Having Heart: A Conversation with Melyssa Kirn and Michele Tibbs of Grainwell
To step into Grainwell is to step into a rustic, interior design wonderland. Nestled within the historic, red-bricked West Pike Street in Covington, Kentucky, Grainwell has established itself as the go-to place for sentimental family gifts and modern design.
The sisters behind the shop and business – Christine, Michele, and Melyssa – never set out to create a multi-faceted business; instead, it snowballed into one. They began by pursuing their design interests, making items for family and friends while at university. Eventually, they teamed up and brought their collective skills together to form Grainwell. Their business now provides custom corporate work, wholesale items, and in-store shopping.
While Christine has transitioned out of Grainwell to start her own business (she’s renovating houses!) I sat down at my desk on a Tuesday morning to chat with Michele Tibbs and Melyssa Kirn about sister communication and how small businesses weather hardships.
Interview by Olivia Taylor. Photography by Stacy Wegley.
How did this all start?
Melyssa Kirn: Grainwell started back in 2014. Michele started with a small monogram business while she was getting her master’s at Xavier. Our other sister, Christine, was down at the University of Kentucky, and she was cutting wooden monograms for Michele’s business. We decided to expand because the wood monograms were doing well. So we started messing around with some other designs, and then we made a sign for our parents, which was a welcome sign for their lake house as a Christmas gift, and all of their friends saw it, and it went over really well. Suddenly we started getting requests from a lot of other family and friends wanting one.
It went from there, and we wanted to discover what we can do with more medium wood. I have a background in graphic design, so we got together, and I was putting the designs to paper, and then Christine would design it or make it on the laser at U.K., and Michele would put it on her website. It did really well. We decided to separate the wood items from her website, which was originally called Olivia Lane Designs. And we brainstormed and came up with Grainwell. We started going to trade shows or city flee and different markets, like at our high school – trying to get our name out locally. Our customers really took to it, and it just ran from there with word of mouth.
Michele Tibbs: Our dad has an auto body shop, and he had an extra room we used. So we would go there after work hours to work on everything. We saved up and bought our first laser in early 2015, and we put it in our dad’s shop, and we were building everything there. We were there for about a year, and after our first Christmas, being there in a 20-by-20-foot space, we decided we needed something a little bit bigger because we were crazy busy at Christmas time. Then, in 2016 we found the space that we’re still at.
There are many unique skills and responsibilities that come with running a small business like this. Is there anything you do now that you didn’t think you would be able to do when you first started?
Melyssa: One is managing our employees. It has been a little bit of a struggle. All of our employees are wonderful, and we want to help them grow and achieve their goals within our business. When we first started, we each had our own thing, and we didn’t have any employees under us – we designed and made the product on our own. As we’ve grown, and we’ve had other employees, it’s been surprising to see how well we can create an awesome team to support Grainwell.
Michele: We started out being so hands-on and making the product to then stepping out and realizing that we have to get a team to help us so that we can grow Grainwell. We had to figure out a good flow of the day and to be able to put time into growing our business rather than just focusing on the day to day responsibilities.
Melyssa: Also, I don’t have any background in finance, so we’ve taught ourselves about that and about reading numbers, and foreseeing what we’re going to do in the future and looking back at past sales and numbers. It’s been a lot of teaching ourselves and Googling, and now we have an accountant that helps us a lot too.
What is it like starting and operating a business as sisters – having your work and family life merge?
Melyssa: Our dad has his own auto body shop and business, so we’ve grown up a part of a small business and a family business. Having that background helped set a good foundation for us. We started around the business, learning to separate business from home. It was great to rely on family to help us out, especially in our first couple of years. We had our mom and dad, brother, all our aunts, cousins were all down here, especially at Christmas time. It was huge to lean on them because there was no way we would have been able to finish or fulfill all the orders around Christmas time if it wasn’t for our family helping us.
Our very first Christmas, we were working at our dad’s shop until two or three in the morning, and we taught my mom how to frame, and my dad was there. I look at pictures of it and think about how hands-on our parents were with our business. When we grew up, we’d go down to my dad’s shop and, you know, play secretary and answer the phone and file bills. It’s nice having a close niche family to help support us.
We’ve learned not just to be sisters, but also to be business partners and support each other in our dreams and utilize what each of us is good at.
Michele: I also think being sisters and running a business, we try to focus on the benefits of honesty. Whenever you hold something back, that’s when frustration happens. We don’t beat around the bush. Even with Christine, her figuring out that her passions were somewhere else. I think her being open and honest with that helped the transition, and we want everybody to be happy and feel fulfilled. It probably was easier than if that were another business partner. We’ve tried to focus on that with family – sister communication. We have our moments, but I think it helped that we learned to communicate and be honest with each other.
We’ve learned not just to be sisters, but also to be business partners and support each other in our dreams and utilize what each of us is good at.
Melyssa, I know that you’re a new mother, how do you maintain that boundary between work and home now?
Melyssa: It’s been a little bit of a challenge for me. I’m fortunate enough if a babysitter falls through or my parents can’t watch the baby, he can come in with me to work for a little bit. Sometimes it’s hard to get anything done because he’s at that age starting to be very demanding and vocal. I’ve had to learn to leave work at work and enjoy my time at home.
Your family is a big support system. Has there been other networking support systems that you rely on professionally?
Michele: Throughout our business, the Northern Kentucky Small Business Administration has helped us, especially in the beginning – we weren't aware at the time how helpful it was. Then with COVID-19, they helped us with the P.P.P. loan and offered a business advisor. It helped us think about Grainwell differently and plan our three-year projections and be a little more strategic about our business.
