The Repeat Customer Playbook: How to Build a $1M Brand | Auroro Founder

Tiffany Chao left an 11-year career to go all in on AURORO, the fine jewelry brand she started with $10,000. A year in, she couldn't pay herself, so she did what she thought a real brand was supposed to do. She hired a consultant, built a collection for retailers, and stepped back from social. Then the holidays, the biggest season of the year, never came.

So she threw out the playbook and went back to her own taste, her own stones, and her own camera. AURORO went from $550K in sales to $1M the next year, and today 67% of its customers come back to buy again, many of them sending thousands of dollars for pieces they've only ever seen on a screen.

Alex and Lee dig into how she built that kind of trust online, how she prices custom pieces when the price of gold changes every week, whether a couture trade show is worth the capital, and how she runs the business alongside her co-founder.

In this episode:
- Why following a consultant's retail playbook stalled her first full year
- How she earned enough trust for clients to pay $6,000 by Venmo
- Pricing custom jewelry when gold moves every week, and why she now buys it by the kilo
- What a 67% repeat rate means for customer acquisition
- Couture trade show or direct to consumer: where the capital should go
- Getting comfortable on camera as an extroverted introvert
- Why she introduced lab-grown stones, and where she won't use them

This episode is brought to you by:

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Chapter Timestamps
00:00 Cold open
01:19 Leaving an 11-year career, then not paying herself
02:05 Hiring a jewelry business consultant
06:51 When the holidays didn't happen
08:51 Building a community on Instagram
10:05 How clients trust a $6,000 Venmo payment
11:56 Couture trade show or direct to consumer
17:35 Pricing when gold changes every week
20:43 From $550K to $1M
23:05 How many customers come back
26:34 Running the company with a co-founder
28:11 Showing the messy side on social
32:21 Designing new pieces, stone first
36:01 The icons and her bestsellers
38:08 Lab-grown stones