Welcome to the business of antiques, where I help you make your passion for antiques profitable.

I'm Tom McLark Haines, CEO of the Antique Steven Company, and I'm on a mission to make antiques modern, sexy, fun, and profitable.

I hate to break it to you, if you're not making money in your antiques business, then it's just a hobby.

In this podcast, I interview some of the leading antique dealers from around the globe, getting their advice and sharing my own on how to sell antiques to the modern day antique buyer.

We discuss ways to recession proof your antiques business by developing strategic marketing plans, elevating your brand to attract the right target market, and planning for profits.

You make your money when you buy.

Not when you sell.

So we'll discuss some sourcing tips straight out of my antique Stiva little black book.

I'm teaching you the business of antiques.

Okay, everyone, I have to tell you, I have not one, but two special guests today.

Now, right now, I am recording from the Chianti Clubhouse, which is where my antiques warehouse is here in Tuscany.

And.

And I have my next door neighbor Angus sitting beside me.

And Angus is sitting in on this podcast recording.

Would you ever consider becoming an antiques dealer, Angus?

Maybe not if you don't have the antiques.

Ah, that's good point.

The first rule of being an antiques dealer is you need to buy antiques.

Yeah.

I will say, the other day he gave me some great advice.

He told me that I should set up at the market in Greve.

Yeah.

Do you want to tell the listeners anything about you before I switch over to the other guest on today's podcast?

Okay, well, Angus may be coming in and out, so you may see him.

He is my next door neighbor here at the Chianti Clubhouse now.

Okay.

The other special guest we have today is actually someone who has been around from the very beginning of this podcast because she was our very first advertiser.

She was the person who took a chance on me when I was just starting out.

She said, I'm willing to bet on you.

And now I think, dear Lord, I don't even remember.

I think we must be in season five.

So I think we're doing something right.

On that note, I would love to introduce my dear friend, dear friend, my colleague in the industry, a just, I would say a visionary in the industry.

Stacy Tavaron.

Stacey, tell everybody everything about yourself.

Oh, my gosh, that's a big ask.

It's so great to see you, by the way.

So beautiful.

Wish I was there with you.

You have to come.

We've really Got to get you here.

I know, I know, I know.

What would you like to know?

What would you like me to share?

Well, what I would love to start with is we had a little bit of a different opening today since we have Angus on the bicycle running around behind me to a little bit of a different start.

So normally I would have said who you are and what you do, and I did not start with that.

So I think that's the best thing for you to start with is just telling them.

Let's.

So you know what I always joke about?

I always joke that when I do a podcast, it's like a tarot card reading.

Past, present, future.

So let's start first with who you are today, this amazing company that you founded and CEO of.

And then we're going to go back into how you got where you are.

But let's start with today.

Okay, great.

So today I am the founder and CEO of a company called Renati.

Renati comes from Rona, which means My Joy.

And the company was founded to really help create technology solutions for the world of vintage and antiques, which is an industry that has had almost zero technological innovation since the Internet and technology became part of our everyday lives for the last 20 years.

So our focus and has been our focus for the last several years is identifying where the problems are for antique and vintage dealers in terms of their administrative processes, documenting inventory, image editing image background, removing, managing their inventory across multiple different platforms.

Even for dealers who don't sell online, we've developed tools for them to be able to create quickly document, manage their inventory, create branded tear sheets so that they can more quickly supply to their buyers information on their inventory that is a lot of times stuck in warehouses or shops offline.

So that's basically what we're doing, is we're just trying to help these dealers survive in a world that is going more and more technological every single day.

Yeah, you know, the key thing that you said in just now in giving the overview, but also you have said since.

I have, since I've been talking to you in the beginning of you starting this company is you used one word.

And I believe this word is the reason for your success.

And also for our listeners.

I think it's one of the reasons, one of the reasons that antique businesses or businesses in general can succeed and thrive.

And you use the word help from the beginning.

What I know is that you have been providing solutions for antique dealers.

You've been literally looking at, you've been asking that question, how can I help antique dealers?

And I'M convinced that that word is the key to your success.

I think that you're right because if you come from a place of help, then you're developing solutions that actually make a difference.

Right.

Like if you're not looking on how can I help?

Then you're just developing things out of your own mind or your own thoughts that aren't necessarily connected to reality of what these dealers deal with every single day, what their struggles are, what their time consuming points are, Right?

Absolutely.

If you're not doing, if you're not looking at how you can help honestly, then you start setting up a business that's more about your own ego rather rather than providing industry solutions.

