Is This Teen Entrepreneur The Next Cartier?

In many ways, Alison Tichelaar Palma is a typical 16-year-old ex-pat. She has lived in the US, Spain, and now China. She goes to school, plays sports, loves to cook, and oh yeah, she is the CEO of her own jewelry Brand, Alit. “I’ve always known I wanted to start a business of some kind, but it wasn’t until this year at the end of May when I decided to start a jewelry business because it was a product that I liked myself… I asked myself: if I am going to start a business someday, why wait and not start it now?”

Palma is young, ambitious, and smart enough to know this is a learning experience. “I realized that now was the perfect time to get experience; to be able to make mistakes and to learn from those mistakes.” She went to her parents with a business plan and asked them to be her angel investors. And then she spent every hour not devoted to her school work designing her first set. “I didn’t have a method for this, I just got some paper and tried different ideas with shapes. I kept making some changes to the draft for around a week until I was happy with the result. At that time, I had no idea how to produce the jewelry – it was just a drawing.” She then had to go thru the process of finding a manufacturer. No small feat when you are 16 and have limited Chinese. But eventually, she found the right place to help her turn her idea into reality. “The manufacturer helped me make my drawing into a computer design and from there I took it to production.” Three months of viewing samples and making adjustments and she finally held the finished product in her hands. “It was a satisfying moment. it felt surreal to have what had started as a drawing using pen and paper as a tangible jewelry piece.”

But that was just the start of the work. Now that she had the product it was time to figure out the marketing process. She had to learn how to design a website, set up a WeChat group, and then photos of the pieces needed to be taken and price points set. But it paid off, “, I didn’t know the business would grow this much in such a short period of time. I am very thankful for all the help I received from people spreading the word about Alit.”

Tichelaar Palma dreams about going to University for Business and Economics and one day becoming a global brand perhaps even expanding to additional fashion products. But, for now, she is happy debuting in the largest market in the world. “I want to focus on selling in China and in the future when I leave for university, I may be able to expand Alit to another country.”

When asked what advice she would give other young businesspeople she said “have a clear plan of what you want to achieve with your business. For example, for me, my goal is to gain experience and learn. Knowing why you want to start a business will help you in making choices…ask questions…During my process, I reached out to friends who have a jewelry store and they gave me a lot of advice and guidance.”

“I am looking forward to designing more jewelry in the future…I think the design of the first set is special because it represents the starting point…it is where the business originated from. I was able to customize every single detail of the design” In addition to her own original design Tichelaar Palma hand selects other quality pieces to sell and even has a new customizable bracelet out.

In less than a year with a lot of hard work and support from some very trusting parents, this young businesswoman has launched her first original product. To get your own unique piece from Alit before they hit international red carpets scan the QR Code below.