In the summer of 2018, I had started making jewelry with fur and selling it at pop-ups hosted at my friend's cafe to test out the product. It was so successful at those pop-ups that when I had the option to lease a tiny commercial space in the Horwoods Mall in downtown Whitehorse Yukon, I was immediately excited and ready to go...except for one small detail. My bank account was overdrawn by more than $250 and I didn't have a job! I was armed with a little bit of inventory, some room on my Visa and a whole lot of ambition so I was very confident that it would work.

I used the shelves that the previous tenant had left behind and also bought their tiny cash desk which was the perfect size for the 65 square foot former-stair-well-turned-tiny-store. I made jewelry at that tiny desk while serving customers and posted to social media to build brand awareness. I think timing played a big part in my next moves - I opened in October so the upcoming Christmas shopping season made me very optimistic.

It was really challenging launching a new business on a shoestring budget but I was so driven to succeed that I pushed myself and my budget to do everything possible to ensure my success. As a Canadian jewelry maker, I knew that my product line could stand out in a very full marketplace, especially if I was able to identify a way that I could serve my community and do something meaningful while building a profitable, scalable business.

I committed early on to working exclusively with Indigenous sourced wild Yukon furs and found that by doing that, I had identified my unique value proposition. I had added so much value to my jewelry by using it as a teaching and storytelling tool and as a way to do so much good in my community that as long as I kept my focus on that core value, I'd only do well with my business.

So about that little store, I quickly outgrew that space - especially since I was storing my whole tanned fur pelts in the shop and was making and warehousing all of the merchandise in that very full 65 square feet of space. I found out about a larger, better-situated space that had come available after six months in my original store and quickly signed that lease and did a mid-morning move.

I remember the day I made that impulsive move. It was April first and I posted a photo to Instagram of the shelves of my wee store; bare and sad looking. I told my followers that I was thankful for their support but that mall life wasn't for me. Of course I was very much kidding and promptly shared photos of the new space that we still occupy today. Judging by the reactions of those on April Fool's who didn't get the joke right away, they didn't want to see my store close. They wanted to see me succeed. Many of those folks continue to be keen supporters and I am so thankful for them. They purchase jewelry, bring friends who are visiting the Yukon into the store, they share my social media content, and they bring me snacks (the truest sign of support, especially at Christmas time!). Without these people and every single person who contributes to our success, I'd probably be working at a desk job I hate and wishing I'd just given it a go.

In this, our fifth year of operation I can take stock of some very significant wins. We've been featured in Vogue and Esquire magazines, profiled in Forbes magazine, won awards, got married, bought a new car and house with earnings from this store and we've grown to include a second retail store across the border in the cruise ship port of Skagway, Alaska. That's just the highlights!

And to think, how different things would be if I hadn't taken the leap and trusted in my ability to take that overdrawn bank account and to turn it into a sustainable, meaningful venture. This is one of the best decisions I've ever made, even if I was scared out of my mind that it wasn't going to work. One thing I knew for certain was that if I didn't at least try, that would have been the bigger failure.

xo Vanessa