Lauren Hanson & Katie Beitzel co-founders ur fancy shop
Co-founders Lauren Hanson & Katie Beitzel discuss their journey as the co-founders of a local shop called Ugly Rugly. Lauren, a fashion designer with a fine art degree, started making rugs out of recycled fabric, which became their signature product. Katie, with a background in fashion business management, was a customer of Ugly Rugly and eventually became a business partner. Together, they opened their brick-and-mortar store, where they curate vintage items, showcase independent designers, and offer Lauren's handmade products.
listen
watch
shop
read
Today I guess, which I'm so about. They are the co co founders of one of my local shops, Lauren Hanson Katie Bitesau.
00:20 Thank you so here. Thank you for having us. You're so welcome. So I little bit of the back story from you individually creative and what you've done together is just so went into your shop.
00:37 I was blown away and when I shared on social, I got so many messages from my friends that were like, where is the store of all the things I love in the world in one place?
00:49 So Lauren, do you want to kick things off of a little bit of your back story? Sure. So I am a soer by trade.
01:00 I'm a fashion designer. I went to school for that. I went to college in California. And so I'm fully trained in pattern making and apparel making and then went on to get my fine art degree.
01:15 And that's where I really got to explore kind of textiles and conceptual design and kind of pushing the envelope for textiles, methods and sewing methods that I'm interested in.
01:29 And so I moved to New York about this year. It'll be 10 years, which is crazy. Wow. Congratulations. Yeah. Thank you.
01:38 And my husband and I, we were both working kind of normal nine to five jobs. And we were kind of getting red or needed a creative outlet.
01:49 And I had started, I'm always, I'm a maker by heart. And so I'm always making something or working on some like kind of like wild project.
02:00 And so I started making rugs out of recycled fabric just for fun. And I kind of snowballed into what is now our company called ugly rugby.
02:12 And so we make, we ended up making some products out of a coiled rope technique. And that really became kind of a signature product for us.
02:22 And I still hand make a lot of the product today. We founded ugly rugby about eight years ago. Oh wow.
02:32 I have one of your pieces in 2017. So sorry. Are you going to do the math? Well, I have, while you do the math, I have one of your pieces.
02:44 And I absolutely love it. I get so many different components on it. And I would like to say, because it is a place mat, it cleans really well.
02:52 They do. They really do. It really is. And I'm like, wow, this product, even like sometimes with like handmade stuff, it's really, really delicate.
03:04 And I, you know, you have to be very, very gentle. All right, don't even really use them. I just like to look at stuff and like not really.
03:10 But your product, you could actually use it rinse it off. And it's like so incredible. So shout out to that.
03:17 Okay, so you did the math. So how long has the brand been around? Six years. Six years. Six eight, we're, we're still coming out of like COVID years, which I feel like made everything a little wonky.
03:30 Okay, but okay, so six years doing that. And then what what was the next thing that you're like, okay, I'm super creative.
03:39 I have this. It's going. But I want something more. Yeah, so we were building our own business and my husband.
03:48 He's, you know, working full time. I'm running the business full time and we're kind of balancing our duties and I was just really always in my studio kind of doing cool stuff, doing a lot of design exploration in kind of like my side practice.
04:03 I was doing sewing production for small designers working on like a apparel production in my studio. And I'm, you know, sitting there alone in my tiny studio being like, I think people would be interested in what I do here and sharing it on social media is one thing, but when you're getting emails from
04:22 customers, that's like dear customer service department and it's like, it's just me. Hi, I'm working. Yeah, stuff. I just really had a, had a dream in a desire to kind of unite my creative practice with a customer facing studio store for I'm hybrid.
04:41 And so I kind of had this very broad general idea of kind of wanting to show those things to people.
04:50 And that around that time was when a customer came into my inbox and it was Katie. Oh, I love that.
04:59 Yeah. And so we kind of met through working on a little custom hanging lamp I made for Katie. I love that.
05:12 I had no idea that. That's how you all get it. Oh, my gosh. Okay. So Katie, take it away from there.
