Girl Gang Craft Podcast Episode #84 “Reinventing the Family Business”

Phoebe Sherman interview with Payal and Kajal Vitha of Sonu Company

INTRO
Phoebe Sherman

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Welcome to the Girl Gang Craft Podcast where we dive in deep to all things business, wellness, creativity, and activism for artists and entrepreneurs. We talk with impactful female driven companies and founders for an inside look at the entrepreneurial experience where you'll come away with tangible steps to elevate your business. Are you ready? I'm your host, Phoebe Sherman, founder of Girl Gang Craft artist and designer, and marketing obsessed. We're here to learn together how to expand our revenue, implement new organizational techniques, and cultivate best business practices as we work towards creating a life doing what we love. Let's get started.

Hello. Hello, creators! I'll come back to grog and craft the podcast. Today we have Payal and Kajal on the podcast. They are from Sonu Company. Sonu Company is a bespoke engagement ring and fine jewelry brand based in Los Angeles. Founded by South Asian sisters Payal and Kajal. Pride themselves on bringing a seamless consultative approach to their design process, where client will work directly with a diamond expert. Sancho's fine jewelry collection delivers accessible diamond jewelry using lab grown and ethically sourced mined diamonds at every price point, and we've got a little coupon for you. So if you want to go buy yourself some gold and some diamonds with promo code Tribe, you get $50 off your purchase with a minimum spend of 249. So I've been eyeing a couple things and we'll hop into all that. There's these earrings that are gorgeous. I've been eyeing a couple of rings myself, so I need to get paired to see myself. But before we hop into the interview, let's talk about a couple things. When this podcast is live, it's like a two days until Oakland GDC. So if you're in the Bay area, Oakland, GDC is May 18th, 11 to 5. It is free to attend at Oakland Scotus, right? Right by Lake Merritt in the heart of Oakland and we have some amazing staff. We have a pizza food truck. We have aura photos. We have tattoos. This is our first album of tattoos. I was so excited. We have a deejay. We have, of course, our feminist, maybe Taylor Swift inspired cocktails. And we have, of course, a 100 femme vendors and it is a good time. Come bring all your money, bring all your friends, get shopping, maybe buy your mom a belated Mother's Day gift or yourself something. Get ready for summer. It's a good time. I won't personally be there, but my team also has. Go say hi to them. Go say hi to all the vendors. Hope to see you there if you can't make it in person. We have our mom gift guide on the site. You can shop for yourself, shop for your mom if maybe you're a little belated that's cool a belated present is still great y'all. And what else do we have? So that's coming up. Next up on the agenda, if you're on the East Coast, we have Providence and our two Salem events. Providence is June 8th, Salem is June 22nd and then July 27th. And we have, of course, our full winter and late summer lineup with Sacramento. But let's just focus on the craft fairs that are coming up really soon. And then if you need help, you can just call me up, call Phoebe up. And our phone number is (413) 961-0858. So you can just leave a voicemail on that phone with your question. And we're going to start inserting those questions into our episode. So I'll answer them. Or maybe you'll bring in an expert in depending on what the topic is. So call me up. Call girl game craft up (413) 961-0855 and go ahead and leave a review. Please, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and we will give one lucky reviewer a coaching call with me. Reviews really help you all. So if this podcast has been helpful, pretty please leave us a review. I'll love you forever. And that's really at. Oh, and like if you need help with crafty stuff, we've got a free craft fair e-book. You can go to our site or our landing page on Instagram. And it's right there. Actually, I think you can also go to Great Game craft comic book. I have to like, memorize so many girls. And man, I do have a list of my notes for you, but I also have to know all of them. But yes, Brogan Craft, I can actually get you to the space, the amount of URLs, partnership coupons, and then all of your personal names, your real names and your business names that I need to know and would like to know. It's a lot. I really do try my best. I try my best to know both your brand name and your real name, and maybe you and your dog's name or your child's name really do. But it's not a perfect system. There's a lot of you. Okay, that's. I'll stop talking nonsense. If you're on either coast, come say hi to us at our event. I will personally be at all the East Coast events for the rest of the year, and we'll see if I make it out to California for any of those events personally. Okay. Love you. Thank you for listening and let's dive into it.

Hello. Hello, welcome to the Girl Gang Craft Podcast. Today we have Kajal and Payal on the podcast to talk about their jewelry business. Welcome to Girl Gang Craft.

Payal
Thanks.
Kajal
Hey, we're excited to be here.

Phoebe
Thank you so much for joining us. Can you tell us a little bit about your business?

Kajal
Yeah so, Sonu Company is a bespoke engagement ring and fine jewelry brand. And our goal with our company was really to make jewelry shopping much easier, whether that be from the girl side or the guy side. We're here to help you run the whole process. Our bread and butter, our customer engagement rings. So we do start to finish full custom rings. One thing a little bit different about us, is we do create a sketch for you guys prior to you actually ever seeing your ring. I think that's the part that people get really scared about for custom rings is, you know, it's trying to be on the same page. So we're here to make that whole process easier and take the stress off the couple itself.

