Today we’d like to introduce you to Alana Cole & Logan Tyler
Hi Alana & Logan, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
We met in college at Emory & Henry in Southwest Virginia and became fast friends. After graduation, we remained close while growing our families and pursuing our own individual career interests. Logan entered the corporate world becoming a top sales representative for a prestigious jewelry empire followed by excelling as a marketing executive for a busy Roanoke radio station. Through her expertise in marketing, she partnered with her husband to develop their business, Virginia Wildlife Solutions. She then found herself pursuing medical aesthetics where she quickly acquired an overflowing list of clientele. Alana pursued her dreams in medicine and became a neurosurgery physician assistant under a prestigious dual-trained neurosurgeon. After 4 years in the field, she uprooted her family to continue working under her mentor as the chief neurosurgical PA in her practice, which is what ultimately brought our business to South Carolina. As our friendship grew over the years, the exciting conversations we once had about our professional lives had become lackluster. We had both found ourselves in situations where our personal values did not align with that of our corporate counterparts’. We had both reached our hypothetical career summits and were looking for something different, something more fulfilling, flexible and exciting. Before we knew it our conversations went from “what should I do?” and “what are you going to do?” to “what can we do together?” And we both plunged in head first. Within a few months, we had both quit our full time jobs to set out on this journey to bring biannual adult pop-up consignment shopping to the Low Country. We haven’t looked back since!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
We jumped in the proverbial pool head first while drinking from the fire hose, and that was not easy but it was exciting! We are very different personality types, but one thing we definitely have in common is that we both tend to make up our minds quickly and move forward at full force. So within four months of deciding to do this together, we had opened the doors for our first Statemint event. The preparation for that came with its own challenges! Of course, getting the word out for any business starting out is difficult, but our business model needs shoppers AND consignors to succeed! We are not a brick and mortar storefront, which makes us organically less visible and forging through the social media algorithms as a brand new business felt like cruel and unusual punishment. But we forged on! And with multiple online avenues to sell clothes and accessories, we were thrilled to find that so many locals decided to take a chance on our business model and sold in our first pop-up event in September. We were even more thrilled to find that EVERYONE went home with a paycheck at the end and our event was a success!
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
At Statemint, we believe in reclaiming your closet – when you look good, you feel good! And we believe everyone should be able to cultivate the wardrobe of their dreams without paying an arm and a leg. A closet should have clothes worthy of a blind grab-and-go moment, knowing whatever you choose will fit and feel great. Yet so many of us find ourselves sifting through items we haven’t worn and we KNOW we never will, whatever the reason.
With Statemint, you can sell your unwanted items for cash AND shop for amazing deals on your favorite brands at 50-80% off retail value! We pop-up twice a year, once in the Spring and once in the Fall, for an amazing circular fashion event. We take current styles and name brand items for men and women – clothing, shoes and accessories including handbags, wallets and jewelry!
Online resale is tedious, requiring continuous attention, with precious time often spent and lost on leads and continuous trips to the post office or a central meeting point. We make it easy! Register to sell in our event, price and prep your items and drop them off the day prior – we do the rest! We pay our consignors within 2 weeks of the event’s end and they also receive exclusive perks like shopping early before we open to the public on the first day of the event and on discount day! And then of course, there is the SHOPPING! Our event offers a chance to find incredible deals, unique one-of-a-kind items and styles that can compliment any wardrobe.
We also have a mission to give back to our community. For each event, we partner with a nonprofit organization and donate a portion of our proceeds to their cause. This Spring, our Charity presale day will benefit the Charleston Animal Society 💓
The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
We learned many personal lessons, but our baby business did not exist during the initial COVID crisis!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://statemintconsignment.com/summerville/summerville-landingpage
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/statemint.summerville
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/statemint.summerville