So it's interesting because when you take.

Yeah, yeah, I heard, I heard you turn the conversation from there.

Like I knew it was like the word coming out of your mouth.

And I think it's an important word to say because often and of course, I mean, we do what we do because we love it.

We do what we do because it brings us joy.

I think Renati is such a beautiful name for your business because for me with this podcast, the Business of Antiques, what I do as an antique stealer with as what I do as CEO of the Antiques Diva and company, what I do leading antique buying tours or business coaching, it brings me joy and that's why I do what I do.

But the reality is what I do, helping others ends up bringing me that joy in return.

And I think that's the same thing.

It's all tied in there.

It's something about energy.

And I think you, I know you well enough to know that you understand energy.

Yes, 100%.

And that's been a thorough line of your business for all of the years that I've known you, even prior to starting Renati, is you also have always focused on helping, truly helping.

And so that's been, I think, the key to your success as well, whether it's in your blogs or whether you're helping dealers level up their businesses or helping dealers discover new resources and sources and everything.

So I think that probably is one of the parallels with what we do in different ways.

Right?

Absolutely.

Okay.

You have to back up and we like, we have to back up to your story before Renati because I love watching the, I love the road for how someone gets where they are in life.

And so I'd like to look back at some of the stepping stones.

Goodness.

My first stepping stone into this industry was actually in my 20s when I worked in the interior design industry.

And that was when I'm going to age myself here, but it was in the mid to late 90s.

You look great.

Thank you.

You look great.

You can say any age you want.

When you look good, you.

You say it with pride.

Exactly, exactly.

So I went into the industry, and that was when computers were just replacing word processors.

Crazy, right?

And I started project managing within that design firm and working on all sorts of projects and organizing up our resources and working on budget tracking and Gantt charts for tracking projects, you know, when the contractors were coming in, all of those types of things.

And through that, started seeing how much from a design firm perspective we were losing on sourcing and finding the items that we needed for our projects.

And at that time, it was mostly offline.

I was in la.

We had the Pacific Design Center.

We had lots of.

Lots of different shops.

We had unbelievable amounts of manufacturers and catalogs and reps that would come to our office.

And the sourcing part of our projects would always take more hours than what we could build to our clients.

And so we were consistently losing profit margin on how long it took to source these items.

And when the Internet came along, we went, oh, my gosh, it's going to be so much easier because you can just use a keyword search.

But it actually became more difficult because you couldn't discern who were legitimate dealers, who were not legitimate dealers.

Anybody can make a beautiful website.

Anybody can rip off images from others.

And so that led me to starting my first tech company, which was launched in 2000.

And that was an interior design.

You are pioneering.

Yep.

Sorry, it was back in the day.

But you really are.

You're a pioneer.

And I apologize because I spoke over you with the lag time, but you're a pioneer.

Well, yeah, it was definitely in the pioneering days.

That is absolutely for sure.

That company, we launched it in 2000, and by 2015, we had gone through six major platform changes, upgrades, launches.

Because technology was moving so quickly.

We launched that company when it was still dial up.

That's how early we were in the launching of that company.

So that was my focus.

That was where I was was it was all about removing the friction and the time between interior designers and the items that they were looking for and the manufacturers that had those items and bringing them together in a really efficient way so that the designers could find what they needed and specify it, and the dealers could find those buyers that were looking for their items.

And so that was my focus and obsession for 15 years.

Well, what's so interesting, you're talking about the early 2000s, where everything was moving so fast from a technology perspective.

And here we are 2025 and everything again is moving so fast from a technology perspective.

So let's, why don't, let's back up.

How did you, how did you go from there to where you are now?

So when I exited my last company in 2017 for that 15 year period, I, or 17 year period actually I, we were never able to include the antique dealers, the vintage dealers, the artisan, one of a kind manufacturers in the main design library and the main design library of my last company which was called Total, which stood for trade only design library because we were manufacturer based.

It was sort of like a, it was a design library.

You could do keyword searches, you could look for various items, go through brand catalogs, et cetera.

But when we would let dealers put in their one of a kind pieces and it would show up next to these beautifully photographed manufactured items.

And the designers at large were not comfortable with vintage or antiques.

They didn't know how to specify them, they didn't know the periods or the styles, they didn't know how to price them or if they were getting good pricing.

So the majority of designers were not selling, specifying vintage or antiques.

So when I finished with my last company, I threw various different events, ended up back in the world of vintage and antiques and was shocked to find that in 25 years it really hadn't changed.

