EYL #67 Bling Bling

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All right, guys, welcome back, e y L.

We got a very special episode today Bling edition to show jump right into this. So this is something that is extremely exciting episode for us growing up hip hop. You know, if you listen to the podcast, you know that music played a major part in our development growing up. It really it really shaped our lives. And if you listen to rap music specifically, you know that jury is a big part of rap music. Blame blame, Blame Blaine and Dictionary.

That's a fact.

So you know a lot of times we aspire to buy gold and buy diamonds and to buy chains, and that's just part of the culture. There's nowhere around that.

That's it.

It is what it is.

But like all things in life, it's a business. The jury business. It's a billion, probably trillion dollar industry, worldwide, global business.

That's every continent.

Definitely.

It's crazy.

So my man, Dion Smith is a legend within his own right because if you if you're from New York City, or if you haven't been in New York City, you've heard of the Diamond District. The Diamond District is crazy. It's like a two block radius in Midtown Manhattan, and every thing on there is jury, like all of the all of the big boys is there. That's where everybody gets their change from. That's where Jacob the Jeweler shop. I don't know if it's still there, but that's where it was.

You can't miss it.

The light poles has two big diamonds, just in case you forgot where you're at, Like and like you know, I.

Was telling me, like the brink trucks pull up like three times a day and it's crazy, but it's it's real non discreete though, like if you don't really know, it's not as flashy as you would think it would be. It's very non I mean, it's get robbed. You got to kind of have it not strip welcome. It's a culture. It's a culture within itself. It's but one thing. If you go there, you know that the people that are in control of it don't look like the people that's

Correct.

So there's different levels of the jury game, Right, there's the retailers who's actually selling you jury.

Well that's what we buy it from most of the time, right, But.

Then there's the manufacturers who's actually making jury. So he has his own manufacturing company. He employs over twenty people, growth revenue over five million dollars last year, a thriving business, like I said, the only black company in the Diamond district percent and it's his father is a part of it as well as tell the backstory on that. So it's a good story. So first and foremost, thank you for joining us.

Appreciate it, thank you for welcome, welcome having it.

So and shout to my man Fernando, who.

Thank you.

Who referred this. All right, so can we talk. Let's jump right into it. So you have a jury manufacturing company, right, correct, But we gotta tell a backstory before we even go into what jury manufacturing is.

My family is from Belize, so basically they migrated here probably late seventies to your first generation, correct, first generation. So yeah, my dad actually he looking for work. He just ended up take he took a job in the Diamond District basically, and his boss became his friend, became his mentor.

And for me, again, I would after school.

I mean I technically grew up out there, so I grew up in a factory. But it wasn't glamorous, you know, it wasn't something you were proud of. At that time, as from my perception as a child.

So what'd your dad do? Like what was his He was.

Cleaning jewelry like he was cleaning, like bench polishing is what they call it. And but growing up in the Bronx, it was it was such a contrast. I mean, this is the eighties now, right, And I don't have to tell you what.

The eighties were. I don't have to tell you crazy.

But that train ride and I couldn't. You couldn't pull out a phone and hashtag and see what was going on. I mean, I could tell you what's going on in Nova Scotia right now. But back then, I mean, your world consisted of as far as your eyes can see. So I only knew that the radius of my neighborhood. But that train ride to the Diamond District was fascinating because it's the first place I saw wealth.

I saw I saw.

At that time. It was like limousines. I mean I saw money being spent and intrigued me. And I saw diamonds and I'm the kid, but but it was interesting. But when I would go upstairs, it was it was not glamorous at all. It was hard work. It was you're working with metals, working with metals. It was everything in there had the skeleton with the X on it. Every material we need said cause cancer. I mean it was it wasn't. It wasn't glamorous.

How old were you when you do this?

About maybe eleven when I started? When I started? So how did that feel?

Where it's like you're seeing two sides of the coin, Right, You're seeing your father who immigrated to this country, correct, and he's working and I'm assuming he's not making a lot of money. No, but you go downstairs and you're seeing some of the wealthiest people in America.

Yeah, and like you have to understand.

And now, now if we've fast for a little bit to like the nineties and now I'm a teenager, so I'm I'm there, you know, after school summers. You know, I've literally Jacob the Jeweler was he was starting out right there. So I saw everyone like from Destiny Child when you know I've seen I mean, there's nobody in will Smith. I there's nobody I have not seen on this little block. And as a teen I mean right now it's.

Normal to me. I mean it's not a big deal.

But as a teenager, I was like you know, it was fascinating friends about that, right, but again it was I was seeing the factory work part of it.

What I'm saying like, did you ever see did you ever think to yourself like this is crazy? Like it's such a great contrast of like the haves and have not. You're seeing it because a lot of times, one of the good things I like about living in New York is that you can you're you can expose yourself to anything.

Like the other thing.

I just randomly walked down Fifth Avenue, like the Upper West Side, all the way down and it was just amazing to meet. It's like, there's so many wealthy people in New York.

City across the street from poverty exactly. It's like like net worth of fifty million, seventy one hundred million. But then it's like you could take a train and people are in public housing.

Correct, But a lot of times people never you just stay in your element, so you don't even realize that there'd such a big difference. But we're seeing that as a kid. Did that make you want to say, I need to get on the other side.

