Life + Work

Most of the time when I receive an email with someone requesting information about lulu’s, I promptly shut them down and say we’re not interested. Thank God I wasn’t my usual rude self to Sarah Miller of VoyageDenver Magazine.

Some lovely human being pitched our story to Sarah and the rest of the editorial team for their hidden gems / inspiring stories series and here it is!

“Today we’d like to introduce you to Caitlin Marsh.

Caitlin, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Lulu’s began in 2007 as a kind of last resort when my mom (and founder), Christy Vranesic Brant, couldn’t get a teaching job. Our family has an extensive background in the furniture industry, beginning with my grandfather who started the trend as a teenager when he dropped out of school to work for Colorado Bedding and worked his way up to become a top salesman for Spring Air mattresses.

As another sort of last resort and a contingency to my folks helping me when I was newly sober, I began working at the shop. What began as a way for my mom to keep an eye on me and for me to make daily living amends turned into something we never thought possible, both professionally and personally. There’s a good balance between the two of us being partners. My mom is nicer than I am and I have a natural sense of merchandising, so we know our strengths and weaknesses and don’t pretend to be anything we’re not.

We also have an honest relationship and can tell each other if we think something is going to be good or not, for example when we’re at the market buying for the store and I suggest a piece of art, my mom will look at me and say, ‘are you crazy’ and vice versa. We like to attribute sixteen years in business to our laid-back business strategy, wardrobe, and overall mindset, plus a shit load of hard work.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
NOTHING about this industry or this store has been a smooth road! We just moved into our fifth (and FINAL) location and whether you want to look at that as being crazy or tenacious is up to you, but that alone should be an indication.

Furniture is arduous, to begin with: we own it, along with everything else in the store, and 80% of the time it comes in damaged and you either have to pay to get it repaired or ship it back and pray for better luck when you get a new piece, you move the entire store and nothing is light when you use something in the store as display/hopes of selling it gets damaged and you have to discount it, the list goes on.

Up until this year, we were truly a two (wo)man operation: the buyers, the unpackers, the merchandisers, the salespeople, the managers, the accounts payable, the claims department, you name it. Being any of those titles singularly would be demanding but being all of them combined with dealing with the previous qualms is exhausting.

One of the HARDEST and MOST FRUSTRATING parts of having a small business is when a consumer walks in and asks, ‘what’s the best you can do?’ or ‘how low will you go on this?’. The price is the price that it says. It blows my mind that people think it’s acceptable behavior to ask such an ignorant question. The price doesn’t even reflect the amount of time, energy, labor, blood, sweat, tears that went into it, and every other component of lulu’s.

The second biggest struggle for me personally is the social media aspect. No one with an actual business and two young kids has time to post and be relevant on an updated high school popularity contest platform. Aside from that, people, who know NOTHING about you, or your business can write whatever they want for the entire world to see and you have ZERO recourse, ie: yelp and google.

I feel like I’m ranting, but there are so many struggles day to day. The current issues we’re facing are not being able to get the product, for a multitude of reasons, and the price increases. I swear once a week we receive an email with another price increase due to freight surcharges.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Do you know lulu’s, I mean know lulu’s. This crazy venture began fourteen years ago as an absolute last resort and miraculously we are still here. We would like to think of ourselves as furniture royalty, but in all reality, we are furniture schleppers. We are hustlers true and true and while we dress very poorly, we know a thing or two about beautiful spaces.

We source merchandise from all over the world and treat every piece that comes through our doors as if it were going in our homes, and when it arrives broken, that is exactly where it ends up. We believe in authenticity and personality. Our collection covers the gamut of styles, genres, ages, and everything in between. Almost everything in our store is produced by an actual human being, not machines, and we strive to avoid anything and everything that is associated with Amazon!

We are not in this business because we love opening thousands of boxes and think the witch-hand look is appealing. We simply want your home to spark joy. While it’s baffling to most that we encourage you to take merchandise home and try it, it’s very normal to us. We also strongly suggest you pay us next month. You might wonder if this crazy business method throws off our inventory in the system and let me assure you, it does not.

If we don’t have the item you’re wanting in the store, you’re more than welcome to come to one of our houses, and nine times out of ten, it will probably go home with you. We prefer to do business transactions and most of our accounting on sticky notes, relying on the ‘trusty old vaults’ (aka our brains) to remember where we placed said sticky notes. We still have a cash register, a landline, and handwritten thank-you notes.

We are NOT tech savvy, our website is a constant work in progress, (as are our Google, Yelp, Houzz, Instagram, and Twitter accounts) but please don’t let that deter you. We are as old school and unconventional as it comes, and I have a good feeling we’re going to stay that way.

While I just informed you of all the things we’re not, I hope I also conveyed all that we are: we do not take ourselves too seriously, we have extensive history and experience in the furniture industry, we have a good eye, we have realistic aspirations and ideas for ourselves and your homes, we are your neighbors, and we’re grateful to every one of you for just walking through our doors.

What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
#1, we GENUINELY care about our customers, products, reputations, everything. We do this because we believe in our business. The authenticity of us and the store has been a key component to our success and the fact that we search high and low for merchandise.”

Check out the article and other inspiring stories from local entrepreneurs here.

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