By Katherine Hatcher | Staff Writer
Most students focus on grades, their jobs, relationships and more during their years at college. On top of all that, Rockwall senior Laney Sledge runs her very own boutique.
Sledge, who is majoring in merchandising and minoring in entrepreneurship, finally started to accomplish her dream of running her own business when she opened her boutique, Posie May’s, earlier this year in the Bill Daniel Student Center (SUB).
Dr. Rochelle Brunson, one of Sledge’s professors, helped her dream take flight by talking to her about finding an angel investor. Angel investors are individuals who invest their own money in a startup or early-stage business in exchange for ownership equity or convertible debt, she said.
Sledge said her fiancé, Riley Bauman, who currently plays baseball for the Los Angeles Angels, agreed to invest in her business, allowing her to open up an online boutique. Additionally, she took a unique opportunity when she received a call from Brunson about the location in the SUB.
“She connected me with Dr. Vickers, who was in charge of the SUB marketplace. … He interviewed me and asked me a bunch of questions about my business, and that’s what got the ball rolling,” Sledge said.
The boutique opened on Aug. 9, Sledge said. Her dream was coming true. Sledge said that it was initially hard for her boutique to receive attention as a business beyond the support of her friends and family, but that didn’t last for long. Sledge said Posie May’s social media influence soon started to grow.
“I’ve gotten a lot of followers from it, which is really exciting, because that’s one thing I really needed was exposure,” Sledge said.
Both online and campus exposure are attainable because of the SUB’s location, according to Bauman, the boutique’s finance director. He said that young women walking through the SUB are Posie May’s target audience.
“It is convenient,” Bauman said. “It’s right in the middle of campus, so anybody passing through — it’s not like you need to go to a shopping center and have all that extra — you can just be passing by, and it’s right here.”
Sledge said she is doing better than she expected, receiving consistent orders in the store, and growing an even greater influence online.
“I’ve shipped to over 20 states so far,” Sledge said. “I do have probably a tenth of my merchandise in the sub.”
Posie May’s is taking off for Sledge, but not without hard work. As someone who used to be the manager of a boutique, Sledge said that she thought the time commitment would be different than what it turned out to be.
“Owning a business, it’s never ending; like the work never stops,” Sledge said. “I’ll work till like 2 in the morning. I’ll wake up and work some more before class, just because I wear every single hat in the business.”
Bauman said that he did invest and help Sledge get everything she needed to start, but that Sledge really does do all the work on her own.
“She made her website, she takes … her pictures, she plans ahead with her collections and she does pretty much everything,” Bauman said.
Even though running a business is challenging and takes up most of Sledge’s time, the business owner said that she actually dreams of opening her own storefront someday. She has already started saving.
“I want a storefront which is kind of why the SUB is like, I’m very thankful for it, because I get to see what people are buying in person, and it gives me a little taste of what it’s like to have a tiny, little storefront,” Sledge said.
Since she’s been dreaming of her own boutique for awhile, Sledge said that she actually bought the name for her boutique during freshman year of college. The name was the top name on her baby names list, and Sledge desires to name her a boutique after her first daughter.
Even though Sledge hasn’t had a daughter yet and the business came earlier than she expected, Sledge said she was proud of the name.
“Posie May has always been a baby name I’ve had for years and years and years, and in a way, this is my first baby,” Sledge said.