Of the sad?

So what I learned was again growing up in the Bronx. Your mind is again there's no way to see what's going on outside. The nationalities were Black, Puerto Rican, Dominican. That's it. That's all I grew up around. But the train ride would expose me to different cultures, the Jewish culture, the Indian culture, the Russian culture. And I was comfortable. I mean I was I admired these other cultures because

They're going to help you, it's going to work with you.

It sounds like your train ride is what people go to college to get, right, People leave that bubble of that to get out of your bubble, go to college and get this experience of interacting with other cultures. Like you literally got that from right on the train.

I got that. That's crazy.

I got that, you know, and being upstairs and and again, you know, there's just this misconception that if the person doesn't look like you, you can't do business with them, or they don't want to do business with you, but it's false. And in that industry, I mean I could speak for that industry. I was embraced by by the other ethnicities that were there that were in total contrast to what I was at, you know, my neighborhood where I was growing up. It was two different worlds. But

You know.

By the time I was in my twenties, I was trying to figure out, can I do this?

But I had to spend so much time there.

I realized that if I needed funding, I can get that with a handshake. And I had already I knew everybody because when I started out, I started out so young, so started off from doing delivery, so you would, Yeah, I was gonna ask you when you started working start working. About eleven, I started going again with my dad. I was going to work like eight, eight years old, my early correct.

He's a real Islano, but a real But by.

The time I was eleven, I'm already making runs. So I'm going like again, I'm not seeing only the glamor that's downstairs on street level. I'm upstairs. I'm meeting people. You know, so the deliveries helped me. Then, of course I did the actual labor. I had to learn that from how to make how to make it from you. I did every step of that. I learned that, but that could only get me so far. That could only get me a job with someone.

You know.

I needed to think bigger. So I noticed we had a problem. The phones kept bringing, so I started getting.

On the phones.

Once I got on the phones, I knew the customers. I started having a relationship with the customers. Once you have customers, now I'm in position to start a business. But you have things like rent, you have things like khand, you have employees that need to be paid. That's a numbers game, and a lot of people do not know their numbers. You could have a you could look good, but you us know your numbing. Your numbers are changing

That's all.

I mean, anybody will tell you banks are not lending to the risk is just too high when you're dealing with precious metals and things like that.

What are some of the risks that the banks are looking at. Well, I mean it's money laundering, I mean number one.

I mean the number one terrorism.

You're not getting.

But but if you are a trustworthy person and you build your reputation, that's not going to happen overnight.

That's what I'm saying.

You can have all the money in the world, You're not going to get up tomorrow morning and open a jewelry manufacturing company. You're not because there's too many ways to lose. I mean, the dirt on the floor is money. Okay, so it's gold that needs to be refined. You lose your shirt on the dust that's on the floor is gold. People don't know that. So you would need to build

My decision was made.

That So all right, so your early twenty three, But you know.

What I would say about like twenty five, I'm just like, Okay, what am I? What am I going to do?

So at twenty five, you've been working in the industry for fourteen years pretty much learning, learning every like.

I don't know I heard someone say this before, but it's everyone's overnight. Success takes about fifteen twenty years. You go to college, Yes I did. I went to BMCC.

Okay, So you at twenty five you decide, okay, I need I need to actually have my own business, right, correct, So you you can't get it a bit alan from a bank.

That's not gonna happen.

So you have a mentor in the diamond district that you said.

Basically, my father's boss turned into his friend and mentor and turned into the same thing for me. So so he taught he, along with my father, taught me the craft of the business. So I knew how to how to produce. I knew how to produce. But it came to a point when he no longer wanted you know, he retired and whatever the case may be, So that I had to make a decision is am I going to carry this on or I'm going to do something else his business?

Correct? Okay? Correct?

Well, basically we branched out into two companies under the same umbrella, under the same roof. The way that works is there's a part of the jewelry industry that's called casting. That's the lost wax process. That's where you see the pouring metals and stuff like that. Then there's a part called fishing. So we opened up a finishing company basically a room inside his inside of his his his place,

So you were originally you were under your mentor's umbrella. Correct when did you break out.

Of at nineties? Probably ninety.

Actually my father named the company AJC because at that time it was the phone book, so anything with an A he wanted to be on the top or whatever this may be. So I'll always keep that name. So that's not synonymous for anyone's name. No, it just stands for all jewelry contracts. And I explained, well, i'll explain

I knew everybody at this point.

And at that time in the nineties, what ethnicity is in control of the Diamond district.

We're talking Russian, Jewish.

All three the Jewish, the allies that I had, Uh, we're Jewish people, which which they're awesome. And then again, but those are the three nationalities that I dealt with, But they were vast contrasts for what I was going home to in the Bronx at that time. I'm not talking about the Bronx today, I'm talking about the Bronx eighties, nineties. You know, they weren't really role models out there. I mean, you know, but I was able to have role models.

The people that aspired to you. You know, they were in the product that you.

Correct, correct, correct, And I always say, you need again, I feel like you need to. Once I could see it, I knew, I knew I could, I could have achieved it. I mean I knew I could do it. So what were the steps?

All right?

