A Seat At The Table
Paisley & jade, a specialty furniture rental company continues to grow through partnerships and excellent service.
Boutique vintage and specialty furniture rental company, Paisley & Jade, located in Richmond, Virginia, has more than doubled the size of their team since 2020. Over the past ten years they’ve learned a lot about their business and completely changed the ways they talk about growth.
As a small business owner getting started, partnerships are essential. Finding the right support, from professional services to referral partners, are key to building a business. But, having more experienced business owners validating your ideas and providing emotional support, that is what fuels you when uncertainty creeps in. The team at Paisley & Jade have figured this out for themselves and paid it forward.
In 2018 co-founders, Perkins Morgan and Morgan Montgomery, signed on as a sponsor for Rebelle Con, our annual boutique conference for women leaders, and have been with us ever since. Their incredible collection of event decor has elevated our event experience and helped us build our brand. From the very beginning, they understood how design could elevate an experience, but their business is truly built on their customer service and how they have invested in partnerships to elevate their industry.
We caught up with them to learn more about how they have grown from a small collection of vintage seating, to a warehouse filled with unique pieces to create one-of-a-kind visual displays for events for 10 to 500 people, trade shows, commercials, and productions.
Paisley & Jade co-founders (left to right) Perkins Morgan and Morgan Montgomery.
Q&A With P&J
R: What was your vision when you started Paisley & Jade?
P&J: Our vision with Paisley & Jade was to be able to offer boutique event rentals that stepped beyond the traditional folding chair. Instead we offered vintage curated items and custom built visual displays. We both had the pleasure of working in the local special events industry and saw a need for something new and exciting in the industry.
R: Where there other companies doing what you were doing in other markets? How did you know where to start?
P&J: There were a few companies in California and Florida who were amazing inspiration but in terms of knowing where to start, ha! That was a fun trial and error that took a few years to work through. With the knowledge we have gained over the past 10 years, we have been able to help other specialty rental companies all over the country with where to start and how to navigate this industry. Everything from sourcing, building, storing, and then communicating to local designers what we source and provide for them.
R: Describe your first few years in business.
P&J: Our first few years of business were really exciting and required a ton of energy! Because we had started in the industry (in off-premise catering) we had a chance to build relationships with planners, venues, and other vendors who were eager to give us a chance when we first started. It was their support that was absolutely pivotal in our success.
R: Any major milestones or big hurdles?
P&J: Really big milestones that we can remember would be learning to back up (successfully) our 12 ft. covered tag- a-long trailer, signing the lease on our first warehouse, and definitely hiring our first employee. The hurdles were almost comical looking back, finding the right fit in lawyers, accountants, insurance providers who understand the service we provide and could represent us accordingly. That took a few years.
R: Why did you make the decision to build furniture vs. curating a collection of rentables?
P&J: When we started, we were nearly 100% vintage rentals with focus on upholstered pieces and lounge areas. Once we established relationships with event planners, the request for architectural pieces grew in demand. We had ideas for specific pieces and grew the courage to attempt to create them ourselves. What’s interesting about rentals is that it’s not just the final product, you have to consider how it will travel, assemble, and how much space can it take up in storage.
R: Your service is above and beyond, in a time where everyone seems to be struggling to find good help, how do you keep such a solid team?
P&J: That means the world to us and something we and the whole team here works on continuously. We are service based business and have found that word of mouth from current team members and event professionals have been the most successful! The events industry sometimes has a reputation for a revolving door but we pride ourselves on team members creating a niche for themselves here and growing along with the company.
R: We know the sad stats about female founders raising capital. Did you have any problems accessing the money you needed to grow?
P&J: We were self funded when we started but as we grew and it was time to access additional capital and there was definitely the instance of banks not taking us seriously and the feeling that we were “ladies playing with pretty things” after going through a few different banks
R: So much of the world has changed in the last few years, but your events business was seemingly unfazed. Why do you think that is?
During Spring 2020 obviously the world stood still for a few months and we buckled down and bent over backwards to keep our full time team members employed. Once restrictions lifted slightly, people were ready to celebrate on a small scale and they invested in the specialty rentals. We stayed busy through the Fall of 2020 and then as soon as Spring of 2021 hit, it was the busiest we had ever been in company history in the past 9 years and it’s not letting up anytime soon.
R: During the pandemic you moved into an even larger facility, what motivated the move?
P&J: We needed a more efficient space to get our 26 ft. box trucks in and out of the parking lot. We found our new home in Manchester and made a move in July of 2021. This property has been amazing and has additional warehouse spillover space as we navigate the next few years. The goal is to keep the collection manageable in size but upgrade periodically for quality and changing styles.
R: What if anything has shifted for you in the past several years in regards to how you think about your business?
P&J: Something that has shifted for us over the past few years has been the idea of growth. In the early stages, growth meant taking on new
inventory and expanding our depth in collections. The idea of growth now has shifted into reinvesting into our team. Our collection stands on its own but it’s our team members that sets us apart. Part of our growth plan has been making sure the right butt’s are in the right seats and empowering them with the right tools and assistance to take pride in their work and opportunities to take part in local and national associations. The team size has more than doubled since 2020 and the focus is to enrich each of those positions as full time careers.
