#23: Strengthen Your Core with Melissa Hinnant, Founder & CEO of Grace and Lace
Do you think it's possible to start a business in an industry you've never received formal training in, then actually scale it to become a million dollar company?
In today's interview, Melissa Hinnant, CEO & Founder of Grace and Lace, tells us how she and her husband were able to do exactly that.
She also shared how:
Grace and Lace was inspired by her love for her infant daughter who, unfortunately, passed away.
They defied usual business norms of not hiring friends and family.
The secret of what's in the "core" of their business has allowed them to achieve all that they've achieved today.
Listen to my interview with her for some truly heartwarming business inspiration.
Learn more about Grace and Lace here or follow them on Instagram @graceandlaceco.
Are you a visionary entrepreneur who wants to create change with your company in the world? If so, I want to let you know about a free masterclass that I just wrapped up. In this short but powerful training, I teach you exactly how to create a brand that inspires the hearts and minds of your audience and invites them into massive action. These are the very same frameworks that I've used to help my own private consulting clients and national companies you know and love, spread their mission, launch expansion, and accelerate influence. To join in, visit https://joybrandcreative.com/movement.
Listen to the Show:
Laura (00:00):
This is the Scale with Joy show, episode 23: strengthen your core with Melissa Hinnant.
(00:05):
Welcome to the Scale with Joy show, a podcast about scaling your company while living your most purposeful life, because here's the thing: there are no rules to say you can't grow a massively profitable empire and have joy in the everyday. My name is Laura Meyer and let's get started
(00:34):
In today's interview. Melissa Hinnant, CEO and Founder of Grace and Lace tells us how she and her husband were able to create a business from scratch and grow it into the millions and how she was inspired by her love for her daughter, who unfortunately passed away and in growing and scaling, they've completely defied the usual business norms. They've hired friends and family. She even went on Shark Tank and got an investment from Barbara Corcoran. So in this interview, she's going to talk a lot about how we strengthen ourselves at our core as we grow our business. And some really interesting tips that barber shared with her, that she is so excited to share with you. So up next is Melissa Hinnant on the Scale with Joy show.
(01:22):
Hi and welcome back. I am here with Melissa Hinnant of Grace and lace. Many of you probably have heard of her story. Many of you have visited her beautiful shop, and I'm just so grateful that you're here, Melissa. Thank you so much for joining us.
Melissa (01:37):
Thanks for having me, Laura. This is exciting.
Laura (01:39):
Yeah. So if you would mind sharing just a little bit about your background, if people don't know about it, people probably know that you were on Shark Tank. So I don't wanna give major spoiler alerts here, but just share maybe a few ways in which you got to today. And then what are some of the big things you're working on right now?
Melissa (01:54):
Like Laura said, my name is Melissa Hinnant, I'm the owner and founder of graceandlace.com. We are a women's apparel company, which I have kind of coined as my accidental company. I've called it, my accidental company because seven years ago, I didn't start out to start a business. Our business kind of started out of a tragedy and out of a loss. So I call it accidental in that way in that I wasn't this like aspiring entrepreneur and knowing exactly what I wanted to have this big business plan in front of me. But our stories stemmed out of a loss and a creation of a product that has turned into what Grace and Lace is.
Laura (02:28):
So you were in the hospital, right? And you were, I've heard you say that, like you were just not the kind of person to sit around and just like watch TV, watch soap operas, right, when you were on bed rest. And so you first started by creating this really unique product, right. That fit underneath boots.
Melissa (02:49):
Boot socks, yeah. The whole beginning of the story is that Rick and I had been married for a couple of years and decided, I've always wanted to have a family. I always wanted to be a mom and decided to start our family. And we didn't know, I had no clue that we would go through such a hard time getting pregnant, struggled, getting pregnant. And so I'd finally gotten pregnant and halfway through my pregnancy, I was at a routine doctor's visit and the doctor suddenly told me, Melissa, you're going to give birth to your daughter in 24 hours. And she won't survive. And it was absolutely earth shattering. They rushed me into emergency surgery. Rick was out of town and at they said, we have one, one chance to save her and to save this pregnancy. And, but that the kind of the consequence would be that I would be on hospital bed rest or remain in the hospital for the duration of the pregnancy, which potentially was four months.
