We moved into the Taylor Martin Paper Co. building in 1984 and rented space upstairs for the sewing so we could concentrate on marketing and sales. My husband and I divorced, and in 1987, Vera Bradley bought a lot and built its own building in town.
Early on we knew we didn’t know how to price things or do cost analyses. So we got in touch with SCORE, a nonprofit that provides free business mentoring to entrepreneurs, and a volunteer was assigned to help us. I started calling on stores, showing the bags to owners. We had no trouble getting stores to buy our products because there was nothing like it out there.