Goal: Fun, Whimsical, Upbeat Companies
Written by Patty Rasmussen Wednesday, October 05 2011
Snapshot: Ashley Judge, CEO, alwaysfits.com
In 2008, Boston area business novice Ashley Judge, 28-year-old founder and CEO of alwaysfits.com, boldly set forth in the world of e-commerce. Her first business, Tra Tutti, an online designer clothing consignment store, was mildly successful, but had flaws in both concept and follow through.
Armed with lessons learned, Judge moved from that business to an online gift shop, alwaysfits, “the magical site where everything always fits.” Four months later, the business was operating in the black where it has remained ever since. She’ll branch out even further later this year and early next year with two new e-commerce sites, UnBaskets, billed as the antithesis to cheesy gift baskets usually found on the web, and Knocked Up Nails, a line of maternity-safe nail products.
Judge had several things going for her – desire, a sense of adventure, and the wisdom to seek out good counsel. She also doesn’t take herself too seriously and loves to have fun. For her unique take on business-building, check out her blog www.thefuntrepreneur.com.
Womenetics: What did you do before you started your e-commerce business, which eventually became alwaysfits.com?
Ashley Judge: I worked in political event planning. Immediately prior to starting my business I was working for former ambassador to Austria, Swanee Hunt. I can actually pinpoint the moment that I realized I wanted to do something on my own. I was in Chicago right before the 2008 presidential election, representing Ambassador Hunt at a women’s conference. I was seated next to women who were a little older than me but not by much. They were all there on their own accomplishments. I felt a real identity confusion because I wasn’t there of my own accord. I’m a chatty person, but I didn’t know who I was supposed to be. Since I was there representing the ambassador should I talk about her and her accomplishments or should I be me?
I returned to my hotel room that night and thought about it. The ambassador is a philanthropist and has more money than I’ll ever see so I knew I couldn’t be her, but I really wanted to start being me. Rather than making excuses – I’ll do it when I’m older, when my kids are grown, whatever – I’ll just start something small now. I turned specifically to e-commerce because it’s such a great way to get your feet wet; trying business ownership without a quarter million dollar startup. My goal was to own fun, whimsical, upbeat companies – my own little niche.
Womenetics: When did you actually start your first business?
Judge: May 2009, within eight months of my “epiphany.” My mother passed away around this time, too, so it expedited the process. She had only been sick for about six months, and I felt like I needed to walk away from that experience into something healing. Growing my first website, which evolved into alwaysfits.com within 10 months, was very healing.
Womenetics: What was the first step?
Judge: I took a class with a nonprofit called the Center for Women in Enterprise (CWE) in Boston. It met once a week for three months and covered the nuts and bolts of a little bit of everything about starting a business. It took away a little of the fear of the unknown because I didn’t feel like there was a massive component to business ownership that I was overlooking. I was a psychology and political science major in college, so business wasn’t my field, but with common sense paired with the tools they gave me, I felt ready to take it on.
Womenetics: How much did it cost you to start your business and where did you find your funding?
Judge: I started alwaysfits.com with less than $15,000, and I self-funded. I took out a $5,000 personal loan. But I also work with a lot of artists, particularly with the Etsy website. Their work is unconventional, and my website is unconventional so we came up with unconventional ways of carrying their products on my site that didn’t require me to buy products by the caseload or by the thousands. They were motivated to have their work shown outside the Etsy community, and I was motivated by wanting to show things that you couldn’t find elsewhere. Anything I could do myself, I did. There were certain things on the back end, developing the website for example, where I worked with people who knew those things, but anything I could do at no cost to me, staying up until 3 a.m. to get it done, I did.
Womenetics: How did you market yourself? Social networking or media? Did you do any conventional type marketing?
Judge: I don’t do any conventional marketing. I’ve tried a little. I’ve worked with a couple of publicists, the old-fashioned retainer route, but I’ve found I don’t get anywhere near the return I get with social networking and social media marketing. For example with Facebook, I tell my interns, we have a selfless Facebook policy. We only give with Facebook, we never take. We give away freebies, ask their thoughts on new products, share advice, and it’s worked out well for us. We have a fun community of people who spread the word. We’ve also use “group buy” sites (like Groupon); they’ve been really helpful to us because with a minimal investment we’re able to reach hundreds of thousands of people.
Womenetics: What was your biggest challenge in getting starting?
Judge: One was segueing out of my home-based business to my office. I was ready to be at an office somewhere, but it wasn’t in the budget. It was tough to strike a balance. Then, as the inventory started to grow, it slowly crept out of the office into the hall. Now we have a small office space, but we maximize the heck out of it thanks to (shelving from) IKEA. It was amazing what a difference having that little office made for me.
Womenetics: Which item that you sell has surprised you the most by its popularity?