Phoebe
Love it so much. So how did you get started in your jewelry business ladies?

Payal
Our family has a history in the jewelry industry, so Kajal and I are third gen jewelers, so our dad, he still is in the industry. He focuses more on like traditional 22 karat South Asian jewelry. But we wanted to find our own space in the industry. We didn't want to just, like, dive into the family business. And engagement rings, really. We just kind of fell in love with that process. A lot of our friends were in that age range and they were like, hey, we're thinking of proposing, but I know nothing about jewelry. I know nothing about diamonds. Can you and your dad help us? And we did that for a handful of our friends, and we really just fell in love with their love. We really got excited about those texts after they proposed. And that's really when we were like, hey, we love doing this, so let's do it full time.

Phoebe
Amazing. So yeah, I would love to hear a little bit more about the difference between your company and your dad’s, and how that sort of felt to sort of break away from the family business and do your own thing.

Kajal
Yeah. So we grew up at our dad's shop. It is based in LA in Little India. So very niche market for the South Asian community. I think for us we wanted to be different. And 22 carat is something that I would say most markets are not familiar with. It's a very high concentrated gold of jewelry. So it's like the highest, purest form gold can be in jewelry form. And it's very South Asian based. So we wanted to do something different.
Payal And so we wanted to appeal to everybody. We didn’t just want to appeal to the South Asian market. We wanted to be a brand that was for everyone.
Phoebe
And you work in like 14 karat is that then the next step. Is there anything in between 14 karat and 22? Tell me a little bit about karats.

Kajal
Yeah. So we work with 14, 18, and platinum. Typically diamonds, in general whether you're going lab grown or natural, we don't sell them in 22 carat just because the gold is so soft. You can actually kind of just take a piece of jewelry and just crumble it with their hand. That's how soft the jewelry is. But it's very intricate filigree work. So it's a very intricate designs and things like that. But diamonds itself are not safe in 22 carat. So those we typically set in 14, 18, and platinum. And as we go up the scale, it just means you're gettng a higher percentage of gold.

Payal
Also, if you've never seen 22 carat jewelry, it's much more of a yellow gold like a brighter yellow gold versus what we see in everyday fine jewelry. Which is still yellow gold but it's not as it's not as yellow.

Phoebe
Yeah fascinating I love it. So diamonds can't go in 22 carat. Can you talk a little bit about the kind of diamonds that you work with?

Payal
Yeah. So our main focus is lab grown diamonds. We do also offer certified mined diamonds. Everything that we do is ethically sourced. So we make sure that it's going through the Kimberley Process and things like that. But with the increase in popularity of lab grown diamonds, if you're not familiar, lab grown diamonds and real diamonds are 100% real diamonds. They're made of the same chemical composition. Kajal is going to laugh at me, but the way I like to explain it is like ice. Ice that's formed in your freezer and ice formed naturally. They're both made of water. They're both still real ice. It's just having a different origin point, and that's really what it is. Lab grown diamonds are grown in the lab, and they're mimicking that same pressure and temperature as what happens in the Earth naturally. They're able to speed up that process. We're not waiting millions of years. We're waiting a couple of months.

Kajal
And a lot of people actually don't know in order to get the process started, to grow a lab grown, we actually use a sliver of a mined diamond as a seed. And then with the pressure and the temperature, that seed will become a rough diamond in a bigger cycle.

Phoebe
You mentioned the Kimberley Process. What is the Kimberley Process?

Kajal
So the Kimberley Process is something that is very prominent in the natural mind diamond world. We are mining in the earth in nature. And so it's just making sure that one, you're not mining any blood diamond. So whether that be the labor that's going through it or wherever you are, you're not kind of disrupting anything and creating any harm to whether that's the person or the earth. So it's just really going through the process and making sure that the diamonds you're getting, you're getting them ethically, you're not hurting anyone or going through a rough process.

Phoebe
Thank you for that. You're both so good at. It's hard to interview two people sometimes or to be interviewed on these two people. So you're so good at letting each other take the questions.

Kajal We’ve done enough podcasts

Payal
We really have kind of figured out what are they that Kajal’s going to be talking about. What are things that I and even within our business. Right. Like we do different things. We can't do everything. We would literally never get anything done. So finding that balance of like what's her responsibility and what's my responsibility? I think naturally now translates to when we're doing interviews or podcasts. There are times where both of us will start talking and like one of us will have to be like, okay, let's see you. But overall, I think we're getting better at it.

Phoebe
Who's the older sister?

Payal
Me.

Phoebe
Do you feel like you guys fit into those roles like older sister, younger sister at all?

