Hi everyone. It's Rebecca. You're listening to superwomen today's guest is numerous. Akiza the founder of Maggiore if you don't know about imagery it is as important below incredible beautiful sustainable. I mean, I could keep going I'm wearing it in my ears as we speak line of Fine Jewelry when she decided that there was nothing around that fit what she wanted and coming from a long line of jewelry. She chose to create her own company. Take a listen. I was getting served tons and tons of ads on Instagram of Missouri jewelry and I loved how dainty it was and I went to the store and bought a bunch. This is not an ad for imagery by the way, but when she reached out I was like, oh, I want to tell your story. I Want To Know Your Story first of all, so thank you for joining me today. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited. So tell me where you're from and how did you come up with this brand? So I was born and raised in Jordan, and I'm Third Generation in my family to work in jewelry. So I've always been immersed in this world your blood. It's in my blood and looking at the industry traditionally it's targeted for men to buy for women. It's classic designs and typically people buy it on occasion. So call it either the holidays or Valentine's so I didn't think that was something that was that resonated with me or even my friends. So I decided to take a detour. I studied industrial engineering I moved to Canada. I worked in Consulting for Five years and then when I started to make some disposable income and wanted to buy jewelry for myself, I couldn't find a destination or brand that carried the styles that I like or the values that resonated with me. So that was sort of the trigger to go back into the industry and create something new and Next Generation fine jewelry brand that really targets women to buy jewelry for themselves. So being that it was in your blood. Was it an easier jump to get started back in that again versus One who it you know, like did you did you already know where to go to get it made? And yeah, absolutely. So it really removes that I guess intimidation Factor when you first want to start to make a product and I had some connections here and there had some industry knowledge, which is pretty I would say important in something that is technical. So definitely that helped out. So when you came up with the idea, who's the first person you told and what did they say? So it was my husband and me actually talking about it back and forth. And and we we had just got married and we both were like this makes sense. So I started pursuing the opportunity and I started working on a day and night and one, you know, I then talk to our creative director who is now still our creative director and then our CTO sort of started adding more. I called him crazy team members because in the beginning, you know, you're you're talking about an idea and you're bringing these people along the way and so the four of us. Hustle Day Day in day out and the team grew and now we're about about 250 people. Wow. So how did you get the people early on to sign on to something without did you have to raise money right off the bat or you like? How did you do that? First steps? Yeah, the first step was we got into a business accelerator. And so that was sort of the first step to get some seeds even proceed. I would say investment, but the way that I got Steen and Nico and to join the companies. I think we had something in common at that point where we had worked for a few years. We sort of established a certain level of knowledge of of in certain fields and we all were craving to work on something and I think we had that in common. We found each other it's funny from different parts of the world. And once we got into the business accelerator gave us a boost to basically pay for the business a little bit and then momentum started we got into It's startups. And after that I raised our seed funding you got in the 500 startups. What does that mean? So 500 startups startups is one of the top technology accelerator is okay. And so it sort of is interesting because we are a jewelry company that is Tech enabled and so being part of a tech environment was really interesting for our mindset. First of all, we were surrounded by it by a lot of smart people a lot of entrepreneurs who are doing similar things in different Avenues, so that really she helped but also the entire thought process of experimentation and accepting failure part of the process, which is what you typically see in technology. It was something that we actually adopted in our business and it really helped us have a huge appetite for failure and try different things. Can we can we dive deeper into the being okay with failure because I think you're right. It is in technology, but in every other entrepreneur out there they fail and they're like, they're like devastated and they can get over it. So what is it about what you learn in? G and just tell me more about how you adopted it to your business. There's honestly it took me quite some time to be okay with the process itself because it took me quite some time for me as an entrepreneur to kind of create a distance between me and the company and work really hard on realizing that if the company doesn't do. Well, it doesn't mean that I am as a person not doing well and I think it starts with that thought process and then really thinking about it as a business meaning that it's nothing personal and as part of evolving in business we have to put an extra. Experimentation funnel in college in in marketing or college in technology and accept that 80% of these experiments are not going to work just the idea of embracing that embracing that it's a challenging thing embracing that there's failure part of the process. I think changes your entire mindset and it's not an overnight thing. I'm not