Ann Williams: Founder of Yearly Co.

Episode 891

On today’s episode, we welcome Ann Williams, Founder and Creative Director of Yearly Co. — a Nashville-based fine jewelry brand built around celebrating life’s milestones with timeless, solid 14k gold jewelry.
Yearly Co. started with a family tradition. Inspired by receiving gold bangles to mark meaningful moments, Ann took a metalsmithing class and began making jewelry by hand in her garage during naptime. What started as a second-career experiment in 2016 has grown into an $11.5 million direct-to-consumer business that remains 100% founder-owned and self-funded.
In this episode, Ann shares how she turned a difficult-to-size product into a competitive advantage, why Yearly Co. offers bangles in 11 sizes, how she built loyalty around milestones and repeat purchases, and why she has chosen to grow without outside capital. She also opens up about being diagnosed with breast cancer at 37, keeping the business moving during treatment, and how the experience changed the way she thinks about leadership, motherhood, business, and the moments that really matter.
Such an inspiring founder story. Listen now.

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Transcript

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up. That I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. I want to be. We just want to make sure you will get knocked down, but just make sure you don’t get knocked out. Knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control. Control. Control. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Kara Goldin Show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go. Let’s go. What happens when a family tradition becomes an idea, and that idea grows from a garage project into an eight-figure business? Hi, everyone! Welcome back to the Kara Goldin Show. Today’s guest is Ann Williams, founder and creative director of Yearly Co. an incredible, incredible Nashville-based fine jewelry brand known for lots of great pieces, but their solid 14K gold bangles designed to celebrate the milestones that make up our lives may have been something that you’ve seen out there, or if you’ve visited their location in Nashville, so the idea came from Ann’s own family tradition of receiving gold bangles to mark meaningful anniversaries and moments. I can’t wait to hear more about that story and how this has grown into quite the business along the way. Ann also took something notoriously difficult to buy online-a properly fitted bangle-and turned it into a competitive advantage. So I cannot wait to hear more from Ann about building Yearly Co. bootstrapping an eight-figure consumer brand, and why she has stayed committed to DTC, the economics of fine jewelry, and building loyalty through product, and what business and life looks like facing changes on lots of different fronts. So, Ann, so nice to meet you, and welcome to the Kara Goldin Show.

Ann Williams 2:17
Thank you so much for having me. That was a fantastic intro. I need you to have do all our PR. You’ve covered everything. I’m really excited to chat today.

Kara Goldin 2:25
Awesome. So, and for someone who’s just discovering Yearly Co. for the first time, what is the brand, and why did you believe there was room for this fine jewelry company to launch and scale as it has?

Ann Williams 2:40
Yes. So, as we all know, there’s a lot of jewelry out there, and yearly really started with a need more so than a want. So our family, as you said, my grandfather gave my grandmother a gold bangle every year of marriage, and so all the women in our family wear these stacks of gold bangles, and it started as a family tradition. Really, my uncles were reaching out to me saying, “Where can I get my next bangle? Because we found within the industry that a gold bangle is much harder to fit than you would think. A lot of people only carried two or three sizes, or they would order them from a different jeweler. The price was varying. Sometimes they were hollow, so we really wanted to create a gold bangle that was solid, that was sized correctly and that you could wear for a lifetime, and that’s where I came in. I had two young children, and I just thought I’m going to take a metal smithing class and figure out how to do this, which was not as easy as I thought. But it gave me a creative outlet. I had a built-in customer, so it was really a very organic way of starting a business.

Kara Goldin 3:40
So wild. So the signature product is the gold bangle. Tell me about those early days when you were starting Yearly Co. I mean, you mentioned you had two young kids, but also just the idea of launching a business as it’s just big, right? Forget about the timing and the rest that’s going on in your life, but tell us about that and the decision to really focus on that specific item.