05:17 Yeah. It's so funny to look back because I think Lauren and I met because I was one of her customers.
05:23 And so I had several ugly rugby pieces, which I'm like looking around my apartment right now even though it's a mess.
05:28 They're kind of like all over the place. So I was one of her customers. Totally agree with you on the placemat comment.
05:35 It's one of my favorite things about the road is how you get it to clean. Because like you said, a lot of handmade stuff, you know, you can be really careful and gentle with it.
05:43 And over time things get dirty and dusty and used. And the rope is great. So anyways, I was a customer.
05:49 We became friends. And then we became business partners because Lauren had this idea. I also had always wanted to open a store.
05:56 And I was working or have been working in kind of corporate business fashion and was looking for creative outlet as well.
06:03 And so we kind of came together. And I was working with my background as I went to school. I went to FIT for fashion business management.
06:11 So I've been working in merchandise and sales on a corporate level. For the last I guess almost 10 years. I also had my tenure in versus in New York.
06:21 I think is this year. Or I said, 20 to 11. Coming up as well. Love it. So that's kind of been my background.
06:30 And I also on the side was kind of sourcing vintage and selling at different flea markets and fairs and pop ups.
06:38 And that's kind of been a passion of mine outside of crunching numbers and looking at excel all day. And so Lauren and I were able to merge and kind of do your fancy shop.
06:52 So I think that's like the tough line. There's a lot that happened in between there. But I love it. That's a great great story of how someone really was just a fan of a brand and then connected with the founder and now became business partners and then created their own brick and mortar, also using
07:10 your background, which is a really great complement for a creative mind, for makers to like find a co founder that loves numbers and excel because usually as creatives were like, never mind.
07:23 I'm proud to do all the creative stuff. So that's a really cool connection that you both have. That's like really covering so many different angles of running a successful business and brand.
07:35 So I love that too. Very complimentary. So tell us about how the brick and mortar came about. And again, you all really brought in so many different cool elements.
07:47 So I would love to hear a little bit of the behind the scenes of like how that all came together.
07:53 Whoever wants to take it away. Lauren, you want to? It started to drinks me crying about how I don't know.
08:00 So I'll kick it off with that. And then we decided to go from there. Lauren, answer about. We Katie and I, as we had, you know, interacted, she was, she had like kind of a tiny little space that she was renting from a friend.
08:21 It wasn't like totally a formal, like retail room. But it was like a little shockable space that she just opened kind of like when she had time.
08:29 It was so cute and cool. And so she invited me to come check out the space and it was like this is really awesome.
08:35 You're on to something here. And I think she felt the same way about me. And so we, at one moment, we were just kind of like out for, you know, a happy hour or something and commiserating about everything and talking about our struggles and whatnot.
08:52 And Katie was just like, so do you want to do it? And I was like, let me talk to my husband first, but yeah.
09:00 That is so cool. And so we, we kicked it off that way. And so we kind of fused our ideas together.
09:09 I had a very broad idea of many things I wanted to do. And so there was a lot of like funneling that down and hanging out what are the, what are going to be the key things that are going to be the elements of our store figuring those things out.
09:25 But the key elements we kind of of landed on are we have our retail store. And that is sort of the heart of the business.
09:33 And so Katie sells all of her gorgeous vintage stuff. She's really into vintage glassware. So like we're the place to come if you need like a beautiful glass ware set.
09:44 And we carry like a lot of independent designers as well as my products ugly, And that kind of like showcases sort of the, you know, small maker and independent designer, you know, core of where we come from.
10:02 And then beyond that, we ended up with a space that allowed me to have my studio set up inside of it.
10:09 So if you come to the back of the shop, my studio is in the back and I still do a lot of production in house.
10:16 So if you come on the right day, you can see me like doing sewing production on the sewing floor, or in through stuff.
10:22 But then beyond that, I also have a background in teaching sewing. And so we also open up our studio for sewing classes.
10:31 And we've got a fully outfitted studio and we do a lot of beginner sewing classes. But then we also bring in artists to teach other things like crochet or quilting or punch needle tufting or we've got like a wide variety of stuff.
