-Next on "Start Up", we head to Charleston, South Carolina, to meet up with Courtney Bukowsky, the creator of One of a Find Charleston, a used furniture and accessory resale business with an interesting back story.

All this and more is next on "Start Up."

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♪♪ ♪♪ -My name is Gary Bredow.

I'm a documentary filmmaker and an entrepreneur.

As the country focuses on recovery, small-business owners everywhere are still fighting to keep their dream alive.

So we set out to talk to a wide range of diverse business owners to better understand how they've learned to adapt, innovate, and even completely reinvent themselves in this ever-changing world.

♪♪ This is "Start Up."

♪♪ A reseller is a company or individual that purchases goods with the intention of selling, usually at a higher cost.

Reselling online has become extremely popular in recent years, with various e-commerce platforms available.

But what does it really take to make your item stand out in such a crowded space?

Today, I'm heading to Charleston, South Carolina, to meet up with Courtney Bukowsky, the creator of one One of a Find Charleston, a company that buys, restores, and sells used furniture and accessories.

From what I've heard, the company started out as a hobby that Courtney secretly did on the side until she approached her husband about how much money she was making.

I'm excited to learn more about the business and the back story how all this started.

♪♪ ♪♪ -One of a Find is a collection of vintage and new pieces that I source, stage, set up, and hopefully people love them.

-[ Laughs ] -Let's go back to the very beginnings of this.

Is, like, buying and selling used items, furniture, is that something you've always been into, or is it kind of a new thing?

-I've always loved decorating and switching things up a lot in my own home, but technically, I've been an esthetician for 18 years.

I'm a mom.

I have three boys.

And I just kind of got to the point where I was getting tired of the furniture in our house.

I just thought it's not really in the budget to go out and just buy all these new things.

So I started saying, "I think I want a new coffee table."

I think I will sell this coffee table and use the money to buy a new one.

So I did that for a while.

But as I was shopping for myself, I would see things that I knew other people would like.

And if it was a great price, I knew I could probably sell it for a little bit more.

Started on the marketplace, just my local neighborhood Facebook page, and it picked up steam.

My friend was doing the same thing, and she said, "Well, why don't we start an Instagram page?"

And I said, "I don't know.

I just -- I have a full time job, I've got kids.

I just don't think I have time."

My husband was unaware I was doing this.

So that's when I broke the news to him.

He had an idea of what I was doing but wasn't really sure how much of it I was doing because he, too, was traveling for work a lot.

So we were going to visit my father in New Jersey, and I was on my phone.

He said, "What are you doing?

Why are you on your phone?

What are you doing?"

So I've kind of been like buying and reselling furniture, which is why when you come home every weekend, the whole house looks different.

-[ Laughs ] Right.

-Because I've just been doing it.

And he said, "Well, how much are you doing?"

I said, "Well, I kind of have this pile of money in my purse."

He said, "Well, how much money do you have?"

And I told him, and I mean, it wasn't a huge amount, but to me, it was very exciting.

-Yeah.

-And he almost drove off the road and said, "Tell me what you've been doing.

Tell me how this works.

Explain it to me."

So I explained it to him.

And he said, "Courtney, you've started a business."

And I said, "No, I haven't.

I'm just like a mom, and I just need a little extra money to take the kids out for ice cream on the side."

-Right.

-And he said, "No, no, no.

You've started a business."

That's when we decided to do a test.

And when we were visiting my father, I bought five or six pieces while I was there.

We rented a car.

Maybe a truck.

I don't remember.

Drove all the way back here, and then started the Instagram page with my girlfriend just to see what happened.

And here we are.

-So I was traveling a lot for work, so I'd been watching it happen without knowing it was happening.

So I would come home and just all the furniture would be different.

And then it was like the flips got big, like the whole living room this one time.

So you ask a couple of times, but, like, I was so myopically focused on building my business that it was like -- it was just kind of in passing, like, "Where'd that come from?"

And she was like, "Oh, I just, I saw the other one, I got that one."

That's just kind of how it went down.

-What was your initial thought?

Was it exciting for you?

Surprised?

-No, I love like start up and business stuff, and I'm math geek.

So, like, it was fascinating.