Kajal
Yeah, I think in our personal life, yes, obviously. But in work life we have a really good balance now. We've been doing it for about three years that we don't step on each other's toes as much in the beginning I think–

Payal
But there's still disagreements, like at the end of the day, we're still sisters and working with your family, especially like your sister, who's also one of your best friends, is hard. We definitely have to take a second and be like, look, we are on the same page. We have the same goal. It's not like my ways the right way or your ways the right way. It's like, what is the right way for Sonu Company? There's definitely a valid saying act, but I want to say when it comes to like the jewelry itself, Kajal has worked with our parents in our family business for some time now as well, so when it comes to like jewelry specific knowledge and that side and the creative side of our craft, she's definitely more of the go to person for us. I tend to be more of our back end operations finance. So I think because of we have that balance and like our strong suits, it really helps us kind of navigate who is handling what.

Phoebe
Do you guys have like specific titles for yourself, or give us a little bit behind the scenes for the operations and sort of your division of labor and how you got to that point?

Kajal
Yeah. So I do a lot of the social media. So one hat of mine is kind of like the marketing side. I work with to do the paid advertising to do with all the organic socials, and then I handle a lot of more of the designing aspect of the custom pieces, whether that be a ring or a necklace. Usually they'll take a discovery call with Payal, kind of get to know our clients, and they'll go through that whole phase. And once they're ready to kind of really start designing and they nail down their center stone with Payal, then they'll kind of come to me for the ring design and then Payal you explain yours.

Payal
Yeah for me, I'm more handling like our business development. And so a lot of our on top of like what Kajal is pushing out there for our paid advertising or our marketing. I'm really the one that's out here outbound reaching out to folks, making sure that they know who we are. So a lot on the business development, but also a lot on our finance side is like making sure that our company stays running and that we are paying all of our bills or all of our sales tax, all of these things that you really didn't know we needed to do before we started a company.

Kajal
I like to say my job is much easier. We tell people this all the time. We're like making the jewelry and doing all of that stuff is so easy. It's really all the other stuff that you don't realize that goes into running a business. So like the tax and paying taxes and doing our accounting. And I like to say I have the easy job and Payal is a little bit more difficult. And we're just both learning along the way.

Payal
Yeah. And a lot of our website maintenance that's also on my task list.

Phoebe
Is it just do you guys or do you have more people working for you.

Kajal
Currently we are a just a two person team, but eventually we would love to really expand the team, whether that be in marketing. We have an intern, so that was a great step for us this year.

Payal
That was like a huge help

Phoebe
Are you making all the jewelry then yourself in-house?

Payal
So a lot of the design work happens in-house. We do have a team of freelancers that we work with to actually manufacture and set the diamonds. That's a whole different ball game in itself. So we do have a team of freelancers that we work with, the actual manufacturing of the item. But all of that design work is happening in-house. Yeah.

Phoebe
And you both are in LA also.

Payal
Yes.

Phoebe
Okay, cool. Well, thank you so much for that inside scoop. So let's take it back a little bit. When you guys first got started and sort of created your own business, how did it go? Because I know you're working with expensive materials. How did you get that start with like being able to hold inventory and be able to work with expensive materials getting started.

Payal
Well, that's a great question. It's something that especially like you said, we are expensive. We're using expensive materials. Our cost of goods is much higher. One thing that we are really proud of is when we decided to take the step and start so new ourselves, we entirely bootstrapped the company. So as of right now, we've taken no outside funding. We've kind of invested everything and all of what we have to make this company grow. And in turn, we didn't keep a lot of inventory on hand. In the beginning, we were really custom focused, and a lot of our work was as we needed to. But as we've grown, that's changed. We are now building out a collection. We have loose diamonds on hand for people that want to see, you know, if they're unsure. We have, I think, almost every shape and in different sizes now available, but we're building out collections. And so we now have inventory that we're building out and designing ourselves. So we're really headed in that direction. We want to really be able to show and have people see, like, what are the items that we've created? And we're not just doing custom engagement rings anymore. We can do anything custom like, if you've got a vision for it, we're here to make that happen. But also if you're not in the market for something custom, we want to be able to offer items that are still fine jewelry, but maybe at a lower price point.

Phoebe
Yeah, I mean, I was browsing some of your collections, just your casual wear. I'm like, I mean, I give myself I just got married in September, so I do have the diamond ring. I do have my engagement set, but I need something for my right hand.

Kajal
Yeah, yeah.

Payal
There you go!

Phoebe
I loved your fine jewelry stackable rings and they're at a very affordable price points, too. And they're gorgeous.

Kajal
Thank you. Yeah, I think that's really, like, a main focus for us is jewelry can always be seen as very expensive and very unattainable. And being able to offer jewelry at different price points is very important for us, because we understand that not everybody can splurge $600 $800. And so being able to offer the alternative of lab grown diamonds is a huge step in the jewelry market itself. Just giving people a different option.

