Brian Curee: 0:09

Hey, everybody, welcome back to, I guess not back. This is the first episode of the Vero Beach Podcast. My name is Brian, my name is Shawna. And we're your hosts today, but today, like let's really get to our special guest that's joining us today, we have Audrey and Mike from the Seahorse Lane Boutique, right? Is that correct? Okay, that's correct. I had to make sure I had that right Good job, yeah, I yeah.

Mike Mosel: 0:31

I was like oh no.

Brian Curee: 0:33

Well, I've been looking at your website and your social media so I was like, okay, it is Seahorse Lane Boutique. But that's what the beautiful thing about Shawna being on the podcast is she can correct me when I make mistakes. I'll only do that if it's absolutely necessary.

Mike Mosel: 0:48

Yes.

Brian Curee: 0:48

And sometimes it is necessary. But we're so glad that you guys are joining us for the podcast for episode one.

Audrey: 0:55

Thank you for having us. We're excited.

Brian Curee: 0:56

That's awesome. We're new to the area, so we love being able to meet locals that are running businesses in the area. Today's all about the Seahorse Lane Boutique, and I have to admit, when I first walked in here, audrey, I thought there's going to be nothing but girl stuff in here. But my wife's going to love it but not me. Right behind me we're sitting in the store right now.

Audrey: 1:19

Right in front of the checkout counter, in front of our E Newton display, right in front of the Vero display. It feels really fun and different to be doing this in here. Usually I'm taking pictures like outfits and making reels and Instagram posts, but no, we're podcasting tonight.

Brian Curee: 1:39

Tonight you have a podcast studio.

Mike Mosel: 1:43

I'm waiting for someone to knock on the door like can I shop please?

Audrey: 1:46

Oh, and they will.

Brian Curee: 1:48

We'll probably get people peeking through the windows. The point of this podcast is to bring out your story, the story behind your business, how you got here we want to talk about during this first episode. We want to just really kind of dive into how it all started. How did you start the Seahorse Lane Boutique? So tell us first, audrey, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Audrey: 2:12

Yeah, so I'm Audrey. I own Seahorse Lane Boutique. We are celebrating 10 years here as a storefront. I started the business back in 2012 after I left graduate school, so I was in school studying ag economics. Actually, I thought I wanted to go to law school for a while.

Brian Curee: 2:34

Can you explain to me what is ag, for those that might be listening?

Audrey: 2:39

Yeah, so I went to Auburn University. I was in the College of Agriculture, and so ag is like anything from growing plants to studying bugs, grass studying animals. So that's what ag would mean, gotcha.

Brian Curee: 2:57

Yeah.

Mike Mosel: 2:58

So Audrey was kind of in the business side of the ag school, yeah, so she was studying ag economics, you know we're talking about things like financing for farms and commodity trading and that kind of stuff is where her focus was at that time of her life.

Audrey: 3:14

Yes, I go about a semester and a half and I just really start getting like tugged on my heart that like, hey, I'm not in the right place. So I went through a kind of a tough season of deciding like, hey, this isn't right for me. I'm not sure what is, but I just need to leave. And so I'm telling Mike this story. Earlier I was like do you remember when he came up to Auburn to help gather all of my things and we were driving home?

Mike Mosel: 3:45

Yeah, we were probably. We were engaged at the time, right I?

Audrey: 3:47

think we were engaged, yeah, so spring of 2012,. I'm like, hey, this isn't right. I'm feeling like I need to go home and it's such. It's a weird feeling when you're like you have no idea what you're going to do, right, and you feel like, what did I just do all this school for?

Mike Mosel: 4:04

You know, audrey and I both have always been good students. You're on this path where it's like I'm going to go to school, I'm going to get good grades, I'm going to get good grades, I'm going to get into the college that I want to go to, I'm going to get good grades, and I'm going to go get the get a job that you know and have good salary and life's just kind of mapped out. And then you hit this spot where you're like wait, the path that I'm on isn't right for me. And and Audrey was feeling that like deep down in her heart, you know that that this wasn't right but but making that leap to say I'm going to go a different direction, and I don't even know what that direction is yet, but I know it's not this one. I think it took a lot of bravery on her part. I came up to Auburn I was working at Vera at the time Rescued me, came up to Auburn.