10:47 And we're just coming up on our six month anniversary. So there's been a lot of, So there's been a lot of, you know, over the past six months, throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks and style and error.
11:01 But because we have this production space here, you know, we can do things like I can whip up a couple of pillows and try them out in the store and see how they sell or see how they sell.
11:14 Or, you know, we have a lot of like flexibility and a lot of elements that kind of all work together and complement each other.
11:22 That's a really cool point that you're able to make product on site and test without a huge production cost or waiting.
11:33 You're really able to get like real time feedback, which is such an advantage of how you are set up. That's really interesting.
11:40 And I have to say, I hadn't sewn since I was 18 years old and I just turned 38. So that math, yep, it's been a minute and I learned how to sew a product on a site.
11:57 So I just want to say thank you my friends and family. We're blown away. They're like, you made that. I was like, I really did.
12:04 I got to know for my teacher, but by and large, I learned how to sew in a workshop. And so everyone was very impressed.
12:14 My girlfriend was very impressed because she was like, you haven't sewn it a while. I was like, no, I don't know what's going to happen.
12:20 And she was like, I'm genuinely impressed. So thank you. You're a great student, Kelly. Thank you so much. I really tried.
12:26 I really focused and did my best. And so when someone asks you like, what's your fancy shop? What can I find there?
12:36 So it's really the vintage independent makers design. Also, I just feel like the colors and the aesthetic really stand out too.
12:46 Like you all have a very cool aesthetic, yeah. Just the way that you all blend colors and the texture. It just, there's so many different cool threads that are through the shop that I just love how you all curate it and monitor all the pieces together.
13:07 Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Also piggyback, you know, Lauren was saying, I think there's a through line kind of through the entire business is that element of sustainability.
13:18 So in terms of what we're providing to the customer, we're providing these you know, vintage or secondhand items, these independent artists, you're able to make products in the back.
13:27 So there's this through line of sustainability and kind of a by product of the entire business is like feel like we've started to build kind of like a little community.
13:36 So, you know, you come maybe need a gift, maybe need something for yourself. Maybe you want to learn something like there's a lot that our business I think can offer a customer, which is really really important.
13:48 So people can come to us for different reasons and that's something that we're excited to offer to our customer. And look, I love that.
13:54 I know like circulate through to different elements like, okay, you pop in because you need, you know, a mother's day card, but then you realize there's so in class and then maybe you realize that you love sewing and you want to start your own line and then we also can offer manufacturing services.
14:11 So there's like a lot of elements in the customer can kind of of expect and you know, the studio can really become like a creative hub or community, which we're sort of finding out as we as people start finding out about us here.
14:29 Totally. And I have to say too, I got that sun right off the bat because I feel like the song last I took was right around when you really just open up the doors.
14:38 I want to say around Halloween. So it was still very, very new. And I got that impression right away that it was going to be like this community space and everyone was so friendly and welcoming and just other people like smiling at each other just who are shopping.
14:55 And I was like, oh, this is cool. This is definitely a space that you could feel that already. And that's hard to curate if it's not genuine, right?
15:05 You can't really fake that. So I got that sense from you both and the people that you were attracting in the space right away.
15:12 And I love that. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. So for someone who's listening, that's like you're literally living my dreams because I got that feedback a lot.
15:23 When I shared my experience at your store on my social people were writing me there like this is literally my dream.
15:30 I was like, totally could see that. So do you have any advice or any advice you would share of like taking that next step of okay, you were a one person show making stuff at home or in a small studio, also Katie like one person's store like pop up on the side, but then to go full time or mostly full
15:54 time doing a brick and mortar going into business with a friend like any advice there because that is such a big jump but also such an exciting jump, any like lessons learned in the last six plus months?
16:10 Awesome lessons. I'm so many. And lessons learned. I say as a super, super creative non linear thinker, very, you know, kind of a creative person.
16:26 Get yourself a Katie. Yeah, like someone who you trust and you can partner with who can, you know, you can carry the, carry the responsibilities of things that you're not good at and then vice versa.
