Alex Arabov has a unique combination of business and creativity that has allowed him to build VOBARA, his custom jewelry company focused on hip-hop culture.
He was born and raised in Miami. He grew up watching his father and uncle work hard to build a jewelry business. Watching as a child, he saw the glitz and glam that came with the job and wanted it. Unfortunately, when he was 8, his father passed away. This distanced Alex from the world of jewelry but he still had his business savvy mindset. He used this to start selling jewelry in high school. As he grew up, he always maintained his jewelry business, but as a side hustle. He used his creativity and found work shooting and directing music videos. Through the connections he made by shooting videos, he found his way into the jewelry world by creating custom pendants for big names in the industry that helped get his brand, VOBARA, to where it is today.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your company?
In a way, I was born into the jewelry industry. I grew up watching my father and uncle, Jacob the Jeweler, hustle and build an empire, which was really inspiring. Unfortunately, my father passed away when I was 8 years old, after that I wasn’t around the jewelry industry too much. But when I was 16, I began selling custom Shamballa bracelets at my high school. To grow my business, I made sure to give all the popular kids at the other local Miami high schools a bracelet to create a buzz. Soon enough, high schoolers from all over Miami were buying my bracelets. I even had someone sell one to Diddy back then, it was a definite success, as far as high school branding goes. It was during this time I decided to call my business VOBARA, my last name backward, as a tribute to my father. I continued buying and selling jewelry as a side hustle after high school, and eventually creating custom pieces and incorporated in 2016 as VOBARA.
In 2014, I was doing work filming music videos. Going into 2015, I was working a lot with Kodak Black, this is right when he really started getting attention from the hip-hop industry. I saw this as my opportunity, I created the Apple Watch pendant, that we still sell today, and had Kodak help me do the promotional push to get into the hip-hop jewelry world.
With a lot of work, the pedant took off. I created an Instagram page, @VobaraOfficial to debut the pendant. Around 2015-2016, I produced the piece, got a design patent, and sold close to 10,000 units worldwide.
I used the buzz I got from this and created the Instagram I use now, @VobaraGold, to start selling and advertising only high end custom jewelry. 5 years later, we have over 80k followers and work with some of the biggest names in the hip-hop industry.
What were the top three mistakes you made starting your business, and what did you learn from them?
- The first, and biggest mistake, I made was thinking other top players in the industry would help me with advice and be excited for me. 90% of the people on top are scared of new competition; they are so worried someone is going to surpass them. The reward is when you do end up making it without any help it feels so much better!
- The second mistake I made is trying to do everything myself in the beginning. It is very important to understand not just your strengths, but your weaknesses too when starting a business. This way you can build a team that can make up for your weak areas and builds an overall strong team.
- The last mistake was thinking customers will automatically be loyal because they’ve purchased something from you. By learning this the hard way I’ve been able to really give each and one of my customers (Big or small) such undivided attention and investment in their life, whether it is listening to their music and giving feedback, wishing them a happy birthday, or checking in with them monthly so they feel they don’t just have a jeweler they have a friend who they can trust with there jewelry needs.
What would you say are the top 3 skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur, and why?
- Patience: Without patience, you won’t make it. It doesn’t matter what other skills you bring to the table. As an entrepreneur, you can see the vision and all you want is to make that vision a reality as soon as possible. But it takes time. You can’t start running if you don’t know how to walk.
- Creativity: This doesn’t mean you have to be an artist, but every entrepreneur has to have some type of creativity – or how else would you have thought up your business? There are going to be obstacles. That is a guarantee. If you can’t figure out how to work around them and overcome them you won’t make it. You have to think of solutions for problems that most people would just give up on. Creativity is being able to look at a problem and see it as an opportunity and find a unique way to solve it.
- Time management: When you are starting a new company from the ground up there are a million different things that need to get done. And chances are you are going to need to do all these things either by yourself or with a very small team. If you take hours trying to make every little thing perfect you end up losing sight of the bigger picture. You need to figure out how to get everything done efficiently and not get so caught up in the tiny things. Chances are you’re the only one that notices those things!).
