022 | Prioritizing personal happiness with Emma James & Bailey Rivera, Antiquaria

Emma James and Bailey Rivera, Antiquaria

Emma James and Bailey Rivera are the owners of Antiquaria. These savvy business women have made some big transitions in their business over the last 7 years. They started selling vintage pieces, hand calligraphic work and now focus their product line on stationery products such as gift wrap, notebooks and greeting cards.

They attended our Paper Camp E-Course in 2013 prior to launching wholesale. Their products are currently carried in Anthropologie, BHLDN, Paper Source, Terrain and independent boutiques internationally.

On today’s episode, they’ll tell their story of starting the business, talk about how pivoting at different points strengthened their business model and how prioritizing their personal happiness has enabled them to grow too. They also shared nuggets about what inspires them when creating new products as well as logistics for how they determine which product categories to tackle next.

ON TODAY’S EPISODE:

How Emma & Bailey first met
The history of Antiquaria and the pivots they have made in their product offerings
What inspires them when they’re developing new artwork and new products
Emma & Bailey’s thoughts on how much inventory to order & how much they keep on hand
The importance of knowing your numbers and ensuring you maintain your profit margins
How Emma & Bailey share the responsibilities of Antiquaria from different cities
Working through transitional periods together
How they make their packaging stand out while also still being conservative with production costs
How they define success in their business
What’s next for Antiquaria

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KEY TAKE-AWAYS

“Bailey and I are really good at knowing when to make changes and not being scared to do it.”– Emma James

“The cost of expanding, adding a new product, is super expensive, so we try to be smart and conservative about where we expand”– Emma James

“It’s okay to start small. And as your business grows and you start to hone in on your numbers, and you start to see what your selling patterns are, that’s where you want to reassess and start to increase your production amounts, your volume.”– Katie Hunt

“We’re all running businesses, and therefore, we need to look at the hard costs, and we need to be paying ourselves, and we need to be thinking about things like retirement, or just scaling the business, and all of these different things that, when you’re just starting out, it might feel a little overwhelming.”– Katie Hunt

“We have to make sure our margins work on every new product.”– Emma James

“When there’s something that’s not working for one of us, we actively work for a solution to it.”– Emma James

“How can we get all the information that’s needed on there without having to pay for an additional labor or people and the labor of putting it on? That’s just a graphic design challenge.”– Bailey Rivera

“If you’re not making money on this, you shouldn’t be selling it. It’s not a viable business at that point.”– Katie Hunt

“I want to both fulfill my creative desires and create a very successful business that can continue to grow.”– Bailey Rivera

“Success for us is getting reorders and knowing that, not only buyers like our stuff, but people are going into stores and picking our products over all of the other products in that store.”– Emma James

“Success for me is having a healthy work, life balance.”– Emma James

CONNECT WITH EMMA & BAILEY

Website: Antiquaria | Facebook: @antiquaria | Instagram: @antiquariadesign

Connect with Katie Hunt

Katie Hunt is a business strategist, podcaster, mentor and mama to four. She helps product based businesses build profitable, sustainable companies through her conferences, courses and coaching programs.

Website: prooftoproduct.com | Instagram: @prooftoproduct