By Katie Hirv ’22

At 7 a.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 20, Alexandra Bechtel ’21 woke up, ready to launch A n A Boutique. She created the first social media post for the business’s Instagram page and officially published A n A’s website, putting months of work out into the world for the first time.

A business administration major, Bechtel has always loved shopping and fashion. Her sister, Abby, a sophomore at Mount Mercy University studying political science and sociology, had similar interests when the two began planning the launch of their boutique, which specializes in women’s clothing, ranging from casual to business casual styles, along with accessories.

“We started talking about the idea of the boutique around the end of October. Then over the long holiday break I said, ‘I think I want to do this, is this something you want to do with me?’ Abby said yes, so we started working,” Alexandra said.

The journey to launching a business was new to both of the sisters, who are the daughters of Dr. Michael Bechtel ’94, an associate professor of science education at Wartburg. Alexandra had gleaned some knowledge from her Principles of Marketing and Principles of Management classes, and just this year took an entrepreneurship course that solidified their direction.

Luckily, they also had support from multiple people in their lives, including Matt Lamos ’06, who owns East Bremer Diner in downtown Waverly where Alexandra works as the assistant general manager. Lamos provided both Bechtels with advice and encouragement as they began their journey into the business world.

“I’ve worked at the diner for about four and a half years and been the assistant general manager for about two years. Matt has been a huge help. He has talked me through some of the processes, like a DBA and LLC, which is our business license. From the middle of November to the end of December, we got all of this done. It’s been awesome to work alongside him,” Alexandra said.

In a video posted to the East Bremer Diner Facebook page, Lamos said, “They’re both in college, from the Waverly area and extremely passionate about what they’re doing. It’s a super neat starting point for them. It’s been phenomenal to be a part of that process in the background, watching it happen.”

With the sisters attending college in two different cities, the business structure looks a little different than most traditional start-up business models.

“Abby does the shipping and physical backend tasks out of her apartment in Cedar Rapids, and I take care of all the taxes and business licenses and registration. I also do a lot of the marketing, so I respond to emails, post on our Instagram page, and update our website as needed,” Alexandra said.

When launching the boutique, the sisters wanted to stock merchandise they loved and made their customers feel great.

“Confidence in women is something that we really want to focus. We want to share our love of fashion and encourage women to put their confidence out there while they wear our clothes. It’s not for us, it’s for our customers,” Alexandra said.

The boutique launch day was a huge success for the sisters.

“Our first day was crazy. Abby had class and works two other jobs, and I also had classes and worked that night. Within about four hours, we had around 30 to 40 orders. By that Friday, we had all our first day orders sent out. It’s so cool to see the support we got from the community and Wartburg,” said Alexandra

Launching a business together has allowed the relationship between the women to develop and grow, as they have begun to rely on one another in new ways.

“I love getting to work with my sister and building on our relationship outside of being sisters. It’s been really cool to watch her grow,” Alexandra said.

Looking to the future of the boutique, the sisters hope to eventually turn this into a full-time operation and open a brick-and-mortar location.

“The boutique right now is part-time for the both of us. Our customers are priority one, and we want the boutique to succeed, but we wanted to build our customer relationships and platform online. Then maybe, in a year or so, we would go storefront. The location we’re looking at is probably somewhere in Waverly,” Alexandra said.

Shop online at Alexandra and Abby’s boutique at www.aandaboutique.org or check out their Instagram page, @anaboutique004.