Learning to Embrace Her Culture Led This Entrepreneur to Found a Jewelry Brand Loved by Celebrities The three most important lessons Rekha Brar has learned while building Blossom Box.
By Mita Mallick Edited by Jessica Thomas
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Growing up, I spent a number of summer vacations in India with my extended family. I would get gifts of dangly gold earrings and bright-colored jeweled bracelets that I would bring back home to Boston. I remember wearing the pieces to school and being teased for how gaudy, sparkly and odd they looked, so I stopped wearing Indian jewelry. Even as an adult, I struggle to pair Indian jewelry pieces with my Western clothing.
"I also remember being teased for the Indian gold chains my mom would put on me before I headed out to school," says Rekha Brar, founder and CEO of Blossom Box Jewelry. "I was reluctant to wear the chains, but my mother would remind me that they were passed down from my grandmother and how beautiful they were. Despite how different I felt in school, my parents always encouraged me to embrace my individuality, not blend in, and to never forget where I came from."
Though the global jewelry market is valued at $278.5 billion and continuing to grow, few brands in the Western marketplace capture the vibrancy of Indian design, colors and textures.
That's where Blossom Box comes in. The details in each piece are absolutely exquisite, handcrafted in India in a workshop that employs a majority of female artisans. I'm not alone in my obsession with Brar's designs: Oprah Winfrey, Tamera Mowry and Meena Harris are also fans.
Inspired by the jewels of the Mughal era, Brar aims to capture a time of opulence and vibrancy with her designs. "As a child, I remember my trips to India in vivid color," Brar says. "My parents always wanted us to stay connected to our culture. I still remember walking through the markets, inspired by the rows and rows of sparkling jewels. Blossom Box Jewelry is an ode to those trips and to my culture."
Here are three of the most important lessons she's picked up on her entrepreneurial journey.
Know your numbers
Though gainfully employed as an accountant, in 2011 Brar finally decided to follow her passion for jewelry and bootstrap her business. She invested $5,000 of her own money to launch Blossom Box Jewelry, and she credits the success of her brand, which has seen 600% growth over the past year, to her accounting background and MBA.
"Know your numbers," Brar says. "You need to know the health of your business. I am constantly looking at our weekly profit and loss statement to understand what's working and what's not."
She credits her ability to analyze numbers to be the driver of the business' ecommerce success. Understanding where customers are coming from is key to knowing where to invest marketing dollars. "Do you know where your customers are coming from? Or are you just throwing money at Facebook ads because that's where you think you need to be?"
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Find your first ally
When Brar launched, she did a few pop-ups with the help of friends and family and had immense success. She also worked with microinfluencers to help get the word about her brand out. In those early days, she remembers lines of customers waiting to get access to her pieces. "I was so surprised, and it inspired me to keep pushing," she says. "With that confidence from the pop-ups, I decided to invest the very little money I had in our first major trade show and take the risk."
That risk paid off. It was at that trade show where Brar's designs caught the eye of a Neiman Marcus buyer. The buyer loved the pieces and was one of the first individuals representing a U.S. retailer to embrace the uniqueness of the designs. The buyer wrote a $70,000 purchase order, and Neiman Marcus became Brar's first major retailer. She was shocked and elated. Despite having received feedback from others that her designs were too Eastern, too bold and too niche, Brar stayed committed to her vision.
"You just need to find that very first ally," she says. "Soon after that PO from Neiman Marcus, other retailers started to take note of us."
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Listen to your customers
Blossom Box has a strong following because it consistently puts its customers first. "I often hear that customers struggle and are tired of purchasing jewelry from India, [because the styles they want] are not embraced by mainstream brands," Brar says. "Our customers appreciate being able to order jewelry from a U.S. brand that offers free and fast shipping and returns."
Based on customer feedback, Blossom Box will now start catering to customers on one of their most special occasions: their wedding day. Brar and her team are launching a bridal capsule collection this year. "Our collection won't just be for the bride," Brar says. "We want to include all the women who will share that big day with her; her mother, sisters, cousins, aunties and friends. At the end of the day, Blossom Box is committed to changing the narrative of jewelry to be uniquely inclusive, and to ultimately be accessible to all."