16:42 You know, the, for me, the partnership has just been really crucial and like for me, that was, that's my biggest takeaway was like finding a really good partnership where we could rely on each other and complement each other.
16:57 I love that. I think also, you know, depending, you know, if you go into business on your own or if you have a partner but maybe they don't have a certain skill set and that's kind of something someone's in the market for.
17:08 I think seeing what resources are out there. In terms of, there's a lot of like small business resources that we didn't know about and learned about because we were, we needed them.
17:19 I think there's advisors, there's free lawyers, we've used that. There's just all kinds of resources out there. I think doing a quick Google to find that.
17:29 I was going to ask, what you recommend to finding those resources. We literally just Google, or obviously in New York City and the city provided those resources.
17:39 So depending on where you're at, I'm not sure what's available, but I think we were kind of surprised by what was out there.
17:46 And I just recommend not because we sat for a few months and really mapped out the business and every little detail that we could think of, we mapped out.
17:55 And there was still stuff we missed. And the three of us cold-worn in myself like we've already said, all kind of of different backgrounds.
18:02 So we really brought a lot to the table and really mapped things out extensively. And there was still stuff that was missed.
18:09 So that's why I'd say, there's someone maybe a business advisor through a state or whatever. They might help fill in some of those details that a normal person like us might miss.
18:22 Was there anything that jumped out at you of looking back of like, okay, this was something we had missed. And this is something I would pass on to someone else who's in this stage, like one little tidbit.
18:35 Go on, do you have a question? I have a question. Let me go. You know, I think one of the things for us is we spent, I mean, I think we probably started planning the business like early March last year.
18:49 Oh, okay. And we probably took, I don't know, nine, 10 months to like fully flush out and write our business plan.
18:58 And we really went through it. We went through several iterations of it. We talked to, you know, friends who have experience in reviewing business plans.
19:08 We talked to, you know, there were, you know, pro bono lawyers that we could talk to. And we really tried hard to do our due diligence and dot every eye across every tee.
19:19 And I think that kind of helped us navigate around some really expensive mistakes, but they're still, you know, an expensive cost specifically.
19:30 I think build out costs are something like if you want a physical space, there will always, always, always be surprise expenses that you are not, but there's no way you can predict.
19:42 And so giving yourself enough wiggle room to plan for that. Don't, don't make your budget so tight that you can't, you know, navigate any issues that pop up.
19:53 That's a good one. That's what I was going to say. I was going to say we had a little thing cost money and things you don't even realize office supplies.
20:03 Like we were like, oh, we could probably get like 50 bucks worth of office supplies. No. Like you spend, it's a couple hundred dollars for everything we needed, you know, like so I think just all of these little expenses add up and it's definitely worth it to probably have a significant, I don't know
20:19 , 10% of the total budget or something, making that number up. That's what I think for us, aside for just unexpected costs.
20:26 And expect a cost. That's really, that's fair. I've done some openings of brick and mortar and there's just like random shit that can pop up.
20:33 Like really? All right, cool. So what is something that you did that you're like? I'm really glad we crossed this tee and data the side before we open, like something that you're like very grateful that you did before opening.
20:50 Before opening. Anything. I think yeah. I don't know if there's something I'm really grateful we did before we opened, but I think one of the most like more recent things we've done was hiring someone to help with certain things that were not good at.
21:14 So like for us, Katie and I are like older millennials and we're not so great on the TikTok, even though it's all and so hiring.
21:21 I thought your TikTok has been looking really good. We hired some kids to help. You know, like I think realizing where your weaknesses are and then investing in those places, especially when you're starting up and you have a minimal budget.
21:36 Right. You know, don't hire people who are like or don't hire for things that are things that are good at hire for things that you're not going to get out and find your gaps and fill them.
21:45 I think that has been like a really crucial lesson. And especially in the in the first, you know, six months, it's been Katie and myself and our third business partner Cole, who's my husband.
21:57 It's very much behind the scenes partner. We, you know, it's just the three of us running the store. And so stretching yourself to thin is something that happens a lot.
