The Biggest Fan of Small Businesses

I’ll bet you think that I sprang, fully-formed, as a jewelry designer straight from the womb.

Bearing a torch in one tiny hand and a pair of pliers in the other, I leaped right into the jewelry industry with nary a second thought. You might even think that ideas spout forth from my skull like geysers in Yellowstone. This is not far from the truth, but it took years to get here.

Hi! I’m Sharon Z

I got my start with a metalsmithing class in 2003. I knew enough at the time to ask questions like “Hey, where did this silver come from originally?” but the answers at the time were thin. So I kept asking until I found the answer.

In 2006, I began working in the jewelry industry, honing my production skills, and eventually getting promoted to eCommerce Manager at Melissa Joy Manning. At every stage of my work there, I let curiosity guide me and I learned everything I could about what it takes to run a jewelry business.

I took that same curiosity and tenacity and applied it to running my jewelry production business that I started in 2011, Sharon Z Jewelry, and started asking questions like “What kind of profit margin can I get from a jewelry business?” and “Is there an easier way to do any of this?”

I take that same curiosity and apply it to my work with my jewelry business clients, and my maker and creative business clients, asking how we can make their systems better, and help them find ease and love in their businesses.

I’ve always strongly believed in putting more compassion into the world. As a teenager, I marched to bring awareness to climate change and caring for the earth. In my 20s and 30s, I protested the war and organized Take Back the Night rallies. And now, as an artist and businesswoman, I get to incorporate my values into my business.

In 2018, I began teaching at the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center in the Bay Area – the same place that taught me so many valuable business skills years earlier. In 2019, I launched a jewelry school and workshop with classes on everything from flush setting to wax carving to how to make your own wire and sheet. Following the pandemic that began in 2020, I closed my physical space and moved classes online. I even launched a series of pre-recorded, go-at-your-own-pace classes.

In 2020, I launched my blog series Tool Talk, covering all of my favorite and most useful jewelry tools. These are genuine reviews and I don’t take tools or payment from corporations for my reviews so you can trust that these are my genuine thoughts. I cite primary sources for my factual blog posts whenever they are available and secondary sources when primary sources are not available.

I am a member of The San Francisco Green Business Program, The Jewelry Glossary Project, The Ethical Move, and SF Made.

My jewelry, writing, and my business have been featured in local and national publications:

Design Sponge

Diablo Magazine

San Francisco Chronicle

MJSA

Sustainably Chic