Meet Gabriele De Loach
Gabriele, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
My very first Etsy shop started as a true hobby. I was sewing, knitting and crocheting bags, decorating flip flops with seashells, painting bottles, seashell ornaments,even making tumblers using a slightly different technique back then. I still use my very first one. That hobby is really where SoFlo Boho Boutique’s roots come from, and as the years went on, I knew I wanted that same versatility back in my current store, not just jewelry, but a whole coastal lifestyle people could live in.
When I started thinking about drinkware again, those original seashell tumblers were the spark. I wanted to bring that idea back, but elevated and refined. Around the same time, I noticed something: most fishing and tackle inspired pieces are marketed almost entirely toward men, even though so many women love fishing just as much. That’s where Hook & Tumble™ came from, combining real seashells with fishing lure inspired details so it speaks to everyone who loves the water, not just one side of it. But I also wanted it to go beyond the beach and fishing crowd. These cups are for land locked beach lovers, beach wedding parties, girls’ night out, guys’ night out, housewarming gifts coastal style, birthday gifts, moms who want a cup that actually feels like them, anyone craving that coastal feel, wherever they live. Saltwater Sips™ followed right alongside it, built from that same coastal spirit but with its own personality. Both felt like the perfect way to bring my original hobby full circle into something more refined and true to who actually loves this lifestyle.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I grew up in a very handy and crafty family, so that string of artistry and love for creating was in my blood all along. For most of my life I worked in the beauty industry, where pretty and special products are deeply valued and sought after, but being crafty has always been my own outlet, the quiet time where I get to just create, busy hands and quiet mind. That hobby eventually turned into my very first Etsy shop, which started with seashell necklaces, then grew to include decorating flip flops with seashells, more jewelry, weaving seashells into delicate adornments, and eventually into silversmithing. I decided to channel all of that into something tangible and launched SoFlo Boho Boutique.
Today I create handmade sterling silver and copper jewelry, seashell hardware and coastal home decor, and my two patent pending drinkware lines, Hook & Tumble™ and Saltwater Sips™. Each piece I craft by hand with real materials and genuine care, no shortcuts.
Being a solopreneur is honestly like having two full time jobs. I wear every hat, the maker, the shipper, the marketer, the customer service rep, all of it. But it also means every single piece that goes out has my hands and my heart in it. One of a kind is my pride. I love making one piece at a time and watching it become something nobody else will ever have exactly the same. There are a few exceptions, like some gemstone bracelets or necklaces where I’ll make more of the same style, but the heart of what I do is creating things that are truly unique.
What I’m most proud of is Hook & Tumble™ and Saltwater Sips™. I filed the provisional patent entirely on my own, researching and figuring it out step by step as a solo maker, .before bringing in legal help for the non provisional patent filing and trademarks. It was a tough journey, but it’s become the thing I’m proudest of in this whole business. It proves that a small, handmade idea really can grow into something protected and real.
Looking ahead, I’m starting to explore getting Hook & Tumble™ and Saltwater Sips™ into a few select retail stores and marinas, slowly and intentionally, the same way I’ve built everything else. I’ve also just launched an affiliate program for people who love the brand and want to share it with their own community.
What I want people to know is that handmade matters a lot. In a world full of mass production, every piece I make carries real time, real hands, and real intention. Whether it’s a tumbler, a necklace, or a piece of coastal decor, it’s made to be kept, make stories and not tossed aside next season.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
One of the toughest things I’ve dealt with as a solopreneur wasn’t creative, it was technical. My store started getting hit at the launch of my patent pending drinkware by bots and scrapers, automated traffic trying to access and pull data from my site without permission. At one point I even had to send a cease and desist to Amazon over something called Project Starfish, which was scraping my store. Truth be told, I might have even considered partnering with them if they’d asked first, instead of scraping my site without my knowledge or permission and having me discover my own storefront on Amazon by accident.That’s not how I like a business relationship to start. It totally killed my launch of my patent pending drinkware during the holiday season. It felt overwhelming at first. I’m not a tech person, I’m a maker. But I wasn’t going to let my work get taken or exploited without a fight.
So I taught myself. I dug into Cloudflare, cleaned up my DNS, set up email authentication, all of it on my own, late nights, trial and error. I documented everything as evidence in case I ever needed it. It was exhausting and honestly intimidating going up against something that big as a one person operation, but I got through it.
That experience taught me that resilience isn’t always glamorous. Sometimes it’s just refusing to quit on the boring, technical, unglamorous parts of protecting what you built, because nobody else is going to do it for you.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
For a long time, I thought growing my business meant perfecting everything behind the scenes, tweaking descriptions, fixing little SEO details, polishing every page until it shined. I spent a year doing that, pouring hours into it, and my traffic barely budged. It was discouraging, because I felt like I was doing everything right.
The pivot came when I finally admitted to myself that I was polishing a store nobody could find yet. I had to let go of the idea that perfecting what I already had would somehow fix everything, and instead put my energy into actually getting in front of people, leaning more into Pinterest, (learned a tough lesson there too) and social media building real connections, and creating content that puts my work where new eyes can actually find it. social media is still my learning curve, I’m trying my best.
It humbled me, honestly. But it taught me something I keep coming back to as a maker: sometimes the most important pivot isn’t doing more, it’s asking whether you’re even pointed in the right direction.
Image Credits
Gabriele De Loach