Payal
Also, it shouldn't break the bank to invest in good quality jewelry. If you're going to be spending a couple hundred dollars on a piece of jewelry like you want to make sure your ears aren’t turning green, it's like these are investment pieces that at the end of the day, it's still all 14 K solid gold, especially for our fine jewelry side. But there's still value that holds on to it. The goal is that it's lasting. You wears and wears and wears, and then when you go back, a lot of times people bring back old jewelry, especially when in like 22 karat, like when we see it at our dad’s shop, jewelry that they've worn, they're able to kind of bring that back, get the value for their gold and be able to invest in a new piece for them. So it really becomes

Kajal
Like a rotating cycle.

Payal
We really become their jeweler for generations. We want you to enjoy our pieces. And then when you're ready for a refresh or an upgrade, come back to us. Let's see what we could do. Maybe we reset that stone in a new setting and you're getting a new ring or whatever that may be. The options are endless.

Kajal
And I think going off of what Payal said, I think one of our crazy stories is being the jewelers for generations is we had a client where her mom made her engagement ring with our dad about 30 years ago, and she organically found Sonu and was like, wow, the connection. I'm getting my engagement ring from you guys now and my mom got it from your dad. It was really sweet just to see that cycle of she grew up coming to our parent store and then buying something from Sonu that she felt like she can relate to the brand. So that was a really good story for us.

Payal
Yeah, I have to say, it was such a surreal moment. It took her a second. She was like, wait, do your parents own Vitha Jewelers? She was like, no way. She was like, my mom actually got her ring and she like, pulled out the bill. And I was like, this is crazy. Yeah.

Phoebe
That's so cool. You've said third generation. So do your parents parents. They had a jewelry company also or the same company?

Kajal
Yeah. So Vitha Jewelers, we actually had eight locations across the US at one point California, Florida, New York, Chicago, multiple stores. We are the last one out of the eight stores. But my dad's dad started Vitha jewelers in Chicago. That was our first store.

Phoebe
That's incredible.

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Phoebe
Do you guys have an in-person store also then?

Payal
Not yet.

Kajal
Not yet. Currently, we do operate at a Vitha Jewelers showroom, so we do have a little corner. So hopefully down the line of 2024 we do open a showroom.

Payal
It's been top of mind. Yeah, but we are mainly e-commerce, so especially our couples for the engagement ring side work with us virtually. Surprisingly, the only people that come in store to work with us are either our community of friends and family, or word of mouth referrals. But everyone else tends to find us digitally.

Phoebe
So tell us a little bit about your digital marketing strategy.

Kajal
For digital marketing. I think it's different for every platform. We're very heavy on Instagram. Instagram is our main bread and butter. We post a lot of rings, our custom rings. TikTok is another platform that we use. It's a little bit more difficult because TikTok is such an organic platform that people want to see organic content as well. They don't want to feel like you're selling to them. I would say TikTok is a little bit of a different here, where we try to be a little bit more authentic. We don't want to make it feel like we're selling to you. We have been trying to be a little bit better about being more in front of the camera. I think that can help people relate to us a little bit more. So that's definitely top of mind of trying to be in front of the camera. Pinterest is huge for us. We try to do a lot of Pinterest. We're trying to do Pinterest ads because every girl comes in with their Pinterest board of like what you want. And that's like the number one thing all the girls like, here's my Pinterest board, now go make the ring. And so Pinterest is trying to be a top of mind for us, but other than that, organic is huge for us. I think paid socials will always be there, but organic is something that people feel they have the credibility when they see, like our real clients talking about us and videos about how process of working with us. So I would say organic social media is really our bread and butter and having and.

Payal
Our influencer partnerships, our creator partnerships are such a huge part of how we build our brand credibility, how we get our name out there and like what we do well. The niche that we've kind of positioned ourself in is we've worked with a lot of the couples that come out of Netflix reality shows. We were really honored to be able to do the engagement ring for, like, Randall and Schneck from The Ultimatum and like Marshall and Shay from Love Is Blind. Got a couple more in the pipeline. So hopefully we'll be able to share those soon. And then also our opportunity of like Indian Matchmaking and being able to share who we are and our custom process, because I think when you're high ticket and you're such an emotional purchase, having that trust in that brand credibility is so important. If I'm going to spend a thousand plus dollars with you. Like, I need to make sure that I can trust you and that you're going to be able to fulfill what I'm looking for our creator partnerships to really help us reach way more people without having to pump out a ton in ad dollars.

Phoebe
Is that something that sort of came organically, or did you do any sort of pitching to the reality TV community? How did you get your brand in front of those influential people?