So you got a loan alone?

Or so what happens is I had to I had the customers at this point, okay, but and I knew how to do the craft.

But I'm still one person.

So I knew I needed I needed staff and and so now I had the customers, I knew the vendors to get material.

And at that point I didn't have didn't have any real money.

But what is money? I mean, once I had, once I had the allies. Once I had the vendors and they would extend me credit. All I had to do was work at this point, you know, you know, promote. Back then, it was harder to promote, of course, but it was word of mouth and things of that nature. But that's pretty much that's what it was. That's why I made the decision to move forward. And again I

So where'd you When did you open a spot that you're in now?

This spot we just we we moved to this location about two years ago, and then we were in another location. I had branched out and I opened on thirtieth Street. We were there for like twenty years. But I decided to move back to the Diamond Diustry just for proximity purposes of you know, getting my materials and just there's just a flow.

There's more workers out out there, and so.

All right, So when you started out, what was the steps? What was the first step that you had to take? You got the backing financially correct, but outside of that, like what did you do to actually get up and running with your own shot?

So basically again now it was customer pleasing, it's customer pleasing, it's it's being competitive with pricing and basically letting people as of right now is just letting people know that I'm there, because like factories, they don't really promote because they don't really have to. Like the jeweler or the designer, they promote themselves and they once they generate business, they generate business and send it back to the factories. So most of my competition they were kind of like lazy.

Go over there, they do great job.

If I do a good job for you, I become your best kept secret because you don't want your say, if you are a jewelry designer, you don't want your competitors to know where you manufacture, right because if you're a jewelry designer, your foundation is your manufacturer. So I do a good job for you, but you will never, never promote because that keeps it custom correct. And then so how do you promote? This is a very hard business to promote because how do you promote it? I

You have to.

But everyone was like, what are you going to promote? You have to stay quiet. You can't you know, any customer I mentioned their name, I lose them. So how do you promote it? So whatever I got creative. I was like, look, I'm going to promote the service that I that I offer. It's a service and you know it's a service. And I started promoting the process and some of the stuff I would I would post on social media. They're like, what does that have to do

I would never never What are some of the services are we talking? Like the molding?

And so basically, if you my company is like B to B, so it's business to business basically you had an idea, you would submit like a drawing to me, said, listen, I'm going to go into jewelry design space. I want to manufacture these pendants, these rings, these you know what. Right you would give me a drawing, we would do cat design. I'd give you a wax model. That wax model is something in your hand. It's off, it's out

So the best way to really describe it is that you're the back end. You're the actual manufacturer, actual where nobody sees that part of the process, Like you're actually making the hot dog correct.

Correct, correct, all right, that.

Because everybody a lot of time when were talking about Jurry, you're just thinking about the storefront.

You think about that actually is selling.

You got the perfect lighting, you got everything sparkling in front of even it's not being made. If you saw that, it's it's it's not glamorous.

You're making the jury to sell to the jewelry store.

Correct, to sell to the designer.

That's right, right, right, right, And so you know, so that that that's basically what that is. Now another thing is it's like, all right, so let me come and see. There's nothing to see there, because you know it's just nothing to see there. There's no showcase, there's no Every jewelry is customed it. It could be mass produced, but every every piece of jewelry is the intellectual property of

I mean, it's unbelievablevable. So you had the business right you started it. You talked about equipment.

What's the type of equipment that you need, like and what is the cost because it's not like it's gonna be really really pricing.

So you need ovens to make jewelry.

Now, unless you see someone with ovens from here to the ceiling, they're not making it there, right, So you need ovens to make jewelry. Just the kinetis on having ovens burning all day. Could be five to ten thousand dollars a month. That's your content built.

That's an electric build.

Electric built, right, tens a month could be that's crazy, and like how many would you need to run?

At one or two? But but but that, I mean, that's your first cost. It's crazy.

You can't do everything yourself because you just you can't. You have two hands. I get an order for five thousand pieces, I can't do it myself. So you need employees. You need skilled craftsmen. A lot of people there's not that's a dying breed of skilled. A lot of people come from you know, their countries with that skill. I try to find them, you know, and hire them, because it's not everybody that has that skill, that craftsmanship to work on jewelry, you know.

All right, all right, So in the next seven we're going to be going to get into the jury industry as a whole and ask some questions that I'm curious about, and I'm sure that a lot of other people will be curious.

About as well.

Sure, all right, So okay, so jury business is interesting. So you actually make you make jury. But he was telling you off cameras the whole process to make jury, right, Like, you have to go buy like let's say go watch you go buy goal right right, Then you have to like correct me I'm wrong, but you you melt it down correct and then you you like sculpt it into whatever you want to make it right.

So there's a process called the lost wax process. Right, This is how this and also it's also called casting.

All right. So now with this, to create.

A piece, you would go you'd buy raw gold twenty four carried gold. You would then alloy it down where you're buying the gold. So I saw some of my metals right on forty seventh Street. Okay, okay, So you would buy the raw metal, you would alloy it down, then you would melt it. That's why you need a melter. Okay, you would have You need a wax. You need a wax. If you see some of the videos, you'll see like wax trees, and then we put a plaster over it. Right,

Now in gold. Okay.

