familiar faces coming in, and keeping up with strangers’ lives through dispersed quarterly catch-ups. I loved the pace of the day—never knowing where the rush was coming from or when it would end. And the holiday season? By December 26th, you were left with exhaustion, blisters, and the deep desire to throw a full-on public tantrum if you heard Eartha Kitt’s Santa Baby one more time.

After Kiki, I moved on to the faster pace of apparel. While I missed the slow biz of luxury, I loved the turn and excitement of fitting rooms and styling. When you’re outfitting women on a regular basis, you turn into a secret keeper and guardian of all sorts of information you never knew you’d be privy to. The pace of regulars in apparel kept you in closer relationships—some coming several times a week.

It wasn’t until years later that I would hear the concept of “third place” and look back on my long years in southern retail and realize it was just that: a place to come and be known, to interact with people who would otherwise be strangers.

At that job, I got to witness social media start to emerge as a new driver of commerce. I remember as clear as day when two teens biked to the store and explained Instagram to me—back in 2012. I had a business account before I had a personal one. I saw it as a nice, organized way to reach customers instead of texting them my disjointed new arrivals communications. I never fathomed that it would bring in people from other towns to shop after they discovered our site. It was so fun and fueling to me—to feel like you no longer had to jump through the hoops of gatekept advertisements limited to magazines and billboards.

In 2014, I opened my own store: Amor.

My market research was as follows:

• I liked people from Lafayette. They were always my favorite shoppers that drove into the store I was managing.

• They were opening up a Whole Foods there. (Surely Whole Foods does real research, right?)

That about sums it up.

I somehow convinced my husband, Michael, to move to a town he had never been to before (aside from a hazy sorority bus trip from LSU where we met). I even purchased a home that he had never seen and pretended it was a fun HGTV home reveal moment. I was blind with ambition and determined to succeed.

The first five years were a rollercoaster. Lafayette was an oil town, and approximately two months after opening, the industry crashed. I realized I had no idea how to get a CPA, run payroll, do taxes???? Miraculously, that town welcomed us with open arms.

After another bout of delusional extreme confidence, I set out for the next phase of life. We packed up from Lafayette and moved to beautiful Mount Pleasant, SC to be closer to my sister and family. It was summer of 2019, and the plans were to pop back to Louisiana every 6 weeks to check in—but I was so confident in the systems we had in place that I thought it would be easy breezy.

2020 had other ideas.

It was my first time working remotely, ever. I had to run a team from afar during a global pandemic and figure out how to make payroll while not actually being able to work in the business. I still see it like it was yesterday—pregnant with my second child, wrapped up in my blue fuzzy bathrobe, pouring over Shopify YouTube videos like they were Harvard lectures—determined to capitalize on the online boom that was unfolding in real time.

I made a goal for myself that I didn’t want to furlough an employee unless I absolutely had to… and did we far exceed that goal. I had hit a new stride in my career and personal growth and I was buzzing. I loved figuring out hacks and automations and campaigns. We scaled completely organically—mainly because anytime I interviewed with a paid ads specialist, they never called me back. (In their defense, I do ask a lot of questions.)

The universe had other plans for me to stop playing small in my one shop a few years back and, try as I might, I had no other choice but to embark on a sophomore adventure.

Over the last year…

I’ve learned to write code (!!!!!!), met with countless retailers about creating solutions that actually help them instead of adding more work to their plate, and tried every which way to teach independent business owners new tech tools—only to learn that very few people are as passionate about this stuff as I am.

I am so grateful for all of the pivots and wrong avenues I tried to take myself down in this journey to actually provide solutions to an industry that I so deeply love—because it shaped what I am now able to offer to the world:

Our new venture, Inventor-Ease.

Oh, and that sweet guy who has been my 24/7 cheerleader for the whole windy road? He just wrapped up his 14-year stint in medicine to go all-in to help me bring this business to every retailer under the sun.

(Still haven’t lost my delusional ambition.)

If you know a retailer who is passionate about their work but needs better solutions—not more burnout—I’d love for you to send them my way. We already have clients underway and just added another employee to be able to take on more. This go round I am trying to soak up these early days of the fresh ideas and unfolding of a new phase of life.

If not, I’ll be updating the journey from my personal perspective right here in this letter.

Here are a few topics I’m excited to share:

• What building a startup with your spouse actually looks like (So far, from day one—it’s great. But my addiction to dictating instead of typing might start to take its toll.)

• What I’m doing differently as a founder at 38 vs. 28.

• How independent retail shapes and serves our communities. (And why it’s time we end the charity-like connotation of “shop small” and start seeing local shops as the luxury experiences and third spaces they truly are.)

• Breaking the habit of martyrdom in entrepreneurship. (Accepting help doesn’t mean you’re less capable—it means you’re ready to grow.)

Thank you for your support!!!

I’m so thrilled to have you along for the ride!

—Victoria