What have been your biggest challenges and how did you overcome
them?
Getting into this multi-billion dollar industry with little to no money or help from anyone was my biggest challenge. I came in determined to make an impact and a few years later, I’m glad I never gave up.
What are you learning now? Why is that important?
Right now, I’m learning to work with a team. Getting people whose strengths are my weaknesses is definitely something I feel will be really instrumental to my business success.
If you started your business again, what things would you do differently?
I don’t think I would do anything differently because all my losses were actually lessons. They have helped me elevate myself and you learn the best from the mistakes you make.
What is your favorite quote?
Thank you for saying no; Because of you, I did it myself.
What valuable advice would you give new entrepreneurs starting out?
Don’t let anybody tell you what you can or can’t do. It sounds cliche but I came into a multi-billion dollar industry with maybe $50 to my name and had all the top dogs tell me it was damn near impossible to make it work if I didn’t work under anybody. Hard work will always beat talent. As long as you have the passion for it, just work hard and consistently and I promise things will always work out.
If you only had $1000 dollars to start a new business, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it?
I would find a product that cost $1 and use $999 of the rest into online marketing.
Can you recommend one book, one podcast, and one online course for entrepreneurs?
So the one book that changed my life was called the “4 Hour Workweek” by Tim Ferris which pretty much breaks down how Tim outsources his whole life from business to personal life. He explains in-depth the importance of having enough time for yourself so you can grow your business as opposed to workflow with your time.
What helps you stay driven and motivated to keep going in your business?
Definitely my kids. Growing up, I had a really rough childhood, with my father passing away and not being around, so I always had this chip on my shoulder. I feel like I need to go hard every day to make sure that, god forbid, if I leave this earth, my kids will have something to show for and help make their life easier.
Tell us a little bit about your marketing process, what has been the most successful form of marketing for you?
So as far as marketing I find it to be all about quality. Whether it’s the quality work we put out, the quality content, or just quality customers. When I talk about quality customers it’s not just celebrities or people with massive followings. I find it more effective if someone is getting money and they have 200 followers; Those 200 followers are more likely super invested into their friends’ life and hustle. So when they post work from us their followers can talk to them about the work we did and ask about us, then this leads them to us and gives us a new customer.
Also, as far as content, you can have jewelry companies post $100,000 watches with a cell phone photo and bad lighting and get none to very little engagement or you can have someone like us that posts a $5,000 watch with good lighting/content and get a lot more engagement which translates to sales.
What are the top 3 online tools and resources you’re currently using to grow your company?
Instagram, Instagram, Instagram. Being a kid who doesn’t have a father or family member in the jewelry game that could give me a way in through their store, Instagram has been very instrumental to my brand. I understand the importance of quality content because of my background in directing music videos, so I definitely use that to my benefit.
How do you separate yourself from your competitors?
VOBARA is a company that is all about the customer. We make every customer’s purchase an experience, from beginning to end. As I mentioned, we do work with some heavy hitters in the hip-hop industry, however, this doesn’t make any other customer less valuable. Whether you are coming in for one pendant or you are a return customer buying pendants and watches every week, you always get top-quality treatment.
Customers are not guaranteed; we know everyone has a choice, especially when it comes to jewelry. We make sure from the moment we make contact, every customer gets our undivided attention. We call them and discuss exactly what they have in mind and from there we do our design process. We make sure the customer is involved and knows what’s going on during each step of the process.
What was your first business idea and what did you do with it?
Honestly, I started selling candy in middle school. I know it sounds like something everyone says, but I actually did. I treated it like a real business, from going to wholesale spots with my mom and buying bulk to recruiting sellers from different grades/schools and having weekly meetings with them. It was a pretty successful thing in 5th grade and I learned a lot about business. Then throughout high school, it changed from candy to more unsavory business transactions. But my first major business was the VOBARA brand.
How can our readers get in touch with you?
You can visit my website vobarashop.com and connect with me on Instagram.
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