And at that point then then it's then it's clipped off the tree and then it goes on a bench and it's polished and things like that. So again, you need motors, you need you need equipment. I mean, you're not going to see this in the still because they're not making jewelry there. They might have a little steamer or they might have a little polisher, but they're not casting jewelry there. You need you need equipment.

So after the polishing process, now it goes into the mold is they're.

Like, after the polishing process is pretty much done unless there's a stone setting and things like that. And yeah, so because when it comes out, it's a raw, raw, raw casting. It's raw metal, so you know it'll cut you, it's it's rough. It's so those wheels that you see the polishing, that's what gives it that refined finish. And then that point is packaged in my customer's packaging and then sent out.

So all right, So and you were saying that like the difference between fourteen carrot, twenty four carrot, So.

Twenty four carrot is fine gold. That's one hundred percent gold, pure gold. That's pure gold. All right, Now they're different. You have twenty two carrot, you have eighteen carrot, fourteen carrot, and ten carrot. You know, for example, seventy five eighteen carrot is only seventy five percent gold arend his alloy. Fourteen carrot is fifty eight point three percent gold.

The rest is alloy.

So if you're wearing fourteen carrot, you're you're wearing half gold half alloy. Like Rolex doesn't even there's no rolex, no gold, Rolex that's fourteen carrot. It's not considered. It's just not for their standard. So does that make fourteen carried strong a stronger gold?

Well, the more alloy, the alloy makes it longer.

Correct, Like if you wouldn't wear twenty four carrot because it would be bendable, it wouldn't it wouldn't work. The highest carrot you would wear is twenty two carrot. That's about like ninety six percent gold. So but and then ten carrot is forty one point seven percent gold, so you have to you know, it's not simply throwing your chain on a scale and saying and looking at the price of what gold is trading on and saying, oh, this is what my chain is worth.

No, because it's not full gold. It's a percentage of gold. So nobody has fully gold anything.

No, you wouldn't wear twenty four cab twenty two carrot is ninety things like ninety six percent, so that's that's that's fully gold.

Eighteen carrot is that's respectable.

You know it's seventy five percent, it's seventy but but you know, when I was in the Bronx, everybody was like it better be fourteen and fourteen.

But you know, fourteen carrit is half gold and half hours.

So when it's somebody and we've seen people when you know the big kilo rope chains, right, they put that on the scale, right, you know, the weight is not know the percentage of the goal.

So you cannot look at the market and say, okay, gold is fifteen one hundred and an ounce and they put it on the scale and it's ten ounces whatever. No, it's not fifteen hundred times ten, it's the percentage of gold times ten.

How do you test gold?

So if I'm buying gold, right, and somebody tells me this twenty carrot, where it's really twenty it's really it's really fourteen carrot.

I can't tell by looking at it.

You can't you.

I mean as throw we look at it a lot. I mean your eye gets kind of trained to the color. You see it all day. But the old fashioned where you'll see them rub it on a piece of you know, it's just very primitive. But now there's there's computers that will just print out full element, every element that comes, every element.

So at this day and age, I mean, no one is gonna so you.

Like scan it.

Yeah, they put it in a machine that scans it and gives a print out of all the elements, and then you'll know how much carrots characters because it's a lot of time, you know, I would see people come to me and it was like, you know, this is ten carrot, but no it's not, it's eight carrot. You know, if the person that's mixing the alloy has the control.

You know, and they doing that on purpose, right, so they can I don't want to say they're doing that on purpose. I mean back there's a human element, and he's talking about.

Money, yeah, back in high school, Like you know, a few of us used to go to Florida Road. We won't say names, myself included, and we would get changed and I'm like, yo, there's no.

Difference, betweens.

It looks a little more shiny, right, but fourteen carrot man, what's yours?

And it was like we didn't know, you know, no idea. And then here's the other here's the other thing.

Gold is it's like synonymous with time, right, it's the time you bought it. We could have the same chain, same weight, but if you bought it in two thousand and ten as opposed to twenty and twenty, it's the same chain, same weight, totally different price. Is that change okay by the day? Yeah, well the day we were so. So if you had again, if you had a shoe box of cash, well you know that that's spending even if you don't touch it. It's spending with time at

Now that chain double inflation? Really correct?

The chain could be double So now you can sell it for ten thousand. Now, if you had five thousand in the shoe box ten years ago, it's still five thousand. But you can do less with five thousand back then, as you as opposed to a day, right. So so that's why gold is is an investment. It is an investment. I mean not diamonds per se. I mean diamonds you need to find the customer for it.

But gold.

The government buys gold, So I mean it is an investment. I mean you could a lot of people look at it. If you're not educated, you say, wow, what a waste.

I mean, it's theory. It's not a waste of money in theory.

It's a commodity.

And yeah, like you said, I mean it does right like you can you can buy goldst So it's interesting because you it's it's it's jury, but you can also use it as an investment as well. Like the price of goal we were saying ten years ago was eleven hundred dollars.

It peaked a few years. It peaked in like two.

Thousand and eleven at nineteen hundred, and now it's fourteen hundred, little more than.

