Female Founders: Sacha Jarmon Of Love Saro On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder

An Interview With Vanessa Morcom

Be very intentional about surrounding yourself with the right people and community. Not everyone has good intentions. I pride myself on being a very good judge of character, yet my biggest challenge in growing my business has been finding the right people. I have had employees steal, lie and cheat their contracts. The most common betrayal comes from the inside. I have learned to trust my team but not too much.

As a part of our series about Women Founders, we had the pleasure of interviewing Sacha Jarmon of Love Saro.

A true daughter of an artist, Sacha developed a keen eye for style and fashion design at an early age. Starting her beadwork at age nine, she still wears many of those early pieces today. Sacha earned her Accredited Jewelry Professional (A.J.P.) degree from the Gemological Institute of America whilst studying for her bachelor’s degree. She went on to work for various fashion houses in New York and Paris before landing in Boulder, Colorado to start her family chapter. Now a young mother of two, Sacha brings the vision, inspiration and motivation to the shared entrepreneurial spirit which brings LOVE SARO to life. www.lovesaro.com / @welovesaro.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

I have been making jewelry as a hobby since I was nine years old. My mom (who is also my co-founder), is an exceptional artist, and she always provided more unconventional activities for me in my early years. One of those was beadwork with semi-precious, natural stones. Not only did we make beautiful things and sell them in lieu of a lemonade stand, but we also learned and used the healing properties of the stones in an intentional way. I studied psychology in college and interned for a small designer in LA as well. She sponsored further accreditation for me through the Gemological Institute of America (GIA), which gave me more of a technical foundation to my deep passion for stones and gems. Fast-forward 10 years, I am working as a Controller for a real estate development company and have two babies under 3 years old. I have rekindled my love for beadwork and have been staying up late breastfeeding and dreaming up designs with my tools under my bed. Then, the pandemic strikes. I realized that life is short and mine needed more sparkle. I started LOVE SARO (SA = Sacha, me, and RO = Carol, my mom) as a way to inspire creative time with my ultimate muse, my mom. Fast forward four years later, and I am running our business, full-time, with three studios in two different states, and I have never been so fulfilled. Most days aren’t “work” anymore and I am so grateful for that!

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

Oh like the time we created a birthstone piece for Kourtney Kardashian Barker? Yeah, that was a really exciting moment. Top 10 for sure!!!!!!!!

Another interesting story would be of our first location — where we were “born” in Boulder, Colorado. We had a very large warehouse (about 4000 sq ft) in an industrial part of town. In the warehouse, we used about a third as a sculpting studio and the rest to store my parent’s vast antique collection. For a few years, one of the entrances, a single car garage, stored a Bobcat tractor. Right when we were ready to start taking clients, the tractor miraculously moved to its new construction site, and we moved in overnight. We slapped on a coat of white paint, hung a chic neon and moved in some of our favorite sculptures and antiques. Our first studio was born. The location was unmarked, only accessible by garage door. When clients would book an appointment, I would have to send them “treasure map” directions telling them how to find the location so that I could let them in through our garage door for a grand reveal. The contrast of the inside from the industrial outside made it very speakeasy style in the most charming way, which I think added a lot to our clients’ experiences.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Candidly, none of the mistakes that I have made have been very funny. One of the biggest mistakes I made early on was that I gave too much power to my first employee too quickly. Because I had another job at the time (and another job as a mom of two kids under 3), I trusted her a lot quickly. She was fairly green but had amazing hustle and a very magnetic personality. I loved working with her, and it was a big deal to hire someone after seeing clients on my own for over a year. After about 8 months of working together, when I had hired an additional three people (for a total team of 6), she literally tried to implode our company from the inside out in a very toxic way. She psychologically couldn’t handle the amount of power that I gave her and self-sabotaged her way out. It was very sad, and I feel fortunate to have learned that lesson so early on when the stakes were a lot lower.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

My parents —

I worked for my dad running his company for seven years of my professional career and working for him taught me all the hard skills that allow me to run my business with confidence (finance/accounting, legal/compliance, etc.). I have been doing little odd jobs in his office since I was five years old and he has always been the one who inspired me to own my own business. He unapologetically loves what he does, and I have always been so inspired by that passion.

I now work with my mom, who I co-founded and run my business with. She is my creative muse, my heart and soul connection. She has always inspired me with creative projects since I was a young girl. I am so grateful for the way she sees the world and how she shares that with me.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?

The pressure and impossibility of “doing it all” or balancing it all as working mothers. As a female founder and a young mom (my kids were 8 months and 3 years old when I started my business), it’s important to acknowledge that something will always be suffering. Starting and running a business takes your whole self and there is never a break or a day off, and that is extremely difficult for most people to fathom. You really need to be obsessed with what you are doing for it to feel worth that time away from your kids, especially when they are really young.

In addition, the financial piece of starting your own business can be very challenging, especially if you are a mom. Not only is childcare extremely expensive in 2024, but the only reason that I was able to grow my business without outside investment is because I didn’t pay myself for the first two years (I had another salaried job that entire time and did both — it was exhausting, but worth it!!!) so I would constantly re-invest to grow the business.

Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?

Find your support group, learn how to ask for help and seek community. It truly takes a village and entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart.

This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?