Kajal
Yeah. So for Indian Matchmaking, the opportunity kind of came to us. We did have to pitch ourselves. So they were kind of deciding between a group of jewelers. We had to create a pitch deck and kind of just present ourselves as a brand and who we are. And so when we push ourselves, they did choose Sonu and then we did go down the interviews and stuff like that. But everyone else after Indian Matchmaking, I would say we reached out ourselves and was like just pitching the brand and saying, like, we loved your show. This is who we are, and we'd love to be a part of your story. And then slowly people just started coming to us after we kind of did our initial just introduction. That was kind of a little bit humbling to see, like all these people come back to us and was like, oh yeah, we'd love to work with you guys, that this is a great opportunity. And so in the beginning, it was coming to us. In the beginning we went to them and now it's coming at us.

Payal
Yeah, I will never forget because Kajal and I both have our socials on our phone. But we had gotten a DM to the Sonu page of someone that was like, hey, I would love to work with you guys. I'm looking to propose in the next like five months. And at that moment we're like, the message came through, I kid you not like, I think the call was instant. We were like, did you just see the inbox? Like, yeah, so and so just DM just asking for a ring like, you know, it's still such an exciting moment because this is all new to us. We are not by any means influencers or content creators. So we're really learning as we go. But when the validity of like someone reaching out to you like, hey, I saw your stuff and I feel confident that you can deliver what I'm looking for is such a is such an amazing feeling.

Phoebe
Were you on the show Indian Matchmaking? Yes, you both were.

Kajal
We did get a little bit.

Phoebe
Okay, tell us about that. Because I haven't watched it.

Kajal
So that was a different experience. So like I said, we're not very comfortable or even used to being in front of the camera. So shooting for reality TV was something they were like, get out of your comfort zone. You're like, act natural when they have like a giant camera at your face. But it was a great opportunity. I think just being able to talk about Sonu and show who Sonu is on screen and getting that opportunity really boosted our brand. But yeah, I’ll let Payal tell a little bit too.

Payal
And it gave us a chance to, like, also share our family story. Like we filmed at our dad's showroom. So that was really special for him because it wasn't shown in the material that made the episode. But my dad was a part of filming. There's actually a photo of him when he was 28, right between work and I are now when he opened his shop. So for us to be able to have such a huge milestone and to also be able to share that with him was really special. Like he was really excited. And I think that's also like such a huge part of us, like working in our family industry, is that like, our parents are so excited. They're so supportive. They're really like our go to for any like questions. And if we're trying to do new stuff, I think we would call our dad, like our number one advisor. He's really the person that we'r calling for all the advice. But when we got to film for Indian matchmaking, we really got a chance to, like, meet the couple and understand like what is their vision for their ring. And then the opportunity to actually be on the show, like Kajal said was kind of intense. It was kind of scary, but also really exciting.

Kajal
And then watching the playback of yourself on TV was also another mind blowing thing. You never realized that feeling. And now the fact that we can both say like, yeah, we're on Netflix. I think it's pretty cool.

Phoebe
Did you guys get like a fun outfit for the show that you were really excited about or anything like that? Any prep?

Kajal
Okay actually outfit. Really funny.

Payal
We totally did. We like went shopping. We tried to figure out what is our balance of professional-

Kajal
In terms of colors and like we didn't want to match in terms of colors either. So we were like, okay, you be your own kind of color.

Phoebe
Can’t completely match. Or you could. You have to like really lean in or lean out.

Payal
Yeah, exactly. So I was wearing a black top with this light green kind of mint color slacks, and Jamal was coming in for the engagement ring. He's now engaged to Aarthi from the show, but he came in with two of his sisters and I kid you not like, obviously we’re a jewelry store. So we have our cameras and security, like security cameras. And I literally, like, saw one of his sisters walk in and she's wearing the exact same outfit as me. She's wearing a black top and mint green slacks pants.

Phoebe
Oh my god!

Kajal
yeah.

Payal
And I was like

Kajal
Literally to the tee.

Phoebe
And she was on the show too at the same time.

Payal
Yeah, she was going to be filming in that scene with us. And I was like.

Kajal
And I go to Payal, she’s wearing the same thing as you you’ve got to change!

Phoebe
Don’t you think there should be like a spreadsheet, right? You know, like at a potluck. You don't want to have doubles. The same for reality TV. You want to make sure that no one's wearing the same thing, right?

Payal
Exactly. So I'm so, so.

Kajal
We had a plan A outfit. And we had a plan B outfit. And so luckily Payal just changing to plan B outfit, but she was like that was my go to outfit!.

Payal
Yeah. That was the one that I had spent the time I thought about. I was like, yes, this is the one that I'm going to be wearing for our scene. And I was a little disappointed I’m not gonna lie because, like, I was really excited about the green pants, but it's okay. We were prepared.

Phoebe
So smart to have a plan B, everyone listening. Always have a plan B for your clothes in public or on a reality show.

Kajal
You're on a reality show. Always have a plan B.

