Yvonne Heimann [00:00:01]:
Do you ever feel like the jewelry you wear could mean more than just a fashion statement? Many women want to celebrate their heritage and boost their confidence, but finding meaningful, high quality pieces, especially rooted in cultural tradition, can be tough. There's the challenge of blending modern style with cultural symbolism, doubts about whether your story will truly resonate, and the struggle to build a supportive community around your brand.
Stephanie Trinh, the founder of Crowned, has faced and overcome all of these hurdles as a Vietnamese, Chinese American entrepreneur. She created Crowned to connect identity, self-worth, and empowerment through Jade Jewelry. In today's episode, we'll dig into Stephanie's journey from passion project to purpose driven brand, uncover how affirmation and intention shaped both her business and her life, and talk about the power of nurturing community.
Get ready to find inspiration for bringing deeper meaning and confidence to your own daily rituals.
Yvonne Heimann [00:01:14]:
And with that, I would like you to. I would like you. I would like to introduce you to one of my amazing friends from San Diego. Actually. Yes, I had to leave the city to bring my San Diego friends on. I'm bad that way sometimes. Everybody, I want you to meet Stephanie Trinh. You are the founder of Crowned and I had the pleasure and the honor to see you grow with that company.
And guys, you're gonna get here, get to hear all about it. You're gonna get hit all about it. Crowned is a purpose driven, modern Jade Jewelry brand rooted in meaning, identity and empowerment which you have embodied since I know you. Yes, I like trickle things out guys. You will hear all the stories about it. As a Vietnamese, Chinese American entrepreneur, Stephanie created Crowned to celebrate her culture heritage through meaningful pieces that symbolize strength, prosperity and self love. What began as a passion project has grown into a meaningful movement, one that celebrates identity, empower, empowers self worth and connects women to their cultural roots through Jade. And Stephanie. Holy crap.
I remember the days with the jewelry that might have cost the name. I don't know where the name came from. Ladies, everybody listening or watching? I don't actually know where the name came from, so we might just ask about that because I remember you. Original gold jewelry with the crowns with the letters on it. That's how long we know each other. I don't even know how long we know each other.
Stephanie Trinh [00:03:04]:
It's been years.
Yvonne Heimann [00:03:07]:
And then watch. You find your passion. You always had the passion in the jewelry, but find your passion with Jade, connecting it with your heritage and it all just coming together. Oh my God, what a, what a journey to watch. And I would love to know. I watch it and I'm like, yeah, sure, this is where she's gonna go. Makes total sense. How was that journey from your point of view, from that, from that original Crowned business and then finding your Jade, it's like to me, it's like, yeah, that's the path.
Was it that clear to you too? As it was for me watching from the outside?
Stephanie Trinh [00:03:57]:
No, definitely not. So when I first started Crowned, it was. I came up with the idea at the end of 2018, and then 2019, I jumped right in. I finally found a manufacturer, built out my website, did all the marketing stuff because I'm in marketing, so I knew how to do all that stuff. And I was also very passionate about that. So then I spoke on stage, I remember at San Diego Startup Week, and I had a client who purchased I think $1,000 worth of jewelry for me, which I thought was I was like, oh my God, this is it. I, you know, I was like, I, I'm gonna break even. We're great.
Like, so we did decent the first year and then after that 2019, then 2020 happened. So I kind of forgot, not forgot about it, but it was like I didn't focus on it as much as I could have. And it was to me, I called it my side hustle. So it was like, of course I was still in the back, like designing stuff or just making iterations and doing things. I just didn't take it as seriously as I could have because I was also running my social media marketing agency. And then come 2021 or 2022, I don't remember when it was, but I, I feel like Lunar New Year has become more of a common thing in celebrating holiday. In holiday celebrations. So then I was like, oh, I would really love to make a Lunar New Year limited edition, like collection.
Stephanie Trinh [00:05:16]:
And so I started that and I of course incorporated jade because that's very much a thing in the Chinese Vietnamese culture. And there had to be something with red tied in because red means like luck and prosperity. And then gold, of course. It was like those three specific things. And then I added on like little things that I thought meant something to me. So whether it was like the Chinese character meaning like, you know, wealth and prosperity, like wishing you prosperity and luck and all that stuff, or like just putting a dollar sign in there to like have this unconscious, like, okay, attracting, manifesting money and prosperity into my life. I, I did that and then we shared it to a group called Subtle Asian Traits. And there was, I think it was 2 million, 2 million people in that Facebook group.
