Business World photo/Mike Bonnicksen
Alphabet Garden co-owners Camilla Rose and Jenn West stand in front of some of the different items they produce.
Rank usually has its privileges, but sometimes even royalty is outranked by a child who needs to see mom when he gets home from school.
So the next time the personal representative of Sultan Majed Alnasser, Prince of Qatar, calls Alphabet Garden Designs to place an order, as he did last spring, he’d better do it before 3 p.m. That’s Pacific time.
“Our main priority is motherhood,” said Camilla Rose, co-owner of Alphabet Garden Designs, at 606 N. Chelan Ave. “We’re still 100 percent moms, so at 3 we close up and go home for our kids.”
Rose’s business partner is Jenn West. They also happen to be best friends.
The women began their friendship in 2006. Both had young daughters the same age, and during a casual conversation discovered they both had a burning desire to start a business. They seemed the perfect match. Rose has a background in graphic design and marketing, and West has a teaching degree and enjoys writing.
In spite of their different backgrounds, the business partners learned they have similar design tastes.
“We are uni-brain when it comes to style,” West said.
With young kids, the future business partners quickly discovered how difficult it was to find colorful decorations to put on their kids’ bedroom walls. They did some research on the Internet and realized there was nothing available in what they were looking for – simple vinyl transfer designs.
“We knew nobody else was doing it, so the opportunity was there,” West said.
The friends did their homework. They researched vinyl suppliers, vinyl transfer techniques and general business “how-to’s.”
It was Super Bowl weekend in 2007 when they announced to their friends and families they were starting a new business. That weekend has been celebrated by the entrepreneurs each year since.
Business World photo/Mike Bonnicksen
Karen Wilson grabs a roll of vinyl that will be used to cut a design at the Wenatchee business.
“My father is a lawyer, and he guided us through the whole process of starting our business,” West said. “He told us we needed to decide from the start what kind of business we wanted to be — a BMW or a Honda. We wanted to be a BMW.”
The business plan for the brand new Alphabet Garden Designs included these non-negotiables:
• Be a mom-based company
• Work on their own schedule
• Have a big Internet presence
• Be high-end, high quality
• Offer superior customer service
The women created their own website (alphabetgarden designs.com) and still maintain it.
“We started out really small, working out of our kitchens,” West said. “The first vinyl machine we bought was on eBay for $800 — a lot of money for us at that time — and it turned out to be a horrible machine. All the instructions were printed in Chinese. We still have the first piece of vinyl we cut with it — a simple blue square.”
The first two years the partners did everything themselves, and it was a tough time, Rose said. Working out of their kitchens, they would design the orders then process and package them. Then West would pile her three small children into her car and deliver the orders to the post office every day.
But the partners persevered.
“We quickly found our niche — children’s designs,” Rose said. “People love that we can do custom designs — anything they want.”
After identifying a niche, the fledging company grew quickly. That second year, the sales grew by 40 percent.
The decisions the partners made over the years, such as focusing on custom work and going wholesale (to 250 stores), have resulted in improved sales and consistent annual growth.
Business World photo/Mike Bonnicksen
Jamie Kershner uses tweezers to help remove excess vinyl from detail areas. Owners Camilla Rose and Jenn West decided from the start to emphasize high quality in their work.
One of their best decisions, West said, was to hire Tom Sauvageau of Sauvageau Company three years ago for bookkeeping and consulting services.
“That decision saved the business,” she said. “It freed us up to focus on what we love to do — create.”
The last three years have seen a 50 percent increase in sales each year for the company. Projections this year are for sales to top half a million dollars.
Although Alphabet Garden Designs does 99 percent of its business worldwide via the Internet, it does do some business locally. Wenatchee resident Carrie Warner was looking for something to spice up her daughters’ rooms when she contacted Alphabet Garden Designs.
“I ordered some custom vinyl decals for my girls’ rooms and they were exactly what I wanted,” Warner said. “The colors, details and quality of the designs are amazing, and I was surprised at how easy they adhere to the wall. They add so much personality to the rooms and I will definitely be ordering more.”
Designs by Rose and West also grace the walls of local businesses like Tyler B. Gundersen, DDS.
“When I remodeled my office, I wanted my staff to have their personalities reflected in the treatment rooms they worked in,” Gundersen said. “So I had each of them pick the paint color for the walls, and then come up with a quote that means something to them.”
Rose and West suggested the color of vinyl that would complement the room color, then designed the letter font and orientation to match the saying.
“They are true artists and I couldn’t be happier with the result,” Gundersen said. “I get compliments from patients on a daily basis on the work.”
Orders typically range from $189 to $2,000, and can be made in any size and pieced together. In a typical month, the business’s six employees handle 800 orders from all around the world. As for the Prince of Qatar, his kids are having fun playing hopscotch on their bedroom floor — on a pattern designed and made here in Wenatchee.
The work of Rose and West has had national exposure in People Magazine, Arthritis Today and Women’s World. The business has also been contacted (twice, in fact) by Extreme Home Makeover, but the television show’s short turnaround time prohibited Alphabet Garden Designs’ participation in the project.
“We’re still on their ‘to call’ list,” West said. “We hope we can work within their tight time constraints the next time they call.”
The business also has celebrity clients, including television personality Mark McGrath. He picked one of Alphabet Garden Designs’ patterns as one of his favorites on the television show Project Nursery.
Always striving for continued success, the partners focus on keeping up with current design trends.
“We try to anticipate the market and be one step ahead of what customers may be looking for,” Rose said. “For example, we visit stores and look at the latest colors and patterns of bed sheets. Then we design new patterns and colors to complement a specific line.”
Rose and West recently also determined they needed to create a giftable product — one a customer could purchase that is ready to hang in a room — so they researched the possibility of putting their designs on canvas.
They purchased a canvas machine, perfected the process through trial and error, and hired a new employee to build custom wooden frames for the new line of art. Now any of their designs can also be printed on canvas.
“Our canvas product now allows a grandparent, for example, to order a custom design for their grandkids and ship it directly to them, ready to hang in their rooms,” Rose said. “This is turning out to be a very popular product and should be good for our bottom line.”
Rose and West also understand the value of attending national shows to advertise their products, such as the ABC Kids show in Kentucky and the New York International Gift Fair.
“Those two shows are huge for our business,” West said. “We even had talks with Fisher-Price at the ABC Kids show about some of our designs, and although it didn’t result in any sales, it may have planted a seed for future business.”
The immediate future for Alphabet Garden Designs may include a move.
“We’ve been in our current location for three years,” West said. “We’re getting cramped and are starting to look for a bigger space.”
The best friends often have to pinch themselves when discussing the success of their business, but seem to be able to take it all in stride.
“We’re just having a great time on the adventure,” West said. “We love to make something and watch it grow. We want to keep growing and keep doing what we’re doing. We love our jobs.”
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