Judge: I wouldn’t say particular items, but particular themes floated to the top in a way that I never expected. Our site almost has a theme vibe to it. That was not my original intention; it’s a result of me responding to the popularity. Bacon gifts – anything having to do with bacon -- is so popular that we branched out. Now we have bacon popcorn and bacon air fresheners. Cupcakes are another popular theme. The geek gift phenomenon – I knew those gifts would be popular, but I didn’t know how many heads and shoulders they would be above our other gifts.
Womenetics: Where do you find the items you sell?
Judge: We check out the gift shows. Sometimes I meet a sales rep who carries a line similar in theme to what we’re doing and I might pick up one or two products. I found a product I’d never seen in my life through a rep – the “Laird or Lady Kits.” For $30 you get to purchase a square foot piece of land in Scotland. By being a landowner in Scotland you have the title of “Laird” or “Lady.” We sold a ton of those last Christmas; it turned out to be a great gift. One thing we do differently is that we diversify. We’ll carry maybe two of a product line. We have about 500 to 600 items on the site right now but they come from about 100 different vendors. We search far and wide to find a different type product. The only point of view I can have (on the site) is mine. No one else can buy through the eyes of Ashley Judge. I try not to get caught up in “what’s your bestseller” because I don’t want to deviate from what makes us special, that we’re unique and kind of funny, but we’re also whimsical or sweet.
Womenetics: Do you have thousands of packages of bacon air freshener stored on your shelves or does someone else warehouse your items and then move them for you?
Judge: We warehouse everything but keep smaller quantities, depending on the popularity of the product. It could be a handful, a dozen, occasionally about 50. Eighty to 90 percent of our products are kept in stock but the rest we drop ship, especially when we’re dealing with artists on Etsy. We use mostly U. S. Postal Service since everything we ship is pretty small.
Womenetics: You’re opening a couple of other websites, Knocked Up Nails and UnBaskets. When do you anticipate opening those “stores?”
Judge: UnBaskets will open this fall and was built using feedback from our customers. For example, we take the bacon theme and rather than shipping them in a plain box, we put 25 products into a nice presentation. There’s a bit of overlap to alwaysfits. From a business perspective, it’s not a huge startup. I think it will do well, I can play around with it, and it’s not a do-or-die need for success. We’ll do drop ship, too, so other sites will be able to carry our Unbaskets. It could be kind of interesting. I expect Knocked Up Nails to open early next year.
Womenetics: You mentioned that e-commerce is a good stepping stone to a brick-and-mortar business. Is that your intended goal, having a storefront, an actual bricks-and-mortar building?
Judge: Definitely, maybe not carrying the lines I have on alwaysfit.com, but I love the idea of taking a unique approach to conventional industries, like Laundromats, and painting them with a feminine, unique brushstroke. That’s something I’d love to explore. There are so many industries with room for competition. I think a lot of business owners love the idea of being able to walk in the front door somewhere. My cousin, Heather, has a great maternity and baby shop that she started a couple of years before me, and she’s been an inspiration to me. I love going in her shop. I never get over the novelty of it; you own a store, you painted that wall, you selected this item. I love it, and I’d love to have that at some point.
Womenetics: How many employees do you have?
Judge: I have a couple of contractors who work with me on specialty type things, my web person, and a photographer. I’ve used publicists, as I mentioned. I also have a great team of interns each semester from the local college. They work for credit, and they are a phenomenal asset.
Womenetics: What about advisers, lawyers, accountants, that sort of thing? How did you know where to go for advice?
Judge: I’m pretty fortunate because my dad is a CPA. But the CWE has played an ongoing role in helping me. Recently I had some legal questions and was able to meet with them at a deeply discounted rate to go over my questions. The resources are great because they’re “pre-vetted” for me.
Womenetics: You’ve been at this for about two and a half years now. Are you happy? Is this what you thought it would be?
Judge: Yes, to the happy question. Almost every day I say to my husband, “I can’t believe how awesome this is.” To have an idea and be able to float it to myself, and I approve of all my ideas! To be able to work for myself is great. I work harder for myself, and the consequences of decisions and actions feel different. It’s empowering, and it’s cool, too, because I have a couple young nieces who have worked for me when I’ve needed help. They see what I’m doing and say, “Wow. I didn’t know you could just start something.”
Womenetics: You’re a newlywed that works a million hours a week. What do you do if you want to unplug from the business?
Judge: Even when there is downtime, I love jotting down ideas for things like writing a novel or other web ideas. I’m always multitasking. I like to be busy, but it’s more like casual brainstorming. Very few elements of my job feel like a real job.
Patty Rasmussen is an Atlanta-based freelance writer. She spent 12 years covering the Atlanta Braves for ChopTalk Magazine and has written for Major League Baseball publications, Georgia Trend magazine, WebMD, and Blue Ridge Country.
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