Business
Maggie Farrell tells the story of starting Maggpie Rentals near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Among other things, Maggpie is known for offering beautiful custom furniture pieces made in-house. You’ll hear how Maggie managed to develop a winning business model and keep her young enterprise alive while fighting for her own life. What’s in this episode: The situation that led Maggpie to custom-build a portion of their rental inventory. The factors that define Maggpie’s aesthetic and collection now. How Maggie and her young business survived a shocking cancer diagnosis and years-long treatment program Getting married while working in the wedding events rentals industry Advice for business owners on carving time out for yourself Running your business rather than your business running you Quotes: “I did really love to always be at the warehouse with my parents, but I loved the team that he had. And that was always super appealing to me to have this group of people that worked so well together and admired you so much. But they were just such a team. It was never like you work for me. It was like we work together. And, you know, I just loved the environment.” —Maggie Farrell “When you get money in your hands, you know, you don’t want to give it back. So, I said to Jason ‘We have to figure out how to make these tables.’” —Maggie Farrell You get to be involved in creating the environment for the event and for this special celebration that then becomes incorporated in the environment of their lives.” —Allison Howell “I think we used to buy because we knew what people were going to rent. But now, over time, we're able to set it ourselves and it's like, ‘oh, well, Maggpie has that so that's what we should get because they have that.’ So that was always a goal where I want to buy what I like. I want to be proud of my collection.” —Maggie Farrell “The day after my 26th birthday I had my first day of chemotherapy.” —Maggie Farrell “I started to really allow myself to just take time and think about what was going on. Just trying to dig a little deeper. And I think I started to feel, I don't know, I just started to get these feelings of like when I was sick, I wish I gave myself more attention and I paid more attention to like my body and my mind but [...] I was just so focused on the business and nothing else and I feel I completely lost myself.” —Maggie Farrell “It was after I wasn't sick anymore. After we didn't want to sell our business anymore. We moved out of the warehouse and we were like, ‘Alight, it's time. Let's do something for ourselves.’” —Maggie Farrell For full show notes and resources, head to https://rwelephant.com/podcast/episode-3-maggpie-rentals