Dishing up advice from co-founders of Great Jones
The quest for affordable, quality kitchenware led two women to cook up a Great idea.
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.
When Sierra Tishgart and Maddy Moelis were beginning to build out their kitchens post-grad, they realized that the process was exhausting, time-consuming, and ridiculously expensive. Using Tishgart’s background as a James Beard award-winning food editor at New York Magazine and Moelis’ background working at such startups as Zola and Warby Parker, the first-time entrepreneurs created Great Jones and a new way to outfit their kitchens.
USA TODAY caught up with the startup founders and childhood friends. Question: How did you get your start?
Maddy Moelis: I went to business school in undergrad and studied marketing and consumer behavior, and when I graduated I started working at Warby Parker in the very early days. I have since worked at a few other startups, most notably Zola, the wedding registry company. At both Warby and Zola, there was a ton of learning, and people that I met and experiences that I went through helped formulate our opinions on how we built our ... startup.
Sierra Tishgart: I went to journalism school and worked as a journalist. I worked at New York Magazine for five years as a food editor, and that really helped in us launching Great Jones because we got to know and ask advice from chefs and cookbook authors. Q: What led you to create Great Jones?
Tishgart: Maddy and I have known each other for 20 years (we were childhood friends from summer camp). When I was working as a food editor I started to feel like I wanted to prioritize my own home cooking. But, when I went to go figure out what I needed and why in my own kitchen, it was confusing and overwhelming and prohibitively expensive to get nice things. Maddy had a very similar experience , and we had a hunch that we could really modernize the process of outfitting your kitchen. Q: What does a typical day look like?
Moelis: It is crazy, and I think it’s very different for both of us. Once the day really starts, there’s tons of meetings and conversations and people coming out of the office. So, I try to get here first.
I really covet my hour in the morning at my desk. Once everybody else comes in ... it’s a lot of meetings, conversations, creative brainstorms, and decision meetings.
Tishgart: This started as just Maddy and I, and we felt a lot of vulnerability around making decisions and really learned to trust each other. Now, it’s so exciting that we get to include more people in those decisions and on our team as we build out that team, and (we) get to learn from new people and hear their perspectives. Q: How do you balance work, life, and such a busy schedule?
Tishgart: It’s hard. We both try to do small things and make sure that, along with our team, we’re doing other kinds of activities. When our team got together to celebrate Chinese New Year, we got out of the office, we got to interact with each other as people and not just coworkers, and activities like that really put your headspace in a different light and allow us to connect with each other in a different way. Q: What advice would you give to someone who wants to follow in your footsteps?
Moelis: I wish someone had encouraged me more to trust my intuition. I think that for people who have an entrepreneurial spirit, there’s something there that they can’t ignore that they’re listening to or following. If you’re second-guessing that all the time, it’s really going to get in the way.
Tishgart: Be really mindful of who you’re surrounding yourself around, and what your team and extended team looks like. (It’s) recognizing that your team goes beyond perhaps the person who’s sitting next to you every day.