For the first 2.5 years of Luv Luxe, I ran the business out of my childhood bedroom. At first, it seemed manageable. A few handbags here, some shipping supplies there. But as the business started gaining traction, it slowly began taking over my room… then my closet… then every available closet in the house. My dad, the one who raised me, not my biological father (that’s another wild story that probably deserves an entire blog series someday), was an airline captain. If you’ve ever flown on a plane, you’ll probably agree that organization and precision are qualities you want in the person landing it. Thankfully, he passed those traits on to me. What he didn’t appreciate, however, was trying to sleep beneath what sounded like a small shipping warehouse. Every morning I’d be upstairs at 5:00 a.m., packaging orders before heading off to college classes. My bedroom was directly above his master bedroom, and apparently the combination of stomping around, boxes moving, and shipping tape being aggressively pulled from the dispenser wasn’t exactly soothing background noise.
One day he handed me a letter. The first half was incredibly sweet. He told me how proud he was of me, encouraged me to keep chasing my dreams, and reminded me that he believed in what I was building. Attached to it was an eviction notice. To this day, it’s one of the funniest and most loving things anyone has ever done for me. At the time, I thought he was being dramatic. Looking back now, I get it. If I take one quick flight to Los Angeles, I’m jet-lagged for a week. Meanwhile, he was flying cross-country routes at all hours of the day and night, then coming home to what had essentially become Luv Luxe Headquarters operating above his bedroom. What felt like a crisis at the time ended up being exactly the push I needed. I started looking for my first real office and eventually found a small space beneath the Optima Camelview condos in Scottsdale. Calling it an office might be generous; it was basically the size of a shoebox. But it had large front-facing windows, and I convinced myself that residents walking to and from their luxury condos would see my displays and become clients. There was just one small problem. The windows had what felt like the darkest blackout tint known to mankind. You could barely see through them. Still, somehow people found us. In fact, some of those early walk-in clients are still buying and selling with Luv Luxe today.
Now, about signing that lease. I’ll never forget walking into the leasing office. From day one, the manager made it very clear she wasn’t a fan of me. Whether it was my age, my business, or just a personality clash, I have no idea, but she made my life difficult every chance she got. Ironically, I saw her a month ago while standing in line somewhere. I couldn’t figure out why she looked so familiar, but the hairs on the back of my neck immediately stood up. It bothered me for hours until it finally clicked. It was her. The scary leasing manager. The woman who gave me endless headaches during those early years. As frustrating as she was, looking back, she taught me one of the most valuable lessons in business. Because I was locked into that lease and she was my primary point of contact, I had no choice but to learn how to work with difficult people. I had to learn patience, professionalism, problem-solving, and how to keep moving forward even when someone wasn’t rooting for me. Those lessons ended up serving me far beyond that tiny office.
Over the next two years, Luv Luxe grew from one shoebox office to three offices within the same building. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was exactly the stepping stone the business needed. Sometimes growth doesn’t look like a beautiful storefront or a major milestone. Sometimes it looks like getting lovingly evicted from your childhood bedroom, signing a lease on a space that’s way too small, and figuring things out as you go.
Thanks for being here!
Xx
Syd