(03:41):
And I was willing to do it. You know, hearing that your first child, this child you prayed for and believe for, for so long that might not survive. I would do anything. And so the surgery was successful, but I was very, very high risk. And I was to lay on my back, tilted upside down on a hospital bed, stood up on my head for months. And just like you were saying, I'm not the type who can just lay there and watch TV. I knew I had to be able to do, you know, something. So I began working with my hands and picking up a craft that I learned when I was really young. And that was just kind of knitting, sewing, crocheting. And I was making baby blankets right on that hospital bed. And that was really when I looked back to kind of the point of when I feel like Grace and Lace was birthed in me. It was that, that point. My love for knits grew, cause I was just working with yarn. Unfortunately our little girl or Halle girl didn't make it. She was born too early to survive. But through her loss and through this pain of her loss was birthed this love for me creating and making things from my hands.
(04:45):
And one day, you know, I can continue to knit and create. And so after I had had her lost her and I just had this idea, I born and raised in Minnesota where most of the year is winter, but I wanted a pair of socks, lace top socks that stuck out of my boot. And so I was determined to make them for myself. I spent hours and hours and hours sewing, trying to make these things after taking about five hours to make this one pair, I told him I would never make another pair. And here we are, close to like, I don't know, probably close to a million pairs pair of socks. So that sock is what started the business. The lace top boot socks started Grace and Lace seven years ago. And I would've had no idea, no earthly idea that a pair of socks that stuck out of your top of boots could turn into what Grace and Lace today, which is a full line of women's apparel.
Laura (05:40):
So awesome. And your husband, I heard applied for Shark Tank and you didn't know it is that right?
Melissa (05:48):
Yes. And long before Grace and Lace, Rick was, we both come from entrepreneurial families. My parents are entrepreneurs. My grandparents were, and my great grandparents were. So I know if I was kind of joked and said, I don't know if I could run from it if I tried. And Rick also comes from an entrepreneurial background as well, and we've always loved Shark Tank. We've watched it since season one. We don't have much time for TV, but it's been a show that we've always loved to watch. And Rick said, one day, I'll never forget laying on that couch, he said, wouldn't it be awesome, Melissa, if we had a business where we can be on Shark Tank and I said, no, I don't want to be eaten alive by Mr. Wonderful. Like I'm watching him eat these people up.
(06:29):
I had a little baby Etsy shop where I sold my little handmade baby stuff. And when I had made this pair of boot socks, because it took me so long, I wore them everywhere and strangers would stop and ask me where I got them and give me their phone number and ask if I can make them a pair. And so Rick had encouraged me, well, why don't you just put them up on your little baby Etsy shop and see if they sell? Well, they went absolutely and completely viral. Within three days, I had sold over 400 pairs of this sock that I had only had one pair of at the time, the business really boomed. And I didn't realize that Rick all along had secretly been applying to Shark Tank. We had a friend that we were talking to that was interested in investing, kind of a business mentor of ours. And he had brought it up. He said, have you ever thought about Shark Tank? We love Shark Tank. And I said, but I don't want to ever be on it. Rick was like, I think you'd do so well. And he said, well, I think I know a producer that night, the producer called us and said, literally, can you fly out in three days and be on the show? And so we were, and I mean has absolutely exploded.
Laura (07:35):
So awesome. So you ended up doing a deal with Barbara. And you kind of wanted her from the beginning, right? And were you even going to take anything from anyone else?
Melissa (07:47):
Rick and I we're, we're Christians, we're believers. And we, you know, we knew we had this exploding business on our hands and to us, every single person who is a part of this business to us, it's more than just a person they're meant to be here and they're supposed to be here and they're part of our team. And so it was important to us that if we're going to give a large portion of our business away to a celebrity investor, it was important for us to do our due diligence and see, you know, who's going to make our best teammate and our best supporter and our best partner. Rick studied all the sharks inside and out, read all their books and just investigated, looked into, studied who they do business with, who's on their team, how successful those are. And we just, at the end of it really felt and knew that Barbara was, that if she were to give us an offer, that she was supposed to be a part. And so we did not feel good about taking an offer from anyone else.
Laura (08:37):
God paved that path and you ended up working with her, so amazing. And what are some of the things that you've learned from her that you feel like, wow, like I'm so glad we're working together. I don't think I would have learned that from anyone else,
Melissa (08:52):
You know, she brings an element it's because in the early parts of the business, so I'm not a trained designer. I have never been to design school. I've never even worked in retail. I have no merchandising background. I'm probably the farthest person that someone look at and say, she should be a clothing designer. And I have no formal training, nothing like that. And this just proves that really God can take anything, make it into anything that he wants, a story that he wants. So she, in those early days, I really, really struggled with, you know, this business is tied to the loss of our daughter. The loss of her was creating a drive for me to create and inspired me to keep designing, keep creating, keep building the business. And the business quickly overwhelmed my very limited sewing skills, very limited design skills.