I don't remember how much it was. It was a lot. And basically my cousin's girlfriend, who was like a sister to me, she shared it and was like, you guys should check out my sister is like jewelry line I kept for Chinese New Year. And it was Year of the Rabbit. I specifically remember this and everyone was so supportive and I, it just like completely blew up and I sold out actually in two days. I mean, I didn't have like a ton of pieces to sell. I wasn't, I wasn't like out here hustling jewelry, like making sure I was selling thousands of pieces a year or anything. So it was amazing.
Stephanie Trinh [00:06:35]:
I was so shocked because I had never seen so many orders or just people on my website before. And it meant a lot. But of course then you had a little bit of self doubt come in and you're like, Wait, people actually like this? Like, are they gonna see it and think? You know, like, you start thinking, I mean, I think it's cute. But then, I don't know. I have no clue why that doubt just, like, starts creeping in. Yeah. And since then, I was just like, oh, okay. So I'm really good at.
I tell myself that I'm really good at building and nurturing relationships. So the goal was everyone that purchased from me. I was like, these people are supporting me from day one. I'm going to make sure that I give them the best customer service and do anything and everything to make sure they're happy. So I continue nurturing those relationships. So I would follow them back on Instagram, always respond to their messages on Instagram, and then just kept on making new pieces. The nice thing is people would give me feedback and be like, we want silver, or like, we want this and we want that. And of course, then you give the people what they want.
And then it just kept on going from there. And I started implementing, I started taking it more serious and implementing, like paid ads, started doing email marketing, doing my own social media for it, and now it is where it is today.
Yvonne Heimann [00:07:44]:
All the way to rich BFF wearing your jewelry. Oh, yeah, I saw that.
Stephanie Trinh [00:07:47]:
Yeah. So she, one of her friends commented on my ad and tagged her. And then that was how she found out about what crowned was because she tagged and said, at your rich bff, I feel like this is something you would like. And then your rich BFF said, yes, yes, I would. So that was. Yeah, it was a complete. Like, I. Yeah, that's
Yvonne Heimann [00:08:10]:
That's, that's the interesting thing about social media. I'm like, yeah, we are living it. But it's like, it's such a perfect example of you never know who is watching. Even if they might not comment or might not be like, hey, you need to check this out. I had similar experiences where it's like, I didn't even know you were there. And I think that's. That's the magical side of, of social media. And I love, I love how you look at your com, you look at your bias as a community, and you also shared how you always say how we speak to ourselves matters more than how we speak to others.
And I know that affirmation cards are a key and a key part of your brand. Can you share with my listeners how this practice has shaped your own mindset and maybe how my audience can implement their own affirmations in the daily routine? How do affirmations show up with your brand and how can we maybe use it?
Stephanie Trinh [00:09:29]:
Yeah. So at the very beginning, when I created Crowned before all the jade and stuff, the whole affirmations part of it was always. It was just always part of it. So in neuro linguistic programming, there's this thing called anchoring where you. Well, we learned. In my class, we learned how to anchor, like if you touch a part of some part of your body part, you can get yourself to be in a more confident state. And so when we were learning that, I was thinking it might be a little more challenging to teach someone that. Like, in my eyes, I was thinking, I feel like that'd be more challenging for me to teach someone, like the body part part.
Because then if someone chooses something and it's just. Yeah. So then I was thinking, well, what if I can do that with jewelry? Because I feel like women tend to buy jewelry for ourselves when we reach new milestone. That's definitely what I do. Yeah.
Yvonne Heimann [00:10:18]:
See, for everybody just listening, I was literally grabbing to my new necklace because. Thank you. There is literally a meaning behind when I switched from the necklace. I used to wear 24/7 before that to this one now. And to interrupt you just for a second, ladies, for everybody that's listening and might not quite be able to wrap your head around anchoring, pretty much what anchoring is, it's like building a physical button to trigger an emotion, to trigger a thought. The same way as we trigger memories through a song or a smell or anything. It that's the idea of anchoring. Something specific is triggering you.
You anchored something specific to something. Just like you anchor a memory to a smell or music, you can anchor that specific memory or how you want to feel or how you want to be to a body part. So just that. That the audience knows what that's going on. So.
You went through that NLP training, you heard about anchoring and all the things. So you were working through of how to maybe make this easier. Because the physical NLP anchoring part is not necessarily, quote, a simple process. It is a process. There's multiple layers to this. And I don't know you, but I sometimes get weird looks of. You wanted to do what?
