Entrepreneurship and Innovation: A Case Study

This case study explores the journey of an entrepreneur and her innovative jewelry business. It covers the challenges faced, successes achieved, and strategies implemented.

Running Head: ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION
Entrepreneurship and innovation
Case study
[DATE]
[Company name]
[Company address]

ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION 1
Background
Tammy belonged to that family which has little emphasis on making life better with
the help of education. None of her family member was able to earn a degree, which
has actually created a pressure on her from the earlier life. But at that time her plan
was just to gain a job with the objective of earns at least $8 /hour. When she
completed her high school, she decided to take admission in photography as
education. At the same time she decided not to attend extra class just for simply
taking pictures (Potter, 2015). She was convinced that attending seminars and
workshop of Kodak will be very helpful for her in order to improve her photography
capabilities. Few years after Tammy was married to a military man and soon they
have a baby Chelsea in their family. Tammy was able to gain benefit of her husband
military occupation because of which she was able to travel many countries and
was having ample opportunity to explore her photography skills and earn some
extra money for her family. Soon she was able to get a job because of her travel
experience which has offered her various new experiences (Story exchange, 2013).
From her past experience she decided to give Chelsea a better life and had fixed
this objective in her mind. Soon they moved to Omaha so that Chelsea will be able
to earn quality education. After graduation both Chelsea and Tammy move to
Kentucky to start a new beginning.
After moving to Kentucky both mother and Chelsea started facing new challenges.
As Chelsea was having just high school graduation, therefore it was very important
for them to have job in order to survive in the new world. With the help of
experience in 2008, Tammy was able to gain the position of project manager at
Preferred tank and tower which was a known water tank storage company. Soon,
Chelsea was able to get job in the same company and in 2009 she was appointed as
inspection manager. Chelsea was able to growth very fast in her position because of
her abilities and confidence. In order to bring the required improvement in the
business she was continuously trying to find out new ways and approaches
(Languagehat , 2012). Management of the company was so impressed by her work that
they cannot even imagine their business operation without her.
Entrepreneur journey

ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION 2
After spending lot of time with the company, she decided to follow her passion. Her
passion was linked with her childhood memories. During her childhood, her mother
used to buy set of Pony beads for her. Chelsea`s used to spend hours in stringing
the chunky, brightly colour beads in to trinkets, rings and ornaments. This has
increased her passion towards jewelry making and had even part time job in one of
the jeweler shop. Though position was not so favorable but was able to fulfil her
passion towards jewelry making. This offered her first opportunity to get paid for her
passion at the age of 16.
She decided to open her first shop under the Etsy.com in order to bring some of her
stylish jewelry in the market of retail business. It was an online story, which offers
the individual an opportunity to purchase or sell their handmade jewelry and clothes
on this platform. In the meantime, she was thinking that the name of her shop must
match with the service, which they were offering in the market. In this way Horse-
feathers gift came in to existence (lodgeatsummerlake, 2019). She wanted to
connect it with her child hood environment mainly the rural one in they used to live.
So she decided to leave her job and go for pursuing engineering degree from Ivy
Tech Community College with the mindset that it will offer her a bright career
despite it was not her passion. But after having conversation with her husband she
decided to leave her engineering in order to follow fulltime passion towards jewelry
making. She then joined Gemological institute of America where she earned degree
in jewelry making with the help of distance learning. She decides to participate in
local jewelry show so she decided to dedicate her full time on jewelry making
(Colvin, 2009). Though she was not much aware of the perfect location for her
jewelry but still she was trying her best to bring thing in this market. Full support
from her family including her husband had offered her confidence that she can do
anything. In addition to this, her degree from Gemological institute of America was
acting as a boost for her to follow her passion towards jewelry. A completely
different world was waiting for her passion.
Horse-feathers gift studio
After deciding that she will go for jewelry making business, she came to known
about one nearby shop known as studio 107 in Morganfield, Kentucky. The shop was
a combined combination of photography by Aubrey and artists. It was a perfect

ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION 3
opportunity for her to sell her product without extra charge. This helped her a lot to
promote her product in jewelry show in various location. Soon Chelsea was given an
opportunity to make use of space in studio 107 for her jewelry passion and in the
meantime she can also teach creative talent of arts to children’s. She formed very
healthy relationship with Aubrey and this helped her to improve the quality of
picture which she could use on Etsy.com and in return Chelsea used to teach paint
and making jewelry to kids (Fringe, 2015). But it did not work well for the jewelry
store because customer used to visit jewelry on part time base because it was not a
photographer studio and not potential jewelry shop. Therefore she decided to find
some new location for her passion where she can growth with her jewelry creation.
After exploring the area, Aubrey came to known that there was a building available
on lease which was near to studio 107. This building happened to be the perfect
space for the dreams of Chelsea because it was offering huge space in terms of
storing, shipping and even displaying the jewelries. But this decision was connected
with the risk because selling online is very different from selling offline and in
addition to this she had to pay a year lease amount and various bills associated with
the building (Docplayer, 2019). Chelsea calculated break even analysis of the
business and predicted that she is going to make profit with this decision. Then she
approach to one of the photographer who was friend of Aubrey to help her in
making a logo for her business and soon that logo have become the representation
of the business in present time. This logo helps the business in brand identification
along with business promotion through shopping bags and other marketing cards.
Soon her mother Tammy left her position from Preferred tank and tower company
and joined Chelsea as fulltime business partner.
Facebook presence of Horse Feathers
In this world of technology, Chelsea identified that only having brick and blocks in
the form of location is not enough in present world which has become totally
dependent on technology. Therefore online presence plays a very important in
creating unique impression on the minds of potential customers. Chelsea created a
one line page of Horse Feather on Facebook which is recognized one of the most
popular social media platform till today (Facebook, 2019). Soon Facebook proved as
one of the significant tool for this business building. This platform was used in the

ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION 4
form of providing the jewelry related information, offering contest related jewelry
and advertising their business. In addition to this, Facebook offered a platform for
this business where two potential customers can interact with each other to form
jewelry connection associations.
Own website
Earlier she used Etsy.com to sell her products online but quickly she identified that
HorseFeather must need its own website to become fully independent online
business service. This will further help in showing that they are professional and can
be completely trusted. Though Etsy was offered better service for HorseFeather but
a single click of mouse can land the potential customer to another shop which was
affecting their business. Even though she was not graducated in web designing but
her passion encouraged her to learn web designing. After exploring many websites
in terms of their appealing personality, she decided to go for particular web design.
She selected webhost and decided to go for the cheapest template which will offer
various function related to her business. Further she had taken help from various
social media tools to understand the pattern of website of various big companies.
After lot of exploration she started her website and started posting her product for
sale.
Competition
After feeling the success story of this business, many small businesses started
copying their business model, which increased the competition in the jewelry
market and created a risk type environment for Horse Father. But with the help of
her creative skill she was able to increase her online which made her less
dependent on offline business.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION 5
References
Story exchange. (2013). Mother and Daughter Create Eco-Friendly Arm Candy
[online].Retrieved from: https://thestoryexchange.org/mother-daughter-create-ecofriendly-arm-
candy/
Potter, L. (2015). Horsefeather gift [online]. Retrieved from:
https://www.ket.org/living/horsefeathers-gifts/
Languagehat . (2012). Horsefeathers [online]. Retrieved from: http://languagehat.com/horsefeathers/
Facebook. (2019). Horsefeather page [online].Retrieved from:
https://www.facebook.com/horsefeathersgifts/
lodgeatsummerlake. (2019). Horsefeathers gift [online]. Retrieved from:
https://www.lodgeatsummerlake.com/Horsefeathers-Boutique.html
Colvin, R. (2009). Remembering Harpo: his life and legacy. The American Harp Journal, 22(2), 36-41.
Fringe,B. (2015). Ajewelery journey [online]. Retrieved from: http://horsefeathersgiftsblog.com/
Docplayer. (2019) Startup to success [online].Retrieved from: https://docplayer.net/24830263-From-
startup-to-success-an-entrepreneurial-.html