There have been other small business owners that we’ve reached out to, or that we’re friends with, that we bounce ideas off of. The city of Covington has been really helpful. In the beginning, even getting a space that had, the mix of production and a retail spot, came about because of brand stops coming to the city of Covington, wanting us to be a part of their unit and wanting us to like help grow Covington. And then, of course, Handzy started around the same time, and Braxton just opened up. Other small businesses in the same position as us kind of push us forward to keep going and all that.
Is there anything you would want to share with somebody who’s reading this and might want to take that leap into starting a small business?
Melyssa: I would say go for the leap. I would say you have nothing to lose as long as you can financially support yourself while starting your small business. You have to have a lot of heart. There’ll be fun times and really hard times, where you’ll question if it’s worth moving forward. Especially when you don’t see the sales come in daily – or if the economy shuts down. So if your heart’s in it and you keep pushing forward, and you’ll find a resolution to any problem, as long as you don’t give up.
Michele: When we started Grainwell, around 2014, is when I became a nurse. And so it was really weird for me because I was going to school for so long and it was my first job, but then we were starting Grainwell.
I worked at the hospital while starting Grainwell, and it almost overworked me because I was putting too much time and energy into both. I think you just can’t make one grow – it was hard for me to excel in both because I wasn’t putting all my heart into one thing. And I think once I started being able to put more time into Grainwell, it helped all of us, and it just helps the teamwork.
Melyssa: Make sure you’re starting a business for the right reasons, not because you want an eight to five job. It’s something that never ends. You’re not going to be working a typical day job. You're going to be getting up at all hours of the morning thinking about your business, going to bed still thinking about it, and then dreaming about it.
Michele: Growing helps fuel our fire – as well as customer satisfaction – that’s the end-all-be-all for both of us. When we make something for somebody that we’ve talked to them about, turning an idea into an actual product and seeing their face or hearing how happy they are, they’re excited to give it to somebody. That has fueled us.
Now that there’s a global pandemic, what does “business as usual,” look like now?
Michele: Physically, our sales are down, so we’ve had to cut hours, which has been hard, especially for our employees, because they have families and dreams that they have to support. We’ve been trying to find a balance between keeping all our employees and what makes sense for our business. We have so many different aspects of our company – we have wholesale, selling to other boutiques, retail, and then within retail, we have custom corporate, and within retail are the personalized gifts.
Luckily, June was good for retail, however, our wholesale is still down, and wholesale is 50% of our business every year, typically. We’ve felt that and seen that in our numbers, and luckily we did get the P.P.P. loan, which had helped keep us afloat when we did close down for about two months where it was just me, Melyssa, and Christine doing all the work. Once we opened back up, we shortened hours.
I’m really curious and a little scared to see if there is another retail or shut down, because we see right now, people are starting to order, and are feeling a bit more excitement for wholesale again. But I’m kind of worried if that has to close again because I don’t know where we’ll be. We’ve worked on our website a lot over the past few months to hopefully keep up if our retail does have to shut down again. Hopefully, we will be able to increase our online sales and keep our manufacturing or production open so that we can fulfill orders. It’s been really neat, though, to see how much the local community has supported us during that time – and still are.
Melyssa: It’s been awesome to see people support small businesses, and we really wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for them, we’d really been questioning if it was worth it to keep if we didn’t have those retail sales. Even if they couldn’t buy something, they would like or share our post or put out a good word. That was helpful, especially when we were closed, our local online sales went up, and we had curbside pickup and all that made us feel happy that people wanted to help and appreciate it.
What does success look like to you two?
Melyssa: One, seeing our customers happy at the end when they receive our product, I know Michele spoke on it a little bit earlier, but if you meet them in person and see their smile and their excitement when they open up a product, especially if it’s sentimental to them. For example, an old recipe engraved, or an image engraved or if we’re rehabbing an old piece of wood that came from a family heirloom that we were just engraving a little note. It’s awesome to see that reaction. It means we’re doing our job. That’s why we got into it – because we saw how many people loved our parents’ sign.
Michele: Actually being able to support ourselves financially, because the first few years we weren’t paying ourselves. We were just putting all the money right back into the business, and we were just pretty much paying ourselves, whatever, whenever. Whatever we needed, only to pay up for a few bills.
Even being able to bring in employees and support them financially and their dreams. Many of our employees come in and say, “This is my dream job.” That touches us and keeps us going.
We noticed when we were closed, and it was just the three of us doing all the work we realized, we couldn’t be successful without our employees. It’s our employees that help us, it’s a team.
Who are some inspiring women in your life?
Melyssa: Mom is number one. She also has started her own small business, and she’s also a nurse. It’s neat to see her following her dreams and seeing that she can find a good work-life balance. And she was able to raise four kids when we were younger. She worked full time and worked night shifts to make it work for us. And then, she took time off and continued to raise us and help pursue our dreams and our sports and all our extracurricular activities.
Michele: She always told us you could do anything you put your mind to and kind of made it ingrained in us to be a go-getter – she doesn’t let any grass grow under her feet. She’s been probably our biggest inspiration.
Melyssa: Our other sister, Christine, even though she phased out of Grainwell, it’s really neat for her to continue to keep making new goals and dreams for herself. It’s awesome to see what she’s taken from Grainwell, what we’ve learned, and how she can implement it into her new business. She has a strong-willed personality.
I would say we each inspire each other, and especially Michele, when we were first starting, she went and got her masters. She was pretty much working two full-time jobs and going to school, and even though I’m sure her brain was about to explode, she was able to find a balance.
Michele: Other women who own small business women locally, or even nationally, when we read or see their growth or their struggles, it helps push us and motivate us, and know that we’re not alone. Other women have families, and they’re still able to be successful business owners.
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