We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Marrin Costello a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Marrin, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
There is no shortage of challenges and adversity that awaits a seasoned entrepreneur on any given day. Simply put – that is part of the gig. I am certain that what I would consider a non-issue today would have been a much bigger challenge to process and work through as my younger self. However, I truly believe that God presents us with lessons and opportunities that prepare us for each next respective season.
After graduating college, my parents, who were so generous in paying for my college education, told me shortly thereafter, with love, to never ask for anything from them ever again. It was a tough pill to swallow at the time, but I also knew that a challenge like that would not have landed in my lap if I wasn’t ready. For many months after graduating, I couch surfed and stayed in friends’ spare bedrooms – finally landing in a modest apartment in Los Angeles with a roommate that I could barely afford at the time. The first 10 years of my professional career were unofficially sponsored by Top Ramen and saying yes to every single job that came my way. I worked multiple day gigs, babysat in the evenings, and developed my jewelry brand late at night – for years. It was during that time that I began assembling the building blocks of my jewelry business – and took every opportunity I possibly could to share, sell, and build awareness around my designs. Every single cent that poured into the business was earned with love and relentless hard work – and the company gradually grew to six figures without any outside financial assistance.
When I think of this time in my life and my career, the only thing that comes to mind is gratitude. I am truly blessed to have had such a supportive and positive foundation of family, friends, and colleagues who truly believe in all things Marrin Costello and want both it and me to continue to succeed. The opportunity for growth that my parents gave to me after graduating from college taught me how to choose victory over victimhood – and further encouraged me to lean into my faith. For that, I am eternally grateful and know that the success and resilience of the brand is rooted in that early experience in my entrepreneurial journey.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
My name is Marrin Costello and I am a jewelry designer, brand architect, and podcast host. I was born and raised on the small island of Alameda in the San Francisco Bay Area — and moved to the beautiful Tampa Bay just under 3 years ago after the pandemic wreaked havoc on California. My favorite colors are black, white, gold, and silver. My favorite animals are sharks. And while the majority of my days are spent working with sparkly things in the fashion industry, my current hobbies include competing in firearm tournaments. My paternal family is from Ireland and my maternal family is from Guam. However, the strand of DNA that runs heavily through both sides of my family is entrepreneurship.
Throughout the last 20 years, the eponymous MARRIN COSTELLO brand has grown to into 3 branches — a radio show and podcast where I celebrate and interview other entrepreneurs, a full service business consulting firm where I support other entrepreneurs with their respective ventures, and a fashion jewelry brand that is both carried in over 400 stores globally and marked by our very own flagship store in Palma Ceia. Throughout the years, we have been featured in nearly every major national publication – including Vogue, Huffington Post, In Style, and Us Weekly. This past year, we were also featured in a beautiful five page spread in Tampa Magazine, celebrating the growth and philanthropy of the MARRIN COSTELLO brand throughout the Tampa Bay community at large.
The MARRIN COSTELLO Jewelry brand now has an audience of tens of thousands customers digitally – but my love for accessories began as a child. In other words: Started with a bead kit, now we’re here.™ I received my first bead kit for Christmas at the age of 7 — and from that moment on, I was hooked. A few years later at the age of 10, I took my designs to market and sold pieces at our local Art and Wine Festival in Alameda. My love for both business and fashion were realized at a very young age – and just a couple decades later, this former childhood hobby has transformed into a multifaceted global luxury lifestyle brand, with jewelry at its core.
I come from a long line of entrepreneurs — my father’s side owned bars, restaurants, and hotels. My maternal grandparents owned an upholstery shop. After my maternal grandfather was rescued from being a prisoner of war in WW2, he paid his respects to the American people by joining the Navy. After retiring multiple times from the military, he and my grandma built a very successful upholstery business together. Even with his broken English and little to no education, he worked tirelessly and instilled the importance of work ethic into his family. My paternal grandfather did the same. That’s where I get the special strand of crazy that it takes to not only become an entrepreneur — but to sustain entrepreneurship for decades.
After receiving the accolade of Valedictorian in high school, amongst many other awards and honors, I moved to Los Angeles to attend UCLA for my undergraduate degree on a partial scholarship — and would be the first person in my immediate family to both attend and graduate from university. After taking a course on Ancient Egypt, I fell in love. When I called my parents to tell them I was going to major in Art History with a specialization in Egyptology, they asked what I would do professionally with that particular scholastic decision. I had no idea — so I double minored in business and communication, just in case. While I was in my fourth and final year at UCLA, I reconnected with a former dance teacher from Alameda who had also moved to Los Angeles — and had become a celebrity wardrobe stylist. After meeting with her for coffee, she borrowed some of my pieces to see if they would work for her clients. The next thing I knew, my jewelry was being worn by celebrities on the American Idol red carpet, with features on national television.
At the time, American Idol was still in its prime. Social media platforms had just started to gain traction, and brands like Rebecca Minkoff and Michael Kors were at their peak. To have my name beside theirs on live television was a truly unimaginable experience at that time. It was my first big break — all while I was living in an impossibly small college dorm room with cases of beads stored underneath my twin sized bed. After the American Idol feature, I started receiving inquiries from large marketing and PR firms about ‘Marrin Costello Designs.’ I immediately registered for a sole proprietorship business license in an attempt to quickly form a ‘company’. Not knowing what to call my business, I wrote my name down, having every intention of creating a DBA at a later date. As fate would have it, that ‘date’ never came – and the brand has remained eponymous to this day.
