Raven + Lily, turning bullets into jewelry – with Kirsten Dickerson

Kirsten Dickerson, Raven + Lily, Clothing Company, eCommerce, Non-Tech, Physical Product, Women Founders

After this interview, I bought my wife a beautiful Raven + Lily necklace that’s made out of discarded bullets.

It was created by Ethiopian women who were ostracized by their communities because they have HIV/AIDS. When Raven + Lily’s founder, Kirsten Dickerson, saw the quality of beads the women made from discarded artillery shells that war left on their land, she hired them. Now they work together and turn something that was intended to harm into something that gives hope.

That’s the company’s business model. And I invited Kirsten to talk about how she build it into a successful business.

This interview is part of our Bigcommerce series.

Kirsten Dickerson

Raven + Lily

Kirsten Dickerson is the founder of Raven + Lily which is a socially conscious lifestyle brand dedicated to empowering women through design.

 

Andrew: Hey there Freedom Fighters, my name is Andrew Warner. I’m the founder of Mixergy.com, home of the ambitious upstart. That’s what this is about ambitious. You know that’s the goal here to interview entrepreneurs who want to leave a mark on the world, and that takes a little bit of ambition, it takes a little bit of drive, and so I bring them on here for us to interview, learn from, and emulate some of the best ideas that we can, and people have asked me where do you get these guests that we don’t see on other sites?

Well, I’ll tell you how I found today’s guest. My team emailed the team over at Bigcommerce said to them, “Look, you guys have loads of online stores that are powered by your software you must have a company that is both successful and interesting that me and my, the Mixergy audience can learn from. Can you introduce us to them?” And they said yes we have the perfect...

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