26-year-old college dropout's business brings in $570,000 a year: 'I didn't want to have a conventional job'

CNBC

4 days ago

When Kate Sullivan started making jewelry in her bedroom at age 19, she couldn't have imagined that her designs would one day be spotted on stars like Gigi Hadid and SZA.
Today, Sullivan's online jewelry company, The Sage Vintage, brings in six figures a year, topping $570,000 in total sales in 2024.
Sullivan, now 26, started The Sage Vintage as a side hustle after she took a break from college in 2017. She left the University of Colorado Boulder, where she was pursuing a degree in neuroscience, and moved back in with her father in a suburb of Chicago.
To make some money while she figured out her next steps, Sullivan started buying vintage clothing from local thrift stores and selling it on Depop, a popular online resale marketplace.
Sullivan's clothing business was profitable, but when the Covid-19 pandemic started, the clothing resale market quickly became more competitive, and Sullivan's sales began to fall.
She knew it was time to pivot. "I wanted to do something different, to stand out and to make sure my business was successful long term," she says.
Inspiration struck when she found an old jewelry making kit from her childhood, and Sullivan began to create handmade jewelry in 2020.
"I thrifted some necklaces, took them apart and started making charm jewelry. And that's how it all started," she says.
With the help of her father, Sullivan scoured local flea markets, antique malls and thrift stores for vintage charms and chains. She sold her first batch of charm necklaces on Depop at between $60 and $100 each.
"I didn't really see a lot of people doing charm jewelry at that point. I felt like it was almost outdated, and I liked the individuality that it brought to each piece," she says.
As her business grew, Sullivan created her own website in January 2020, which she named "The Sage Vintage" in honor of her dog, Sage, to sell her clothing and jewelry.
"I think starting our website really made it feel real to me because I wasn't just selling on a platform anymore. It was my own thing," she says.
Sullivan had initially planned to return to college, but she decided to drop out and focus on growing The Sage Vintage instead.
"Once I started being my own boss, I realized that I didn't want to have a conventional job," she says.
Still, she was running the business full time out of her bedroom, often working on her jewelry until 1 or 2 a.m. She also handled packaging and shipping, though she hired a contract employee in August 2020 to handle emails and customer service.
By the end of 2020, Sullivan's clothing and jewelry sales generated just over $70,000 in sales. She took a salary of $12,000 after paying overhead costs.
"It felt like I was pretty much just getting by," she recalls. "I was hoping to make a lot more the next year."
Sales for The Sage Vintage remained flat at around $70,000 in 2021, but business took off in 2022 after a viral collaboration with Haricot Vert, a NYC-based handmade jewelry brand.
In July 2022, Haricot Vert and Sullivan launched a joint collection of 30 one-of-a-kind pieces priced between $100 and $350.
The collection sold out in under five minutes.
"That was insane to me," Sullivan says. "I've never made that amount of money in that little of time."
Her subsequent collaborations with Haricot Vert continued to quickly sell out and go viral.
"Once I started seeing my own pictures all over Pinterest, I knew that it was going to be something big," Sullivan says. "I'll still be scrolling through Pinterest or Instagram, and I'll see people reposting my pictures from 2 or 3 years ago, and I still cannot tell that it's me at first."
Sullivan can also count major celebrities among her customers.
Singer SZA wore an abalone butterfly necklace from The Sage Vintage onstage while performing at a music festival in 2022, and model Gigi Hadid was spotted in 2023 wearing a necklace from one of The Sage Vintage and Haricot Vert's collaborations.
Hadid's stylist reached out to Sullivan, who sent her three custom pieces.
"That was a crazy moment for me," Sullivan says.
Due to increased demand for her handmade pieces, Sullivan found herself working 14 to 16 hours a day.
"One of the biggest struggles is when you're growing at such a fast pace," she says. "After our collaborations, I was having a really hard time working by myself."
She decided to change her strategy: "In order to scale my business, I really needed to start making multiples of each piece, and not just one of ones."
Sullivan began to purchase bulk batches of charms and worked with manufacturers to create gold-plated replicas of vintage charms. She started selling single charms and chains, as well as offering choose-your-own-charm custom options.
A single charm can cost as little as $12 to $14, while a custom charm necklace typically costs over $350, Sullivan says. The most expensive piece of jewelry on her site is a 14k charm necklace priced at $1,148.
She also expanded into wholesale: in April 2023, a buyer from Anthropologie reached out to Sullivan and purchased 8 handmade, one-of-one necklaces for $1,500. Jewelry from The Sage Vintage is now available in several boutiques and small businesses across the country.
Today, Sullivan employs three part-time contractors to help with the logistics of running The Sage Vintage, though she still makes the jewelry herself.
"I have a lot more flexibility now that I have employees," Sullivan says. "I do try to have a proper weekend now, and I really do try to stick to a 9 to 5. But again, if I do want to take a day off, I'm welcome to do that, thankfully."
In 2022, Sullivan moved from Chicago to Idaho, bought a house, and began operating The Sage Vintage from a small outbuilding on her new property.
Last September, Sullivan took out a $67,000 loan from e-commerce platform Shopify, which she uses to power her website, to renovate the outbuilding into a full-scale jewelry workshop, as well as to redesign her website and increase stock ahead of the holiday season. Since then, she's paid off over 50% of the loan.
After years of paying herself through distributions from the business, she plans to pay herself a "proper salary" of $100,000 in 2025.
In the future, Sullivan hopes to expand The Sage Vintage and open up a storefront in Chicago. Later this year, she plans to launch her own line of apparel in addition to jewelry, "coming full-circle" from her early days on Depop.
"I definitely am so grateful that I did drop out and didn't continue on the track that I was on," Sullivan says.