Payal
Honestly, you should just have extra outfits anyways. You never know what will happen. I'm a huge believer in always having all my options. I don't want to get somewhere and I'm like way underdressed. I need to make sure that I've got options and I'm matching the right vibe.

Phoebe
That's so true. And then what did you wear?

Kajal
I wore a black just trousers and then a bodysuit that kind of reflected our brand color. So it was like a burnt orange color. That was my Plan A outfit. So I loved it.

Phoebe
Yeah, I love it. Okay, I guess backing up even more too. You've only been running your business for three years, right? So what were you both doing before then?

Kajal
I kind of jumped into the family business right out of college, so I was in the jewelry space, but just kind of focusing more on the South Asian niche. And then Sonu came. So I've been doing jewelry since college, just kind of focusing my energy in different ways.

Payal
I actually didn't jump into the family business right away. I went to the traditional corporate route, so I was working in tech. I was working for a startup, it was a cannabis tech startup, and then I was also doing Sonu. So while Sony was like kicking off and we were also running, I was still working full time. And then actually right before we filmed for Indian Matchmaking is when I went full time with Sonu and have been since. So it's been almost two now. Two years. Oh wow. Almost two years now. Yeah, it's kind of crazy to think about, but I always knew. I think I always had that back and forth feeling of like, when am I going to be ready to leave my traditional 9 to 5 and be able to kind of pursue my company with my sister full time

Kajal
And that was a big moment, because as soon as we both kind of really focused our energy towards Sonu and she went full time and I'm focusing more of my energy on Sonu, a lot of things just kind of domino effect for Sonu, like we just saw the catapult of like the marketing and just like getting the brand out there. And we saw the huge shift when we focused our 100% energy. We saw the shift in our business and the progress and everything.

Payal
It's crazy how much you can get done when you're actually focused on one task at hand.

Phoebe
So what was that moment for you that made you feel that you were allowed to switch over, or that allow yourself to switch over completely?

Payal
I feel like you never know when the timing is 100% correct, but I was also in the middle of wedding planning and I was trying to grow this company and we had this huge opportunity coming in. So when we decided me and my husband, we had this whole conversation like he was like, this is your moment. He was like, go for it. Take the time fully. Give it everything, see if you can really catapult Sonu after the Netflix show airs. And we also didn't have like a solid date. We knew when we were filming, but we didn't have a solid date for when the show was coming out. So it was really like me focusing on planning this wedding and also getting all of our stuff prepped for when the show was going to come out. And it actually aired three weeks after my wedding. So the timing

Kajal
High adrenaline.

Payal
We were, we were literally like, we can't stop because we're going to crash. So we just have to, like, keep going on this, like high adrenaline. So we found out the show was going to air a week before, like a month late to give you like a one month window. So it was like a week before my wedding event started and that it was like the wedding ended. And it wasn't like my husband. I did not take a honeymoon. The wedding ended and it was like full planning mode for three weeks, getting everything together, making sure our site was perfect, making sure that we had all the right content and material and PR for the show to drop. So I think that was really what pushed me to be like, okay, no, I need to take all of this energy that I'm like spending building somebody else's company. I need to take all that and put it towards my own and see what we can really do. So I don't think there was like a defining moment. It was just like, this is the time to really try.

Kajal
And we knew the Indian Matchmaking was a huge moment. So we were like, if we don't focus our energy now, then we'll never get that same opportunity or that same boost. And so I think just the show airing, just really we knew we wanted to, but it just pushed us to do it. Yeah.

Phoebe
Yeah. I mean you don't want to just breeze by that. You want to make the most of that opportunity for sure and make sure that you're supporting yourselves and your audience and the new influx of customers, for sure. From a personal side, I mean, planning a wedding is wild and running a business. So if you're running a business, planning a wedding and working a 9 to 5, that's a lot. So I'm so glad you made that decision.

Payal
Yeah, I wish I was already going a little crazy. And so, just for my own mental peace, I really needed to pick two, I think that was one of the best decisions that I made. I think about it now all the time. If I was still working my traditional 9 to 5, we wouldn't have been able to do so many of the very cool things that hurt I have gotten to do in the last year and a half. I'm very thankful, and I'm really glad that we kind of took that leap of faith on each other.

Phoebe
What was part of the outcome of the show. Do you have any sort of tangible results, like straight from the show, that you could share?

Kajal
Oh yeah, we got a couple of custom orders. So a lot of people who watch the show, they were South Asian because it's just a heavy South Asian show. We got a couple orders, but more than anything

Payal
I think you're being a little modest over there. A couple orders.

Phoebe
A couple means two, did you get only two or more than that

Payal
We definitely got a lot of interest and a good amount of those converted into clients that came and really became like lifelong customers for us.

Phoebe
And you don't know where people see you and if they're ready to get married yet. Or like when they come back to.

