Long before she started studying business at the University of Maryland Shady Grove, junior accounting major Jessica Yamini learned firsthand the tenets of running a successful company.
Yamini, who has always held an interest in arts and crafts, started selling her jewelry creations to friends when she was a student at Eleanor Roosevelt High School. Encouraged by her peers’ positive feedback and the prospect of saving money for college, Yamini resolved to expand her business, and in summer 2008 she launched Trés Cute Accessories.
“I was a senior in high school and I was worried about paying for college … so I decided, ‘I might as well try this and see how it goes,’” Yamini said.
In order to promote her budding business, Yamini created a Trés Cute MySpace page, which she used not only as a means of finding potential buyers but also as a crucial networking tool.
“I just tried doing what everybody was doing at the time, adding more friends and saying, ‘Hey, check this out,’” Yamini said. “And then a few different [musicians] took interest and they were like, ‘Hey, I like your necklaces. If you want to send me some I can send you some of my band’s merch’ and things like that. So then through that I got a few different bands to wear my stuff.”
Numerous bands, including Runner Runner, The Audition, The Higher and The Downtown Fiction, began to routinely sport Trés Cute pieces. Austin Bello of Forever the Sickest Kids even donned a TC Thunderbolt necklace on the November 2008 cover of Alternative Press Magazine. In turn, Trés Cute’s customer base widened significantly.
“I would [post pictures of artists wearing Trés Cute necklaces] in an album on MySpace and people would be like, ‘Oh my god, that’s so cool! He’s wearing that?’ and then they’d tell their friends so that was helpful,” Yamini said.
Since then, Trés Cute has developed into a flourishing enterprise. Yamini now sells original jewelry, apparel and home décor through TC’s Web site (www.trescuteaccessories.com) and at local pop punk concerts. Although she manages to balance maintaining her business with fulfilling academic responsibilities, she admits that it can be challenging.
“It’s hard. One or the other suffers, most of the time it’s like that, I don’t want to say I put [Trés Cute] on the backburner, but I definitely focus a little bit more on my studies,” Yamini said. “But during the summertime it flourishes a lot more and it does a lot better.”
Although at times school may detract from her business endeavors, Yamini’s marketing classes ultimately have instilled her with new notions about how to further develop Trés Cute.
“Taking business classes is helping me because I’m seeing things like, ‘Oh, I should have done that’ and ‘I wish I knew this three years ago,’” Yamini said. “Now I’ve got a lot more experience so I know the right timing.”