Scrappy startHER
Not many people know that prior to starting coworkHERS I was one of the co-founders of Haberdashery Resale Clothing Co
My friend Jenny the now-current owner was a colleague of mine at a marketing company. After we were both laid off from our jobs, we did what anyone would do, we went “therapy shopping” but for us it was only thrifting…and we did it a lot.
But you can’t keep every sweet deal you find, so we became addicted to the thrill of saving money on expensive things, of any size, and then reselling them online for more money to buy more things. Then it became the “big idea” of cutting out the middleman (Ebay) and opening a brick and mortar. (This also solved the problem of storing all our things in the backs of the closets and nooks in my attic.)
I have fond memories of going to estate sales, and flea markets looking for vintage clothing and one-of-a-kind things to sell on eBay…at a fraction more than we paid. We had no funding, loans, or debt…Haberdashery was 100% bootstrapped.
We were the first ones through the doors at the grand opening of the Goodwill by the Pound in Gorham. Back then we would find designer bags, shoes, Patagonia and LLBean factory rejects for a ridiculously low price. If you’ve never experienced Goodwill by the Pound (or “G to the P” as we called it) click here for an article and you’ll get the picture. I haven’t been in a long time, and I imagine it’s probably still pretty cutthroat and dirty, but great for a rainy day activity…just don’t forget the hand wipes and sanitizer.
Fast forward to the Grand Opening of Haberdashery on Munjoy Hill (now where Cocktail Mary is). My husband owned that apartment building with 2 storefronts on the corner of Congress St. and Montgomery St. at the time and gave us a sweet deal on rent (free). We stockpiled our inventory and Jenny’s husband built us garment racks from galvanized pipes at Home Depot. We came up with everything on the fly and on the cheap… including our checkout counter (probably a find from the Salvation Army). It was an old receptionist desk or something and we decided to update it with black magnetic chalkboard paint from the hardware store. We thought it would be a great way to advertise sales and hang postcards…etc. At the time Jenny was in the early trimesters of pregnancy so it was decided that it would be safer for me to do the painting for fear of her baby being born with defects due to the warnings on the can.
Jenny headed out back to the restroom while I got to work trying to stir and dislodge the thick, dark, magnetic paste from the bottom of the can when suddenly the stirring stick snapped under the pressure of the heavy goo and in doing so it splattered the dark paint all over me. My clothes and face were speckled with dripping dark paint as I leaned over the can in shock. Jenny was returning from the back room and still going on about how toxic this was and how awful it would be if it got on her skin, seeped into her pores, and harmed her baby. I slowly turned around as she was speaking, and she saw my face and we both burst into laughter. I had tears running down my face from laughing so hard. It was horrible, funny, scary, and one of the best memories I have of starting a scrappy business with a friend. We were in our own world.
But we not only opened Haberdashery once - we opened it twice because within the first week of our opening, there was a fire in the apartment above us, and due to all the water damage, we lost everything…along with a bunch of apartments (thankfully nobody was hurt).
After all that work, all that build up to opening and it was so unsatisfying. We’d only dipped our toe in the water of what we could accomplish so after receiving our insurance money we started collecting items again, my attic became the holding area for all the clothes. Rows and rows of garment racks. We would find it cheap, sell it on Ebay, and then use those funds to buy more clothes…we just kept at it. Flip, flip, flip…and of course, Jenny had her baby, so we were just biding our time while we waited for the renovations, and she got over the hump of the new baby in her life.
But it was taking too long, and my attic was busting at the seams. I’m sure my husband was totally over this thing we were doing. He said it was a “waste of time” …to me that was more motivation to be successful and show him. So, we gave up free rent for a storefront in the State Theatre Building so we could FINALLY open and show “them” we could do it.
Fast forward a couple of years and Jenny called me with “we need to talk”. I was feeling a little burned out myself and the profits we were splitting were fine, but I wanted more, and it turns out so did she because her husband was in danger of losing his job (thankfully it didn’t happen) but she was prepared to take over being the breadwinner for her family if she needed to be and I agreed.
In the end, it was meant to be because if it didn’t go this way, I wouldn’t have coworkHERS (my true love) and truth be told, I couldn’t have done with Haberdashery what Jenny has… thanks to Instagram and her business savvy. I’m so proud of how much she has grown that business. She has a new location on Commercial Street and a second location in Freeport. She is an incredible entrepreneur and I often wonder what our old boss at that marketing company thinks of us now. We were probably the last people he would have expected to turn into successful business owners…and that’s a whole other story - for another time.