Four fourteen seventy per ounce. I remember when it was two hundred and ounce. I remember when when it went to three fifty, we were like, forget it. This is something, this is outrageous. We're gonna wait for it to drop. Then when it was nineteen hundred, we were like, wow, we would every three hundred and fifty dollars we spent was now going to be nineteen hundred dollars.

You know.

So again, when you buy a chain or you buy a ring, there's labor in that. You'll never get your labor back, but the gold stands now if that goal appreciates path.

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That's the labor that you paid or the premium you paid on it. And now your option was to put that money in the bank. The best bet was to buy gold. But you said, also with like Jurry.

Stores or I think it's Joey stores, you said they have three times markup, right.

Well, now I don't. It depends on whoever.

Like some of my customers, right which will remain nameless, they mark up about three times.

But what I said, that's.

Kind of standard because you have to understand they have their own respective brands, they have their own rents to pay, they have their own marketing that they have to do. I mean, they would not do it if there's no profit. March, so they get it from me. Then they package it. I mean again, they spend the money on building their brand, and brands are powerful. They have a following the exact same material, but people are loyal to a brand, so they're able to set their price and get it so.

Right, goal is fourteen hundred dollars out I think.

It's about fourteen eighty eight and out for twenty four k.

For twenty I think it's like fourteen sixty one to be exact, But whatever, fourteen sometime. This is fourteen sixty one an ounce. Right, but let's say by the time you buy it, what do you buy fifteen hundred eight?

So what it's trading for. No one will get it for that, right because they have to make a market as a premium. Now again, possession gold could be that price, and this guy over here could have it. He could say, listen, it is cheaper than what I'm charging. But he doesn't have or he doesn't have the amount. So who has it that the time of need can set the price. It's usually twenty five bucks above above above spot they call it spot is what it's trading at at I

You can buy it by pennyweight.

All right, So then they mark it up.

So then you buy it, but then people buy it from you, and then if you have to make a profit, then they So what I'm getting at is that it is an investment. But for the average retailing person buying a goal watch, they're buying at a tremendously higher price correct, so it'll take time before correct even if goal goes up.

So what I do, I would buy the materials. I would lay out buy them. And this is why you need funding that you're buying gold. So you get a big order, you need more money, you know you need, so so I would I would buy. And I'm also what I'm selling is the labor and the craftsmanship of what what we've done to it to produce your vision or you know, your jewelry, your art, whatever it is. So you know, so it's the labor that I'm billing for at that point.

So what what what's the amount of funding that somebody's starting with typically need.

So again, you're gonna operate. I can speak only for New York. I mean you're gonna operate in Manhattan, especially if jewelry. You don't want to be in a corner somewhere, you know, you want to be in the epicenter right, So you're gonna need You're gonna need space to operate. You're gonna need brick and mortar. You're gonna need a place. You could sell online, but you have to exist somewhere. You know, some landlords would want you know, six months,

I mean it's not like you're not selling socks. I mean socks, you know.

So it's easy to lose your shirt. So you got to be focused. You got to watch your numbers. You got to have great relationships with your customers. And it's a small business. It's a small, very small community, so everyone knows everyone. So you make money on your reputation, But you can also borrow with a handshake. You know, there'll be no forms, there will be no once. Once you're trusted and people believe in you, they don't really lend to the business. They look at you, you know,

How do you how is jewelry de value? Because you said, like once you start to like put diamonds and it kind of like devalues it.

Right, So every time you clean a piece of jewelry, it loses value. Clean it, clean it, any piece, any piece, anytime, because you're removing gold.

You're removing a layer of gold every time you clean.

Every time you see it get shiny, that's a layer of gold gone. And that's dust on the floor. You know, That's what you were saying before factories there's refiners. You don't throw your garbage out regularly. Refiners come and and yeah, so the dust on the floor.

Is money, you know, So how how much does it go down like a couple, It.

Just depends on how many times it's cleaned. I mean, if you keep cleaning it over time, you're gonna lose again what you're losing. It's fluctuating by the day as well. Different values clean. Are you not post clean jewry?

Not too much? No, you're not.

Actually, If I mean on forty seventh Street, you can clean a rolex every day if you want rolex. They they are only will clean your watch three times in its lifespan, so the you can't go to them. They document how much times they because the value is weight as well. So yeah, no, every time you clean your jewelry you lose value.

So when we see you know, these watch companies fully protect and Richard mill and we see people putting diamonds in them, they're actually losing value from the watch.

They're the watch is losing value because it's not it's been stack, will not vibe.

It's done.

You've drilled holes in it, put after market diamonds in it. That's it's done. But but they do have should I say street value? There a street value the consumers want it. There's people that say, no, I want that, and I'm willing to pay for the labor that you'll never get back.

That labor.

Someone sat there and drilled holes and do it. You're not getting that labor back the diamonds, you're not really I mean the bank doesn't buy your diamonds. So but it's a preference and if if you have a customer for it, then it's worth doing.

Okay, and to do the diamonds wants their cut. Are they losing value because I heard that when they're in the rarest form that's when they're the most valuable.

Well, I'm not. I'm not a diamond I work closely with diamond dealers.

Yeah, but the diamonds will get damaged and trying to take them out, I mean you're not going to really read. They're going to break when you try to take them out. So it's it's a custom piece. It's the consumer that says I want that, so it's yours. I mean it has a value, but but it's an after market.