Stephanie Trinh [00:11:50]:
Yeah, like touch me where? it's like.
Yvonne Heimann [00:11:56]:
Okay, it's all appropriate touching
Stephanie Trinh [00:12:00]:
Yeah, but still, it's weird. You're touching yourself. Okay. It's okay. Yeah. So then, I mean, I was already thinking we're already building some sort of small anchor by buying that jewelry piece. And so what if I could help them strengthen it and so on my affirmation cards, I don't have any here with me, but basically on the front, it's a soft touch. Soft touch.
Really pretty card with gold foil on it. Yeah. And so for me, I was like, I needed this to be a really nice card that someone does not want to throw away. And so I purposely don't put the crown logo anywhere on the affirmation side. And it's actually a 4x6, so it would fit in a 4x6 frame. And I was hoping they would put it up somewhere. And I have, I think, like, five or six different affirmations that I felt like was generic enough, but a little specific enough to, like, help someone with where they're at in their life journey. And on the back is then where I put three simple steps to anchor your jewelry pieces.
And then that's when I give the steps on, like, okay, like, hold your jewelry piece close and like, close your eyes. Now imagine this. Make it bigger, make it brighter. And then I also sent an email after they buy of an audio clip with Binaural beats behind it with the meditation to create the anchor. Yeah. So there was a lot of intention behind this. I mean, I don't know how many people actually listen to the audio, but I've made it. And it basically takes it to a Dropbox link where then you can listen to it and like, anchor your confidence onto it.
And then I do put at the very bottom, you know, it's kind of like a muscle, the more you it works for you. So I've done personal development for over 10 years now, and it has taken me quite a while to learn to have better self talk. I will say, coming from. Yeah. Immigrant parents, being in the Chinese Vietnamese community, I did see a pattern that Asian kids do not have the best self talk. And I think it's a lot of the way where our parents raise us not because they're evil or anything, it's just because they did the best that they could with what they had. And it just made me think. It's just.
Stephanie Trinh [00:14:05]:
It's the normal in. In our co. In our culture. And I feel like if I could one by one, help inspire and like, influence a little bit more people to learn to talk better to themselves, then we can make a little bit more of a difference, you know, because then it's like it gets passed down from generation to generation. So let's say like a mom sees my jewelry and then she starts speaking to herself more kindly, which then her children witness, and then her children start speaking to themselves more kindly. It's like, let's break this generational trauma. Like, no more speaking bad about ourselved. Yeah.
Yeah. So I want to start adding that into my marketing, where it's like, it just becomes an unconscious message of, like, hey, love yourself a little more. You know, love yourself and speak to yourself more. And. Yeah. And then, however I can include actions. It's funny because I know Lunar New Year is. Well, Lunar New Year won't be here for another few months, February.
But I actually did make these because we receive money in red envelopes for Lunar New Year. And I created a vinyl sticker that says, I love money and money loves me, and I want to give up. Yeah. I mean, I probably shouldn't be announcing that, but I'm announcing it. I'm giving out the stickers for Lunar New Year as, like, part of the Lunar New Year promo. And I think, because I was just.
Yvonne Heimann [00:15:19]:
I think that's, that's. I, I. I think it's such a big struggle for women. I think often enough with this, money loves. I love money and money loves me. Where it's like, I'm. This is one of my journeys right now. Money is one of my journeys right now.
Because I literally can feel the physical response saying, I love money. It is not a belief of mine yet. It's like the first initial reaction is, I'm not supposed to love money. Money is bad. Because I had, growing up so many stories of money doesn't grow on trees, money makes you a bad person, blah, blah, blah, blah. All the things I'm like, I am realizing all the patterns. I am halfway through the process, we are polishing this up because I am not going back to this shit. So I love how you bring all of this together between.
Between all of it, where it's like, yeah, I'm like pieces of jewelry. It's. It's my hold on to my necklace beforehand was a. Was a crystal, was a black crystal that is thought to be keeping bad energy away. Because I. I take people's energy on. I'm just relearning to read my own energy versus other people's energy that I took on versus their emotions and everything. And I felt coming to a point where it's like, I don't need that fear.
Yvonne Heimann [00:16:54]:
It wasn't fear. It was a growth. But I felt like it was kind of based in fear of, I don't want your energy. Where I'm like, no, I want something more balanced, which is why I now have all of the crystals based on the chakras. Right now where it's all me and it's. I literally wear this thing 24/7. And when I have a bad time, I also have that physical connection. So hearing all of the intention and the purpose behind your gorgeous jewelry, I'm like, I know some of that.
