Ep 124 | Nicole Wegman

Written By Yasmin Nouri

Overcoming Fear, Reframing Risk & Building a Jewelry Empire

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Nicole Wegman is the Founder and CEO of Ring Concierge, the jewelry company making luxury accessible to the masses.

It was Nicole’s own engagement journey that opened her eyes to the void in the market for a more affordable, personal engagement ring shopping experience. At that time, she couldn’t find any brand or company that she connected with. Despite never having worked in the jewelry industry, Nicole has single-handedly built a multi-million-dollar diamond ring-centric business in less than ten years, with absolutely no outside funding.

In this episode, we talk to Nicole about how she managed to double her profits annually with her slow and steady, self-funded approach. She fills us in on how she used the power of relationship-building to break into the jewelry industry and how she created brand awareness in the early days of launching her business when she was a one-woman show. We discuss brand humanization as a content strategy, the steps she took to shift her initial business idea, the importance of delegating and knowing your weaknesses, and so much more.

Show Notes:

  • The most common fear preventing people from starting their own business. [2:43]

  • The main characteristic required to be a successful entrepreneur. [3:19]

  • What Nicole attributes her resilience to. [4:16]

  • Nicole’s background: how her life view and expectations shifted in college. [5:51]

  • The savvy route she took with her fashion major. [7:39]

  • What she learned from her experience working in the corporate space. [8:56]

  • Why she chose to leave the corporate space. [10:59]

  • How her engagement journey inspired her to create her own jewelry company. [11:40]

  • Nicole’s early days of starting the business. [13:13]

  • Why Nicole chose not to raise capital and how the business grew organically. [18:03]

  • How she broke into a largely male and family-run business-dominated industry. [19:58]

  • The value of relationship building and how Nicole approached it. [21:37]

  • How she used Instagram to create brand awareness. [23:24]

  • What inspired the humanization of the brand as a content strategy, and what makes it so effective. [25:22]

  • How Nicole balances content creation with running the business. [29:08]

  • What inspired her to hire senior-level team members and the risks and advantages thereof. [30:30]

  • The only way to grow your business without outside capital. [33:24]

  • Why, in retrospect, Nicole would have started the senior hiring process sooner. [35:59]

  • Why she chose to be solely self-funded. [38:40]

  • The most significant thing she’s learned about herself on her startup journey. [42:01]

  • The importance of identifying your weaknesses and delegating accordingly. [45:02]

  • Nicole’s relationship with burnout and how she learned to stave it off. [50:16]

  • How motherhood has shifted her at-home focus. [53:00]

  • Nicole’s advice for remaining centered while building a business. [57:06]

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Yasmin Nouri
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