There were beautiful marketplaces today that we all know first dibs Cherish is another beautiful marketplace.

There was the sort of mid range ebay was somewhere in there, but not necessarily considered a sourcing resource for these types of items just because you had consumers in there and you had dealers in there and there was $5 items next to $500 items.

It was a very big mix.

But there hadn't been any advancement for these dealers.

And I started talking with these dealers and they just started telling me their issues and their problems.

And you know, it taking an hour and a half to document one item, to prepare it, to even put onto a marketplace or going to six trade fairs a year and packing up their items and not even having time to document them.

And so everything was still on ledger books or if they were super advanced, they had spreadsheets, but then they had file folders full of images that didn't correlate with the spreadsheets.

Like it was just.

And they were sending these beautiful pieces to the potential buyers via WhatsApp or text or email and it would be missing images and items.

And if they were Very advanced.

They would try to create PDF tear sheets, which would take another 20 to 40 minutes.

It just.

It was unbelievable to me.

And if a dealer has to spend that much time documenting one item, how in the world are they supposed to scale their business at a time where everybody expects everything to be instant they want?

When a buyer calls a dealer and says, I'm looking for xyz, they expect beautiful tear sheets, logos, the whole thing all.

And you have to provide that.

And so how does a dealer survive with that kind of expectation without any tools to make that easy for them?

Yeah, so that's how I turned it around.

I remember the first conversation we had, and I remember you asking me, you had come.

You were coming to Europe, and you came to the Lapada conference that I was speaking at, and in the middle of it was so amazing.

This is still one of my proudest moments to have to speak in the House, to have spoken in the House of Lords at the Lapada conference.

Like, it was so surreal.

And you were there that day, and it's literally one of the proudest moments in my career.

And I remember at the end of that day, we were in a taxi.

We were heading over to.

He was a dealer on Kings Road.

Begins with a B.

My mind's blinking out.

You know what I'm talking about?

Yeah, butch off.

We were going over to see Ian Bischoff, and we were in a taxi, and you said, no, wait, you have to catch a flight to Italy tomorrow.

And I was living in Germany at the time, and I said, yeah, I'm leaving for Mercantin Fiera.

And the next thing I know, we're talking and you're like, I think I should go.

I'm like, you should go.

And the next thing I know, you're booking a flight and you're on the flight from London to Parma with me.

And I remember us being in London and talking about this idea that you had and us discussing the fact that at Mercantin Fiera, 90% of that inventory is not online.

That walking through the antique fairs of Europe, more than 90% of it's not online.

That even my own warehouse over my shoulder here, we're not online.

And so it's the antiques industry.

You said it.

It's antiquated.

And so I love the fact that you're bringing.

My mission with Antiques Diva is to make antiques accessible.

And that's what you're doing.

You're making antiques more accessible for the buyers that are out there in the way in which they want to buy Exactly.

And making it easy for you as the dealer, to document and make that inventory accessible, because as long as it's in your warehouse, nobody can access it.

Right.

So that's exactly what we're doing, is we're helping you to get that into the hands of the buyers.

Amen.

Like, seriously, you are doing something super significant for the industry.

Now, you as an individual, I already said that.

You're a pioneer.

So you are a pioneer.

You are a vision visionary.

How do you do it?

Like, I mean, how do you get started with an idea like this?

I mean, I cannot even imagine the amount of perseverance that it has taken you.

If there's the words I think of when I think of you, I think of visionary, I think of per, I think of visionary, I think of pioneer, and I think of someone who perseveres.

Well, you are very kind.

And you, my darling, are also a visionary and an entrepreneur.

And perseverance and tenacity, there are so many ups and downs, and there are so many challenges that get put in front of us as entrepreneurs, any entrepreneurs.

And I will say that through this journey of the last seven years, because we have 40 team members across eight countries.

That's a big team to manage.

And it has taken seven years of development to get to where we are today.

And through those seven years, there have been unbelievable world events, economic events, there's been a pandemic, there's been closing down of our industry, but it is what we run into.

And so, again, the thorough line of all of that is if you're focused on the mountain of where you're going, and for us, it's help helping creating solutions that actually impact and actually help, and you just stay focused on that.

Then you can't be thrown off by all of the outside craziness, because you're just.

You're focused.

And then the other thing that I would say that a lot of people have said to me over the years is I'm missing the risk gene, whatever is that gene that people have that makes them not take risks.

I'm missing it somehow, because I'm all in and I just stay all in.

And so there's a little bit of that, too, that naivety of that this can happen.