I didn't know all of the intention behind it. It's like, holy fuck, yes. It makes so much sense. And I love all of this. It's like, yes. And I also happen to know some of your future plans for this where you are planning on potentially stopping the by dropping the by Stephanie and turning this into an even bigger thing of letting Crowed stay on its own. And now knowing the whole passion and purpose behind everything that you are doing with Crowned. I can completely see that where it's like Crowned is becoming its own own thing.
And I would love to hear.
Would love to hear from you what Crowned is going to be within the next year or two.
Stephanie Trinh [00:18:23]:
So I am working on getting the name Crowned trademarked. It's in the process. So that's why we have the TM there. So not yet the little R circle. It was never my intent to actually add the by Stephanie. It was just at the time I didn't think much of it. It was small and I'm like, who's going to care? So the only URL available, the.com URL was crowned by Stephanie Crown Collection, Crown Jewelry. All that stuff was taken.
So I figured, you know what? This is not forever. I'll just buy this URL for now and then when that time comes, I will then figure out how to get crowned.com or crowned jewelry.com so it's really crazy that I'm finally in a place where it's like, it's starting to matter. I need to build enough capital where I can have the leverage to then go to whoever owns or like is sitting on crowned.com or crownedjewelry.com and see if I can get that. I haven't done research into it yet, but I did start noticing when I'm looking at SEO, people do search for Crowned by Stephanie reviews or Crowned by Stephanie. I actually don't love that. I've never wanted that. And I try really hard to only say Crowned. I think because it's in the URL, people think that's what it's called.
It's not. But also the other crazy thing, when I created Crowned as the name for the business, I was looking up synonyms of what of like lavish and like extravagant. Just, just really beautiful. Like something just really high end, right and then when crown, like I think crown or crowned popped up. And I was like, ooh, that's nice. I like that. So then I went with that. So that was the intent behind it was I wanted it to sound very high end luxury, extravagant, just on all those levels.
And one day my friend text me and she was like, wait, I just found out that crowned means Stephanie in German or I forget what language it is. And she's like, am I, am I missing something? Was that done on purpose? And I'm like, what? I actually had no clue. There was no intent. Like I am, I'm not that conceited where I really wanted my name in that, that much. And I was like completely pure coincidence. That is insane actually. So I looked it up and I was like, wow. I had absolutely no intent.
The entire point was crowned just really resonated with me in the sense of like high end luxury. Just. Yeah. Because I always wanted it to be a very high quality jewelry brand. I mean it is a high quality jewelry brand and I wanted to stay that way. And so the name needed to reflect that.
Yvonne Heimann [00:20:49]:
I. I love that. Do you, do you have. I'm making that laugh because she has no idea what's coming. I love the intention behind Crowned. Right. And all the purpose you put into this and building this community. And this is why I was giggling, because I'm curious.
Do you, do you also have a dream or a plan for the community side of things? Is there. I don't know, is there something cooking?
Stephanie Trinh [00:21:22]:
Not cooking as much as it should be. Absolutely.
Yvonne Heimann [00:21:30]:
We don't should.
We don't should on each other. We don't should on each other. You already have build and there is the end. There's the NLP coming through. We don't. Yeah.
You already have built such a community and I, I know this community will be evolving so simply by who you are. And that's why I was like, maybe she has something in her pocket. That's why where my giggling came from because I knew there was a possibility that no, you might not have consciously anything in planning. But I know that subconsciously there is definitely things happening.
Stephanie Trinh [00:22:09]:
You're right. Subconsciously there definitely is something brewing. Just consciously. I haven't yet put in the work. I eventually do want to get to a point where I'm, I'm making, I'm doing pop ups just nationally all over so I can visit every like just have Crowned customers actually be able to come visit me in person and then for me to honestly just even hold like a little pop up at like a restaurant and I like treat, you know, just have go and meet up here. There's gonna be food and drinks. Come join me. I would love to do a Q and A and like get everyone's opinions and like give out freebies.
That for sure I want to happen that. I think that would be really fun and amazing because I get a lot of stories, emails, DMs of how meaningful Crowned is. Like they're so grateful that they found my jewelry. I would love to be able to witness them tell me the story in person. I think that would mean so much more to me than just reading the text and you know, like actually being able to see the body language, the tonality, just everything that goes with it than just reading text and reading it, how I view it through my lens. So for sure that's going to happen. I'm working on a name that I want to call us. I did ask the community.
