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filled. The first site Jessica built was TheBoucherCo.Com and offered
Rigaud Candles and The Thymes. These products are still selling in the retail
store in Louisiana, B&S Home Center. It had been her Mother's store
when she was growing up. Taking the products that were already somewhat popular
in a small town, they were so taken with the quality of the products and
the popular need for them that putting them on the web seemed like the thing
to do. It also helped that the two had a background in music, advertising
and distribution, since they had both enjoyed lucrative careers in the music
business for 20+ years. Singing on CD's for such artists as Lorrie Morgan, Gregg
Allman, Tanya Tucker, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Jonny Lang, Jessica, a former
recording artist for Polygram Records and Warner Bros., had also been singing
on commercials since 1980, gracing such campaigns as McDonalds, Budweiser,
Allstate, Maybelline, Seven-UP, Diet Coke and hundreds of National Commercial
campaigns for television and radio. Jessica had also been chosen for
campaigns as a writer, providing copy and music for Goodyear, Honda and Coors
Beer. It was this talent that provided an automatic plus for the marketing
and advertising that is so needed for a successful e-commerce business. Randy
had also been busy, helping in the distribution and sales of multi-platinum
recording artists such as Kiss, U2, Shania Twain, Toby Keith, Billy Ray Cyrus
and hundreds of others, as he had been an award winning distributor for Polygram
Records for over 14 years. He was involved in making sure that retail
and wholesale companies were properly maintaining their products and getting
everything they needed for a successful sales campaign. His earlier
career as a musician and writer also helps tremendously in the marketing
ideas and advertising. When the recording business began to change in the early 90's, these two, met at Polygram Records during Jessica's artist days, began dating and 3 years later were married. Just six weeks earlier they had experienced a tragedy. The tragedy was a full scale fire which took their home, which while on vacation, had been stuck by lightning. On July 4 their home in Nashville, Tennessee was completely destroyed. For both this was a time that they re-examined their lives and decided to make a change. Since their home had been a rental, they had nothing but a very small insurance rental policy. They ended up in a cheap motel with nothing but a few clothes they had had on their trip. Once they began to re-group and recover, friends of Jessica's, the Wilkinson's sent Jessica an old laptop with 8MB of memory and a printer. Jessica had become friends with the Wilkinson's when she lived in West Hollywood, California. Bill told Jessica, "This will be a great computer for you. After all, you will never do anything but type a letter." Though he didn't mean it like it sounded, Jessica was offended by the statement but of course grateful for the generous gift. "What did he mean? I can open this computer and do more than type a letter!"
That was in August 1995. After discovering that the laptop computer, which she in fact, couldn't open, was not suitable with such an appetite for learning, Randy and Jessica bought their first desktop computer in January 1996. Her father, a successful entrepreneur, who was in his 80's, told them that unless they learned about computers and got busy, they would be on the slow train watching the rest of the world go by. In less than a year, Jessica took her passion for art and began transferring it to Adobe PhotoShop, DreamWeaver and several other web design style software programs. A fellow peer, Thom Flora, with whom she had spent years singing on albums, had become a professional web designer. He was a great help as he was (and alway is!) ahead of the curve. It seemed to be a great way to make a little extra cash in between singing jobs. She began building sites for other people and buying domain names for marketing purposes, just in case some day someone might need one. Randy was also busy. He was now working for a new Recording Label and also running his own Sports Collectible business with Sam Corkins, a fellow entrepreneur and friend. Taking his expertise for sales, marketing and retail, he knew exactly how to obtain, sell and place product in a retail environment. But a retail environment was not what they had in mind. In 1999, Randy created a business plan for ScentedBoutique.Com based on the hopes that they could become the "go to site" for great upscale bath and body products, candles and gifts. That plan was abandoned, when they could not come up with the funds to get started. Then, one year later, after all thoughts of an e-commerce business had been lost, Jessica's Dad, gave the couple a $15,000 check and said he was amazed that such a small amount could get them started. He wished them luck.
With 2 small computers and a very tiny order of Rigaud Candles, one line of Thyme's products and some Burt's Bees products, they launched ScentedBoutique.Com on July 4, 2001, out of their home. 6 years before on the same day they were burned out of house and home. They had 877 hits the first month. RigaudCandles.Com was launched one year later to showcase the candle that had inspired their business. Their first order was filled out of the back of a rental truck and a storage unit, as they were in the process of moving back to Nashville Tennessee from an unsuccessful try at working with the family business in Louisiana.
The first year was slow and somewhat busy at Christmas, but they both had full time jobs and this was just a side bar business. But in July 2002, they put a Kiosk in Cool Springs Galleria, in hopes of generating cash and kick starting their business. Jessica's job played out and she took on ScentedBoutique.Com full time. The kiosk hours were brutal, so while sitting at the kiosk with her laptop at the mall, she learned the power of advertising on the web and put a few ads in the right places. Randy worked two jobs, taking over ScentedBoutique.Com on the weekends and evenings. Before the first month was over in the mall (which was not successful), they were beginning to get so many orders off of the Internet, that they couldn't handle it. From 2 orders a week, to 75 orders a day, explained the now 1,000,000 hits per month that were occurring on the web site. The 4th quarter of 2002, proved to be nothing short of miraculous. It took 5-6 people working from early morning till 2am every single day, just to be only 4 days behind. They were literally pushed out of their home, as their home business took it over. Photos were taken on the white GE Stove using the light above it for lighting! The Maytag washer became the table top for gift wrap and the garage, in snowy weather, was heated all winter by the Kerosene heater that had to be purchased in December. A friend Jessica met at the mall came on board, Kathy Orendorf, and she and her husband Dan, pitched in and helped get them through the season. Baskets, gift wrap, packing peanuts, all lined the floors and walls, and at one point, the front porch had over 70 large boxes of product coming in stacked up on the front from UPS and FedX. At the point that the orders were being processed and lined up till there was no space left to walk in the home, Jessica and Randy made the decision that they obviously had something on their hands, but had to move into a professional facility. It was not a difficult decision. Jessica has been working in conjunction with, a software development company so SBC can now enter a new phase of customer satisfaction.