going to pretend like all of a sudden I was capable of doing that. I definitely had my ups and downs. I went to therapy throughout the process of creating a start-up. I really had to work on my Mental state to get to a point where I feel more comfortable with the idea of failure. That's really great. I hope everyone listening really takes that too hard because you it is a funnel and it's the experimentation funnel. It's like yeah when I start bashing my husband when he's brainstorming, he's like, this is a brainstorm. You can't you can't shoot me down. We're just like riffing here and I'm like, no ideas are bad ideas, right? Yeah, totally. Yeah. So what is Maggiore mean? It's actually a made-up word that we wanted to create with. No sort of preconceived me. Meaning and we created the word asked our friends everyone loved it and we stuck to it. Okay in a fluctuating gold market. How do you maintain your consistency in your and your value proposition which is huge to customers like you have very very affordable Fine Jewelry. Yes. So it's a great question. Obviously right now gold prices are very very high which which impacts our business. So one of the things that majority of our styles are on the daintier side as you mentioned in the beginning So the fluctuation the gold doesn't impact the cost that much however as a transparent business what we're looking at right now is doing all of the analyses on our on our margins on the fluctuations and seeing, you know, are there any changes that we need to to basically have on the prices because we are also transparent when things fluctuate down drastically were also transparent. So we sort of need to maintain conduct a successful business and a transparent business. So we're undergoing that analysis right now, but the pieces or the dainty this of the pieces sort of helps us with not being super impacted by the fluctuation make sense. We had something similar but we couldn't raise our prices like when mad cow disease was running rampant and the price of cows was like going up and I was like, I never thought this would be my life where like you can't afford the cow that you're buying. Yeah. I know. I know it's it's these problems that you can't really control, but totally yeah. So does you do you work with your husband we do? Yes. How does talk to me all about how that What is his job? What's yours? So I'm the CEO. He's the president and CEO. And so naturally we're looking at different things in the business and we're sort of a divide-and-conquer type of Kapil as well. As you know, his strengths and weaknesses are very different from mine. So that was very helpful for us not to sort of have our hands in everything together. Obviously. It wasn't easy in the beginning, you know taking work at home every single day and sort of our dates turned into into work meetings. And then we got to a point, you know year after year where I would say we perfected each other space meaning that if I don't want to talk about something I would be just up front about it and I need my space at work. We sort of nurture healthy disagreement Not Just Between Us between everyone so agreement or disagreement. So we have sort of a healthy environment in terms of really not having to gain consensus on everything but really get a line if that makes sense. So I think just being comfortable with these. With these aspects year-over-year had helped us to get to this point. There are a lot of positives to it as well because the the trust level is something that you can't really duplicate with anyone else and I think that really helps us totally and so you also took on investment. Yes. How far into your journey did you take that on and what made you decide to do that? So our seed funding so we started January 2015 and our seed funding came in I would say year and a half after and then we did series a and series B most recently. So the reason why we decided to do that is because we wanted to create a business that is high growth and for high growth. We need to invest in in growth acceleration essentially. And so that was the idea from the beginning. It's it's a huge market and it's the time to do something about it. And so we wanted to go big. We also wanted to bring in Partners who can open up doors connect us and so it An essentially only is sort of capital approach. It was all so how do we get connected to the right people to bring them on the board for them to connect us to the right people as well for our business, you know seed financing was even though it was a million. It was my proudest moment. We raised most recently 23 million in series B, but seed financing was the toughest by far. Wow, and the 23 million that we raised. I was seven months pregnant when we did that. Oh my goodness. Yeah with twins I should say so it was It was so funny because I was I was citing the the deal when I was in the hospital just before having the babies. Oh my gosh, and how old are the babies now? Seven months. Holy shit. Two girls. Yeah. Wow, was it a surprise that you were having twins? Oh, yeah. Oh my God, you've twins in your family we do but I never thought I'd be the one, you know, so I let yeah, so when the doctor said there's two I'm like what but you know what efficiency I always say it matches my my character totally to done. Yeah, so I'd love you to take me through your head space raising that kind of money the pressure of that being pregnant signing papers at the hospital. Like how what was your what was your sort of Guiding Light of being strong so in it was different in different stages in seed financing it became more and that was what the reason I say. It's my proudest moment. It's because you barely have Traction in seed financing and it's you're going and you're raising for an idea for a future and betting on a team essentially and so, you know going and pitching Fine Jewelry