Audrey: 4:49

I said I'll come get you, babe, and all your stuff Packed up and we started heading back towards Vera, yeah, and so we were in the car I think we borrowed my dad's truck too and we were driving back home and I remember him looking at me saying, well, what do you really want to do? And I was like, well, I want to have a store, but I'll probably just do that after I'm retired, like I'll go get a job. I'll probably just do that after I'm retired I'll go get a job, I'll work hard, I'll save up my money and that will be my fun retirement job. And he was like why would you ever do that? You need to start now.

Audrey: 5:29

And I didn't understand that you could just start where you were at. And so I was like well, how do I do that? And I remember him saying well, you started a Facebook page, you know, 10 years ago. That was like the thing.

Audrey: 5:39

Oh, sure you have a business, you start a Facebook page. So I remember we got home I downloaded this free app on my phone because I think I had an iPhone at the time, right, that was like pretty cool 10 years ago and I made a logo that said Seahorse Lane Boutique and it's Seahorse Lane because I started the business from my bedroom on Seahorse Lane.

Mike Mosel: 6:04

That's where my parents lived at the time.

Audrey: 6:06

I'm so glad you answered that I was so curious.

Audrey: 6:08

And you're like what is this name? Yeah, I love it. And so I legitimately started the business from my bedroom on Seahorse Lane and from there I started buying jewelry making jewelry making pillows. My mom is very crafty and supportive and fun and she was so excited she's like yeah, let's start this boutique, let's do this thing. She was the person that took me to my first wholesale jewelry market where we could meet different vendors and buy different beading components and things and also find jewelry to curate this look that I hadn't really seen in Bureau for a really long time. Like we used to have a boutique downtown here. I think it was about where you know where the ice cream shop is, like a downtown dipper, but there used to be a boutique right in there is called Kitty Kitty and some people listening like may remember that and they had such. It was really small, they had really cool things. It was very curated but affordable and that's what I wanted to create downtown.

Mike Mosel: 7:22

She had the kind of the model of what she wanted to do. She was always looking at trends and knowing kind of like what people wanted. She was good at that, and so then she started setting up at this beach market that was over in Sexton Plaza on Thursday evenings, I think, so she worked with her mom at State Farm at the time, and then after work she'd load up her dad's truck with tables and a tent and all this stuff With.

Mike Mosel: 7:52

So much stuff, we'd haul it over there and set it up for the evening, and that was where she started kind of like being able to like, explore, you know, the jewelry making or the clothing that she wanted to carry and the curation of what I wanted the boutique to look like.

Audrey: 8:11

And so y'all, it wasn't just like a table in a tent, Like I had a chandelier in there and I had lights and I had.

Audrey: 8:18

That's cool I would take these shutters. So at the house on Seahorse Lane they had redone the shutters and I found these old shutters in our like in the garage. I was like can I take these, dad? And he was like, yeah, what do you want to do with them? And I was like I'm going to wire them to the front of my tent so then I can hang clothes and other things and to catch people's attention, we're making it work.

Audrey: 8:41

I was just like anything free, anything like kind of not too expensive Actually at the time, at the time we didn't have this term, but nowadays you would call that kind of like a side hustle.

Mike Mosel: 8:51

Yeah Right, and what a lot of people like to do. They like to turn their side hustle into like their full time kind of dream jobs.

Audrey: 8:58

Yeah.

Mike Mosel: 8:59

And so that's basically what Audrey did. She had this side hustle and she was, you know, kind of growing a following of folks that would come out to shop with her.

Audrey: 9:07

So I'd post on the Facebook page yes, like, hey, I'm going to be at Mulligan's this Thursday from five to eight. Come out and see me. And my boss at State Farm was so kind and generous and very supportive of me doing this. I think he could see the passion in me. So I would work through lunch and then be able to leave at like 3 or 4 in the afternoon. I would get my dad's truck and I'd usually have it already set up or almost all set up and I would go pick up my cousin Bailey OK, shout out to Bailey. She was like 12 or 13 at the time in middle school. I would pick her up from her house. She would come over to the market with me help me set up. I'd pay her $5 to help me set up and work the evening, right, oh, that's great.

Audrey: 9:57

Her mom would come pick her up at, like you know, 7 or 8 o'clock. I'd be like here's your $5 cash, bailey. But she still works with me today.

Mike Mosel: 10:07

Oh, that is cool, isn't that crazy. She gets paid more than $5 when she works.