Everything is after market, you know.

So if somebody a plane Jane, they call it a plane Jain is the best investment shout out, defer plan that's it, that's the best, and that's the best investing place you're plan on investing.

I mean, you know, no place to park your money?

All right, it's all your rappers out.

There, get your plane real quick.

The difference between white gold, rose gold and yellow, no difference in price.

That's just an alloy that's creating the color gold is yellow. I've been gotten.

Somebody just buying jury off the street, right because there's really no like rule book to say, like it's all kind of whatever somebody wants to kind of value it a subjective subjective subjective how like what do how does somebody know this is a good price to pay for this?

Well, again, this person he's selling you a product that's that you don't know when he got it, so you can never know his profit, right, Like we just said, if he bought this change this chain could be worth ten thousand dollars right now. Can google it, you can

You just won't know.

It's a time thing you have to know, like, look, the person that's in possession of it, that's giving me this product is making on me. You just have to be comfortable with the price that you're paying in relation to what gold is going for and what you know labor is going for at the time of purchase, and be comfortable with that. And again, gold usually charts up with I mean inflation. Things don't get cheap or they

Yeah, does the recover you know, does the retailer actually know when the gold was made?

Because is there like some type of certification that they get when it comes to their store.

I don't.

I can't speak for other manufacturers, but with me, no, they won't know. I mean, gold is timeless right here before us, it would probably be here after us. It's you know, but when it's made some I believe some people would would give some sort of paperwork as to when it was made. But who can really prove that.

I don't.

I don't know if that can be proven. Us to win something it's actually manufactured.

No, So what about platinum platinum?

I mean there was again. Now when when gold was like two hundred.

Dollars metal precious metals, platinum was like over one thousand dollars, I mean it was. It was ridiculous. That's why everyone started wearing white gold. So it looked like, you know, we can't tell the difference. But but now platinum is cheaper than gold, so is it.

Yeah?

I mean I didn't check the numbers as of today, but but platinum good.

Time, So nobody's wearing platum anymore. Now your advice long term is just gold gold. Gold is better than gold.

Gold, gold is better than cash in the shoe boxes. But you know, its gold is like frozen money. You know, can it drop? Of course it can drop.

But made platinum spike up because I remember everybody was wearing platinum. That was like the thing in like the two thousands.

I'm not sure the music and I don't know what was music got to be. I don't know what's going on in the world at the time. Sometimes that you know, they use platinum for for whatever, other types of manufacturing, you know, piping, whatever.

I don't know what it was going on.

You said the reason pretty much it was more expensive than gold, and people were trying to show that I can buy.

But I think it's less of it. It's a scarcity.

I think it's a lot of it's world factors. When you're talking about precious money. Yeah, it's a world fact. I did this and then and then like you said, then the music. Then it comes into demand. Once the demand is there, the failure is going to go up, right. You know, simply not buying platinum can make the I'm not buying anything, make the value drive. We're not We're not wearing it right now.

You know.

It could be that in other parts of the world, gold is still like very sort after as far as like just to hold.

Gold is Listen, gold has always been the currency of kings. That's that's a fact.

Like even in India, like when you get married, like they they give tons of gold, the family gives tons of goal and they hold it.

It's like treasure ritualizing.

Yeah, it's a store value of you know, wealth that grows over the course of time. Like you said, I mean going back to forever.

Yeah, gold, I don't know if it was JP Morgan Chase I think he said. He says, the only real money is gold. Everything else's credit. We could look that up. I'm sure money you see American do alarays to be back by goal, right, right, But they took it off the gold standard. Yeah, you know, they took it off the gold standard. But I mean to me, that just means that we literally create money now, I mean we you know, it's not like well I can't service your

I want to ask you.

Money is a side effect of service and product.

Basically, if somebody like you have to be licensed obviously probably.

No, no, not any no no, not in New York no no. No. Insurance you need insurance. You need insurance. There is licensing for not not to hold the company. But there's certain manufacturing, like certain when you're working with certain toxins, you need you need certain certificates, not not it's like a certificates.

But but yeah, so yeah.

What about like retail, somebody brought it, buys jury, they can get insurance on that jury, right, correct, what's the best route for them to go and do that?

Well, I mean, I don't promote any insurance company, you know, because I don't have the experience that I haven't you know, I haven't heard any horror stories. But but it's just like a car insurance, you're going to pay monthly if nothing happens when your money is gone. You recommend people do that. It depends on the if you have expensive if you have one hundred thousand to a five hundred thousand dollars worth of jewelry, get insurance.

Yeah.

We've seen people, you know, lose their jewelry on get yachts and on the jet skis, and it's like what I do now, insurance?

But we've heard rumors of rappers that robbery up.

Yeah, right, it could always, it can always gets insurance police, And then we don't encourage that, you know. And then it's just like, how do I know it's missing and it's not in your closet, you know, I don't know, I don't know.

All right, all right, So then in the last time we're gonna talk about scaling model, your business, and a few other different things.

Cool.

All right, So as far as the jury business, it's interesting, especially in New York with the domitancy. Everybody is so close together. But you said it's kind of a community because everybody knows each other. Correct, So how does that work as far as competition, because you're saying that, like these guys helped fund you, but you're also kind of their competition.

