What has been your biggest business win to date with Otherland. And what about your biggest business challenge?
The store was definitely the biggest business win. It came as this culmination of five years in business and going from being digitally native. To have this physical representation, especially as such a maximalist brand, was really exciting. When I was out there pitching, people said, “Buying candles online? You’re crazy.” I think making it through the pandemic was the biggest challenge, just navigating all kinds of ups and downs in the business. We didn’t know what was gonna happen. We were a team of four. We had to make tough decisions, like pausing on any product development or new creative shoots. We just worked with what we had. I remember in, maybe it was April or May of the pandemic, we had completely run out of inventory, so we decided we would do our first-ever Season Swap. For four days in May, we sold our leftover holiday inventory. Customers had been asking us for it at the beginning of the pandemic, which we thought was so odd, but we later realized it was because these scents are very comforting. That gave us a little bit of inventory juice, and I think it was our best sales day at the time.
The store was definitely the biggest business win. It came as this culmination of five years in business and going from being digitally native. To have this physical representation, especially as such a maximalist brand, was really exciting. When I was out there pitching, people said, “Buying candles online? You’re crazy.” I think making it through the pandemic was the biggest challenge, just navigating all kinds of ups and downs in the business. We didn’t know what was gonna happen. We were a team of four. We had to make tough decisions, like pausing on any product development or new creative shoots. We just worked with what we had. I remember in, maybe it was April or May of the pandemic, we had completely run out of inventory, so we decided we would do our first-ever Season Swap. For four days in May, we sold our leftover holiday inventory. Customers had been asking us for it at the beginning of the pandemic, which we thought was so odd, but we later realized it was because these scents are very comforting. That gave us a little bit of inventory juice, and I think it was our best sales day at the time.