But I think that anyone that's building anything, it takes much longer than people think it takes.

Even with as fast and incredible as AI is, you know, and technology, you can't.

Like, I see all these podcasts and things where they're talking about, like, oh, you can just build an entire Business with AI and an entire website into this.

Yes, to a certain degree.

A basic.

But you cannot build a true global platform by having it automatically written by some AI machine learning prompts.

Like, you can't.

There's too many nuances, too many layers and protection and security and images and global data protection regulations and all of those nuances need that human direction and detail to get it right.

And so that's how I do it, is I just each day go, what's gonna move us forward today and what's gonna move us forward tomorrow and the next day?

What is that famous quote?

The journey of a million miles starts with a single step.

I mean, and I think that's what you have to do.

You have to constantly, when you're starting a business, when you're running your own business, you have to constantly be taking the next step forward, the next step forward.

And so for me, I look at, here's my goal, here's where I'm going, I know what I want, it's over here.

But, and I, I keep kind of one eye up on it.

I'm, I'm aware of where I'm going and however, where my focus is as an entrepreneur, my focus is what is the next step, what is the milestone.

Getting to my goal sometimes feels so far away.

Honestly, if I focus too far on the future, I panic and I think I'm never gonna get there.

But if I, if I focus on the next milestone, I can always achieve the next milestone.

And if the next milestone feels like even that's too far, all I have to do is take one more step the next day.

And I think this is the secret of being an entrepreneur and continuing, continuing on that pathway.

And it's what I've seen you do is take what is the next most logical step.

And another thing I've seen you do over the years, I've been fortunate to have been behind the scenes kind of watching things over the years.

And you and I talk regularly, although we haven't talked talked recently enough.

I think we've both been in too many other directions.

But I've had the privilege of watching you build this company.

And one of the things I've seen that in addition to you taking the next step or the next milestone, the other thing I have seen is.

That.

Just like I said about here's the goal, this is where I'm heading.

You're willing to be flexible in getting where you're going.

You are not so dead set, this is where I'm going.

You're not Trudging through sometimes.

Sometimes you're going this way, but you go over here because it's sometimes easier to go around the mountain than over it.

Yep.

And I think this is another reason that I've watched you as a businesswoman, with admiration.

Because a lot of people become so focused on their goal, they miss out on taking the easiest route.

And the route that sometimes maybe easy is not the right word.

The root of least resistance.

Sometimes, yes.

And not just the root of least resistance, but it's.

It's so funny.

You know, we talk about energy and that you and I have some similar feelings about that.

And there have been many moments in this journey where we have completely had to do that.

Stop going where we're going and turn right a little bit.

Because the industry is telling us something of like, wait, hold on, that's not going to work yet.

They're not ready for that yet.

We have to actually back up.

You know, I look at our technology building over the last seven years, and we started with the freeway, and then we realized that there were no on ramps, and then we built the on ramps, but then we realized that we had to pave the roads.

So we've actually.

We started with one goal, and then we had to back up from that goal all the way down to the most basic.

Having a mobile app that a dealer can instantly document the items on their buying trips.

Like, that's.

That's literally paving the road to the dealer's doorstep to start from that point to allow them to get on the freeway, which would be analogous to technology and being fast and being able to manage quickly and have everything at their fingertips.

And, you know, you're at dinner and someone texts you and says, I'm looking for an xyz, you with Renati system can go into your entire inventory in your mobile app, make two or three clicks, and you are sharing that piece with that buyer at dinner in three minutes.

That is.

That's analogous to the freeway.

But to get there, we had to back it all the way up.

And.

And I will say one thing that I see time and time again with newer entrepreneurs is they have a goal and they put all their eggs in that basket.

And when they get an obstacle that stops them or tells them that they can't do it, they give up instead of going, what is this obstacle?

What can I learn from it?

And more times than not, Tama, I will tell you, and you and I have spoken about this, that if you listen to what is, what's being said to you, even if It's, I don't like this, or I can't use it.

If you listen to that, then you'll see a year later that that thing you really wanted, like, we had an investor who, oh, my gosh, I wanted so badly.

And we were working through it, working through it, working through it.

They ended up falling through.

And I was devastated.

And I took that personally.

Like, that I had done something wrong, that my business plan wasn't right, that I hadn't communicated it well enough, that I hadn't explained the vision.

A year later, had I taken that investment, with the terms of that investment, I don't know that we would have made it in business because of the terms of that investment.

And so that's sort of where I was talking.

Like, you know, you and I with energy and listening and observing and having the mountain there.