to a lot of mead VC's who may not really relate to the idea of Fine Jewelry was not an easy exercise. And so what kept me going is just it turned into this. I was challenging myself. I think it turned into this thing where I'm I'm not going to quit it makes a lot of sense. So I'm going to go after it and it took me over six months to get 1 million. So that was a tough one and Not turn my thought process into really heads down focus on the on the business focus on the unit economics understand the ins and outs of the business and really helped us basically take that 1 million far and be able to raise a series a which was an easier conversation by the time we got to series B. It was it becomes more of a metrics conversation. So you've already established a certain level of brand credibility. You've also established that trust with the customer and it becomes more of it, man. Eric's and the team has already proven themselves, you know doing that while pregnant was was tough was really tough emotionally. Obviously, I had to take one call after the other being pregnant with twins is not easy. I couldn't fly to see investors. So it was sort of a nice way for us to filter out whoever you know is not interested essentially in in this type of business or or founder. And so, you know, it wasn't easy. It was very proud thing that I've done but I have to say also we got to a point. To where our team was doing great. My husband also was my partner with the fundraising process. And that was you know, one of the huge advantages I was mentioning and so that was really helpful for me. So you signed the papers you had your babies and now you're obviously growing the company. So how has work changed for you since becoming a mom or maybe it hasn't it's yeah, it's it's very challenging. I think the I used to stay in the office until eight nine ten doesn't matter and obviously, right? Now I can't do that and I don't want to do that. Yeah, I want to be the first person they see when they wake up and the last person they see before they sleep so I have to be there by 5:00 and so just cutting out all of these hours from my schedule meant that I really need to figure out how to work on the most important things which is kind of forcing me to become a better CEO. I still haven't figured it out. I'm not going to lie. I'm sort of always feeling that I'm behind, but I'm Becoming better at really identifying what where is my time? And where should I hire? And and I think you know, I think that's going to help us become a more scalable company. Totally. I think I think you said it perfectly that it's a but I also think I'm trying to learn with it's okay to be a little behind. Yes, right? Yes. You have three kids, right? I have three kids. Yeah, so I'm definitely always behind but I just am like learning to just get like really cozy and comfortable with yeah. Yeah because as an entrepreneur you're always after Perfection Improvement, so honestly, I think we're always going to be behind totally. What are you what's the future of imagery? We're now really focused on creating amazing experiences in real life. So we are focused on so we just opened our La store last week, which was an amazing opening we're focused on creating these outlets for our customers to come touch and feel the brand feel the the products get styled. So really a huge focus is going there. We're thinking of our International expansion as well. We really think of ourselves as sort of redefining luxury and and that basically entails experiences as well as additional product categories. That's exciting. So is the jewelry Legacy of your family, are they excited and proud or they're like, hey, you're disrupting our space. Get out of here. They're very proud. I should say they were like, what are you doing this selling jewelry online that, you know, it's unheard of but but they're very proud of what's Happening. That's great. Eight. And so what do you do to relax if anything right now? So it's changed drastically from before kids and after and I think right now it's spending time with my family is really really key and also spending time with my husband. So I'm very focused on not losing these date nights and in the midst of all the craziness so they found me how you do that. Honestly every Friday at no matter how tired we are. We just go out even for a drink or for dinner. We just make make it a routine every Friday without questioning and you don't talk about work or it's okay. We try not to okay, we try not to yes. And what did you do before kids to relax lots of time with friends parties. We used to have friends over all the time. It was quite an adjustment. I have to say to sort of switch from being the place with with friends all the time to sort of this new life side, but we still see them on a weekly basis. Not not not, you know. Without parties essentially that is your family in Toronto or they're all back in Jordan. They're all back in Jordan. Wow. Yeah, so I moved on my own 11 years ago. Wow, and what made you choose Toronto versus you know, Rhode Island or New York or California? I had family at the time in Toronto. So I said, you know, even though I didn't live with them, but it was just the idea of having someone there. So I picked her Anto I moved to do my MBA and sort of get International experience and work and then I fell in love with it and I Eight. So what's been a big failure that you've learned something great from I've all honestly failure is part of the process. I'd say recently something that opened up. My eyes is hiring for culture is just as important as hiring for technical expertise. Tell me everything. I just realized to be honest if you're looking so when you're growing fast and you are in this higher higher mode and vetting for a culture should be one of your essential essential steps because when you hire someone who