Ann Williams 4:09
Well, I had a few entrepreneurial starts and stops. That’s kind of always been my personality. So I graduated from Vanderbilt. I had a master’s in child studies, which neither here nor there. But I started a drop in childcare first, ran that for a couple of years. Really learned a lot about just business and you know everything that goes into it. Realized that was not my passion in life. Stayed home with my first daughter. Had our second daughter 19 months later, and starting this business didn’t feel like okay. I’m going to launch this business and I’m going to have this many employees, and I really didn’t have this years long growth plan. All I had was, I know these customers want this specific thing. I’m going to make that one thing for them, and the economics made sense because I was able to just buy my piece of gold, sell that piece of gold, you know, in the form of a bangle, make a healthy amount of profit, and I could do that while my kids. So it was like a win-win. My husband had coincidentally quit his steady, stable job and started his own business at the same time. So we were not looking to invest a bunch of money or really do anything life-changing. We needed to. I needed to kind of figure out what I could do with the resources and time that I had, and this just happened to fit really well into my life at the time, so you offer 11 sizes, or I guess that was the initial. Is that the same? I believe it started around six, so it was really inspired by the women in my family. You know, I would text with one aunt, and she’s like, “Well, I used to get them from this one guy, and he made them too small for me, and I could never get them on. And so I started realizing once I had all the tools, I was making them in brass just to test everyone. Like, okay, try this on, see what you think. Then I’ll make it in gold, and that is where our sizing kit was was formed from. So now we send out a brass sizing kit of 11 brass bangles that are handmade, which is you know phenomenal because that sizing is really specific. And then each woman is able to actually try on her bangle and see how that fits and how that feels. And then once you’re really comfortable, because obviously buying gold jewelry on the internet can be, you know, uncertain. And then you’re really confident in that size, and then you can really wear them just 24/7.

Kara Goldin 6:16
How did you know? I mean, because that is something that is pretty unique in at least when you were starting was definitely unique. I’ve seen more people doing that with rings and and some other products, but it was pretty unique. How did you know to do that?

Ann Williams 6:34
That’s a great question. I think I just knew it was a problem to be solved, and that’s kind of you know how my brain works. I was raised in a house. My mom was a stay-at-home mom, but she was really crafty and resourceful. And I think it was a little bit of like, okay, here’s the problem. How do we fix it? And because I had this one-on-one relationship with our customer, I of course was happy to make you know 10 different sizes for my my aunt or my uncle’s wife to confirm, okay, this is your right fit. And now every year I can make you your gold bangle. And so it just started from there, truly solving a problem, taking one customer at a time, and deciding how I could best serve them. And I definitely ran into people in the industry who were like, “This is never going to work. There’s no way you can’t offer this many bangle sizes. Especially older men in the jewelry industry were kind of like rolling their eyes, like, “Well, no, you’re going to source them from China, and they’ll never do that. And it’s like I think I’m going to make of myself, and you know there was a lot of maybe giggles, and really it’s paid off for us. It obviously is more complex, but I think the best ideas are when you really are taking a customer’s custom size and you are creating a piece for them for a lifetime. You want them to have the best experience. What have you learned about why consumers are coming back to yearly? What what is it that they keep coming back to? Do you think it is that focus, and they want more and more? Or I mean, what have you seen about this consumer that maybe you’ve been surprised by, or that doesn’t you don’t think really happens with other direct to consumer businesses in particular. I will say I believe at this point we’re about 50% repeat, 50% new customers, and I think that’s a strong number because people do have a great experience. Customer services, like first and foremost, we want to treat everyone with respect, with you know urgency, with knowing how important these pieces are to them, especially because they’re representing big milestones in their life, and so I think our team core values, our vision, like everything really aligns there. And then also just yes, that they have a great experience, and we’re I tell our customers this all the time or our team that it’s not so much that we want to put our jewelry on you to make you look beautiful, like your story. The women who buy our stuff-they are what tells the story, what makes our jewelry so cool. So when we look at these stacks of these women in their 70s, like my mom, and she’s talking about her grandkids, and oh, and then we went on this trip, and so I wanted to, you know, get this specific piece. Or women have faced health battles and journeys. Like I get chills from that because that is so magical and special that they have this legacy that they’re telling using our jewelry. So I think that’s part of the magic of yearly is that it did start with a tradition. Yes, fine jewelry is beautiful. We love gold. We love diamonds, but it’s not really just about a look or a trend-it’s about the stories behind the pieces, what they represent, and these just amazing women who have so much cool lore and legacy to talk about.

