Loan Officer Charts New Course With Nautically Inspired Jewelry

For years before the official launch of her side hustle, Charlotte Guptill had enjoyed making and sharing jewelry with family and friends. Typically working with pearls, semi-precious stones and oxidized silver, it was after a friend encouraged her that it was something she was "meant" to do that the wheels started turning.

After taking a course to come up with a business plan, she was ready to launch! But when she presented her idea to a jeweler at a seminar, they said it would be best to go in a different direction. She was told her designs would be too "common." And in this case, the advice wasn't wrong.

She locked herself away in her studio to brainstorm a new plan. As a lover of sailing and resident of Maine, Charlotte was a longtime nautical enthusiast. She looked around her studio and found herself surrounded by nautical charts and maps.

How could she combine these two passions? It was here where CHART metalworks was born, as she found an idea that was far from being "common."

While there were customizable jewelry options available on the market at the time, there was nothing like this. She realized she could highlight and cut out parts of a map that she knew were popular destinations … or that had some personal significance to someone.

When a friend asked if she could capture the beach she got married on, Charlotte knew she had struck gold. She had created a product that would capture a place in someone's memory.

Charlotte worked on the project for two years before launching. During this time, with a day job as a mortgage loan officer, she learned pricing, marketing, and how to make a website—taking Fridays away from the office to focus on the preparation. At night and on the weekends, she would cut the charts and place each specific spot into a bezel, like a pendant, then top it off with resin.

Once she had enough interest and individual sales to prove the concept, she took out a business loan of $15,000 to purchase equipment. She was able to pay off this loan in just a year and a half.

She threw herself into the world of business at full force, signing on ten accounts after a small trade show. After doing everything herself for the first eight months after officially launching, her husband joined in to help.

Big things were happening at CHART Metalworks. They were about to get bigger when Coastal Living Magazine featured them in a full-page article. It took the company from three orders a week to over ninety orders a week … and Charlotte never looked back.

All this time, she was still working as a loan officer, but she knew she would have to let go of one of her roles in order for the other to flourish. A year after starting, she made the decision to go all in with the business.

This customized jewelry was highly personal to many buyers, proving to Charlotte again and again that she was doing the right thing. She remembers one piece in particular, ordered by a woman who wanted a necklace featuring the burial location at sea of her son, calling it "the most important piece of jewelry she would ever own."

By year eight, the business had hit over one million dollars in sales annually. Charlotte and her husband found themselves selling shares to their business and bringing on partners, in order to take more time for themselves. She eventually resigned from her leadership position in CHART and sold the company in June of 2019.

She was happy to see the brand would continue to live on. Charlotte and her husband now live in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico—a place they'd always loved visiting and imagined living "one day." She now says, "If you wait for the perfect time, it may never come."