Meet Carly Taylor

We were lucky to catch up with Carly Taylor recently and have shared our conversation below.

Carly, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?

My work ethic is definitely a combination of intrinsic motivation and from my family. Growing up my parents both worked extremely hard. My dad traveled most of the year for his job to provide us a great life and my mom took care of us day in and day out. I saw their sacrifice and what they gave up for my siblings and I.

In general though, I’ve always been motivated and persistent. I’ve been a natural leader from a young age and always had crazy ideas of things I wanted to do and then made happen. These are qualities that still run deep and why I never shied away from the idea of having something of my own. From lemonade stands on the weekends, to participating in garage sales with my mom, to starting a side-hustle in Thailand when my best friend and I were teaching English, I was always finding out how I could do and have more. Never from a place of greed, but I knew it all meant more freedom and more opportunity and that made me work harder.

High Pile Designs would truly be no where without my sister and business partner. There’s a lot I do but I definitely do not do it all. Having Jessie side by side with me to learn, grow and propel the business forward keeps me working harder than ever.

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?

High Pile Designs is a home decor company rooted in social impact. During a sibling trip to Turkey, my sister and I learned about the cultural and historical importance of weaving in the region. Our biggest takeaway though was that it’s almost obsolete. There are about 5-10% of original weavers left in the entire country, and once they stop weaving, these rugs will cease to exist. To top it off, women are typically weaving the rugs and the men are selling them – often never seeing the fruits of their labor (payment). All of this struck a chord with us.

The rugs we were seeing were gorgeous works of art – like nothing we’d seen back in the U.S. For us, two women in their 30s, owning a handmade rug wasn’t even on our radar as a possibility. But when we learned that they actually can be affordable and they last for hundreds of years, we started thinking about how we could bring them back to the U.S. and share them with our network. And that’s how we decided to start High Pile Designs.

For every piece sold, we donate back to our partner organization in Turkey, KEDV. They’re a non-profit, non-governmental organization aimed at empowering women artisans and entrepreneurs in Turkey through leadership programs. We haven’t been able to find anyone else in the industry paying it back in this way. In addition, we recently partnered with Greenspark to continue to operate as sustainably as possible. For every order placed on our website, we support projects globally like Co2 offset, the recycling of plastic bottles, planting trees, and restoring kelp forests.

Our business model is drop-based and collection-based, as we’re constantly privy to new and different types of inventory, so make sure you’re subscribed to our emails and following us on social so you’re the first to know about new launches!

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Looking back, the three qualities that have been the most impactful are organization, determination and confidence. There’s never a time I don’t have 3 to-do lists going at the same time – sometimes overkill, but I always know what needs to get done! The satisfaction of crossing responsibilities off my lists feels so satisfying. I’ve created countless spreadsheets, inventory trackers from scratch and P&L’s so we know where we’re at business-wise at all times. And no one ever taught me this.

My determination and confidence go hand in hand. This has been true my whole life – when I’m passionate and excited about something it’s all I want to work on. In most of my free time you can find me working on the business because the only person I can blame is myself if things don’t go well. Those feelings really push me to give my all and my best on any given day. Of course I’m human and have days were I need to reset or recharge but I actually get a lot of energy from creating and building High Pile Designs.

My confidence comes from truly believing we are building something special and different from what’s currently on the market. In my mind the worst possible outcome of it all is that we created a business and learned a lot along the way. And that’s a really positive outcome in my mind.

There’s so much advice, but first is to just get started! And take it day by day. I knew nothing about starting a business when the idea of High Pile Designs came to me, but the internet has been my best friend throughout the process. I felt like I was pretty self-sufficient before, but I’ve become even more so now. I often feel intimidated (sometimes daily depending on what needs to be done/accomplished) but I know if I just start and take things slow, I’m capable of finding solutions and I believe that holds true for everyone.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

One of our biggest obtacles right now is growth and brand presence. We’re a small brand with a year under our belt and totally self-funded. There’s no massive budget for marketing, and without budgets like other big brands, we’ve really had to rely on referrals, our network and organic growth/search on social platforms. Every day we’re working on our SEO, making sure the website is totally optimized, watching videos and tutorials for pieces of the puzzle to improve, creating content to attract fellow rug lovers in our community, etc. It’s a lot, but we’re always learning!

Another obstacle is our competition. Massive retailers like Target and Amazon can sell machine-made rugs for $100 but an authentic, handmade rugs of the same size will always be $800+. Education is a big part of what we do but we definitely have to play the long-game there so it’s always a struggle to be patient as I’m inherently impatient. 🙃

Contact Info:

• Website: https://highpiledesigns.com/
• Instagram: @highpiledesigns
• Facebook: @highpiledesigns