Kara Goldin 9:31
I love it. Are there any stories that have really stood out to you that has been told to you that you’ve just really been touched by?

Ann Williams 9:40
Well, you know, when we started, it was anniversary based, which is our family story, and happens to be, you know, a great way to celebrate. But understandably, not everyone is celebrating years of marriage, or women have lost their husbands, or moved on from a divorce, and so we always like to keep that really open ended. That these aren’t just marriage bangles; they’re your story, and. And I remember early on having someone reach out, and I still remember kind of reading this DM as I was back answering everyone at the beginning. And she said, “You know, I know this is not the intention of your company, but I did want to share that I tried to take my own life three years ago, and I have celebrated each year of being here with a Gold Bengal. And it just like gave me chills. It it gave, and I think that was coincidentally a day that I was worn out, and you know, running my kids to FedEx and trying to get things done. And it’s like, okay, this is really making a difference for some people. You know, I think there’s obviously the argument that jewelry is a want, not a need. But when I hear stories like that, like she said, I look down at my wrist and I think, like, wow, I’ve made it. Look how strong I am. Like, look what I’ve done. And that is the kind of story that just makes me so happy to know that that women are able to celebrate themselves in that way.

Kara Goldin 10:55
I love it. That’s such a beautiful story. I mean, like, that’s yeah. I always say that the stories that come from consumers often keep the founders really, and the rest of the team as well. But particularly when this was your idea to go and launch this, and you hear these stories and the impact that you’re having-I mean, that’s fuel, right? It

Ann Williams 11:17
is. It’s fuel. It keeps us going. We have a Slack chAnnl where we share among our team reviews, or you know, I’ll take a screenshot of a DM that I get from someone and send it like, oh, you know, Katie from our customer service team was so lovely to work with, and it’s just hearing all those things, reminding our team like, yes, it’s jewelry, but at the end of the day, you know, you’re really making a difference for these people. That is so encouraging and exciting. We really try to celebrate those things and share them with everyone.

Kara Goldin 11:44
That’s awesome. So you’ve made a deliberate decision to remain primarily direct to consumer rather than aggressively pursuing kind of the wholesale chAnnl. Can you talk a bit about that? Like, what was your thinking behind that?

Ann Williams 11:58
Sure. So in the world of you know wholesale retail all of that we would have to almost probably double our prices and thank God we didn’t do that years ago because the price of gold has increased so much but I actually remember going to kind of a jewelry conference in New York you know at the beginning I was really just curious and wanting to make connections in the industry and I had heard a lot of the designers talking about certain retailers, like you want to get into this retailer. This is a dream. This is the best of the best, and they had representatives from those retailers there. But what I kept hearing from them was, well, if if you’re in this season, we’ll buy a collection. But you might be out next season, or you know that they could discount you on a whim, or that they could. And I just kind of kept hearing, oh, so you have no control. You know, you could be. What would I do as just an individual running this business? And I had so little inventory at the time, was just investing my own, you know, profit of the business. And so I’m so thankful that I understood then that yes, you get more exposure. You certainly, it’s an exciting thing, but the opportunity comes with a cost. In that, who knows? And you know, this happened with some department stores that closed. They were not paying their vendors. These female jewelry businesses were then owed 1000s and 1000s of dollars. So I do understand that you know route, but that was just not the the way we went. And we’ve been able to really reach our customers with trunk shows around the country, and we have so many who are comfortable buying online now that they love our sizing, our quality. So I think it was the right choice for us, and now we’re able to really adjust our prices and pivot and do the things that our customer, you know, is in their best interest.

Kara Goldin 13:34
So there’s been moments, I’m sure, when outside capital could have made growth faster or easier. What have you had to say no to because you chose to bootstrap the company?

