Stella & Dot
Jessica Herrin, founder and CEO of Stella & Dot, started her entrepreneurial career as the co-founder of Wedding Channel, an experience which laid the foundation for her most recent venture, a direct sales jewelry business. Jessica’s main goal in launching the business was to provide women with an alternate career platform to run their own business under their own terms. The case describes the evolution of her company, from its modest start in Jessica’s living room through the birth of two children, to annual revenues of $100 million in 2010, just 8 years after its founding. The case additionally describes the direct sales approach as an alternate to the more conventional sales platforms with which students are familiar.
Learning Objective
The learning objective of the case is to introduce students to a dynamic entrepreneur with a proven track record in entrepreneurship who has taken a unique approach to starting her latest venture, from the manner in which she landed upon her idea to the pace at which she launched her business to her financing strategy. The case uses Stella & Dot to highlight the challenges and opportunities inherent in the direct sales model and to push students to think about if/how the company has revolutionized the model and to define exactly what the “product” is in this mission-driven business.