Women make up roughly half of our global population, yet only about a third of businesses globally are owned by women, according to the World Bank.

1. Financial success — Research shows that women-owned companies can generate more than twice as much per dollar invested than male-led businesses. The Rogue Women’s Fund also found that women-led startups are five times more likely to become billion-dollar companies.
2. Social and economic benefits — women-founded / led businesses help give more opportunities to other women in terms of career growth and economical advancement which is good for both society and our economies.
3. Personal traits — in general, women are more compassionate leaders, which inspires more compassion in the world in general.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?

What first comes to mind is that founders are automatically great CEO’s — this is absolutely not the case. While I do act as CEO, I have really had to grow into this role (and still am growing everyday!) and a lot of that growth has been quite uncomfortable. Leadership can be lonely do not have it figured out — I am a creative at heart — but through grit, resourcefulness and determination, I feel more and more like a CEO every day as we continue to expand and thrive.

Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?

Most people are not cut out to be founders. Many founders are also not cut out to be CEO’s, which was a hard lesson for me as my role has evolved so much since I started my business, and I did not foresee the challenges that I have experienced transitioning from someone with a great business idea and successful clientele to a team leader and true CEO.

The most important traits that make founders successful over all else are grit, perseverance and resourcefulness. Grit because you have to be willing to do anything, anytime, and accept that there are no days off. Perseverance because things will inevitably ebb and flow, go up and down, and it can be really difficult to ride out those emotions and make the tough decisions. If you are not perseverant, you will not be successful. Resourcefulness is important because as founders, we wear so many hats, and if we are doing something innovative or disruptive in our industry, there is not a clear path to follow. Resourcefulness allows us to teach ourselves new things and ask for help so that we can continue to pave our own way.

If you are someone who enjoys PTO, weekends, or who’s energy depletes easily, entrepreneurship is not for you. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but founders are a very specific breed of human in my opinion!!!

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?

1 . Be very intentional about surrounding yourself with the right people and community. Not everyone has good intentions. I pride myself on being a very good judge of character, yet my biggest challenge in growing my business has been finding the right people. I have had employees steal, lie and cheat their contracts. The most common betrayal comes from the inside. I have learned to trust my team but not too much.

2 . There will be extremely high highs and extremely low lows. I often cry both tears of stress and happiness in the same day.

3 . Invest in a good lawyer that you have good synergy with. I used a referral from my dad when I was first starting out. The firm passed me around to different male associates that were condescending and expensive. I wasted about $6k before I realized they were not the right fit. I then ended up finding my current lawyer through Instagram — we have wonderful synergy and I feel like I can really ask her questions and learn from her. She has helped us through so much and I am so grateful to have her in our corner.

4 . Just because you experience 7000% growth one year does not mean that this is sustainable or realistic growth for the next year. Act conservatively. I think this one is self-explanatory!!

5 . Plan for plan A, B and C to not work out and have plan’s D, E and F. Being in a new and very trendy part of the jewelry industry, it has been super important for us to know when to pivot and where to focus as several other businesses pop up every day and our clients have the luxury (or noise) of more and more choices. When we first started, there were not many businesses at all doing permanent jewelry, yet today, the landscape looks very different.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

In several ways!

1. We support small, local female-owned businesses on a regular basis — either by carrying their products in our studios, or hosting them for curated events and pop ups, valuing these types of businesses has been very important to us since day one.
2. We regularly donate to causes we believe in within our local communities. One of our proudest accomplishments in this area was raising over $40,000 for reproductive rights with our local small business shopping event, Precious Change.
3. Through our intimate, experiential design process, we routinely inspire our clients to feel loved, empowered, valued, uplifted, protected, grounded, inspired, and more. By caring for our community in the way that we do, through these very special design processes, we believe it is a ripple effect that truly can change the world, and we are very proud of that.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

We are actively inspiring a movement of healing and personal transformations through sustainable, intentionally designed heirloom quality permanent jewelry. Depending on our client, our jewelry creation experience can be extremely empowering and transformative, bonding and personal for those sharing it together, and often healing for those recovering from loss or other emotional challenges.

Additionally, in a world of over-consumption on a mass-level, we pride ourselves in offering a sustainable solution for sentimental jewelry lovers — a solution that makes you feel fancy and beautiful and connected to those you love, all the time. The permanence aspect carries profound emotional implications, as well as impacts how we consume. Gold plated or gold-filled jewelry options might be extremely affordable, yes, but they wear down extremely quickly, resulting in overconsumption. We are proud to offer the highest quality metals and gemstones, with a lifetime warranty, to help our clients build a jewelry collection that will truly last forever.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Hillary Kerr — her podcast “Second Life” is what gave me the confidence to jump and start my business. I have listened to almost every single episode and am so empowered by the opportunity to hear so many extraordinary stories of women and mother’s founding successful businesses. She is such an inspiration to me!

Imran Ahmed — I am also very inspired by the Business of Fashion’s content and podcast and listen regularly. He is 1000000% someone I would be thrilled to meet!!!

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

About The Interviewer: Vanessa Morcom is a millennial mom of three and founder of Morcom Media, a performance PR shop for thought leaders. She earned her degree in journalism and worked for Canada’s largest social enterprise. She can be reached at vanessa@morcom.media