After graduating college with quite literally every scholastic honor and award that was available, I went straight into the work force. I had a full career in event production for several years, worked in the development department of the Hammer Museum, nannied for several high profile families in Los Angeles, and was the personal assistant to a renowned restaurateur — all of whom I am now blessed to all call my chosen family. That was the first time I was able to effectively and gracefully blend relationships from my professional life to my personal life. This practice of building relationship has permeated into every aspect of the Marrin Costello Jewelry brand – helping us create community everywhere we go and with everyone the brand touches.
In 2018, after having much success working for other companies, I committed to building the Marrin Costello brand full time. After many years of running the business out of my apartment, I rented an office space in the Jewelry District of Downtown Los Angeles. It was a fantastic run on the west coast – but after the pandemic turned Los Angeles upside down, I set my eyes on Tampa to grow the business in the South and South East — two booming markets for a boutique brand like Marrin Costello Jewelry. Just 4 months after the idea popped into my head to move across the country — I was fully immersed in the Tampa community, and business was thriving.
Throughout the last few years, we have grown from a team of 1 to 15, found our unique niche in the vast industry of fashion jewelry, established our Hyde Park headquarters, and opened our very first brick and mortar flagship store in Palma Ceia. This ‘Little Black Dress of Jewelry Brands’ is a feel-good company from every facet of the business. Not only is the entire collection waterproof, non-tarnish, and hypoallergenic – we also plant a tree for every single piece of jewelry sold, in partnership with Greenspark. This sustainability initiative has helped us plant upward of 15,000 trees in just a few short months while simultaneously employing impoverished communities in the surrounding areas.
My intention when I set eyes on Tampa three years ago was to audit and improve every single facet of the Marrin Costello Jewelry company, and to have the brand stand elegantly and powerfully on its own, even without me present. In just 3 short years, we have done exactly that. At the very center of all things Marrin Costello is a mission to help people feel fearless, fabulous, and like the best versions of themselves. My wonderful team and I continue to grow our reach, our impact, and our community every single day while honoring our three core pillars of Beauty, Community, and Excellence.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
One thing that is certain about my personal and professional evolution is that there is an entire constellation of people and circumstances that have not only encouraged me to grow into the great honor of being a leader, but have also walked beside me throughout my entire personal and entrepreneurial journey.
Around six years ago, I became ill with a myriad of health conditions. Doctors were shocked at the cocktail of issues that my body presented to them – and I was told, more than once, that I would be on medication for the rest of my life. I refused to accept that fate for myself, and sought another opinion in Eastern Medicine. After an unbearably intense detox of consuming only raw fruit, raw vegetables, and water for four continuous months with no breaks – my results came back and I was fully healed.
Shortly after achieving success with my health, I then began an intense therapy journey to heal my mind and spirit – alongside a distinguished psychologist who specializes in breath-work and healing inner child trauma wounds. After working with him for well over a year, I then graduated to work with another therapist, per his referral – specifically focusing on my soul’s next evolution as a woman, a creative, and a leader. I have since remained fully committed to taking care of my health and wellbeing throughout every facet of my life. It is through overcoming these personal challenges while both embodying and leaning fully into the discomfort of growth that my muscle for resilience has been strengthened, inadvertently enabling me to prosper through challenges that have presented themselves in business.
Within the Marrin Costello Jewelry team, we have a collective commitment to the growth and evolution of the brand, and are constantly exploring new ways to improve every aspect of the business – from systems and platforms, to manufacturing and design, to partnerships and community engagement, to experiences and activations, and beyond. As a result, growth and evolution have become some of the most essential aspects of not only my life, but the Marrin Costello Jewelry company culture at large. I am proud to work alongside my tribe of specialists, mentors, and the unbelievably talented Marrin Costello Jewelry team. The commitment, passion, and innovation that Team MC brings to the brand has set the tone for what we have been able to achieve in just a few short years while growing roots in the greater Tampa Bay area. What’s more, our brand pillars of beauty, community, and excellence are woven through all aspects of the brand.
My advice for those who are interested in becoming an entrepreneur is to lean into the challenges that life presents to you, enjoy creating the story that is your life and career with an obscene amount of patience, and do right by everyone, yourself included, 100% of the time.
Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?
There is not enough room within this single interview to call out all of the great mentors that I have had the great pleasure of working with throughout the years. Some of my greatest teachers, guides, and sounding boards have been members of my mental health and self development team. This ‘tribe’ of professionals has completely changed the trajectory of my life. They have all truly been divinely sent – and neither the Marrin Costello Jewelry brand nor I wouldn’t be what we are without each of them. While it is extremely difficult to choose just one mentor, I would love to dedicate this question to my therapist, spiritual coach, and business advisor Audrey Hope.
Without Audrey and her unwavering guidance, I would be a fraction of the woman I am today. Her therapy techniques that are embedded in spirit have transformed a once anxiety-and-stress-ridden patient into an unapologetic, grounded, and powerfully confident woman who stands in her unwavering truth. Throughout my tenure in working with Audrey over the past five years, she has consistently reminded me of my greatness, my divinity, my power, my vision, and my purpose.
From childhood wounds, to parental trauma, to health concerns, to romantic relationships, to business contracts, to employee challenges, to starting and ending friendships and acquaintanceships, Audrey and I have turned over nearly every single possible stone that could possibly be uncovered in my spirit, and have looked head on at all of the potential roadblocks that were keeping me from graduating to the next level of greatness in this proverbial video game called life. In this exact moment, I have never been more proud of what my team and I have accomplished, nor have I seen such miraculous things happen for the brand. And I can confidently say that it is all a direct correlation to Audrey’s guidance and belief in both me and in all things Marrin Costello Jewelry.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://marrincostello.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marrincostello/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marrincostellojewelry
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marrin-costello-9498a150/
Image Credits
All photos owned by Marrin Costello LLC