But sometimes what you need will come to you in the form of a no or an obstacle or a learning opportunity.

And so that's part of that persistence is not letting your ego get in the way.

Being willing to learn, being willing to hear, listen, and then adjust.

Yes, the mountain is still there, but the path to the mountain might be to go around that cactus, not go through it, or it might be, you know, anyway, So I agree 100%.

That's very intuitive of you.

It's okay.

As you're talking, I wanted to burst into song.

Garth, Brooklyn Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers.

What you think you want is actually not right for you.

Yep.

Yep.

So you have to trust a little bit in your intuition and in what you're putting out.

And the.

It sounds so cliche, but the more you help others, the more others will help you.

And if you keep that purity in what you're doing, like, I just.

I have to believe that it ends up in the right place.

Me too.

What I love is I'm sitting here looking at you, and you have this sign over your shoulder.

And the sign says yes.

And what I love is that the word no can be the right yes.

Because sometimes no leads you to the right yes.

And so I, early in the conversation, I picked up on a word, ego, that wasn't being said.

And I'm so glad that we came back to that word, because what you're describing with the investor, with accepting that a no can be for the greater good, that accepting that things do not happen on your own time frame, always, that sometimes there are delays, and sometimes those delays are for your greater good.

All of those things come down to putting your ego in Check.

And saying, okay, here's my will, here's my desire, here's what I'm going for.

And simultaneously saying, okay, I've got this idea.

I'm setting my ego aside because this.

No, I'm going to.

I don't know what the word is I'm looking for, like release or let go.

Or maybe it is letting go of expectations of the outcome.

And it's.

I think the hardest thing as a business owner for me is I'll have a desire.

And I, I, you know, I do business coaching.

I talk to a million clients who have very specific dreams, and maybe their dream is they want to open a store on La Cienega Boulevard and they don't have the money to rent the location.

And so it's starting, it's already starting someplace different from where they want to be.

And people can get really discouraged as their pathway meanders.

And so this process you're describing on such a multi, multi, multi, million dollar level still applies to every single antique dealer who's listening to this podcast.

Because it's about setting the goal, saying, someday, this is where I want to be.

This is what I'm working towards.

And simultaneously being fluid enough that you're able to let go of your ego that says this is how it has to be done.

And being open to the opportunities, being open to the yeses and seeing yes in those no's, if that makes sense.

100%.

100%.

You see this with dealers all the time because you're coaching them on the day to day, on the week to week.

You're doing the buying trips with them.

You're showing them how to tap into the trends and how to find followers and how to communicate.

And it is that, because if you have a dealer who has that idea of where they want to be, and then they're out comparing themselves to other dealers, they can get very discouraged.

But even with that, it's sort of like this thing of someone said to me, well, don't you worry about competitors and this, that, and the other.

And I said, you know, early on in my tech career, with my first company, when I was in my 20s, I was pitching, and all of these MBAs, PhDs, executives from Steelcase, Knoll, Hayworth, et cetera, were pitching their tech companies.

There was so many companies that were building tech platforms in 2000, in 1999, 1998, yes, tons and tons of competition.

And one of the things that I had watched was an episode with Oprah where she was preparing to run a marathon.

Her trainer Told her, oprah, every time you turn your head to see where those runners are, you are taking your eye off of the mountain and it's messing with your stride.

So don't ever worry about anyone around you, any competitors.

You have your eye on the mountain and you keep going.

And that's what you listen to.

So for the dealers, it's sort of the analogy would be like, they go, oh, my God, I'm competing against all these other dealers.

But no, you're not.

There's billions of people, people.

And the Internet is filled with so much noise.

And so when you find your voice, then all your job is, is to gather those people out there that want to hear your voice.

And there are plenty for anyone, for anything, for any market.

So it's sort of just get rid.

Don't.

Don't pay attention to anybody else, right?

If you're on Instagram, say, and you are, I don't know, into Art Deco, and that's what you.

That's what your passion is.

That's what your love is.

Start talking about that.

Start going and watching others that are interested in talking about that.

Start following them back and forth.

And then you start building this community.

It's not just put content out there and hope somebody's going to find you.

You go and you interconnect with the community that you want to be found from.

And then that starts to build that.

So it's just, it's just a point on.

It's meandering off a little bit on the yeses and the nos, but it does tie exactly into.

Comes back to Renati.

Renati comes from the word rona, which means my joy.

And dealers who are successful dealers who are going on the Internet and posting on Instagram and posting about their joy.

If.

So, if we're saying, don't worry about, don't worry about your competitors.