(09:45):
I needed help. I needed support. I needed train help. And Rick from day one was like, why don't we just hire some designers and hire people to support you? And we need a design team and I just held onto this like, well, this is my business and this is my baby. I couldn't see how this professional, you know, New York designer could come in and work alongside me. I didn't physically see that working. What he was saying all along, took Barbara a real simple one-time sentence to me that I will never forget. We were featured on a one-hour episode of, Beyond the Tank where we talked about the struggles of me hiring a design team. And we received hundreds, if not thousands of applications like overnight for designers from this episode. And I was so overwhelmed and Barbara said, you know, Melissa, don't look at the resume, but hire people that are just like, you hire your best friends in design that maybe have design training.
(10:41):
And that took away this pressure to feel like I had to hire this designer, who's going to know everything and I'm going to lose me and lose my heart in it because they're just going to take over. And instead it caused me to see this as, wow, I can hire someone just like me that has the training and experience that I don't have. And that just totally set me free. I was so overwhelmed. I was so like; how do you just hire all these professional people? And then I just started reading resumes and looking at resumes about who would be my friend? Who's my teammates? That that piece of advice for her has totally formed and changed how we hire everyone for our business. We hire our friends; we hire our neighbors. We hire our family because we know that this business runs and operates different than a lot of the ways how the world or professional environment were to hire.
Laura (11:32):
That's great advice. And I think some people would say, don't work with your friends or don't work with your neighbors or, you know, hire people opposite of you so that they can fill the gaps. And that's really interesting that she gave you that advice, which is basically like hire your people.
Melissa (11:47):
I can't tell you how many times I'm asked that the same thing they always say, well, you're not supposed to hire your friends, in our scenario, the way that we operate our best friends our COO and CFO. They are the leaders of this company that we've been friends with for 15 years, we wouldn't have it any other way.
Laura (12:08):
Hey there! Are you a visionary entrepreneur who wants to create change with your company in the world? If so, I want to let you know about a free masterclass that I just wrapped up. In this short but powerful training, I teach you exactly how to create a brand that inspires the hearts and minds of your audience and invites them into massive action. These are the very same frameworks that I've used to help my own private consulting clients and national companies you know and love, spread their mission, launch expansion, and accelerate influence to join in, visit joybrandcreative.com/ movement. That's joybrandcreative.com/movement. Also available in the show notes. Now, back to the show.
Laura (12:58):
Is there anything else that comes to mind that she shared? Cause that was a really good nugget of wisdom. I'm curious.
Melissa (13:03):
I really appreciate her availability and accessibility to us. You know, when you think about Barbara and you know, she sold her real estate company for $66 million and she's a celebrity. She's just so real. I can pick up my phone at any time and text her and be like, hey, do you have any suggestion for this scenario that we're in? Or I'll never forget the night that shark tank aired, we did a million dollars of sales in just five days of airing in it. We absolutely didn't have the means to support that. And I'll never forget I was in the diaper aisle Target, buying diapers for my kids. and I've been going on days and days of no sleep. And I just felt like I needed to reach out and ask her about an issue that we were having with, we were hiring contracting multiples fulfillment companies to ship products.
(13:53):
I was sitting down in the aisle of target in the diaper, aisle, diapers and milk in my hands. I'm like, my kids need this. We need this to survive and talking to her on the phone. And she's just bringing so much peace and saying, you know what? You can do this. We'll get through this. Let me contact some more fulfillment companies for you. I mean, she's just to be so assessable, so reachable, so willing to help is really what makes her the greatest partner. She's not pushy. She doesn't have an agenda. She's not trying to own and operate our business. She's just there for us. She's even let us, my friends and I she's like, why don't you use my vacation home and take a vacation here. I mean, I really couldn't have asked for better partner and a better partner for us.
Laura (14:34):
What a blessing. It sounds like she really speaks belief into you. Which is something that I think is such a blessing. If you can find that in anybody, right? Like a friend, a spouse, a mentor, that idea of speaking belief into you when you're sitting in the diaper aisle in Target being like, I don't really have anywhere else to talk to you right now. Other than the diaper aisle in Target. I love that you're keeping it real. And so as you scaled and grown, I mean a million dollars. And what did you say five days?
