Last updated : Monday, July 6, 2009

Print | |

 

Love the One You Work With: Derek & Lauren

A couple since their freshman year at UC Santa Cruz, Derek Fagerstrom and Lauren Smith are the owners of The Curiosity Shoppe, where you can find everything from books and hand-crafted pieces to fun finds for the home. The shop, which opened online in 2006 and on location in 2007, was a long-evolved dream for the couple, who lived and worked in New York City for eight years beforehand. Aside from the day-to-day challenges of running a successful store, Fagerstrom and Smith share their secrets to mixing business with pleasure.

Talk about your background. What was life like in New York?
Derek: We met at UC Santa Cruz as freshmen. We both wanted to be involved in media, so after graduation we drove out to New York City. I worked at a variety of magazines like Interview and Esquire. Lauren worked for the designer Todd Oldham the entire time we lived there; she was his assistant and did his PR.

So why did you move back to California?
Lauren: We both grew up in the Bay Area. We were there for about eight years and realized that the west coast was more our pace. In New York everything was crazy and we'd come to California and the sun would be shining and life was a little slower.
D: We lived awesome, fast-paced lives and had great jobs in New York, but we were ready for a change.

What made you want to open up a shop together?
D: I think through our experiences in New York we were exposed to great art and great design. We lived in Brooklyn, which has a lot of up-and-coming artists. There were all sorts of boutique stores that had great items, and we always thought, "Wouldn't it be nice to open our own shop and stay there all day and talk to customers?" We wanted a simpler life. Of course, now we work more than we ever did before.

As a couple, how do you work together, but maintain a happy and stable relationship?
D: We live in an apartment right above our shop, so we start working as soon as we get up. We're not accountants or lawyers; the stuff we do at our job is the kind of stuff we'd be doing anyway. Our work is our pleasure as well.
L: The trick is to not talk about work when we're not working. We try to make dinner and watch a movie.

What's one of the biggest challenges of working together?
D: It's about turning it off. We try to tackle something for a specific amount of time and move on. It's often hard to switch from work mode to home mode. At the end of the day, it's about creating schedules. You should see our iCal, it's ridiculous; you'd laugh. It's hard work and it's frustrating -- it's not all giggles and fun -- but it's never as bad as when it's hard and stressful and annoying in a conventional job because you love the person you're working with. On the flip side, for most people, you can go home to your spouse and vent and gossip about a coworker who is pissing you off -- you can't do that here.

What's one of the biggest benefits of working together?
D: Well, we love each other.
L: We can throw things back and forth and we know what we're good at. We know everything about each other, which makes collaborating easy. We can basically read each other's minds at this point, so we're rarely running ideas by each other that the other person won't like. And there are never big discussions about direction or anything.

What's your advice for couples who want to go into business together?
D: Love is one thing, and business another. Love is obviously more important. You should never let business affect your relationship. If your business doesn't work out, it's not a big deal in the long run, but if you lose the one you love, nothing is worth that loss.

 

Print | |