And just the idea that like that could happen so fast, you know, just on such a small like amount of effort could just quickly scale like that was pretty wild.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -I want to get an understanding for what the margin is.

-I think in the beginning, I just wanted to double my money, so I'd buy a tray for $20 and sell it for $40, and then pocket the $20.

Or I'd use that $20 to buy the next thing.

So I never took any money out of our bank account.

I don't have any loans.

I just kept using what I had... -Slowly building -...to move to next step, yes.

-Okay, so let's go back to the beginning when you realized, okay, this is a business.

What was the first step?

-The very first step was getting a storage unit.

-Storage unit, okay.

-I mean, it was getting to the point in the house where the kids were like, "Mom, I can't sit down."

I mean, it was everywhere.

It was in the house.

It was in the garage.

-Hoarder level.

-Yes, total hoarder level.

Even Blake, my husband, was like, "Okay, something's -- This is now affecting our life.

It's affecting your life."

So we got a very small storage unit, which, for me, felt super risky.

I mean, I have never owned a business before, so we have actually a picture of us sitting in front of that storage unit.

I believe it was a 3x5.

It was probably like $99 dollars a month, but that was really scary for me, like, committing to something like that.

-Sure.

-It wasn't just a hobby anymore.

-I think we had like a storage closet unit, right?

And it could fit two dressers and like four chairs.

And we talked about it for like three days, right?

It was -- -Huge decision.

-Huge.

Yeah, massive here.

And so we always said, "Don't take out a lot of debt.

Cash flow the thing.

Learn from it.

Try not to make too many big, huge gambles in the beginning, and it'll kind of take off."

-Yeah.

What role did you begin to play early on?

-The biggest difference was, in the beginning, she would say, "I made $300 on this table," and I was like, "No, you got $300, you made really $50."

-Right.

-After like expenses and everything else.

She started seeing like how to buy in volume and get transport costs down.

And all of these like business lessons just came to her after she saw it.

So my job in the business has kind of always been like, she has the vision, and then all I do is just kind of help get her between A and B and just little gaps.

-Little tweaks.

Yeah, just little things.

-Structuring things.

-Right.

And then I lift things and move them around.

-Least favorite thing personally ever -- moving, like moving furniture and stuff.

-Yeah, that's all we've been moving for five years.

Like every day of our life, I feel like.

-He is very involved, very helpful.

Saves my life at least six times a day.

And also runs his own business, so he's just the best.

I mean, I could not do this without him.

-Talk about how the business ramped up.

-We had this small storage unit.

I don't think we had that very long.

Things started selling so quickly on it.

We mostly saw on Instagram, so we post about three to four times a day.

People comment if they want to purchase, and things were selling, and most of my pieces were selling within 15 minutes.

It's just -- so the more I bought and the faster things were selling, the demand was getting higher, so I had to buy more stuff.

We stage all of the photos of the furniture because people like to see what they will look like in their own home.

I think it gives a better visual.

So as we were staging the pieces, people were commenting "Is the rug for sale?

Is the lamp for sale?

Is that tray for sale?"

And I thought, "Well, maybe you should buy some stuff that's for sale."

So, you know, I said, "Well, I guess maybe let's go to market and just do a test."

It's a lot of testing.

Like, okay, "Let's go to market, spend this amount of money, and see if it'll sell."

And it did.

-And it just kept working?

-I mean, I'm literally winging it.

This is just like -- I'm testing things all the time, and some things work and some things don't work.

And so you say, "Okay, well, that didn't work.

Let's not do that again.

Let's do this."

So it's always changing, which I think is exciting.

-Talk about the business, like, as it continued to grow.

Storage unit, right?

-Yeah.

So we did that.

Then she got two or three like medium sized storage units, then she got a couple of big ones.

And then across the street from our house, a guy put a sign up off the main road that he had a warehouse for rent.

And so Courtney came back and said, "I think we need this."

And I said, "It's not really like in the budget right now."

But she had a good vision of what she wanted to do.

So she went and found a friend of ours that needed some space, and then she just sublet portions of it to offset that cost.

And so... -Nice.

-Yeah, it's great.

She's very like -- She'll make up her mind and do it.

And that was a game changer for us.

It gave her more space.