knows a lot about an area and they don't mesh with the culture of the company, it can be disruptive for everyone around them. And so we had this experience where we hired someone and they're very knowledgeable in their field, but they couldn't work with anyone else. They were more, you know from more of a large corporate type of environmental lot of processes have to be in place a lot of you know much more call it advanced process. Why? And we're at a point where culture Trump's process type of environment and I think it should be that way. So it just simply didn't work and we had an honest conversation. And from then on I think it's been a huge focus of mine to actually I take almost all of the culture interviews from director level up. Wow, and what are some things you've done culture wiser than your company that have been game changers. One of the things that we did really really well is actually identify our core values. Yes, and I actually used to have culture meetings every single month which means that I'm reiterating these cultural values and whenever someone gets on-boarded we sit in the same room and we talk about these values and it becomes more of this is who we are and this is these are the values that we sort of have in order to excel in the company and it's a two-way conversation. It's a win-win and I think that brings a lot of clarity as to how we operate think that's really smart. I'm writing that down. Yeah, I we you know, Netflix has a really interesting culture. It's very very detailed. But it's very interesting how they've done their values really highly recommend looking at that. I even talked about it in the last interview. I did earlier was like when you grow so fast, sometimes you fail to look inside. Yes, and you're just like get in start rowing. Yeah. Yeah, and then you look around you're like, oh we got to make these people happy exactly. Do we do that and we got to make them talk and we got to make them work together. R cross functionally, so it's a huge competitive advantage and it's I think it's very big. It's a challenging job. Totally. Yeah, do you ever feel and I do this all the time but like the mother and me wants to take care of employees. And so you being a mother but you're the CEO and their boss. Yes. Have you been able to separate that that nurture / do your job? Yes. It's so interesting that you say that I've had it even before I had kids that used to make fun of me. They're like you should have kids because I'm like mothering them. But I think my my executive coach right now is really helping me realize how I need to sort of step back and accept that some people may fail to learn and that's okay and I think that's a big sort of step for me that I don't have to make sure that everything is perfect and give them their their freedom to fail and try and do different things and I think also being a mother now and not having not much time. I'm as I used to before is also forcing me to take that route, which I think is in the end is a win-win for everyone. So one thing I like to ask is what would we be surprised to know about you can be personal professional. I'm surprised to know about me the first thing that comes to mind which is very silly but I love cars. Okay, because I look so, you know not like that tomboyish kind of person but I actually was a very huge tomboy growing up. So I love cars and I used to sort of Drive. Stick shift, is that what they call it? Yeah for the longest time and every time I say that to someone they're like you it doesn't look like you so do you have a fast car? Not now? No because I live in a big city. I have a know. I don't know and I have twins so right there is a friend first and not going in the back of a Porsche. No, not not yet. And then I love to leave our listeners with any bit of advice whether you've learned or been told that's been instrumental in building your life. You take care of yourself. It's sort of it's not selfish to stop and take care of yourself and that will really show in every aspect of your life and you know, make luxury habits. Like we say at Majora and it's literally something that stems from what my mother used to tell me is stop take listen to your body take care of yourself because nothing else will work if you're not happy and that's essentially what I'm trying to do right now. Also with the twins is to realize that in order. For me to give them everything that I can I need to also be happy and fulfilled and so you know going to work is I don't want to feel guilty about that because it's part of me even though you know, I have seven month old twins. I think it actually brings the best of me. So really finds what brings you happiness and don't feel guilty about it. That's great. Thank you. Thank you so much. That was Nora to find out more about what she's up to. You can follow her at Maggiore.
In a world of fast fashion it’s easy to find cheap, cute jewelry. But it’s not so fun when that jewelry falls apart, turns your skin green, or worse, is made under poor working conditions. Mejuri is working to turn the jewelry business on its head, offering affordable pieces that are not only made with quality materials but also under ethically sound conditions. Noura Sakkijha, a third generation jeweler, originally began by selling and marketing Mejuri online with the goal of reducing the middle men and keeping prices low for customers. Now going into their fifth year, Mejuri has a proven following, launching its first storefront in L.A. and enabling the company to secure the funding it needs to keep producing beautiful, quality jewelry for all their raving fans. Thanks for listening! We love our listeners! Follow Superwomen on Instagram. Don’t be afraid to fail!). [04:07] Hiring with company culture in mind. [17:11]  ---   Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/superwomen/support 