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How two former Army Rangers built an engagement ring business : NPR


Wove is a design-your-own-engagement ring company founded by two former Rangers who had the idea in mind when it came to combat deployment.



MARY LOUISE KELLY, TEACHER:

This follow-up story features two Ranger veterans, a strategic blueprint, and diamonds worth thousands of dollars. No, it’s not a heist movie. It’s the story of veterans turned entrepreneurs, as NPR’s Quil Lawrence reports.

QUIL LAWRENCE, BYLINE: I’m walking through New York’s Diamond District with two veterans who have started fighting – anything else? – an engagement ring company. Andrew Wolgemuth describes the scene here on Jewelers’ Row.

ANDREW WOLGEMUTH: Yes. So it’s very shabby, dirty – it feels like you’re walking into a pawnshop. It is certainly not consumer facing anything.

RULES: Before Wolgemuth became a Ranger, he worked in his family’s jewelry store. So he can say this.

WOLGEMUTH: And the jewelry industry in general has had a reputation for being a bit sleazy.

LAWRENCE: That’s because most people don’t know much about what a good diamond looks like and its price, says Wolgemuth. That’s true of his business partner, Brian Elliott.

BRIAN ELLIOTT: I personally had a really bad first engagement ring try.

LAWRENCE: Elliott was living in Fort Benning in Columbus, Ga., and he was going to propose to his girlfriend, so he went to the nearest jewelry store.

ELLIOTT: I’m in a mall near Exit 8. And I’m in it. I’m talking to the guy. It was hard for him to convince me, and I smelled Aunt Anne’s cookies on my nose just as I was about to spend $10,000 on this that I–it could be worth, like, you know, a quarter. that money. And I realized, like, oh, this is probably not the best place to make this lifetime purchase in this kind of shopping mall with halogen lights in this awful environment. And I just left at that point.

RULE: This is common enough to become a military cliché – the young soldier returns home from deployment and makes really silly purchases at the mall outside his apartment. keep. Another cliche is what Andrew Wolgemuth is dealing with on deployment – soldiers want to propose as they step off the plane from Afghanistan.

WOLGEMUTH: A group of Rangers in my platoon, at that point in their lives they wanted to get engaged, but they wanted the idea of ​​buying an engagement ring. They had just deployed to combat, and all the wives, girlfriends, family members were standing there with signs. And they had to go out, get on their knees and propose.

LAWRENCE: That perfect moment – except that these soldiers had no way of getting a decent engagement ring in Afghanistan, not even by mail.

WOLGEMUTH: You know, the odds won’t be in your favor that that package will appear.

LAWRENCE: But then there were rumors going around the Ranger regiment about the Wolgemuth family business.

WOLGEMUTH: Lt. know how to make an engagement ring.

LAWRENCE: Lieutenant, or Lt., Wolgemuth began arranging video calls with jewelry manufacturers to design rings and then created very convincing replicas in brass and glass for submissions. by post. The ring can actually be collected later. But the boys will have a ring when they get off the plane. And for some of his teammates, it worked.

WOLGEMUTH: I mean, yeah, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime proposal, right on the plane. They had a moment, a beautiful moment, yeah.

LAW: Wolgemuth comes home from Afghanistan and is discharged. He is living at home in Lancaster, Pa., but he is not interested in the family jewelry business. He organized a workshop for veterans who wanted to be entrepreneurs. And then he was listening to a podcast.

WOLGEMUTH: And so I was like – I just heard NPR, How I Build This, – I know, right?

ELLIOTT: What a plug.

LAWRENCE: We’re putting it on the air.

WOLGEMUTH: …With Neil Blumenthal – Warby Parker.

LAWRENCE: How I Build This tells the story of successful businesses. Warby Parker is an eyewear company that lets you order five pairs, try them on at home, and then decide which one you want.

WOLGEMUTH: Well. Like, you know, we did this in Afghanistan with these rings. Well, what if we built the same experience for engagement rings?

LAWRENCE: Wolgemuth says he knows he can’t mail five diamond rings. Even returning to the United States, the insurance bill will be crippled. But with 3D printing, he can make inexpensive models that people can see and then modify before they buy the real thing. He called Brian Elliot, who was also out of the Ranger regiment and was also trying to get into business.

ELLIOTT: I was in a few startups, so he called me. And a few days later, I flew down to Lancaster, Pa., to see how jewelry is made.

LAWRENCE: That was two years ago. All are online so they are not affected much by the epidemic. They call their company WOVE. Some people make the ring a surprise, the same way they did in Afghanistan. But Wolgemuth said many people wanted to design their actual rings together.

WOLGEMUTH: The jewelry industry has really barely changed over the last hundred years and it’s highly patriarchal. And so I like the collaborative approach that we take, the kind of equal partnership that comes together. Keep the offer a surprise. But they also get to wear the ring they really want to wear.

DISCIPLINE: Brian Elliott says they are leaning on this cultural change.

ELLIOTT: You know, men surprise women with rocks. Now we are together. Like, now is, like, 2023. Like, the fact that both partners are involved would be fairer and make a lot more sense because, like, that shows, you know. See, how will they make decisions when buying a house, buying a car, having a baby? It was a cooperative decision.

LAWRENCE: Elliott himself is part of that trend. His trip to the diamond shop mall near Fort Benning, that engagement didn’t work out. But this spring, he’s getting married and he’s designed the ring with his fiancé.

Quil Lawrence, NPR News, New York.

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