So I'm interesting. Interesting.

You know, we had moved the company a few about sixteen blocks off the Diamond District, and the numbers at one point plummeted. I couldn't understand why because I was I was saying, again, now I'm looking at it from from a business standpoint. I love what I do that, but now it was about business and keeping my employees fed, keeping their families, giving their checks coming home, and I have to figure that out. So I'm trying to figure out why and move. We moved because of it was

Was almost it was almost.

Immediate, like within the same week. What happens is you get an overflow of work. You know, before I could say all right, screen someone hire someone, I could send the work upstairs. I could send the work around the corner to help me facilitate. So now I had like working hands. All the materials I need are right there. The skilled workers are like walking up and had a problem finding workers because they would not they wouldn't venture off into into you know, say Chelsea. Where where are

I don't know about that.

But from a manufacturing standpoint, having other manufacturers around me, uh, it makes me stronger.

It makes me stronger.

You said, one of the biggest pieces to your success is having the mentorship. Obviously your dad had, you know, the man that you guys he was working for, he mentored you.

Are you at the stage where you are.

Mentoring someone or is it like a mentoring like program within your business.

Well, no not.

And again I've been a lot of people have emailed wanting to in turn wanting to just see what a day actually they did apport on me like a day in the life of what I do, which is flattering, which is flattering. But I still consider myself still still growing, you know, still learning, still adapting, you know, to an you know that industry is it's old fashioned, but it's changing.

You know. Shoty said that that was one of like his great analogy.

It was like when we're in school, it's it not to copy right business, you actually should should I be.

Careful who you copy? Be careful who you copy.

You know, whatever you're around that that's gonna rub off on you. You know, you could learn to be the best crook. I mean whatever, But but you force yourself around people you know that inspire you, you know, and you need to be inspired. I mean, you're not going to to run an operation.

To control a bit just means you're dealing. You're dealing with a lot of people.

You're dealing again being a being a boss, being a leader of a company.

I mean you're wearing a lot of hats.

Yes, it's all about the numbers, but those numbers are not going to come if the employees are not happy. You need to sometime be a therapist to an employee. You got to be a referee, You got to be, you know, a mediator. You know, you have twenty thirty people working under one roof, you know, and you're the leader. You have to be sympathetic, you know. Sometimes sometimes you have to deem someone not good for the team.

You have to you have to let them go.

I mean, it's a lot of uncomfortable conversations as you rise in business.

That's a fact. Uncomfortable conversations.

That's a lot.

That's a fact. So all right, So if somebody is.

They have an idea to make a jury line like eyo jury line, right, Okay, you're gonna you can supply us, right absolutely, But first.

We have to actually draw up the mock up like what we like. We have to create the logo. You would have to find it. I don't know if it be you yourself or get some finding artists to create the logo. Trademarket correct, next up correct and then once you even before that, I mean we could again we can play with different things, can change, you know, trademark something and then you like, you know, I don't even

Back okay, and all right, So and you said, like on average, if it's three times markup, so I buy it for you from thirty, I'll seller.

For ninety correct, correct?

I mean that's that's not a written rule, right, yeah, industry, but it's reasonable reasonable.

Yeah, Why is that reasonable?

I seem like a pretty high mark up.

Well, because they have their overhead. They have to spend money to build a brand. The brand needs promotion they're gonna have. Again, it's it's it's B to B right. So I'm in theory, you guys would be you guys would be a business. I'm selling to a business. You guys have operating costs. You don't have employees. I mean you need websites. You need so they have to and if they and if they don't have capital, they can't

So, if I wanted a custom piece of jurey, it's cheaper to go to you correctly, correct, get much much much cheaper, much cheaper.

How does somebody do that?

So?

Well, again, you'd have to know, you'd have to I mean I would have I would, I would have to give it drawn up first.

Correct.

I can't go to you and say, can you make me a gold chain?

Now I do have someone there that can do drawings, but it's better if you would just bring the idea and even if it's a rough sketch. And then at that point then we go into three D modeling. Cat design. You'll see it on a computer, you'll prove it from a computer. Then you'll prove it in your hand with a wax. We can control the price point because the price will come from its weight.

So in the cat design, the.

Computer will tell you what it's going to weigh, and we can make it lighter. We can make so we could control the price before we even put anything on the table. The only upfront court would be the cat designing and the printing of waxes. How you want five hundred one thousand bucks and you have a piece in your hand, you have a prototype, you know, and you can start off with cheaper metals like brass. You know once you wouldn't you wouldn't play with gold until you

Let's just say it's a ey L pending and it's like Shotty gets when I get one, and then if we put it out, then you mass.

Produce it, and were mass produce it, so you'll get an order. And now again you'd have to hire I mean people to you can do it yourself to a certain extent. But then let's say someone says, listen, we want to give this at an event. Again, it would be brass. It's not going to be gold. You know, it would be a low ticket item. But but still you just want your logo out there, you know, in metal form. Right, So so at that point, yeah, we would,

What you can make?

A watch?

Watches? No, we don't make.

