“An entrepreneur is pretty much a liberal arts student.”
02.16.10
When Ashley Logsdon enrolled at The University of The South, she thought her focus would be on theater and varsity tennis. By the time she graduated in 2007, she was ready to launch her own business, dolma jewelry, Inc., an Atlanta-based firm that imports and sells pearl jewelry to retailers and through direct sales.
In January, the firm and its founder were featured on a CNN business program. The segment tells the story of Logsdon’s introduction to a pearl vendor by a Chinese friend, An Jin, and her fascination with the variety of pearls the vendor carried. She was in China for her junior year semester abroad when she discovered her passion for pearls and the idea that launched her on the path to business success.
Today Dolma Jewelry is flourishing despite the economic downturn, and Logsdon gives much of the credit to the liberal arts education she received at Sewanee.
At Sewanee, she discovered new academic interests with a major in economics and a minor in Asian Studies.
“I attribute a lot of my success to Sewanee,” she says. During an independent study on franchising with economics professor Doug Williams she built her business plan with his expert advice. Asian history courses with Harold Goldberg gave her insight into China’s culture.
Also crucial, she says, were all the other liberal arts courses from Sewanee's rich academic offerings. She was not afraid to take the gamble on launching a business fresh out of college because as a liberal arts student, “you’ve done things that are out of your comfort zone,” she says.
When it came time to launch the business, her Sewanee connections also played a major role. She recruited an accounting professor for tax advice and a dozen of her fellow students as sales representatives. She plans to return to the campus later this year to recruit new employees.
Unlike many small businesses, Dolma Jewelry has turned a profit from the start. “I’ve never been in the red, never,” she says. Her business was up by 40 percent last year.
She picked up a lot of “intangible skills” at Sewanee, as well as some very practical ones, like the ability to write well and think critically. “An entrepreneur is pretty much a liberal arts student,” she says.
