Entrepreneurship After 40: It Worked for Vera Bradley

For some people, the path to a new career is entrepreneurship.

It worked for two 40-something women named Barbara and Patricia, who started sewing quilted handbags for friends and family in the basement, and ended up as the creators of Vera Bradley, famous maker of all those cute and colorful totes and accessories. (Be prepared to see the word "cute" a lot in this post. It's part of the company culture.)

Monica Edwards, the company's vice president of marketing and communications, told their story to advertising industry professionals at the 2011 Central Region Conference of AAF Friday at Fort Worth's downtown Hilton. I attended with hopes of networking and making good connections with other working advertising folks, and that's exactly what happened. But in this post, I'm going to focus on some of what Edwards told us about the Vera Bradley company and its journey "from basement to branding."

After noticing the lack of cute luggage items for women at the airport, Barbara Bradley Baekgaard and Patricia Polito Miller began cutting out fabric and stitching the pieces into bags on a basement ping pong table. Their initial $250 investment, made 28 years ago,  has turned into a $350 million enterprise traded on NASDAQ as VRA.

The colorful bags and accessories, in distinctive florals and paisleys, are popular with females from 8 to 80, but the typical customer is an upscale woman of 39, who buys the bags for herself, her daughter and her mother. Girls wearing school uniforms enjoy Vera Bradley's colorful backpacks because they bring style and individuality to their daily look.

Edwards shared some funny and touching stories from the company as well as some things you or I never knew about Vera Bradley:

* The company is named for the late Vera Bradley, Barbara's mother, instead of Patricia's mother, whose name was more difficult to remember.

*  There are 3300 Vera Bradley retail partners and 50 company-owned Vera Bradley stores, whose ambience  is modeled after Vera Bradley's home. Dillard's will now carry Vera Bradley merchandise as well.

*  It takes 18 months to create and execute a new design.

* The company mission: To be a girl's best friend.

* Company values: Caring, Creativity, Optimism, Fussy (in a good way, as in caring about the details), Honesty, Humility, Respect and Fun.

* The company's culture includes a number of unwritten rules and courtesies, some of which are: Be nice! Mentor and teach others. Give people your full attention. And be sure you look cute on a plane!

* One of the best ways to build brand awareness for a company like Vera Bradley is called "seeding," and it's simple:  Hand a bag to a cute girl.

* Employees try out new products first and offer feedback.

* Vera Bradley does not delete negative customer comments on social media. They find that much of the time, their own customers will defend their merchandise for them to other consumers.

* The company supports the Vera Bradley Foundation for Breast Cancer and more than a thousand other organizations nationally.

A final note: To my delight, I won a Vera Bradley tote at the conference luncheon, and I'm doing my best to wear it cute. When I carried it to lunch today before attending The Kaleidoscope of Homes tour, I made sure to wear a blouse that matched the violet petals in the print.