Audrey: 10:13

She's become a super valuable person to me and she has her own project in the works. Okay, I'll give a little shout out to this because this will be fun later on. Sneak peek. She is in the process of renovating a boutique hotel downtown near the freshman learning center. It's going to be a nine room, really cool bed and breakfast, wow. It's called the Ronita and it's just. It's a cool project, it's a big project.

Brian Curee: 10:42

Yeah, we need to get her on here.

Mike Mosel: 10:44

And like slip our name in, for, like the test run you know.

Brian Curee: 10:47

Right, yeah, yeah, that is so cool.

Brian Curee: 10:51

Oh, that's so amazing, going back to your story, of being willing to press pause when you recognize that this wasn't exactly what you want to do. That had to be very difficult at that time Cause, like you were saying, michael, you said it perfectly. That was very brave and I think it's important for anybody that's listening to this as well, especially when you're young, like we talked to our son Okay, you're talking about, like, the days of Facebook. We started doing it. It was in days of MySpace. So now for all you younger people that are listening, that would be like you starting your business on TikTok. Let's kind of make it relatable for everybody that's listening.

Brian Curee: 11:28

But our son, he's turning 21 this year and one of the things we always kind of encourage him is he's got an entrepreneur's heart. He wants to run businesses. He's gifted in so many different areas. He's got an entrepreneur's heart. He wants to run businesses. He's gifted in so many different areas and we try to lean into it and encourage him like this is your time to experiment with different things that you like doing, to find out what you're really passionate about. And I think it's good for anybody to listen. If you're starting a business and you have this dream, that dream and goal might evolve and change through different seasons to help lead you to where you are today, and I'm sure you could probably look back at some of the things that you've done in the past and like, wow, I needed to learn that so I could do this today. Has that happened? Has that been part of it?

Audrey: 12:52

Well, it's so funny. I feel like you perfectly segued into like what I did in between. That time that I came home, I remember, like very vividly, standing on the steps of my school in Auburn and thinking I'm leaving here today and I'm not coming back, and Lord, give me the strength to keep moving.

Brian Curee: 13:12

Right.

Audrey: 13:14

We're going to do something different. And so I remember getting home and being like, oh my gosh, what do I do next? And so I remember getting home and being like, oh my gosh, what do I do next? I just got a bunch of random fun jobs. So I worked at JCrew for that summer. So I did learn about merchandising and selling and talking to customers and just handling money and handling transactions and all of that. So that was part of the summer.

Audrey: 13:44

I also got connected to a florist in town Laura's theme florist and I would set up like one time I set up an entire wedding of flowers and I did like helped her put flowers together and that was another passion of mine. I just love being creative and I feel like throughout school I didn't have the opportunity to like unleash this like creative part of me. I was very much numbers, like head down in a book learning numbers, but there is like a huge creative drive inside. So I worked with her for that summer. I also worked as a photographer for it's PS Photography, so I learned photography that summer. I learned like about floral design and I also worked at JCrew and just learned about retail. Wow, and it was sometime like that fall I think that I moved into more of a you know full-time position at State Farm. So that was when I really honed in on my skills on the phone, talking to customers, talking to really upset customers.

Mike Mosel: 14:55

Oh my gosh, we don't have any of those.

Brian Curee: 14:57

Not generally, not Like. I looked at your reviews, at your reviews, I think it's all five stars. Well.

Audrey: 15:04

I honed in those skills. You have to really learn to handle and manage a lot when you're in insurance and I also learned that I really didn't want to do that for the rest of my life. I remember I was doing well at State Farm but also growing my side hustle. I was telling Mike this story a few days ago. I had read that verse, Ephesians 3.20,. Now to him, who is able to do infinitely and abundantly more than we ask or think. And this is like before the days of Canva. I did not make it cute.

Audrey: 15:37

I typed it up right on a Word document and I printed it out and I stuck it to my wall and I would read that verse. And this office had no windows and I was like, lord, this—like I need this to be my story, like I need this. And you know, a few years go by, that we were setting up at the Mulligan's Beach Market. I remember I was downtown. Okay, there's so many downtown stories, y'all Places that don't—.

Brian Curee: 16:07

There's so many downtowns, like when we first moved here. We're like wait a minute this is downtown Vero.

Audrey: 16:11

This is downtown Vero.

Mike Mosel: 16:13

We're like wait, so we're still wrapping our minds around that as well. Don't sleep on downtown Vero, y'all.

