Yeah, Great. All right, thank you for all of that, Gina. So how has the transition gone? Tell us kind of what you got when you got inside, what did you find?
Acquiring Minds
Never Worked Harder, Never Been Happier
Episode
Excerpts · 389 segments · ~1:27:22 long
Short excerpts only — hear the full conversation on the publisher's site.
05:17 Gina's background and layoffs09:45 How the deal came to her11:59 Emotional decision to pivot21:03 Business history and seller motivation27:46 Wholesale model and product lines32:27 Financials and reinvestment plan39:08 Deal structure and terms48:28 Transition and licensing audits1:05:45 Growth channels and custom jewelry1:19:10 Offshore manufacturing and tariffs
Was it the business that you thought it was from the outside? Give us a flavor of the transition.
Yeah. So the first year of ownership I kept my corporate job. So I was still a little, I was trying to hedge my, my bet a little bit. Had regular communications with the team that was in place.
They were the ones that were really running the business for that past year and a half anyway. So I figured this was a time for me to work on some things, foundational things. So one of the first things I did was I put in a whole new tech ecosystem.
It was my background, so I came with that helped tremendously. I still knew people that, that could help me integrate five years worth of data from the legacy system into our new system and really just put all of those processes into place again while working my full time job. The, you know, from, from the business standpoint, I Think everything.
There weren't no real big surprises from an operational standpoint. I think there were things that I underestimated regarding collegiate licensing specifically. There are. It's, it's, it's regulated it.
And it should be. I'm glad that it is. We, we do things properly with making sure that we're licensed and not everybody does. But what comes with that are audits.
And we had a manufacturing audit. It's part of just making sure that labor standards are up to par, that safety standards are up to par. So we got selected for a manufacturer audit a couple of years ago or actually last year and successfully passed that and then this year.
But it's a grueling process.
It is and it's very stressful because you're relying on your manufacturer to make sure they're communicating. It's an in person audit. So there is an auditor abroad that actually goes to the facility and sets eyes on everything. So.
And your manufacturer. So. But why are you responsible for them or is that basically the license? The licensor wants it that way.
They want you to. Yeah, it's by design. And your manufacturers are in China.
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