Kajal
It really pushed Sonu’s name across the US. I mean you know Indian matchmaking is a global show. But really the marketing dollars that we could have probably spent to do that kind of advertising was not compared to Indian Matchmaking. Now, a heavy client base of work is the East Coast and we're on the West Coast. So it's really pushed our name worldwide to have Sonu’s brand be out there.

Phoebe
That's awesome. Do you kind of skipped over the pandemic? Did you start this 2021? Did you have any sort of pandemic consequences? Would you say?

Payal
We officially incorporated and became like Sona Company March of 2021? But I want to say 2019 and 2020 were really the time’s that we were helping our dad and kind of figuring out that this is what we wanted to do. I want to say was like mid 2020 when we were like, okay, we want to do this, but we really took our time. We went to GIA, we got diamond certified. We did a lot of research. We have like a 13 page business plan, like we really wanted to make sure that if we were going to do this, we were going to do it right, and we weren't just going to hop into it because like she said, we are still learning as we go. There's still so much that we don't know. And as founders, I think that was one of the big things that I talked about. I was like, we don't know everything. And the minute we stop learning and being curious is when we're going to stop growing at the rate that we want to. We're growing. We're learning. But we did kind of skip over the pandemic a little bit as Sonu company, but I think the time that it gave us to become and learn was worth it.

Phoebe
What do you all do for fun and how do you take care of yourselves when you're running a business?
Kajal
That is a good question, because I think we struggle with that a little bit, especially be a child. Because we are sisters and business partners, we sometimes forget that, okay, now we are hanging out to have fun or like for personal, and we're not hanging out to talk about work. And that line gets a little bit blurry in terms of like what we talked about, trying to make sure we have to be like, okay, we're not talking about work, we're just going to have dinner and do that. But I actually like to play golf. I was a collegiate athlete, so I went on to college on the scholarship to play golf. So I play golf. My boyfriend with my dad with Payal husband. And that's really all I do, because all these boys just drag me out because they're trying to beat me and they can't beat me.

Kajal
I love it, I play golf.

Payal
What am I doing for fun these days?

Kajal
You became a Pilates girlie.

Payal
Oh, yeah. I have a pillow you go through. It's real. I've also started climbing the. So not like bouldering, but like rope climbing. And that's been a really fun new thing. I also really love my long nails and going climbing is not really the best combo. I think rope climbing is a good middle ground there. I like going skiing like I'm not really good. I'm definitely the girl going down the greens the whole day, but the fact that I can get from the top of the mountain down and kind of rinse and repeat is fun. But so that's really what I've been up to for fun and cooking.

Kajal
Yeah, I was just going to say we love food.

Payal
Yeah.

Kajal
Any kind of Asian, Indian, any kind of food, we are all about it, whether we're cooking it ourselves or going out to eat.

Payal
Our dad likes a joke. He was like, do you guys ever think about anything other than food? Because we're always like, we'll get to work.

Kajal
We're like eating lunch, thinking about what we're going to eat for dinner.

Phoebe
I'm the same way. I’m absolutely the same way.

Kajal
Finish your meal now and then talk about your next.

Phoebe
No, no, no, no, I should think about all three of your meals, plus your snacks and dessert throughout the whole day.

Payal
Exactly. Yeah.

Phoebe
That's the thing I miss the most about California, because I'm from California. I'm from the Bay area, and there is food options over here, but it's not the same.


Payal
Yeah, the amount of variety that you get in California and the kind of the mix of all of those cuisines, even together, like the amount of fusion food has become so popular, it's like one of my friends has a Italian Indian sports bar. And like the two, you're like, how does this mesh? But it meshes so well. So that fusion side of things, it's like, okay, can I like, remake this? Can I try this at home, like pizza with them chutney on it?

Phoebe
I'm here for it. Yeah. I was thinking like pasta with like a I don't know I don't know.

Kajal
He does have you have something like that where it's like. Yeah. So like a kofta with like a curry flavor. Butter chicken flavor.

Phoebe
Yum.

Kajal
It's just it's good.

Payal
So good stuff.

Kajal
Yeah.

Payal
Yeah. We'll definitely send you some recs.

Phoebe
But my sister's in LA so I do that at LA often okay. But okay. Way back to the hanging out and having to separate if it's a meeting or not actually. So me and my best friend work together. She's our vendor communicator here, and she lives in California. So we have business phone calls and we have friend phone calls. And we actually made a hat recently that's launching now that says “this is not a meeting.”

Kajal
I love it.

Phoebe
Because you have to say it. Is this a meeting call or is this not? Those lines blur often, but we do have a hat about it.

Payal
Yeah. Like we're going to need one of these. Yeah. We're going to need to know what you drop these.

Phoebe
Guys send me over a diamond engagement ring an extra ring, and I'll send you guys a hat. No.