Ann Williams 13:46
That’s a great question. I have had to say no, probably to you know other locations, maybe a little bit of flashier everything at the beginning. You know, I remember kind of being like, “Oh, this photography on my iPhone, but I’m doing my best, and I really think our customers appreciated that they grew with us. Now we’ve you know gotten leaps and bounds better as we’ve gotten to hire more contractors and more qualified people, more talented people. But I, from the beginning, I just knew my experience seeing you know what I actually grew up in Silicon Valley, so I’d seen all the investor situations, and my husband has a healthcare technology company, and so he is an investor situation. And I just understood that you’re giving up the reins a bit. You know, when you’re taking someone else’s money, they then have an input. So I great, I’m very grateful that we didn’t have to. We we’ve grown really organically. There was definitely times where cash was tight, and I just had faith that it was going to work itself out, and it has. Thankfully, I have a great bank relationship locally, but yeah, I don’t think raising money is always the answer. I do understand why some people absolutely have to to launch, but we just took this single customer, one piece at a time approach, and it really. Worked well for us.

Kara Goldin 15:01
I love it. So, what has been the hardest thing to scale without losing the quality or intimacy that made consumers love Yearly Co. in the first place? What challenge, I guess, has been the hardest to really scale?

Ann Williams 15:16
I think every founder says this: it’s people. We have been very fortunate. We have a wonderful team. But you know, each person you bring on, it’s infusing that sort of innate thing in me and in most of our team of just like here’s when we’re going to go above and beyond and you know make something really happen for a customer. And I don’t think it’s that people don’t have that in them. It’s sometimes they’re coming from other businesses where they are like, I didn’t know I could do that. So we, you know, telling our retail team when we’ve hired, saying like, if you overhear a customer celebrating a huge milestone and they’re giddy and excited and they’re spending money with us, which we so appreciate, send flowers to their hotel. Like, do something a little bit extra. You know, we really try to celebrate with them and let them know that we appreciate so much when customers come in and spend their money with us and come back. You know, just handwritten notes and like all of those touches. We will do all of that stuff as long as we can, and that can be harder to scale. But at the same time, it’s like the second I think you lose that, you do lose a lot of the personality, and then you know, just having to remove myself a little bit, I was definitely answering every email, every DM. I still have customers who will email, like, “Hey, Ann, what’s you know, can I get this or that? And the team will share with me if there’s anything I need to respond to. But obviously, I can’t be everywhere all at once. So scaling just the customer service, and we’re in a great spot now. But it it can be tough to just get to that next level. Make sure everyone’s on the same page.

Kara Goldin 16:44
So Yearly Co, where did the name come from?

Ann Williams 16:49
Yes, so we actually started as Evermore Co, and that was we were just kind of looking for a cool, interesting name. It was like you know, my mom and sister and I came up with that and got a cease and desist in 2018, which maybe we all go through, but it was from a larger jewelry brand who had an ever more diamond, and I was in no position to fight a cease and desist. So I was like, okay, we got to regroup, and I was just playing around with all concepts. And for me, what I noticed was that the husbands who were ordering every year had said, like, what is that thing called? Ever, who, ever, what? You know, they weren’t quite connecting, and I just think the word yearly is beautiful. And I thought, oh well, he’s not going to forget yearly. You know, it’s like what I’m getting your bangle this year. It’s the yearly bangle. So I do remember telling my family, and they were like, “What? I don’t know about that. So trust your instincts, trust your gut. I think it’s a great a great name. We’ve loved it. Just the why is beautiful. So there’s a lot a lot of areas we could go with it, but it’s definitely worked out well for

Kara Goldin 17:48
us. I read a story about there’s a nap time entrepreneur story. Can you share that? What did the reality actually look like when you were trying to build a company and in the early days of raising young children, I can relate. I’m sure.