22:09 And so hiring to those gaps so that you can kind of believe the pressure of all the responsibilities has been a big lesson.
22:17 I love that. And I think that's a really great reminder because I feel that most creatives in general, but also a lot of women owned businesses that are doing it mostly themselves put this immense pressure on themselves that they have to do everything themselves.
22:34 And like asking for help or getting help with something is really a process of opening up to that. I've just found that over the years.
22:44 And so thank you for saying that because I'm sure someone listening to this, that's going to be a moment for them.
22:49 That's like, okay, it's everyone gets support and help in other areas. You can't do literally everything yourself. And I think that's a really important message of like it's going to take other people.
23:01 And that's a good thing. You want different eyes on it. Everyone brings something to the table. So that's a really great reminder.
23:08 So thank you for that. And my last question is, do you do anything, maybe together or individually that helps you just stay creative because now just being in business as a creative and then doing the day to day of the business.
23:25 But like anything that just helps you stay connected of like, this is my craft. This is what I love. Either curating vintage or making products, but we're doing something else random that has nothing to do with what you craft is, just how you stay creative.
23:43 Katie, I think for me, it's really the sourcing and the merchandising of the store. I love going to antique stores and working with some of the dealers that I work with.
23:54 And flea markets and all of those places. That's really a fun, my kind of fun creative outlet. As well as merchandising the store is probably one of my favorite things to do as well.
24:05 So that's how I say creative. I love it. Lauren has more, more fun, fun ones, I think. Well, that's awesome.
24:15 Well, so I get, I get a lot of my creative outlet just working in the shop. Like I get to make stuff every single day, which is, was my dream.
24:24 Like that is amazing. I get to do it every day. So the, the thing that I have to do to stay creative is I absolutely have to take time off.
24:36 It's very easy to overwork yourself and, you know, go seven days a week and not realize it. So I have to almost like a task on a checklist force myself to take my day off.
24:49 And then as part of that I have started doing like, going to the gym and like strength training and also, it's been a huge, huge outlet for me and a great stress reliever.
25:04 And it's kind of, this is sounds corny, but it's kind of taught me a little bit of a life lesson that if you build on things slowly, you get results.
25:13 Yeah. And and that's like the lesson, you know, I've learned through working my body, but it has like applied itself kind of to the rest of my life as well.
25:26 And that's been a big one to just kind of have a moment for me that's not about creativity or anything.
25:32 It's just like my me time. And you know, it gives me that moment to rest and recuperate so that I have a creative well to draw on.
25:42 I love that so much and that resonates with me too. I literally have to have like chill out on my calendar because I could go, I could keep going to and that, you know, at times.
25:54 Yes, if there's a launch or something important or an event, sure, but that's unsustainable. And so I'm really happy that you said that because I think with most creatives, we love the creative process, but it could also burn us out too.
26:09 So it's good to take a rest, everyone. It's good to pace yourself to build on what you're building and really having that community and people in your corner who get you and kids support you and asking for that support just seems like a common thread that you all have shared today.
26:26 And I really appreciate that. Awesome. So where can people shop? Where can people find you? Give us all that good stuff.
26:35 They can find us at our shop. We don't currently have an online store. So the things that we said we were going to do in the first month and we're going to do it and just we're overwhelmed by just running the brick and mortar.
26:49 So right now we're just working mortar in Bushwick. Our address is online. All of our information is online. And that's how you find us.
26:59 Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. And we post all of our class schedules on social media or if you're not a big social media person you can sign up for our email list and I announce whenever we have new classes or new class dates.
27:17 And I usually post kind of like behind the scenes content as well. So you'll see lots of pictures of like Katie's vintage or you know me in the studio doing stuff so it's kind of a fun channel to tap into.
27:32 I have to say because I'm a nerd for social I love your social and I love your emails and just your shop in general is just goals and it's studying and I can't wait to come shopping soon.
27:43 Awesome, well thank you so much for sharing both of you and also shout out to Cole for the shop that you all have created and curated and can't wait to see what you all create next.
27:56 Thank you you're so welcome you're so welcome bye everyone see you in the next episode.
