Olivia Jenkins' jewellery generated sales of £10m in the last year – just four years after she thought up the idea following the death of her mother Deborah. She'd stumbled along a university place at Reading in business management more concerned with having a laugh than getting her head down.
"I actually chose the course just because my best friend was on it," Olivia, known to many as Liv, laughs from her company's office just outside London where she's building an empire set on fast, affordable, and waterproof jewellery with her business and life partner Jack Zambakides.
With Liv miserable in a nine to five job selling advertising space partner Jack – who was making a small fortune selling clothes and accessories to celebrities and sports stars – told her she should quit and start her own business. "I handed in my notice the next day," she says.
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Now named among Britain's top young entrepreneurs by Forbes and the Sunday Times Liv says the best decision she might ever make was naming the business D. Louise after her mother. "It means I won't let it fail," the 28-year-old, whose favourite memories include jewellery shopping with her mother in Cardiff near the family home in Lisvane where her father still lives.
Not long after her mum died her brother Jack took his own life. "I feel like I'm building a company that means something more now," she says. "Sometimes it feels like we've had some intervention from a higher power.
"I lost mum and shortly after starting business I lost my brother to suicide. I was in a really dark place and I do feel like I've managed to turn it around. I've tried to turn that pain into something positive. D. Louise has been that motivation. It's given me an internal drive, a passion, and a purpose. It's more than just a company and more than just jewellery. It's my light. It's kept me going."
The couple met at university during a night out when Liv was dressed as an oompa loompa. They describe each other as entirely different – "yin and yang" – but it's worked. "I'll work until the day I die," Jack says. "I genuinely love working and love business. I'm weird, I know. Liv is much more creative-minded than me, much more in touch with the product. I'm more money-minded and yet I know this would still be at level one if it wasn't for Liv because a business is extremely difficult without an amazing product."
"Jack is a born entrepreneur. I'm not," Liv laughs. "I came out of uni actually wanting a nine-to-five, shut my laptop at the end of the day sort of job. But I realised during Covid that I needed to find more of a purpose in my life. I felt lost before Jack came up with the random suggestion I start my own business. I did business management at uni because my friend was doing it. I didn't have much of an interest. But once I had something in my head that was it.
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"I decided on jewellery because I'd always thought it was a pain that expensive jewellery or even more affordable jewellery had to be taken off in the shower, the bath, at the beach, or when exercising. I approached a lot of manufacturers and one came back offering a stainless steel material perfect for what I wanted."
Jack had always had an interest in jewellery too having grown up around his grandfather's jewellers in Richmond which is now run by his uncle. The couple buy in from a manufacturer and sell the jewellery online. It doesn't sound revolutionary but they've seen huge returns pretty quickly.
"We've seen a massive shift in the jewellery market," Jack explains. "But it's not just jewellery. Pretty much any industry where you can focus on a quality item or product we're seeing a significant shift where before Covid and the economic period we've seen since people were chasing more high-end luxury items which they were prepared to pay top prices for. It became the norm to spend hundreds. In the main we're now at a place where people are not prepared to spend over the odds. They're looking for something that looks similar for an affordable price.
"We've also seen the demographic change hugely. My grandfather was selling jewellery to men who were buying it for their wives as gifts. That isn't the industry anymore – 80% of our customers are women buying for themselves and generally they're not waiting for special occasions. Part of that is because our prices aren't as high.
"My grandfather, who spent decades setting diamonds into tennis bracelets, can't believe what he's seeing when he sees some of our products. He's scratching his head over the price. Jewellery isn't the same as clothes. Jewellery is all about aesthetics. We're making products which look to be far superior than the cost."
It sounds easy but the first two years were a struggle. An off-the-charts Black Friday in 2022 saw their breakthrough. "It all changed that day," Jack says. "We had a very successful Black Friday which gave the business cash so we could try and go and scale it up. Prior to that it had been very difficult. I think what probably got us through the trenches was a combination of Liv's naivete and my delusional optimism."
"I was just so relieved," Liv remembers. "I thought: 'Thank God we've got a bit of money.' Before then every payday I was thinking: 'Where are we going to get the money from?' It had been a constant battle of not having the resources, stock, people, or advice. It's been a huge learning curve for both of us."
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The right advice arrived in the form of ex-Gymshark CEO Steve Hewitt who has since invested and has a 10% share. "Steve had finished at Gymshark and had set up an advisory company for small-to-medium-sized businesses," Jack recalls. "We really wanted his input. We lied a little bit about how much we were turning over annually. We said we were turning over £10m but we definitely weren't. It got our foot in the door. He didn't seem too annoyed during our meeting with him."
"After one session with Steve we realised we had a lot of missing gaps in our business," Liv says. "At the beginning we were working with him on an advisory basis but he told us after a while he wanted to invest. We did say no initially but we're glad we eventually said yes. Steve's involvement has been more than just a cash injection. It's a real partnership which has enabled us to reach our early goals faster."
Liv adds she'd love to pay further tribute to her mother by opening her first high street jewellers in Cardiff. "We'd love that. I know mum would have loved that. Mum was everything to us. She did everything for us, which was probably a blessing as well as a curse. She would come into our rooms at night with a bucket and toothbrush so we didn't have to go to the bathroom to clean our teeth. Mad right? She'd watch the X Factor and say she wanted them all to win. Ridiculous. She was a ridiculously kind woman."