Ann Williams 18:05
Yes, it was an adventure. You know, my husband and I were renting our house on Airbnb to make our mortgage because he also had taken a pay cut to start a business, and so I was sneaking out to the garage while you know prepping our house for guests. And the funniest thing would be, one of my daughters did not want a nap, and so sometimes I would just catch her. I’d be like working, and I would look down. She would be right next to me, and you know I’d have to let her kind of hang out with me. But it was fitting in whatever I could, wherever I could. And you know we’re fortunate in a lot of ways. I do have in laws in town, and people were willing to help, but I wasn’t ready to work as that many hours, and I really loved that I could be a mom and I could be doing this job. So I just kind of fitted in where I could. I would sometimes put my girls to bed and work until two or three in the morning, especially around the holidays, and then have to wake up with them. And it was just a phase. I thinking back now, I cannot even believe that I did that. But it was so-I was so connected to our customer. I was so excited, like I was in shock, truly, with how quickly we were growing. And so, it never really felt like a burden. It just felt like a gift. Like this is financially supporting my family. I can’t believe people are buying these. They’re happy. They’re excited. There was obviously a time where I did start to need to hire help and and pull people in to help me accomplish what needed to get done. But it was such a surprise to me that we grew the way we did. And so, as much as it was very difficult, I just remember sitting down with my husband and being like, “I think I’m going to make like as much as a teacher would. You know that that’s incredible, and I don’t have to go to a school. I can just do this from our garage, and it was it was really fun to watch that happen in those early days.

Kara Goldin 19:49
So founders often build companies that depend far too much on them. Can you share a little bit about how that has? I guess you had. Health scare and how that has really sort of put things into perspective on really that you hadn’t seen when you were didn’t have this health scare that until then it was sort of a wake up call which I think a lot of people unfortunately have to deal with.

Ann Williams 20:18
Yes, it’s true. So in 2023, I think, was maybe one of the years where I just was very, you know, I had just gotten a bit to a fever pitch. You were really busy, and things were shifting and changing. And you know, I’ve always kind of openly said, like, I don’t know that I was made to be a CEO. I was definitely made to be a creative and an entrepreneur, but managing people and PTO and benefits and you know financials, it is a big job, and so I had hired a great team, and I had a COO who I was like, okay, she is ready. You know, I think she could be our CEO, and that would allow me to step back a little bit into the creative role. And then in April of 2024, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was a stage one, but an aggressive cancer, so I had to go right into chemo, right into surgery, and it was-I mean, I cannot tell you how fast it was. Like, got the phone call. You’re starting chemo in two weeks. You’re getting your port placed, and you know, God had put these people in my life, and I was able to say, “Okay, this CEO position is yours. You know, not just in a few months, but like next week, and I had to step back. I mean, I everything in my body was just saying, “Okay, 100% of your energy and time is going into healing. Like, there’s just there’s not going to be a thought that this is you’re not selfish, you are not you know lazy, you are not any of those things that women can do when they are like, well, but what if I have a great team? We have trained them well. They they know the business. They know our customer, and I was able to really just be home and resting, and you know, fighting cancer, which is a full time job. I had so much wonderful support from friends and family, and it just it gave me such insight into what women go through and what people go through with illness, and it made me a more empathetic and more like just whole person. So much more grateful for the the smallest things, and it gave me time to really step back and and figure out, you know, how much of myself should be given to the business. I think it’s so important. The founder always is going to have such a vital voice, but now I think what shifted for me is just like my health and taking care of myself is extremely non-negotiable. I really found I’m a bit more of an introverted person. I really need some rest and gathering. I have two daughters now who are 11 and 12, and I’ve just found a new balance. I stepped into more of a creative director role. I’m still a part of our leadership team, but I am just adamant. Like I’m getting my walk in. I’m seeing my good friends. You know, I do a lot of research, and I’m very into the health of our family. And so those things have just taken a precedent that they never did before, or didn’t to this degree. I

Kara Goldin 23:03
love that, and I also understand that you’ve you’ve created a piece that really marks this chapter of your own life. Can you share a little bit about that?

