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Founder@ Interview
Interview with Charlotte Curran
“Practice gratitude daily. Its all about mindset.” – Charlotte Curran
Today we feature Charlotte Curran, the founder at ARTEMIS. We hear their story in their own words, their successes, their challenges and their insights.
Let’s start by getting to know you. Can you please tell us a little bit about you and what you do?
I am Charlotte, 23, and I’m the owner of ARTEMIS, a female-run jewellery brand based in Manchester and I am this year’s finalist of Young Entrepreneur of the Year for the North West via the Great British Entrepreneur Awards.
A great introduction and start to this interview. Can you please tell us, how did you start, from what age, and what made you decide to change direction and start?
I started ARTEMIS at the start of lockdown when I was 21/turning 22. During this time, I had to teach myself everything about business, marketing, growth, PR, finance, scaling, leadership, web design, strategy etc out of necessity, as I didn’t expect this growth and found myself very much in the deep end (as well as completing a masters degree in Philosophy).
I went from a student with a minimum wage part-time job, no idea what career I wanted and having no real experience or expertise, to being a business owner, being the highest earner in my family, having over 500 orders a month and leading a team of amazing women.
Thank you for that insight. So can you tell us…What does your business do and where is your company based?
We are based in Manchester, UK and we create goddess and zodiac inspired jewellery and accessories
What’s the story behind your success? What led to your aha moment? how did you get to where you are now?
Learning everything from scratch, teaching myself ALL the ins and outs of business. I was incredibly lucky with the timing, as online shopping was booming over lockdown and I managed to tap into that instantly. I also managed to nail my marketing strategy, especially via Instagram where my impressions are reaching around half a million people each month.
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It really helped that I didn’t study business formally, as I mostly just practised trial and error and had no existing rulebook to follow, so I had the opportunity to write my own – which was amazing.
Thank you for sharing that. What’s been your life’s biggest lesson so far?
When lockdown eased and the high street opened again, I saw sales dip and I had no idea how long it would last. I sometimes get this in the middle of the month as my audience is very reliant on disposable income, but I always tell myself that consistency in sales is almost impossible as there are so many external factors that affect this.
I have to just trust in myself and my team that we are always working hard and doing all we can, so its mostly about me checking in with myself and keeping my mindset in check and not let it stress me out to the point that I would struggle to find solutions.
I wish I had known that it will work out in the end and to enjoy every moment. I know I will look back at this time and see it as the most amazing time of my life. I should have always kept perspective to how much privilege it is to be a CEO, how much freedom, flexibility and purpose it provides.
If you were to go back in time, what piece of advice would you give to your younger self?
I never knew I would become an entrepreneur, but looking back it seems so obvious, (I hated working for other people and being told what to do!). I would have told myself to take all of the lessons I learnt from minimum wage jobs with poor management and remember them, that those experiences have a purpose that I will realise soon, as I’ll get the opportunity to employ people and give them the exact opposite experiences that I had.
I will never regret being a founder, I feel like my personality means that I could never go back to before I was working for myself. In terms of people doubting me, I only surround myself with people who inspire me and who I would genuinely go to for advice, so the doubters are usually people outside of my circle who I don’t give too much power to.
We’re nearly halfway through our interview so it’s a great time to ask how does your business run. What three tools make your business run better?
Notion is my hub for everything, my team all use this app and it’s where I delegate every task and create to-do lists for everyone, its where all of my templates, flows, media and calendars are. I use Mailchimp for email marketing and Shopify for my site platform.
I really wish I had moved over to shopify sooner, it’s so powerful and it’s so easy to integrate with other apps such as back in stock notifications, promotional apps, subscriber management and communication features. I would love to explore more services that offer automation – I’m always trying to find out how to offload as much as physically possible.
What do you know now that you wished you had known before?
I wish I had known that it will work out in the end and to enjoy every moment. I know I will look back at this time and see it as the most amazing time of my life. I should have always kept perspective to how much privilege it is to be a CEO, how much freedom, flexibility and purpose it provides.
What has been your greatest or proudest achievement or moment?
Being a finalist for Young Entreprenur of the Year via the Great british entrepreneur awards
What future life goals do you want to achieve and why?
To keep doing what I’m doing and finding a way to contribute, whether that’s through charity work, education or simply offering more work opportunities.
To finish our inspire questions…”We believe that sharing inspiring words can inspire others.” If there was one positive thing you would say to someone to inspire and empower them what would it be and why?
Practice gratitude daily. Its all about mindset
“Thank you it has been great learning more about your founder story and ARTEMIS”
To learn more about ARTEMIS Visit www.artemisaccessories.co.uk
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