Melissa (15:08):
Five days after airing on Shark Tank.
Laura (15:11):
Yes, because so many people say, oh, I got to a million dollars in 18 months or 24 months. And to me I think, wow, that's, that's pretty fast. You know, for a lot of people that'll take five or seven years and yours was five days. So I would imagine with growth comes some challenges. What are some of the hardest things you've kind of had to look at as you've grown your company?
Melissa (15:31):
Yeah. I mean, I feel like you're nailing the question I always get is usually the question I get is what is the hardest thing about running the company? And my answer is scaling. When I look at what has caused us the most headaches and the most pain, I mean, we went from four employees prior to, to Shark Tank to 34, within five days after shark tank. And now we have about 75 employees. And so in a matter of, you know, what felt like minutes going from, how do we make all this product? How do we fulfill all this product? How do we deliver, how do we handle the customer service? We have really had to grow and shape and form our business by developing core values. And so what we've had to do with scaling that has been a bit of a challenge because our business started as an accident or such a force of demand is right now, we're actually spending a lot of time digging back into developing those core values and that mission statement and our, you know, our, our purpose for being here, why do we exist? Why do people want to be part of our team? Establishing that do, you know, kind of like we tumbled into Grace and Lace and now we're really working on backtracking and establishing most things that a lot of entrepreneurs would have had out the gate. They would have come up with a business plan. They would have come up with a mission statement or taglines or all that stuff. We just kind of threw this all, just kind of came out and now we're spending the time really bringing it back to who are we and why are we here?
Laura (17:12):
Yes, yes. Which ultimately, I think, I was just thinking, as you were talking, I was reflecting on my own experience scaling and I was like, gosh, you can get caught up in all the things it's like such a temptation as you scale to kind of forget how you started and why you started. And I love that you're talking about coming back to that on a regular basis and realizing like throwing more brute force at this is not going to make it better. Like getting back to what we really believe is going to make all of this better, such a good lesson for anybody who's listening, because if you're anything like me or Melissa, if you're like me, you just be like, Oh, it needs help. I'll just throw more of myself at it. Like I'll throw more of my time. I'll throw more of my, you know, to do's. I'll assign another person to it instead of really learning what is what's underneath the challenges. And so where are you, like where are you today in terms of the growth of your company? Are you looking to grow it more or are you kind of at a steady growth point after all of that, you know, like very busy growth season?
Melissa (18:21):
So this is where my husband and I make our thing and work in teams. He's very, very good with numbers and projections and financials and keeping the business on track. And I'm like in with the design and the creative. And so we, along with our leadership team, you know, he'll say he's very numbers driven, but he's also very like, future, looks really good at looking down the line to the future. And I'll always say our goal is to a hundred million plus plus plus companies is how he calls it. I was like, how do you even define what plus plus plus a hundred million, but no, our goal is to reach more, be more and Grace and Lace more than just clothing.
(19:01):
Laura, we're a brand that has a mission and a purpose to give back impact lives. We build orphanages overseas, India, we're building six more orphanages this year. We've built seven so far. And so we have a much, tied the business to a much greater calling than just clothes to me, just clothes is just clothes. It's just a closet and they can go in and out of style. While I love to make women feel great about themselves and look great about themselves. I love, love, love to do that. I knew I had to tie this business to something that had a lasting impact and we're driven by saving lives and saving people. And you can't, you know, the weight of that, of feeling why can't just close my doors in the business because I closed my doors on these orphans that we rescued. We have goals and dreams of continuing to grow and achieve more.
Laura (19:53):
So awesome. So Melissa, I just want to thank you so much for being here. And many of you may have already been looking at Grace and Lace on your computer on your Instagram, and you're looking at some things that you might want to be dressed in. And if you guys end up getting something, please post to Instagram, tag her, tag the team they would love to hear from you. And thank you again, Melissa, for being here.
Melissa (20:15):
Thank you so much for having me Laura,
Laura (20:19):
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The Scale with Joy podcast dives into the mindset and strategies of scaling your company to the million dollar mark and beyond. Each week, we follow the journeys of innovators, disruptors, experts and leaders - sharing behind the scenes stories of their most challenging moments and greatest lessons learned-all while building their multi-million dollar empires.