It gave her a spot to shoot pictures in there.

But then, I mean, we've already outgrown that, too.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Did that just continue to snowball, 3x5 storage unit out the window?

-Yes.

-Tell me about the next step up.

-Making connections with people who are going to shop for me because, at this point, I don't have time to source anymore.

-So now you're hiring shoppers?

-Now I'm hiring shoppers because I'm still also working my 30 hour a week job.

I started with one, then I, you know, got connected with another person, then I had two.

So right now, I probably have five or six right now.

I still choose every single piece, so they send me a picture, and I say yay or nay.

-Yeah.

-And then I amass it wherever it is, and then we bring it all back here, check it out.

I think part of our success to our business is we really make sure everything is in working order.

I need to have my eyes on it before I sell it to someone.

-Yeah, because you sell one junky piece or something that has mold at it or something, and you're done.

-And a lot of people in my space will buy it, send you the picture they got of it, never even lay eyes on it, and send it to you.

-Oh.

-I bring it all in.

We clean it, wipe it down, check the drawer slides, make sure it's functioning.

It's a major problem, then we go into the whole lacquer studio thing, which kind of came on later, because once everyone was buying pieces and they want to add lacquer, a lot of things, we will repair it in the lacquer process.

So I'll say, "Hey, just so, you know, if you're going to add lacquer, this is broken.

We'll take care of that in the lacquer process, and we'll fix that."

-Talk about the lacquer expansion.

-We had been outsourcing all of it.

-It got to the point to where it wasn't so much a monetary decision to bring it in-house.

It was more of like a service level.

-Yeah.

Not timing.

You needed control.

-You needed control.

-When and how.

-And that's been tough, right?

I mean, you have to staff it, and you have to have permits, and you're talking about building a spray booth with fire suppression and fire codes and inspections.

And it's a really like -- -I didn't think about that part.

-Yeah, I mean, and you want to do it right.

And so that's very hard.

-Yeah.

-You know, it's very easy to do things just fly by night, but to do it the right way takes a lot of work and a lot of time.

-We took a ride over to Courtney's storage space and then over to the paint booth, where she restores several of the items that she's purchased.

I've never been in a paint booth or used a paint sprayer, but I'm thrilled to give it a try.

All right, so heading to the lacquer shop.

-Heading to the lacquer shop.

Nice and sweaty because it's always sweaty at the warehouse.

-Do you do picking, as well?

Or is it all online?

I mean, do you go to garage sales and yard sales?

-I don't anymore.

I used to.

I just don't have time anymore, which is why I had to find people to help me, which that is what used to drive my kids crazy, is when I was doing the picking.

I'd be like, "We're going to the beach, kids."

And they'd be like, "Yay!"

And I'd be like, "Oh, wait, there's" -- -Oh, it's garbage day.

-"There's a garage sale.

We need to go there."

They'd be like, "Ugh."

So... -Six hours later, no beach.

But look what we got, kids.

-I try and tell them, I'm like, "Guys, remember how annoying that was, but look at us now."

And they're like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay."

I mean, at one point, Blake did say to me, "You need to choose.

This is starting to interfere with our life."

Which it was.

-Right.

-Because I was spending so much time on it.

-Like, can we go back to when you just didn't notice?

-[ Laughs ] Yes.

-Can't we just go back to that, please?

-Yes, I say that a lot.

Or now he has an opinion about like the decorating.

I'm like, "Remember when you didn't care?"

-Oh.

-Remember when you didn't care if I kept stuff?

Because now he's like, "Couldn't you sell that?"

You know?

♪♪ -We got to table here to the lacquer shop.

-Here we are at the lacquer shop.

-Yes, what happens?

-Well, the first step, we need to clean it, we need to prep the piece.

So we're just going to spray it down.

We do the top, we do all the drawers, and just gets all the grease and the grit and the years.

I mean, you have to consider these have been used since the '70s, probably, so there's a lot of stuff on them.

After it's all nice and clean, I'm going to just do a light sand all over.

-Top too?

-Everything.

-Okay.

-Nooks, crannies.

-And this is just to kind of rough it up to get the whatever you're going to put on it stick, right?

-Yes, I mean, typically, any of the dings, the cracks, the scrapes, the scratches all have to be filled in.

