We come into contact with a number of jewelry brands at 📝Assembled Brands. In addition, my good friend Eric Grossberg is a co-founder and was co-CEO of Brilliant Earth, and a family friend runs Ollie and Tess.
Compared to other categories of emerging consumer brands, jewelry is one of the most difficult to finance and grow. We haven't found any that we have been able to provide 📝working capital to.
Some of the dynamics contributing to this include:
- It's easy to find a custom jewelry maker to make exactly what you want.
- The premium for custom is not that much higher than the margin on non-custom.
- Jewelry as collateral for an asset-backed loan is very risky: small, easy to lose, steal, etc.
- Diamonds are typically financed by the channel.
If you enjoy designing jewelry, keep doing it for your friends, family and local community. (Ollie and Tess has a cabinet at a local boutique hotel, for example.) Build your Instagram following organically and have fun doing it. Find relevant non-jewelry brands and see if they'd be interested in collaborations.
Certainly there are examples to the contrary, but given the fragmented dynamics of the jewelry industry, I'd suggest growing organically and profitably, because I think it's unlikely you'll find investors.