I didn’t start with a brand so much as I started with stuff.
More specifically: old stuff — chairs, art, lamps, mirrors, side tables, and the occasional extremely weird object that I was convinced was a diamond in the rough.
About a decade ago, I began buying vintage at thrift stores and estate sales, selling it online (on the high-end marketplace Chairish), and learning (slowly and sometimes painfully!) what actually moved and what just sat in my storage unit.
For years, that was my side hustle: buy low, sell high, repeat. It was just for fun at first — a way to make a little extra money, but nothing I relied on. Over time, there were months when the side hustle netted more than my primary job, as a writer. There were other months where I sold very little.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that I wasn’t just learning how to sell vintage. I was training my eye. I was learning patterns. I was developing taste — and more importantly, I was learning how to explain that taste to other people.
That’s the part that eventually became the brand.
This post is for paid subscribers. Keep reading for:
How I used data to determine how to grow my business
My thoughts on using social media to leverage a brand
The importance of building a niche