Follow the joy.

One of my mantras, and my sister has beautiful calligraphy.

She wrote it on the inside of my closet, says, I make money when I'm having fun.

And it's like such an obnoxious phrase, but it's true.

I make money when I'm having fun.

And if I follow the fun, if I follow my joy, I'm always going to be successful.

And it's what I've learned.

Like, one of my patterns of success is this.

But it's not just mine.

For this antique dealer you're talking about who is posting about Art Deco, someone who is super passionate about those details, and they're describing, they're describing an art deco ring, like having a.

A diamond like the Chrysler Tower.

Like, they're getting enthused about details, that their enthusiasm is what pulls the buyer in.

And so I think the name of Renati coming back to joy.

It's not just the collectors.

It's not just the designers.

It's not just the people who are buying, but the dealers who you are helping.

You're helping them to.

You're helping them to sell their joy.

Like you're helping them to take something that they love and make it profitable, make their business profitable.

Absolutely.

And that's the thing is admin, the administration of an antiques business, you have to be smart.

And you coach your dealers on this all the time.

They have to be watching what they're purchasing for.

They have to be watching what they're refurbishing, what they're investing in these pieces, how much time is being invested, how much they need to market up so that they can be profitable.

There isn't any joy in being a dealer who isn't profitable.

There's only stress.

And there isn't joy in the administration side of being a dealer.

Every single dealer I've ever talked to, that part is the least favorite part.

Their favorite part of being an antiques dealer is the sourcing, the finding, the refurbishing, the research on the item, finding out its history, what was happening, how it was used.

That's their joy.

And then bringing that and inspiring a buyer to purchase it.

So if all of the rest of the administrative side is what determines whether they're profitable or not, and they're not tracking that profitably, and they're spending too much time doing all of this administrative junk.

Right.

They've got data in spreadsheets, then they've got descriptions and research in word documents that are disconnected from the spreadsheet, and then they've got images in file folders.

They're spending so much time churning through administrative details that they never get that product in front of the buyer who could buy it.

So in a very weird way, we take this frustrating subject of administration, budget tracking, acquisition tracking, sales, tracking profit margins, and we make it so easy that they can actually spend more time doing the thing that they're in the business to do, and that makes them more successful, more profitable, so they can even do more of it.

So you are 100% Bam, Bam.

That's seriously preach it.

I am super excited just about the product that you're offering, also just your business insights, because I really feel like our listeners.

I feel like our listeners are Going to be inspired.

The thinking about, thinking about competitors and thinking about staying focused on your goal.

One of the things that came to my mind was, one of the things that came to my mind was that competitors can actually be the inspiration for you.

Sure.

That it's sometimes being able to see how someone does something, what they do, how they do it.

One of the things I always tell clients is show me three people you think are doing it right, that their inventory is great or you love the way just their marketing is.

Their branding is three, show me three people who are doing what you want to be doing.

And so I think again, coming back to this theme of energy, coming back to this theme, it's way more positive energy.

It's good energy to be inspired versus jealous.

And I always think about like emotional lines.

You can have that same emotional line, could be jealousy or it could be inspiration.

And so figuring out how to focus, where can I get my inspiration from these leaders in my industry?

100%.

100% inspiration is all around us.

Also you have to be prepared that when you do hit it that you're going to be copied instantly.

And you can't be afraid of that because it's just, it is just natural.

And I see people get very stressed and anxious when we get copied.

When others in other businesses get copied and they're a smaller business and then a larger business will see something they're doing and then do it but on a larger scale.

And again, it's that whole thing of like, you can either internalize that and get anxious and anxiety about it or you can just go, wow, that was a great idea and someone else is going to be using it.

There are billions of people out there.

Just keep reminding yourself there are billions of people out there.

There's plenty of room for everybody.

You could have, we could have a hundred competitors in the inventory, documentation and management area and that still wouldn't be enough.

Right.

Like, because there are thousands and thousands and thousands of dealers of unique, one of a kind.

Whether it's vintage or it's antique or it's pre owned.

There's so many sellers.

And so rather than trying to be one thing to everyone, we focus to be the most things to those that we're serving and then others just end up coming in as well.

So it just, I agree with you.

Find inspiration everywhere, make it unique to yourself, create on it.

And don't worry about when you get copied as well, because you will, you'll get copied.

It's a good warning.

It's a good warning.

To listeners because it is something that I do have clients call me and.

Say.

I've got someone just down the road and now they're carrying the same line or they're carrying.

