We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jonne Amaya a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Jonne, 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?
For me its important to not depend on a job or working for someone else. Feeling like I’m in someone’s hands was something that didn’t feel safe for me so I wanted to build a company where I felt confident that my growth and success was simply in my hands.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
My focus in the jewelry industry has always been to participate as intentionally and sustainably as possible. We mainly work on repurposing old jewelry and reconstructing it into modernized custom designs. We also have a small made-to-order capsule which we are planning on growing this year. Our company motto is ” Always metal prominent, never mass-produced or ready to ship”
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
I’m extremely stubborn and in the workforce that ended up translating into consistency. I was stubborn enough or ” consistent” enough to not give up on building the brand I wanted.
I’ve always naturally rebelled against traditional routes and have always highly questioned processes. Because of this I landed on focusing my time mostly on Repurposing old jewelry. Now its commonly heard of, but when I started repurposing in 2018, It wasn’t something that companies and designers were offering. There wasn’t a guideline of how to go about that process. So I really had to sit down and understand how I could work with customer’s materials, how I would charge for our time and figure out how we would need to educate the customer on repurposing what they already have, rather than purchasing new pieces. This route is what started my career in jewelry, and was fully guided by Curiosity.
Freedom
As a child I despised school. I hated having to come back from a long day and then have to sit down and do more homework. All I cared about during school and after was my free time. I didn’t really allow for teachers or my parents to pressure good grades out of me. I didn’t care at all and didn’t have any inclination on being the best in class. I literally was content with simply “passing” if that meant I wouldn’t have to spend time doing something I didn’t want to do. This continued into my adulthood- I would rather work 1000 hours on my project than 40 hours on someone else’s because I highly value my freedom.
As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
I really loved the book OBSESSED: building a brand people love by Emily Heyward. It really helped me understand how important it was for me to focus on the root of my company and what I would represent in the industry.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.Jonneamaya.com
- Instagram: @jonneamaya
