Nines Villar Aranda

I am jeweller based in Madrid. In 1996, I started to study jewellery design in Arte3, the jewellery and goldsmith school in Madrid and since then I did not stop working in jewellery. In the beginning I learned and worked in different workshops and even in a fashion studio in London. My motivation was to get as much knowledge I could to do my own jewellery because it was difficult for me to keep doing the same kind of work over and over. So, I met with an old school colleague and we set a workshop studio of jewellery call MALICIA.

I design jewellery and decoration objects on order, bespoke mainly, although every now and then I do personal pieces. Pieces I need to get out of my head. The need of release the desire. Those pieces can be unique pieces, or they can become part of my own collection.

Now I am in a digitalization process. After the lockdown due to covid-19, the business has suffered, and selling’s dropped completely. Digitalization was an unfinished business that the circumstance has accelerated. So, my immediate purpose is to find my potential client on the Internet.

My business objectives are:

One of the objectives is to open a way where I could sell those collections online, and the bespoke pieces. To start in Spain and later try to open the market outside Spain.

I hope to find the costumer who likes and wants this kind of service in this new means which is for me the Internet.

My learnings from the Crafting Business Programme:

I learnt about organisation, I learnt about to see all the action to do in the business, as a global intention in the business itself and all that must be coherent between them.

I learned a bit of finances and now I know exactly the money I am paying to myself, and I can focus on the actions that will help me to improve that. Selling more, rising the prices, development a new product, etc. And something I did not know before is that a good marketing campaign can get you very far in business.

This has opened my mind. It has given me the tools to learn how to speak the language of the business.

My 5 top tips that I have learnt on this journey:

1. Be honest.
2. To make your own story attractive.
3. Not to be afraid to negotiate.
4. The Pareto Principle specifies that 80% of consequences come from 20% of the causes.
5. To believe in what you do.