There's a lot of steps, in and out, in and out, because in order to get the top like glass, it's got to be perfect.

The prep is the most important part.

After this, we would wipe it down again, obviously, because you can't have all the sandy sandpaper stuff on there, and then it goes to prime.

♪♪ ♪♪ -So the room that's behind me, what happens in there?

-That's where the magic happens.

You know, once we get the piece ready to actually put some coats on it, it goes inside there.

You know, there's a lot of vacuum pressure that takes out any of the over-spray, and it makes it so that it's safe to be able to work on the piece.

-The full process, start to finish, a piece goes in or comes in, how long before it's out?

-It depends on the severity of the damage.

I mean, if it's mint and there's not a whole lot of prep work that needs to be done to it or any damage to the piece, then, I mean, it could be technically out in the same day, if we weren't working on anything else.

But we generally have a couple of different pieces going at once, so we kind of stagger what's going in the booth at what time.

And that way we kind of keep the process flowing.

-Now, is this more like a utilitarian effort, or is this art, what you're doing?

-I think it's art.

It's usable art.

You know, it's a piece that you use in your home and something that you look at, but you also, you know, it's it's functional.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Still, to this day, even with five people helping, it's got to be a lot of busy work.

-It's a lot of work.

That's my biggest pet peeve I would say about my business, is, people will say, "Oh, so you just buy furniture and then sell it?"

-I just go in and buy things.

-"You just buy furniture and sell it?"

And I'm like, "Okay."

-Just.

-Just.

We work a lot.

I mean... -Yeah, I'm sitting here thinking, "God, these guys are so busy."

We're super busy.

It's a lot of work.

Last year, we hired our first employee.

Other than that, we were doing everything ourselves, and we finally got to the point and said, "We need somebody to help us."

And now we have the accessories site.

So we're packing things, we're shipping things, we're printing labels for that.

-Wow.

-Now we have people that want to lacquer their furniture.

So... -Another service.

-Another service.

-You're killing it right now.

-It's insane.

I mean, it still allows me to be flexible enough to be me, which is important.

It's not -- I don't see it as a job.

I still love it.

I still enjoy it.

I still find it to be exciting.

And I still think it can grow even more.

♪♪ ♪♪ -What's all included in your job?

-I hope Courtney with invoicing and some of the Instagram things.

I try to let her do most of that because she's really good at it.

And I do most of the website operations.

So packing up orders, fulfilling orders, shipping.

I go to the shipping place a lot.

-What is your favorite thing about what you do?

-I just like the operations part.

I think I'm not as is interested in like -- I don't have the eye for it that she does.

-Same here.

No design capability whatsoever.

-I can't even match my clothes.

-Look at me.

Right.

-So I just like the business part and the operations part of it mostly.

-And what type of people are they I guess as employers?

-I would say that they are very fair.

They never make you feel like, like when you mess up, they never make you feel like it's the end of the world, because I have messed up a couple of times.

But Courtney one time actually got me flowers on a time that I messed up.

I gave someone the wrong headboard.

-And she knew you felt bad about it.

-Yeah, and she got me flowers.

-Understanding where the business is financially, and you don't have to give me a specific number, but, I mean, do you generating over six figures a year with the business, or...?

-Yes.

-In there?

Okay.

-Yes, it's making money, which is crazy to me.

-Do you see this as a, I guess, a viable business that you really want to scale and grow into a big thing?

-I do.

I'm just trying to scale it at a pace that I can keep up with.

And as I said, I still have my other job because I still wake up, and I'm like, "Oh, this could be the day.

This could be the day nobody wants bamboo anymore.

So I'm going to go do some facials."

-So it's a fear based thing.

-Some of it is fear.

-You keep your job.

-Yes, some of it is fear.

That's like, that's a safety net for me.

But I would love to grow it.

We just got, you know, the lacquer spray booth.

So my dream is to be able to take outside pieces.

That would be our our next step.

And grow the accessories business.

-What makes a husband and wife, I guess, business successful?

-At certain times, you have to kind of see it as like, look, it's us versus the business.

-Mm-hmm.

-Right.

