From Sail to Tote: How Beth Greenlaw Built Seabags Maine | Emily Blumenthal & Beth Greenlaw
episode
Handbag Designer 101: The Stories Behind Handbag Designers, Brands, and Industry Icons
33 min
1 speaker
3 chapters
transcribed 1 month ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
How did Seabags identify its true customer base and adjust its target market?
To your point of your customers not really who you think they are, I mistakenly thought our customers were going to be sailors. Like everyone was going to be a sailor that bought our bags. Well, sailors notoriously don't have, you know, don't spend the money on things like that. So they would go for the yellow bean tote at half the price. And so I was wrong on that. And then, you know, we quickly found out, you know, that our buyers were women that appreciated handmade and the unique design in every single tote because of the sale that it came from.
Hi, and welcome to Handbag Designer 101, the podcast with your host, Emily Blumenthal, handbag industry expert and the handbag fairy godmother. Each week, we uncover the stories behind the handbags we love from the iconic brands and top designers to the creativity, craftsmanship, and culture that define the handbag world. Whether you're a designer, collector, or simply passionate about handbags, this is your front row seat to it all.
So welcome Beth Greenlaw of Seabags Maine to Handbag Designer 101, the podcast. Welcome, welcome.
Thank you so much. So happy to be
here. Yeah, I love when ongoing publicists slash friends of mine tell me that they have a client that is deserving of attention and has
a
story behind it. So I love, love, love your brand. We have a sample or we have one. I don't even want to call it a sample because samples predate actual sales. But why don't you hide the ditty about Beth and where you're from? And we don't even need to get into the sea bags, but what's your origin story? And then we can work our way up because what I love our listeners to know is, and this is also what I teach too, become an entrepreneur or a business owner, it's not a linear journey. And there's a lot of things that happen before we get to Seabags Maine, before it's like, oh, who knew we could make a bag and who knew it could be a business? So Beth, welcome. What's your story though? No
pressure. So thank you, Emily. So excited to be here. And I'm glad you said it's not a linear journey because as far as I know, nobody ever grew up saying, I want to make handbags out of recycled sales from sailboats. So it definitely was not a straight path for me by any means. But I was born and raised in Maine and went to school in Ohio for business. And at the time where I graduated, there just weren't a lot of jobs in Maine. So I ended up living in many different places, doing the corporate thing in semiconductors and wiring cable. Definitely had no idea how to sew, no idea how to make a tote bag. So
But wait a second, wait a second. So you said day job. So you finished, you had a degree, you know, business. And it's so funny, like having a kid in college now, the landscape. And when you say, oh, you got a degree, it's like, oh, good for you. Good job. Good job. You know, well done. But how did you end up, like, did you want to go back to Maine where you're like, oh, that's it. I'm going. So you were like, that's it. I'm going back to Maine. I'm going to find something to do because I'm sure going back. You knew it would be kind of limiting in terms of what you could do
going back, right? A hundred percent. So at the point where I wanted to come back, I was in semiconductors and I was traveling overseas doing a ton of long haul travel. And I wanted to be home and I wanted to have a family and none of that was really possible with the job that I had. But there weren't a lot of jobs as lucrative or as exciting as the one I had. So I thought, why not do a startup? So...
Wait a second. How did you end up in semiconductors? Because as someone who graduates, it's like the most sexy thing I want to do, semiconductors, top of my list. Like, was that like, okay, I've moved home. This is a good job. It pays a lot of money and I get to be home. Like, how did you end up in semiconductors?
Yeah, I mean, it just started from corporate gig to corporate gig. You know, my specialty was business to business sales, and it was all industrial. I mean, there weren't a ton of women in Semiconductors at that time, but it offered me an opportunity to do some international travel, which I thought I wanted to do for, and I did for a bit.
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Chapters
3 chapters
1
How did Seabags identify its true customer base and adjust its target market?
0:00–4:33
2
How did Beth Greenlaw’s early career and corporate background lead to founding Seabags Maine?
4:33–6:37
3
What inspired the idea to upcycle sailcloth into handbags and how was the partnership formed?
6:37–33:22
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Handbag Designer 101: The Stories Behind Handbag Designers, Brands, and Industry Icons
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