How I started a lifestyle company
Anything can undergo Gotch’s creative touch
Failure was a “gift” for Jen Gotch of ban.do.
Our series “How I became a …” digs into the stories of accomplished and influential people, finding out how they got to where they are in their careers.
Jen Gotch is equal parts moxie, glitter, and feelings – and she’s not afraid to talk about any of it.
From a degree that she originally intended to get her into law school to jobs as a house cleaner, personal assistant, copywriter and food stylist, Gotch found her niche in the creative space. As the co-founder and chief creative officer of ban.do, a gift, tech, stationery and accessories shop, Gotch spends her days doing everything from championing mental health awareness to helping design and cultivate the imaginative, playful inventory for which ban.do is known.
USA TODAY caught up with Gotch to talk about everything from jumping on trampolines and food styling to being appreciative of failure and understanding the importance of strengthening your emotional intelligence.
Question: What does your career path look like up until now?
I was pre-law in college. I decided in my last semester of college that I really didn’t want to be a lawyer, so I graduated with a degree in literature and philosophy. And (then I) spent the next eight years trying to figure out what I could and should do.
During that time, I went back to school a couple times. I did a lot of random jobs. The first time I did something where I was like, this is kind of cool, was when I was an on-set dresser for Bmovies. There used to be a movie studio (in Los Angeles), so if you wanted to get into Hollywood on the behind-thescenes side, you would go and work for free. If you did a good job they would hire you for like $2 a day. I eventually became a set decorator – I did Eminem’s first music video. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted, so I pivoted into photo styling.
I mostly did food styling and prop styling. I had a love for photography. That really was the first thing that set the tone for building ban.do, because it gave me the opportunity to create a personal aesthetic and understand models and photography and lighting.
I did that for a decade, and then I ended up doing set design. I did the Nordstrom catalog for many, many years under the guidance of Ursula Brookbank, and then I started to move into commercial photography. I shot a cover for Real Simple magazine – I got some really great jobs out of the gate, and I actually didn’t totally know what I was doing. I loved photography, so I felt like if I could learn it, I could have a better career.
At the same time, I started ban.do, which was really just a side project. It wasn’t meant to be what it became, so I was kind of doing photography, ban.do and a little bit of styling still for the first couple of years we had the company.
My friend who I started the company with used to work as my assistant on photo shoots. We had been on a couple shoots where we had been asked to make flower crowns, and it seeped into each of our creative consciousness. I made this flower crown for myself because I was renewing my wedding vows, and we both sort of made the same thing without discussing it, and I thought, maybe I want to have an Etsy shop and sell these on the side, because it was a fun, different, creative endeavor. She was like, “I kinda had the same idea,” so we were like … should we just do it together? And that’s what we did.
Ban.do, when it started, was vintage, one-of-a-kind hair accessories: big, bold, sort-of fashion statements. We had a lot of brides buying stuff. My brother knew how to build websites. And then it somehow went from there to here.
Q: What’s your favorite project that you’ve worked on?
I’ve had so many cool opportunities. The first thing that comes to my mind is more recent – I partnered with Iconery on mental health necklaces.
Q: What does a typical day look like for you?
It changes a lot, but right now I’m up against a hard deadline for the memoir I’m writing. More days than not, I’m waking up, having my Bulletproof coffee, (and) I go to this workout called Lekfit where I jump on trampolines for the better part of an hour. And, then honestly, it’s a bunch of sitting quietly in my house, reflecting on my life and writing about it.
On the flip side, there’s a couple days a week where I’ll come into ban.do, which normally means back-to-back meetings where I try to accomplish in a day what I would normally do in a week, and stay on top of things.
Q: What do you do to stay creative?
Creating creativity for commerce is different, which is the higher percentage of what I do at this point. And so I think it’s finding visual inspiration and, more than anything else with creativity, understanding when you work best, identifying when you hit your breaking point and not trying to push yourself through that.
I feel like my creativity has more to do with trying to avoid creative blocks, and then also understanding that when they happen, it’s OK.
Q: What’s been your biggest lesson learned?
I learned that failure is a gift and should be viewed that way. Sometimes it takes a little time and distance to be able to do that, but when I look back and look at things that from most people’s standpoints would be viewed as a “failure,” I feel like they’ve always given me something that’s really valuable. We’re just trained to think of failure to be something to be really afraid of, but I wouldn’t be where I am if everything had just worked out.
Q: What advice would you give to someone who wants to follow in your footsteps?
Gaining self-awareness, to me, is the key to personal and professional success. Having (emotional intelligence) and being resilient just allowed me to get knocked down, pick myself back up.