8/6/2023 0 Comments Tik tok icon brownWe've also sadly preserved many lasts - the last drawing a little boy created before passing away from cancer, or the last "Love, Zack" found in a soldier's letter to his family before being killed in Afghanistan. We've preserved many firsts - like the first time a child drew a heart, a person, or wrote "mom." The driving force of Sprout is the extraordinary stories behind the drawings that we preserve. Because we're a made-to-order business, the upfront costs were not too significant because we didn't need to buy a huge amount of inventory like a traditional jewelry business would. In the beginning, I personally funded Sprout using my savings from working as an engineer for more than five years. Using the design on the card, my at-home 3D printer, and an old necklace chain, Sprout's first masterpiece was created. It was after she finished her drawing the idea suddenly sprouted to turn it into jewelry. I spent the afternoon taking my young niece to multiple jewelry stores, and with no luck we settled on a handmade card. Sprout's story begins after a last-minute scramble to find a Mother's Day gift In mid-April, the media news company Tyla asked if they could compile our TikTok videos into a larger three-minute video and share it. Our first TikTok video showing what we do received 1.9 million views, and our second 2.8 million. We've been very successful at creating viral videos that lead to large boosts in sales. You need to be okay with that failure and ready to almost instantly pivot to the next. Trends come and go so quickly, so I try to actively watch TikTok for the next viral trend or song so that we can immediately create a video using it. Some videos have been hits while others haven't. I wish I could say there was a secret formula to social-media growth, but everything I've learned has been through trial and error Our social media has a very intentional aesthetic, so I'm particular about what gets posted. I taught myself how to do social-media marketing and still fully run our social-media accounts, including Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Boeing is a big advocate for continued education and they covered the cost of my certificate in additive manufacturing (another word for 3D printing) from MIT, which I completed after work. It was here that I learned the incredible capabilities of 3D printing. I spent three years as a repair engineer on the 787 Dreamliner and two as a design engineer. I studied mechanical engineering at Duke University and prior to running Sprout, I worked as an engineer at Boeing. In 2021, we achieved six figures in sales. Sprout is run by a small team of female engineers and sells exclusively online through Shopify. I founded Sprout Design Lab, which turns children's artwork into custom jewelry using 3D printing technology, in September 2020 to combine my love for celebrating children's creativity with my passion for engineering design. The following has been edited for length and clarity. Insider has verified her sales with documentation. This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jade Brown, the founder of Sprout Design Lab, an online jewelry business based in Charleston, South Carolina.
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