From selling one ring for grocery money to $250k/month: Building a 7-figure jewellery brand from scratch
After losing everything, Janine turned handmade jewellery into a 7-figure brand by splitting every sale, doubling down on what worked, and building systems that could survive without her.
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Meet the brand founder
Most brands start with a business plan.
This one started with survival.
After being diagnosed with a chronic illness, Janine Leghissa couldn’t work. She lost her home. She was a solo mother with three children and no financial safety net.
There was no investor.
No savings.
No backup plan.
So she began selling her own handmade jewellery online — one piece at a time.
If she sold a ring, half the money went to groceries. The other half went into making two more pieces.
That cycle — sell, split, reinvest — became the foundation of what would eventually grow into a multi-million-dollar ecommerce brand.
This is how Desiderate scaled from a plastic tub of jewellery on the floor to a 7-figure online business.
Janine didn’t start with a grand vision.
She started with skills.
Her background was in colour, design, hairdressing, art and clothing construction. She understood aesthetics. She loved gemstones. And she knew how to create pieces that felt bold and expressive.
In the early days, she worked from bed due to illness. Listings were posted on Facebook late at night after the kids were asleep. Customer messages were answered between school runs and medical appointments.
There was no ecommerce strategy at the beginning.
She didn’t even know what “ecom” meant.
Everything was self-taught:
Building a website
Taking product photos
Writing descriptions
Learning how online payments worked
The turning point came when she noticed a clear gap in the market:
Women 35+ wanted bold, boho-leaning sterling silver jewellery that felt substantial and special — but wasn’t priced like luxury fine jewellery.
They didn’t want fast fashion.
They wanted quality.
But they wanted it accessible.
The pieces that kept selling were:
Large gemstone rings
Chunky silver bangles
Statement pieces with inclusive sizing
Customers didn’t just buy once. They came back asking:
“Can you make this in turquoise?”
“In amethyst?”
“Is there a matching pendant?”
That repeat demand created focus.
Instead of making random one-off pieces, Janine built repeatable signature designs available in multiple stones and sizes.
That product discipline laid the groundwork for scale.
The first real win
The moment it felt real wasn’t a viral post.
It was hiring help to pack orders.
Until then, every week was uncertain. Sales meant groceries. No sales meant stress.
Then the Contempo Bangles and Bold gemstone rings launched — and sold out quickly.
Customers began tagging friends.
They started asking what was releasing next.
Repeat buyers became common.
The post office commented on how many parcels were being dropped off.
That shift — from chasing individual sales to managing demand — changed everything.
Early growth was driven by three specific factors:
1. Repeatable Designs
Instead of one-off creations, the brand focused on reproducible signature pieces in multiple gemstones.
2. SEO and Paid Ads
Once Janine understood search intent and Meta ads, traffic became consistent instead of random spikes.
3. Customer Service as Marketing
Fast, generous, human responses built loyalty. Customers felt seen — and they returned.
Growth wasn’t explosive.
It was compounding.
It took roughly two years before revenue felt stable instead of fragile.
How the business runs today
Desiderate is now a multi-million-dollar online brand with:
7 in-house team members
Remote specialists
Structured systems and procedures
Multi-channel marketing
Janine’s role has evolved significantly.
She no longer packs orders.
She no longer handles daily customer service.
Today she operates as:
Creative Director
Strategy Lead
Product Designer
Marketing Overseer
Most of her energy goes into:
Designing collections and choosing gemstones
Reviewing email and Meta ad performance
Guiding TikTok and short-form content
SEO and AI discoverability
Monitoring analytics and customer behavior
Her weeks revolve around product, marketing, and team leadership.
The key shift from early days to now:
From doing everything to building systems that run without her.
That transition became critical when health issues forced her to step away for nearly a year — including time in a wheelchair and multiple surgeries.
Because procedures and processes had already been documented, the business survived.
Resilience became part of the operating model.
Leveraging experts, agencies & apps
Janine’s approach to experts is practical.
She learned Meta ads herself — and for a long time, agencies couldn’t outperform her. Eventually, her daughter (with an agency background) took over Meta management, allowing for faster iteration.
Google Ads was outsourced earlier.
It wasn’t a strength — so she hired a specialist who lives in keywords, bidding, and feed optimisation.
Other early hires included:
Order packing staff
Customer service support
Developers
Graphic design support
Analytics assistance
The rule:
Never outsource the creative heart of the brand.
Outsource execution depth where specialists outperform you.
Core Shopify Tools
Desiderate relies heavily on:
Judge.me for social proof
Klaviyo for retention marketing
Discount Ninja for advanced offers
Zapier for backend automation
Xero for accounting integration
She’s also focused heavily on structured data and AI search readiness — ensuring product pages are built for how customers naturally ask questions.
What didn’t work?
Agencies that didn’t understand brand voice
Outsourced email that lacked authenticity
Apps with poor support
Now she tests agencies on small projects first and chooses fewer, better-supported tools.
Big challenges
Two challenges defined scaling:
1. Inventory & Cash Flow
Sterling silver prices increased 200–300% in recent years. Every purchasing decision carries risk.
Inclusive sizing (rings 5–14, bangles XS–XXL) adds inventory complexity.
Solutions included:
Pre-orders
Back-in-stock alerts
Data-driven forecasting
Treating inventory planning as seriously as creative
2. Founder Capacity
Health crises forced Janine out of daily operations for nearly a year.
Because systems were in place, the team continued operating.
That year proved something important:
A scalable business must function without constant founder presence.
Resilience is a growth strategy.
Advice to brands on their way to 7–8 figures
Janine’s advice for founders pushing toward 7–8 figures:
1. Double Down on What Sells
Ignore vanity metrics. Build around what customers re-buy.
2. Install Systems Early
Checklists and automation are not optional at scale.
3. Treat Customer Experience as Growth
Retention compounds. Ads are expensive. Loyalty is leverage.
4. Learn Enough to Evaluate Experts
Outsource execution, not thinking.
5. Focus Beats Expansion
Chasing every idea dilutes momentum.
What’s next for the brand
The next 12–24 months focus on intentional growth.
Key priorities:
AI search visibility
Stronger SEO structure
Lean, high-intent email list
Short-form video and TikTok
Expanding into solid gold and diamond pieces
Maintaining sterling silver as the core
Despite rising silver costs, Janine chose not to dilute quality with cheaper fashion jewellery.
Instead, she is moving upward — introducing premium options while protecting the brand’s core.
The long-term goal isn’t just bigger revenue.
It’s a resilient, profitable business that supports both growth and quality of life.
Meet the experts behind brands like this
Scaling a Shopify brand takes more than a good idea — it takes the right people, systems, and partners at the right stage. Meet the experts who support brands like this on shopexperts.com