They, they've done their window up with the same theme as I've done my window up.

Like it's, I hear these things and I think, okay.

They say that imitation is a form of flattery, but it's hard.

It is, it's hard to not to not want to punch them in the face.

So it is a good reminder to think about it's gonna happen.

And if it's going to happen, what are you going to do?

You're going to keep going, you're going to take that next step and you're going to keep going on and you're going to be so busy focused on where you're going, you're, you're not worried about what anyone else is doing.

It's so funny.

Before this podcast, Kelly Ellis, who's also a dear friend of both of ours and your colleague Kelly, had texted me and she said, hey, do you have questions for Stacy in advance?

And I told her my spiel about the tarot card reading.

Past, present, future.

And I said, I don't send questions out in advance because I like again to use that word, energy.

I like what is the energy of the moment and what I did not expect on this podcast.

I normally have a pretty good idea where the conversation is going to go.

What I didn't expect on this podcast is how I think and I should have expected this because you're a role model.

I said it earlier, a pioneer, a visionary.

But you're a role model for a lot of people in this industry.

And one of the things I didn't think about where our conversation would go is the type of hands on, practical advice that you would be giving for dealers.

In addition to the fact that you're providing this hands on, practical service.

And it's, this is the reason why I don't plan preset number of questions that I just let it be a conversation that organically flows which to be very honest with you can be difficult sometimes.

You're an easy guest.

Listeners have probably know who some of the difficult guests were in the past.

But so it can be a difficult thing with that.

But it's, I love it when a message as beautiful as what you've shared is able to boil up as a result of an organic conversation.

And I think when I think about people who inspire me, you're one of those people who Inspire me.

And when I think about role models in this industry, you're definitely one of those role models in this industry.

And it's just an exciting role model.

It, it's, it just made me feel warm and fuzzy.

Wow.

That.

You are very, very kind.

You know that I'm not.

I'm funny on the compliment side of things because I'm just working.

Like your face getting shy.

I know, I know.

It's so funny.

I have to get better at that.

Thank you so much.

It's so kind of you to say.

But I also just feel like so many of us are, are working and are working to, to help and to provide services and to build our businesses.

And what we see constantly are the outrageous successes of the big companies, the big leaders, the big role models, the big.

And so that's what we're constantly comparing ourselves to.

Right.

And yet we forget the fact that 99% of businesses over a four year period, maybe not 99, but it's like, what's the number?

50% of businesses close their doors in two years.

Of that 50%, another 50% will close their doors within two years.

After that, here you are 20 years later, still.

Standing.

Yeah, exactly.

And diversifying and growing and expanding.

Expanding and tweaking and adding new features and nuances and evolving.

And that's huge.

Right?

And very often we don't acknowledge the fact that, okay, great, we're still striving on our next goals and our next wishes.

But I listened to a podcast the other day of someone who.

Oh my gosh, who was it?

He built a business.

He spent 10 years and then it got so big that he sold and he sold out.

And it was a billion plus, $2 billion exit.

And he was saying how he was fully depressed because he lost his, his game and his group and his creation.

And now he had all this money and no problems and no obstacles and no.

And he tried to like become an investor in other companies, but it wasn't, it wasn't involved enough and he was just sort of lost.

And so we forget that part of our journeys and our joy is in the overcoming of these obstacles that come our way and the creation of the future goals.

It's like the people who retire.

And there's studies on if someone fully retires and doesn't have something to really engage them, then their lifespan is shortened versus those who are still going and doing.

And so it's just, you know, ditto.

Back to you there, Tama.

There you go.

Thank you.

How many countries are you in now?

You said it earlier.

Well, our team is across eight countries, but Renati itself, we have Renati us which is corporate headquarters based in Florida, right outside of Tampa Bay.

And then we have Renati UK limited which is our headquarters for the UK and eu.

And so we have team members.

Oh my gosh.

I mean Kelly Ellis, who you mentioned, she's headquartered in Barcelona, she's our Senior VP of Industry relations.

So she handles all of our partnerships with the various trade fairs and the associations and just all sorts of different groups.

You being one of our very first partners years ago and such an incredible supporter of just me personally and Renati, which has been just so appreciated and just amazing.

And then in terms of our dealers and our customers, I would have to go look.

I mean the majority of our customers are in the UK and the us but I would have to go look because now with the opening of studio we've had, we're, we're over 2,000 registrants now.

And so we've seen all sorts of countries in that.

But really the system is built for dealer.

I mean dealers can put in any currencies, they can put in measurement systems, they can put in their defaults.