Ann Williams 23:12
Yes. So it is called our knot bangle, and I can see if you can see it on the screen. But love it. It has a little gold knot in it, which looks like a pretzel, and I added six tiny diamonds to that, so that is for my six rounds of chemo. And I thought really long and hard, which a lot of our customers do, about like what’s going to represent this year. And when I thought about that piece, it’s first of all just kind of funny, like looks like a little salty pretzel, brings me a smile. But I knew, you know, cancer is a huge scary time in your life, and as much as it’s all consuming at the time, I didn’t want it to be this huge part of my stack and my story. So it’s it’s small. It was very difficult, but I think it kind of gives me this perspective when I look down and just catch that little knot. Like, yeah, that was a tough time. It was transformative, and in the scheme of what I believe to be a, you know, 80 plus, 90 plus years of healthy life, that will be kind of a blip that changed my perspective. But it’s not going to like define my life.

Kara Goldin 24:17
Well, I’m so happy that you’re on the mend, and it’s thank you for sharing that story too, because I know a lot of people go through it, and it’s you know it’s great that you had access to great healthcare and where you’re living, and and you’ve got a great team of people around you, including your family. So really, really nice. So you’re celebrating 10 years of Yearly Co. You went from learning metal smithing and working in your garage during nap time to building out a huge business that you still own. So what’s the lesson from those 10 years that you wish you’d known on day one? When you were starting this,

Ann Williams 25:01
man, 10 years has been-you know-it’s been a long time. It’s as you know, 10 years can feel like five minutes, and like, you know, I can’t even believe that this ever happened. And I think one of the lessons that I’ve really taken with me-that’s sort of paying dividends now-is just these relationships. You know, at the beginning of my business journey, I really tried to reach out to people and be respectful of the other businesses in town and collaborate. And I think having that attitude going into business, not so much like you know we’re not all in competition. We’re not all like I think some people start their business thinking there’s not enough for everyone. I can’t tell anyone about this, or you know just like a little secretive, a little like with that scarcity mentality, and I really went about it like, let’s see if this works. I’m going to ask this person, can we do a truck show? Let’s try this. Let’s try that. And and we do things at our store now, like hosting artists for art shows, and I think the abundance mindset of like the more exposure we can give each other. The more we can support other women, other small businesses, it creates this community that will stand up for you, will show up for you. It’s a reputation that’s going to follow you around for a long time, and I think that has been a big part of Yearly’s success in Nashville and across the country. Just that we really live by that, you know. It’s in our like employee manual. We don’t talk badly about other companies. We don’t build ourselves up by tearing other people down. It’s the same thing that I teach my children. Just we just want to focus on our story, why what we make is we believe is so great, and why we can’t wait to tell other women’s stories with the jewelry. Just being really positive about that, making things right when we, you know, when we do make mistakes, which we’re all human, and I think that’s carried us really far.

Kara Goldin 26:49
I love that. Well, and and I should also mention that you’re more than bangles too. You made me a terrific ring, which I absolutely love, and it’s tiny, tiny, so it’s a little tough to see it, but it’s-I absolutely love it. I’ve told everybody where it comes from. So, and where is your location in in Nashville? By the way,

Ann Williams 27:11
in Nashville. So we are in Green Hills, kind of the you know shopping district area of more of locals. But Green Hills is a great spot. It’s behind the Hill Center. We’re in a standalone building, so we have a beautiful showroom, and we love to have customers come in and on the weekend have a glass of champagne or whatever you like, and just shop around, build your wish list. It’s a really it’s a fun spot to kind of dream up your next piece.

Kara Goldin 27:34
I love it. Well, Ann, thank you. This was terrific. I love hearing your story, and so happy that you’ve built Yearly Co. For everyone listening, check it out and follow Ann to see what they are up to next at Yearly Co. And thanks again for coming on and everyone for listening to to the Kara Goldin Show. Thanks, Ann.

Ann Williams 27:56
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Kara Goldin 27:58
Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show. If you would, please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit. And of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast. Just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms at Kara Goldin. I would love to hear from you too, so feel free to DM me, and if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal best-selling book, Undaunted, where I share more about my journey, including founding and building. Hint: We are here every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Thanks for listening, and goodbye for now.

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