Audrey: 16:19

So I was bringing my dog to the groomer who's at Groomingdale's Okay, so it's where Faces by Linda is now Dropped my dog off at the groomer. I come across the street because I'm like that little space is for rent, huh. So I remember walking over here like super nervous. Like what am I nervous about? I look in the window and I'm like, okay, it's not that big, it's not. It looks kind of. And I'm like, okay, it's not that big, it looks kind of like a good size. I just like the look of it. There's something about it. I just like the look of it.

Audrey: 16:50

Remember I took a picture of the sign, brought it back to the office I showed my mom and she goes oh, that's Scott Chisholm's place, I'll call him. So she calls him, gets some details. She tells me she's like you just need to go meet with him. And so I remember going and meeting with him and sitting in his office like super nervous. He's like, well, what do you want to do? And I was like, well, I want to have a boutique.

Audrey: 17:15

And you know, all I know right now is just setting up at Mulligan's and being like this is my boutique. This, like you know, eight by or 10 by 10 tent with some things on it and some things on my shutters, out, you know, in the front of the tent, like that's my boutique, and he said, okay, well, I've been waiting for someone like you to come up so you can have it. And I said I have to go pray about it and he was like well, okay, that's fine, that's fine. I remember going home and we lived in this little apartment on the beach and I just remember being in the apartment and thinking like Lord, is this? It Is this, it Is this that infinitely and abundantly more. And I just heard the word go and I thought, well, let's go.

Audrey: 18:03

I remember typing up this nice letter to my boss, chuck, and it was like thank you for my job, thank you for everything you've done for me. It's time for me to go and pursue this passion. And within like 14 days or 15 days, we did so much in here, like it was it was a crazy time.

Mike Mosel: 18:24

So if there's one thing I can say about entrepreneurship, it does take a lot of different skills, as you mentioned, brian, and the things that she picked up along the way at those other jobs you know filtered into. You know what we have here and you know we. She does all of her own photography and um. You know she does a lot of the merchandising and coaches the ladies up on that um. But the other thing you need when you know getting started in entrepreneurship is a network of friends and family that are willing to kind of just step in and help you out.

Mike Mosel: 18:56

You know you don't have a lot of money. You're getting things off the ground and you gotta call in some favors favors, you know, and that's what we did, that's what we did. We had, we had a group of friends in here and had a painting party. I bought some pizzas and we just we painted the walls. You know, audrey's uncle came helped us build the racking, which is no longer here, but I mean, it was a friends and family affair to get this thing off the ground.

Mike Mosel: 19:19

Um and amazing and yeah, it was just a. It's a testament to just having having a solid community around you, having, you know, we we were lucky enough to grow up here in Vero Beach, so we had a lot of roots here and and we leaned on them. You know when, when we wanted to get this thing off the ground.

Brian Curee: 19:36

Big shout out to all those people then, because that's huge.

Audrey: 19:39

We've paid a lot of people with pizza then, because that's huge, we've paid a lot of people with pizza.

Mike Mosel: 19:44

Pizza, you guys, pizza is a form of currency, yeah, so yes, that's beautiful and that hasn't stopped. I mean, some of the nicest things you see in here the checkout counter, the dressing rooms, sorry, and like even that shelf over there those are all made by my best buddy. He cares. He cares so much about supporting our business and what the customers are going to experience when they're in here, so it's just continued. You know, over the years last 10 years, honestly, it's been a real like friends, family, community effort alongside of us to keep this business rolling.

Brian Curee: 20:20

I love it, I love it side of us to keep this business rolling. I love it, I love it. That is. I think that's a good place to end this first episode, because if you guys haven't been here, you guys need to come check it out, see the store for yourself so you can visualize what we've been talking about here. But I really love that part about you know that word that was given to you go, and it can be scary to step through those doors if you don't know what the you don't know what's on the other side of that door until you go and you step through it. So that's how it all started.

Brian Curee: 20:45

So next episode we'll talk about what the day is like at the seahorse lane boutique every day and give you a little bit more of behind the scenes of what it's like to be an entrepreneur and running a local business. And hey that if you have any questions that you would like to ask, you can click on the show notes. There's a text us a Texas link. Just click that. Share any of your questions. Or if you have some local business people or musicians or anything in Vero Beach that would like to be a part of this podcast, shoot us a text.

Mike Mosel: 21:14

See you later, neighbor.