Payal
We'll talk. We'll make sure that we get some things on your way. I was like, we need a this is not a business call. Because I'm like, I love it. The amount of times I will hop on the phone and we want to talk about, like, things are not work related. Like if we're just talking about family stuff, our friend stuff, like the work stuff always sneaks in there. It's like, oh, okay, don't forget we have XYZ. The order is that and.

Kajal
It's just trickles into all work. Yeah.

Phoebe
Well, it's hard if you enjoy it too. I used to sort of really try and separate things, and now I'm sort of like maybe it's a little bit more holistic. I used to sort of like yell at myself if I had decided to work into the night and like, no, actually, I like doing a little bit of emails while I'm watching TV at night. And that's what's so cool about being your own boss is like, you can create your whole schedule. So like, I just fade around 3 or 4. I like to not work around then. Yeah. So I take a break and like that's allowed. That is allowed. And then I work at like maybe 6 to 8 and that's okay. I try not to like yell at myself.

Payal
Like punish yourself for putting extra time. Yeah, I totally agree. I think my mornings I really try to take for myself. I'll start with, like you said, I'll go through all my emails, I'll go to Pilates, come back, have breakfast, kind of have my hour right there. And then we're at the shop till 5/ 6:00, having a little bit of time for myself and being able to separate that, I think, really helps my peace of mind. But yeah, if I'm watching TV, I am looking at other content ideas that we could be putting out or what website changes could I be making? It's just like an added thing to my downtime.

Kajal
And I think doing busy work while you're watching TV is the most therapeutic. It's just like, I don't want to sit at my desk and do busy work. I feel like that's very boring. But if I have my show going and I'm just sitting on my couch, I'm comfy and I'm doing it, we can bust it out real quick. I think there's some things that are just like meant to left to do at the showroom. And then there are just some things that you want to do late at night at home watching TV.

Phoebe
I agree that makes more fun sometimes and then also like it makes TV more fun sometimes. Sometimes I can't just watch TV. I need to also be doing something else. Yeah.

Payal
If I'm not doing work stuff, I'm probably on TikTok anyway, so I might as well be a little predictable about it. Yeah, okay.

Phoebe
What last lasting advice can you bestow upon maybe jewelry designers who want to start working with fine jewelry?

Kajal
I would say our one advice right now is if you have an idea, if you want to do something, just do it. That's what me and Payal learned with Sonu is we had an idea and we knew it could fit a niche and we were like, we should just do it. And it's really just taking that first leap that is scary. But once you kind of get into it and you start seeing a little bit of progress, it feels really good. So I think it's just like taking that first step. Whether that means like going full time or actually starting the brand, you kind of just have to push yourself over the edge because there's never a right time to do it. So yeah, I think just getting the courage to really just start it is really big.

Payal
I think mine would be to stay curious. I think if you're trying to make it into the earth, step into the world of fine jewelry. It's such a huge industry and there are so many people and there's so many different styles of things like find what relates to you and like outside, just do it. It's better to try and fail than to not try at all.

Phoebe
Well thank you ladies. This has been so informative and fun. So where can our audience find you and buy your jewelry?

Payal
Okay, yes, you can find our fine jewelry collection on sonucompany.com. We also have a new collection of engagement rings that are going to be dropping within the next week. Two weeks. We do have a collection on there already, but we are kind of dropping new styles little.

Kajal
Bit by a little bit more unique. a little bit with more movement. So something than your normal just solitaire and Diamond band. We wanted to add a spin to it. So that's going to definitely be a unique and fun engagement ring collection I think.

Phoebe
Yeah. So probably by the time this goes live, that'll be live.

Payal
Yes. And then also in terms of our custom jewelry and rings, you can find us on our Instagram. It's @Sonu.Company. So if you want to see like a lot of the rings that we have made, we are very people focused. We really like to highlight our couples because they're a huge part of us. So you want to see a little bit more of like who we've worked with and like the rings that they've created. Definitely check out our Instagram. We've also started doing like more custom pieces than just rings now. So those are starting to show up on our page. I think our Instagram does a really good job of showing our bandwidth of work.

Phoebe
And there's also rings and stuff for yourself. If you're not getting engaged and you just want to like, spend a little money on yourself.

Paya
Yeah, those are our favorite ones.

Kajal
Yeah. And then we didn't forget about you. We do have a collection of men's bands, so if guys are listening, there is a collection for you too.

Payal
Yep. We do custom men's bands as well. So if you scroll through that Instagram, you'll see some pretty cool custom men's bands that we've made.

Phoebe
Perfect. I'm gonna put all those links in the show notes and maybe talk about a discount code for you listeners, and we'll report on that. Thank you so much. So this has been amazing.

Kajal
Thank you.

Payal
Thank you. I had such a great time.

OUTRO

Phoebe
Thank you so much for listening to the Girl Gang Craft Podcast. Head to Girlgangcraft.com/podcast for shownotes and more. See you next time.