How She Built a Profitable Multimillion-Dollar Brand Without Investors
A Shopify Masters conversation with Sara Sugarman, founder of Lulu and Georgia, a home decor brand she launched in 2012 out of her family's rug business and has run profitably with no outside investment. She says it grows 30% year over year with a repeat customer rate double the industry average. She talks about the family business, spotting the shift to online shopping, staying bootstrapped and her biggest mistake. Sponsor: Shopify, which presents the show. PARTIAL COVERAGE: this note covers the intro, the family business and 2012 pivot, the bootstrapping section, and the closing mistake about technology and infrastructure, and does not cover every part of the roughly 32 minute conversation. Growth and customer figures are Sara's and the show's own and not independently checked.
Executive Summary (TL;DR)
A Shopify Masters conversation with Sara Sugarman, founder of Lulu and Georgia, a home decor brand she launched in 2012 out of her family's rug business and has run profitably with no outside investment. She says it grows 30% year over year with a repeat customer rate double the industry average. She talks about the family business, spotting the shift to online shopping, staying bootstrapped and her biggest mistake. Sponsor: Shopify, which presents the show. PARTIAL COVERAGE: this note covers the intro, the family business and 2012 pivot, the bootstrapping section, and the closing mistake about technology and infrastructure, and does not cover every part of the roughly 32 minute conversation. Growth and customer figures are Sara's and the show's own and not independently checked.