So you kind of see yourself as a team and the business and the stress is trying to wedge itself between the two of you, and if you treat it like that, like, you're still a whole unit together, and you can either decide to take it as a team or let that break you up.

And it's just a decision you've got to make.

-Where can it go?

I mean, what could the next level be?

-Well, so here's what's crazy.

So just the core of our business is like Instagram furniture, right?

So she posts three to four times a day, and everything sells within 10 minutes.

You could double your business by just doing eight posts.

-Fascinating.

-Yeah.

I mean, it is like -- And then she's doing the accessories and the rugs and everything else.

And then this whole lacquer studio thing that was a spin off is -- that's in its infancy.

And so, you know, the day that door opened, they were two to three months behind schedule.

-People love lacquer.

-Yeah.

The shinier, the better, I guess, right?

So I don't know.

I mean, I don't have a crystal ball, but like just as long as we don't quit or if it doesn't drive us insane, right?

It's unlimited.

-Or maybe she could find a crystal ball on Facebook Marketplace and sell it to you.

-Listen, she will -- she'll close you today.

You'll buy something out of this house.

-For folks that are sitting at home and have something that they're interested in, there could potentially be value in it.

-Sure.

-Take a chance, put yourself out there.

-What do you have to lose?

-Try it.

Exactly.

-Well, that's really what Blake would always say to me, because I was always second guessing myself, especially with that first storage unit.

He's like, "Courtney, we're not signing our life away.

It's a month to month contract."

-Cancel it at any time.

-[ Laughs ] Right.

-Pro-rate it, for God's sake.

-I know.

I just get so nervous about that.

And you just have to take a chance.

If it's not going to cost you a lot of money to take a chance, then what do you have to lose, right?

I mean, honestly, right now, if I walked away from this business, it's nothing I can't get out of.

It's nothing that is waking me up in the middle of the night and building a panic in me.

-But I wonder at some point if you'll take the opposite approach and just dive fully in.

-I've thought about that.

That will come.

It will come to the point where someone will have to sit me down and say, "Listen, we're going to have to get some investors."

-Right.

-"We got to -- you can't dip your toe in anymore.

You have to go all the way."

-Yeah.

-Which is scary to me, mostly because I've never done this before, you know?

-Well, you're doing it.

-Okay.

[ Laughs ] Thank you for telling me.

-It's official.

You are doing it.

-Thank you for telling me.

-I'm always fascinated with accidental entrepreneurs.

There are so many people out there that spend years trying to create a successful business that never quite generate the necessary momentum to be a full time venture.

Was it the wrong idea?

Or maybe bad timing.

Does the concept not translate to the masses, or was the passion for the business never really there in the first place?

It's hard to tell why some businesses succeed and others don't, but with Courtney, she was simply doing something that she loved, and it caught on.

People wanted to pay money for the newly imagined items that she was creating.

So in a lot of ways, this business kind of started itself.

Maybe it was supply and demand with the lack of furniture in stock during 2020.

Maybe it was good photography.

Or maybe it was the passion that comes through when Courtney posts a new piece on Instagram.

The thing is, there is no magic recipe.

Again, she's just doing what she loves.

Either way, Courtney has found her niche.

And I can't wait to see what the future holds, for One of a Find Charleston.

Next time on "Start Up", we meet up with Mimi Striplin, the owner of The Tiny Tassel, a clothing and accessory shop in the heart of Charleston, South Carolina.

Be sure to join us next time on "Start Up."

Would you like to learn more about the show, or maybe nominate a business?

Visit our website, at startup-usa.com, and connect with us on social media.

♪♪ -♪ We got a long road ahead of us ♪ ♪ A long road ahead of us ♪ Got a long road ahead of us ♪ Before we pay our dues ♪ We've got a long road ahead of us ♪ ♪ A long road ahead of us ♪ A long road ahead of us ♪ ♪ Before we pay our ♪ Dues ♪♪ ♪♪ -Vistaprint, a proud sponsor of "Start Up" and small businesses everywhere.

-Spectrum Business partners with small businesses across the country to help them achieve their goals.

With high-speed Internet, phone, TV, and mobile services, Spectrum Business provides the tools to keep you connected with your customers.

Spectrum Business.

No nonsense, just business.

♪♪ ♪♪