Today we’d like to introduce you to Max Johnson.
Hi Max, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
A few years ago, as my mom Jill was recovering from breast cancer (she is a lifelong survivor) she had this beautiful idea to create a line of deeply meaningful fine jewelry to gift to fellow survivors, like those in her own recovery ward. My background is in growth marketing and product management: I have past lives in politics, technology, and media, and I offered to help my mom design a product offering and launch the brand website.
My mom’s vision was to create an alternative to the “pink ribbon” and design a symbol of strength that any woman, regardless of their background, could resonate with. We landed on the motif of the Goddess throughout history and mythology as a concept that we could personalize to any wearer in a timeless way. I came up with the idea to create a quiz where visitors could match their personality to one of our initial seven Goddesses, which turned out to be an extremely effective lead generation tool that we continue to scale as we expand past 5,000 SKUs. That and some amazing celebrity traction helped us grow very quickly.
While I certainly never saw myself working in retail or fashion, Awe has given me an opportunity to bring joy to people’s lives and give back to the causes we champion through our charity partner program (20% of all proceeds are donated to our charity partners). Awe Inspired celebrates real human achievement and highlights a diverse group of figures across history and mythology and gives everyone, particularly underrepresented communities, a symbol of strength that they can wear.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
We essentially bootstrapped the company by building it out of my mom’s existing jewelry wholesale business, so we were able to leverage those manufacturing relationships and fulfillment capabilities to overcome operational hurdles. Finding our niche in the market: meaningful jewelry at an accessible luxury price point was certainly a challenge. Jewelry is an extremely fragmented product category with relatively low barriers to entry and enormous variety. We were challenged to be precise about who our customer is, what they want, and how we can serve them better, all while donating 20% of proceeds to charity.
Another challenge we face has been growing a team over these past couple of years while everyone is managing their own personal challenges and uncertainties that the pandemic brought. We are a family-owned and operated business and, to some degree, we treat everyone on our team as family. We recognize that someone may need a break to deal with something outside the office and that might mean one of us jumping in to cover for a few days. Although it’s challenging, it means we’ve built a truly nimble team and always reaching across to help one another.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Awe Inspired?
While there are many things about our business that sets us apart, the central defining element is that everything we do is with meaning and purpose. We hear from our customers how much the product means to them and how it empowers them. Wearing a powerful figure like Ruth Bader Ginsberg or Goddess Athena or Goddess Isis gives women the strength they need to get through their day and that’s not feedback you necessarily hear about other consumer products. They also take their connection with our pieces and want to gift that experience to others; referrals are a big driver of our business.
From the day we began, Awe Inspired has donated 20% of our proceeds to the causes that our community champions. We will continue to do that and innovate on our double bottom line model. We’ve partnered with organizations like the American Nurses Foundation on our Florence Nightingale piece to give back to frontline workers throughout the pandemic. We’ve partnered with the NAACP on our Harriet Tubman piece and gave 100% of the proceeds plus a matching donation to them in her. We’ve partnered every Pride with an incredible LGBT-focused organization as that’s a cause that is near and dear to my heart and to our community. We are not afraid to speak up unapologetically on behalf of issues that really matter to our team and community.
Our customers will wear Quan Yin who is a Buddhist goddess next to Mother Mary, next to Hecate, who is a witchy figure from Greek mythology. Those figures and what they represent paint a picture of this customer’s unique, multifaceted belief system. A significant majority of young people today are practicing “religious remixing” and spiritual exploration as never before seen in previous generations; we believe our brand’s success is due to this growing relevance. As part of our efforts to build on our authority in this emerging Spiritual Wellness space, we recently launched a marketplace on our site called Sanctuary Goods where you can explore products from 15 women-owned and majority WOC-owned brands who are creating goods in the spiritual wellness space.
I’m also proud of our commitment to diversity and portraying a wide pantheon of figures and symbols in our collection. We have Goddesses representing African cultures, Hindu religious figures, East Asian figures, Latin American figures, Germanic figures, etc. We will continue to be more representative so every customer can truly find a piece that empowers them and speaks to their individual identity. And I think that commitment to diversity extends into models and influencers we work with, even just the aesthetic of our page, to make sure that all body shapes and skin tones are represented.
We have such enormous potential in front of us – from launching in Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus to signing an incredible amount of wholesale partners recently. We know that our products can perform in fashion boutiques, major department stores, as well as in incredible museums around the world that also celebrate the figures that are featured in our collection. I think we have only shared the Awe story with a very small part of the broader population and I’m very proud that we have so much potential ahead of us.
Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs or other resources you think our readers should check out?
A recent read that impacted me deeply is The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Toll, which could probably be called a seminal work in the field of spiritual wellness. It focuses on living in the present and doing your best to focus your attention, effort, and emotions on what is happening right now in your physical presence. That is difficult to really achieve; pure presence. In a start-up, every day is an up and down and there are fires every day but also successes to celebrate. There are worries about money and our supply chain and customer service, but I can’t solve the issues in the future, and I certainly can’t go back and change things that have happened. All I can really do is focus on doing my best right now, today. So sometimes that involves having the most productive day possible and sometimes it involves listening to my body and knowing that I need to take a break. I’m trying to take everything I’ve learned from Eckhart Toll to heart.
A podcast that I listen to religiously is “How I Built This”. I love the opportunity to learn from other founders and hear their stories. It helps me understand that the grass isn’t always greener; everyone has a story of overcoming challenges in business. Even the most successful brands that you might think had it easy or they were a hit from day one. A very easy misconception is that this brand or that brand just blew up in the past two years. But in most cases, there were likely grinding for five-plus years before that; years of blood, sweat and tears poured into building. Hearing these stories is an amazing reality check that nothing beats hard work and discipline.
Another amazing resource that I use are newsletters. I read LeanLuxe, Glossy, DTC Newsletter, Retail Brew, WWD, etc. These help me stay on top of relevant industry trends, consumer enablement innovations, retail stats, etc. I encourage my team to have a nice flow of newsletter subscriptions because they are easily sharable over email and Slack and great conversation starters.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.aweinspired.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/aweinspired
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AweInspiredNYC
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/aweinspired_
