Letter From The Owner

Hey there! My name is Ian.

I own Maritime Supply Company, and I wanted to share a little bit of my story today and kind of how I started the whole business - talk a little bit about this little wire anchor bracelet. I think to say the very least, it changed my life. Back in 2012, I was a college student. I had gone to college for two years and I was basically on the verge of just dropping out of college. I didn't have any direction and I felt really lost. At the beginning of 2012, I started to build a following on Instagram. I'd always grown up making things with my hands. I'm very creative and I would post my 3D design and sculpture projects... and I built a good little following. I had people on there that would comment on the things I posted [and] give me feedback.

And one of the things were these little wire anchor bracelets and I would make all of them by hand like this. And so I got enough good feedback and I decided to start selling them on Etsy. And I would get maybe enough for gas money every week and y'know, that was fun. It was a creative outlet for me, but I didn't really know how to turn that into something I would do for a living. There was still a lot of uncertainty going on with the direction I was headed with college and everything and I definitely started to slip into a depression... lots of anxiety was coming up on the end of that year.

In 2012, my sister actually recommended that I do a Black Friday sale for these little wire anchor bracelets and I was like, "You know what? Let's give it a shot." So I asked a few friends who had good followings on Instagram as well to post about the sale. I wasn't expecting much - I think these were like maybe $10 with free shipping. And the Etsy app on my phone makes a "cha-ching" sound whenever you get a sale. My phone was making that "cha-ching" sound all throughout that night. So I wake up the next morning and I had over $700 worth of sales for these little anchor bracelets. I really mean it when I say it: I felt like I had been given a second chance that next day.

I had so many things to do! I had - I think - over 100 orders for these. I had to figure out how to make them, which is what I did immediately that day after Black Friday, was make this little jig. I was just filled with so many things that I had to do and so I had to keep taking these positive steps forward into the next half year. I figured out some advertising techniques that really allowed the business to grow. That's when we turned into Maritime Supply Company in 2013.