We don't make why watches are made by those brands whoever, We don't know who makes it, you know, but I guess you know Rolex protect. Those are their you make like rings and rings, pendants, bracelets, charms, air rings.

Anyway, So there's a lot of talk about a pending recession, and I assume that that would have a drastic impact on the jury business, because that's that's explainable. You don't need a jewey, right, right, But you were around through the last recession, right two thousand and eight.

Yeah, how does economic downto?

So that's what happened. It made me change.

First we would only do silver and gold, but in a recession, it was like, again, no one's buying not buying precious metals. So that's when what we did was we got very creative. A lot of people got creative, and we started manufacturing brass. So brass gives the look of gold, it's yellow, but you could do big pieces like a lot of ladies wear, like big cuffs and

That's how you're surviving.

People can in a recession, they can afford a thirty dollars earring, you know, whereas opposed there was a fifty thousand dollars chain and you have enormous markups and things like that.

So that's how we were. But you have to be creative. You have to be creative.

That that costume jewelry, that costume jewelry is also saved save you saved.

Me costume Jewey is a huge market and it's expensive now.

I mean I'm saying, I'm saying these numbers for back then and things like that. But you go in the store and buy an eight hundred dollars, you know, brass pair of earrings depending on whatever brand it is, and they demand that mouthful it get it.

So it's it's not even say silver silver.

So that that's how we started selling lower ticket items by volume, and that's how I got.

Through that no good plant. To get creative, you got to play above the water.

That's dope.

So all right, so what's your as far as like, if someone wants to reach out to you, how can they find like? Because you're in an industry that's not really marketable for the most part, right right right, you're breaking the mold because you know, obviously you're younger and probably you know you have a different whole vibe.

So how can somebody like find you?

Like?

As far as.

Well, if this day and age is social media, social media, but it's always been word of mouth.

It's always been word of mouth.

Right again, because even say a jeweler or a designer, they're gonna hide me, They're not gonna they're gonna they'll give me the business, but they won't say, you know who who didn't work. So if someone, let's say you were an entrepreneur or or you wanted to create your own line, or you just wanted to get a good price on on something and skip the middle man, then you do a little bit of homework. You know, now you can hashtag jewelry making, jewelir manufacturing, and then you know,

I'm just saying I'm thinking in terms of like they probably have been customer, they have more established car and their customers will continue to promote themselves and then the kickback is the work.

You know.

But again for me, again, those those now those companies have been around for the grandfather's grandfather's grandfather. You know, they're one hundred year old. Most of those businesses one hundred year old businesses. You know, for me saying I've been doing this for twenty twenty five years, I mean that that that pills and you know, the first generation young.

What's what's the clientele breakdown percentage wise is like eighty percent designers.

Regular people that just want designers, design, designer.

Correct, that's my designers, entrepreneurs and even startups, like a lot of startup companies and you know, but but now you know, I'm starting to get calls from from people that's just trying to skip.

The middle man.

How many brands in the portfolio, it's a lot. It's it's like twenty years of brands. So I don't have a number on that, but so over maybe they're not ordering on an everyday basis, but like over fifty fifty brands. And but yeah, now you have to understand there are some people that don't want to skip the middle man because the jeweler that they trust and they've been going to for years, actually they don't do they'll the jeweler will do that backward. Get the cat designed, get it,

So you can potentially say sixty by going to somebody like you.

Absolutely, absolutely absolutely.

And depending on how aggressive you're you're, the person you're buying from is maybe even more. I mean, like I said, these mark ups could be three times or more, you know. So you're coming to a manufacturer, you know. So if you go to you know, Raymond and Flann again, they didn't you know, they have a factory where that's me, it's like you skip them, you know, you skip the brand.

So all right, so it's powerful, man, I appreciate you coming in. So contact information, social media handles all that information for okay.

So yeah, so basically, if you want to contact me, it's info at ajcjewelry dot com. The Instagram handle is a JC Jewelry. That's pretty much it. That's how you would contact me on my business this wedding season, y'all. So if you need to hit them up.

Also, but more importantly aspiring entrepreneurs that want to become absolutely jewelry designers that you got.

You gotta reach out to the source. You gotta get it from somebody. Why not? Why not?

Don't say we didn't We didn't tell you who?

Troy?

Yeah, Yeah.

Shout to everybody on Patreon dot com. That's our Proud to Pay program. It has grown. We had a community on there, y'all. So I just want to give a shout out, huge shout out to some of our Tier five members, Joseph and Markel. They have joined at Tier five, so you know that now at Tier five you have access to e y l University, our online website where we have courses, live webinars, and you'll be able to

So be ready.

And also e YO University is something that we're extremely excited about. That's really really dope interactive platform where you know, we bring We have three classes a week right now. Matt teaches a class every Monday or real estate investing, and then Wednesdays of floating class depending on different topic from a different investment instructor. Every single week we have everything from life insurance to mobile home, taught me well to notary probably won't have mobile home and law will

Yeah, we put it on.

And that's also on a variety of different topics. So the good thing about the YA University is as interactive so it's on zoom so you can actually ask questions and get a manswered, and it's a whole. It's a whole interactive vibe. So yes, that is that, and thank you guys for rocking with us. We'll see you next week.

Peace.

Peace.

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