Humble.Homegrown.Handmade.

Once upon a time my banker suggested a class. It was really only in 2018, but relative to today, it feels like 'once upon a time'. As a serial learner, I took her up on it and my life has never been the same. How often do you take people up on their suggestions or critical feedback to you and your business?

My first project in the class got flunked!

Let me explain.... the class was called Streetwise MBA, funded by the Small Business Administration with curriculum led by Glenn Ford - seasoned entrepreneur & now close friend + mentor. His class would completely change my approach to being a visionary and moving forward to convert that dream into plans. I was taught to dream first, then build the plan. My former method was to focus on tasks, what was possible in the next few weeks and inch-along. I suppose that is why it took Mercury 14 years to go from start up to second stage in business!

Building from Inspiration

I'm a huge fan of the Small Business Revolution. Drawing from the magic of this, I took my first project that was flunked, didn't think at all about HOW to make my project happen, but instead focused on my vision - creating a second Mercury Mosaics outside of Minneapolis. Instead of reading about all the manufacturing jobs leaving the US, I wanted to be part of the solution, through artisan manufacturing, to build jobs. I came up with a simpler model than what we do in Northeast Minneapolis: making inventory and then selling inventory that is ready to ship. How hard could that be? I mean, we have shapes we've never been able to keep up with in micro-levels on top of our made to order model, it can't be that hard, right?

I love the innocence I bring to the table. In fact, if you were to screen through some of the logical reasons why Mercury shouldn't be alive today, you'd literally probably ask yourself if magic was running the show, because sometimes some of this does not make sense on that P&L. What I can tell you is that a lot of what we have built in this first phase of Wadena is working well. Do I give us an A+? No. I really have learned inventory forecasting and planning is another art that we did not foresee as a vital factor because I placed so much emphasis on craftsmanship, quality and building our team. I thought: these items have been demanded and needed for 5 years, they compose 20% of our business, why when we build an entire facility to make them and keep them in stock would the demand decrease? I don't know - but that's what happened.

It never goes exactly to plan

My goal is to share the great parts of my tile journey, the challenging parts and some of what we're doing to work through the failures. If we only share about what's perfect and went as planned, we're leaving out at least 40% of the story and what fun would that be? Here's a link to our company blog debuting the Wadena location.

And here's a piece the Wadena Journal published:

We have an amazing GM: Eva Aagard. Mother of 5, crafter, innovator, carpenter and brilliant human with a huge heart. Her outside of the box thinking is exactly what it takes to get an operation off the ground. She left her family for 3 months to learn tile making from the ground up in Minneapolis and has since worked with us to create and sustain 6 jobs. Our goal to conclude the first phase of our Wadena presence is to grow and sustain 12 jobs. Twelve is a magic number in tile and it's the milestone we're aiming to hit - to create the demand to support manufacturing in Wadena's tile inventory-creating model to build 12-artisan jobs. A little on some of our failures and triumphs: we triumphed in building inventory! Wow have we built it! We are now making it faster than we can sell it. This was our opposite problem in February of 2021. We were BURIED by sales. The manufacturing teams just could NOT keep up. Now, now... we're able to make SO MUCH tile but we're now grinding to sell it. Welcome to the next layer of the mosaic puzzle we're solving. Here's a link to the tiles our Wadena-family is making!

On a final note - one of the big drivers to this was to make tile in the same quality we make in Minneapolis to also be reflected in Wadena. Making tile by hand is not an easy gig. I have so much respect for the hard work, attention to detail, care and craftsmanship that goes into making artisan tile. I totally understand why company's outsource this and go overseas. I also am not a quitter. In the Midwest, we are stubborn, we don't mind sweating and we overcome obstacles! With the accomplishment of the process of making in place, we return to some education in managing demand and inventory, or as Alison Kaplan likes to say: "as we go back to the classroom."

Humbled to be in business, driven to overcome each and every obstacle. ~Mercedes