I haven't yet loved any, so I'm still working on that. But I want it to be something fun and awesome.
Yvonne Heimann [00:23:20]:
Oh, I'm pretty sure something, something will come around where it's like it's. It's going to be the right name at the right time. We know how that goes.
I'm curious with, with this community involvement and everything, what's your take on collaborations? On doing limited edition collaborations combining potentially with your community or with other artists or something like that?
Stephanie Trinh [00:23:50]:
Oh, I would definitely love to do that. I just haven't yet. I don't feel like right now I have the bandwidth to get that done because I'm still the interesting thing. Enough is I would honestly say I finally took Crowned seriously as a real business, implementing everything like as it should be and not just kind of throwing it together and figuring it out as of January of this year. So I feel like my bandwidth is like I'm learning so much, which is amazing and I feel like once I get all that down. So I would probably say 2026, we probably will have collaboration. I'm so very open to it. I just do not have the bandwidth right now.
Yvonne Heimann [00:24:31]:
I love that. And considering 2026 is not that far out.
A rich. A rich BFF collaboration putting it out there.
Stephanie Trinh [00:24:42]:
I have definitely considered it because I was like, you talk about money. I'm all about manifesting money. You're talking about the IQ. I'll be about the EQ. We collaborate really well. If you're listening Vivian.
Yvonne Heimann [00:24:56]:
2026, you never know what a new year brings. Stephanie, tell my listeners and viewers, where can they find you? Where can they check out your amazing jewelry?
Stephanie Trinh [00:25:03]:
So you can find me on Instagram at @Crowned_byStephanie. And then you can also find my website www.crownedbystephanie.com.
Yvonne Heimann [00:25:16]:
And this is the reason why we always put all the links in the description, description. So no worries there, ladies. You can go crazy shopping simply by clicking the link down below. You'll find Stephanie and her amazing jewelry. By the way, those new hot earrings. Stay with those hook that. The hook?
Stephanie Trinh [00:25:34]:
You mean the one that I'm wearing now? The twisted feet earrings?
Yvonne Heimann [00:25:36]:
Those are the ones? Those are the ones.
Stephanie Trinh [00:25:37]:
Yeah. I'm wearing the lavender jade ones right now. I felt like the lavender was gonna look better with the pink.
Yvonne Heimann [00:25:42]:
I love those. They're so intricate and it's like, look at it twice. And it's like, how did she do that?
Stephanie Trinh [00:25:48]:
Well, to be fair, I did not shave the jade and make it myself. I just designed it.
Yvonne Heimann [00:25:55]:
So to me, even just the design is like, how do you come up with that?
Stephanie Trinh [00:25:59]:
Well, I wanted it to be. Links are in. And so I was like, but can we make it less like, I, I feel like, like links just look kind of matte. Like I'm, I'm thinking it just looked kind of masculine. I was like, can we, can we soften it? Can we do this? And so shout out to my manufacturer, who's always very patient with me because I am a self, a self taught jewelry designer. So I will say I am also still learning. There are a lot of times where I'm like, no, I still want to change this. I want to change this.
And she's like, okay. She just goes with it. I'm like, thank you.
Yvonne Heimann [00:26:38]:
I love that. And that's, that's just another sign of, it's amazing when you have the right people in your corner. Stephanie, thank you so much for joining me today and popping in on my invitation now. Now that I finally, I'm like, why am I not bringing on Stephanie? For everybody listening and watching, first of all, links are down below description, up above, wherever you are listening or viewing from. And if you haven't subscribed yet, you should. You just saw how amazing Stephanie is. We have a lot of other amazing women coming to introduce you to, to see their stories, to hear their journey, to learn from them, to feel with them, to experience what they experienced and maybe take some of it home. Also a piece of jewelry, easy to take home and anchor.
So with that, go hit that subscribe button so you don't miss out on the next episode. Stephanie, thanks so much. And I'll definitely going to have to message you when I'm back in San Diego. We are. We are due for coffee.
Stephanie Trinh [00:27:48]:
We are. Absolutely. And lunch. Maybe drinks, too.
Yvonne Heimann [00:27:49]:
All the things.
Stephanie Trinh [00:27:50]:
Yes, all the things.
Yvonne Heimann [00:27:55]:
Bye, everybody.