So anyone can use it from any country.

We haven't translated it into different languages because the nuances of antiques, as you know, there's, it's not a one to one translation.

So right now it, the all of the attributes and the fields and the data is set up for English and then once it is on our trajectory to get that so that we then can switch it over.

But again that's another thing like they go, oh well AI can just translate your entire system.

Yes, it can do that for a single document.

But when you're talking about a multi layered platform that has the nuance of our mobile apps are fully synchronized with the desktop version of the platform and so that data is in real time synchronizing constantly.

And so then you just go, oh, we'll translate this all into another language.

It misses the nuance and then creates issues.

So we're being very careful about when we roll that out into the next languages.

Yeah, I think that's smart.

Speaking of trajectory, I'm curious just what's next for you?

We've talked about where you've been, we've talked about where you are.

Let's talk a little bit more about where you're going in these final minutes.

Okay, well, you know all, but on this podcast I am not going to speak to all.

I will.

My mouth is sealed.

I know Nothing.

We have signed NDAs, so I totally trust you on that.

No, I'm, I'm kidding.

But truly the, the future is very full.

It is all about again, we end where we started.

We are focused on building technological solutions for vintage and antique dealers.

To thrive is such a cliche word at this point.

It's been being used for five years everywhere.

Not just survive, but thrive.

Right.

So, but it would be a word along that line.

Everything that we do is all about uplifting this industry as a whole, empowering the industry, empowering the dealers, empowering the influencers, the media, the writers, the trade fairs, the associations.

So we have a lot in store that is coming, that builds off of what we've already built and that positively impacts the entire industry, including the marketplaces that are out there right now.

It's just, it's so thrilling and exciting.

And now that we've got the pavement is done, the on ramps are done, the freeway is lined, now it's going to all of these incredible destinations.

So over the next 12 months, there are lots of, lots of new features and rollouts that are going to be coming.

And I understand that you have a special offer for our listeners of the business of antiques.

Oh yes, absolutely.

So any dealers?

Yes, yes, yes.

So any dealers that are listening, if they go to renati.com and they go to the sign up and they use the VIP code, I think it's diva2025, then they will get an extra discounted offer.

Now anyone can sign up for a free account.

When you go to the pro account, that's where it's paid.

And we kept it really as inexpensive as we can.

But for the DIVA dealers or listeners, they can go in, they put in Diva 2025 and then they get special discounted offer based on how much inventory it is, how much, how much action that they're using, because a dealer who has a thousand pieces of inventory and we're going to do their import for them, et cetera, is a different scenario than the new dealer who might only be doing their first buying trip with you, they're going to have a couple hundred items, et cetera.

So we try to be really aware of that.

And yeah.

Oh, and for those dealers who are already established and they have their information either in spreadsheets or file folders, we do that first setup and importing for them into the system.

And when they have that moment where they see all of their images and all of their data in one place together, they have this aha moment.

And when they have it in their phone and they've got it in their.

It's just.

It literally is that thrilling moment that you have with your clients when they have the aha moment.

So, yeah, would.

Would love.

And for any of your clients who have already signed up and have their free account, they can call, talk to their account manager here and say, listen, I want to get in on that.

So it's retroactive as well.

Thank you for that.

What I love is that you're putting a human touch to technology.

And I think that's kind of been a theme throughout this conversation, has been that that human touch.

And I appreciate what you're doing in the industry.

It's been a pleasure chatting with you.

Tell everyone how they can find you.

They can find me.

Well, renati.com is r o n a t I dot com, so that's the company.

And then you can find us on Instagram at World of Underscore Renati for the dealers.

They should also follow us @renatipro on Instagram.

That's where we have a lot of the tool set.

And then for me personally, always love connecting.

And it's Stacy S T A C E y Tiveron T like Tom, I V like Victor E R O N like Nancy at LinkedIn.

So there you go.

Amazing.

Well, I really appreciate that you've taken the time to be here.

It's been wonderful seeing you face to face.

And I just appreciate the voice of encouragement that you've given the trade that within obstacles come opportunities.

And I think everyone who's been listening today, their minds are going to be percolating in their minds are going to be percolating about what they can be doing next with the help of Renati.

I love it.

Thank you for having me.

So good to see you.

Thanks.

Talk to you later.

Okay, bye.

Ciao.

I hope you've enjoyed this episode of the Business of antiques.

I'm Tom McLark Haines, the Antiques diva.

And I'm helping you make your passion.

For anti antiques profitable.

Talk to you next time.

Ciao.

Chow.