Josh Burwick: From Car Washer to CEO — How CaratX Founder Built a Jewelry Marketplace Across 16 Countries by Choosing Integrity Over Money | Be Yourself Podcast

Josh Burwick

CEO & co-founder of CaratX — on going from washing cars to building a jewelry marketplace across 16+ countries, why he walked away from a lucrative acquisition that disrespected his team, and what 13 years of solo hustle taught him

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31 minutes
Entrepreneurship · Jewelry · Team Loyalty · Values

About the Guest

Josh Burwick — CEO & Co-Founder of CaratX

CEO and co-founder of CaratX, an online jewelry marketplace connecting hundreds of sellers with thousands of customers across 16+ countries. He started in automotive in 2003, washing cars and working up the dealership chain

A chance eBay encounter in 2007 turned into a 13-year solo jewelry business in bridal and engagement rings, before manufacturers led him to build CaratX, which launched in 2020

Who He Is
CEO and co-founder of CaratX, a jewelry marketplace with sellers in 16+ countries; a serial entrepreneur who pivoted from automotive to jewelry in 2007
What He Has Built
CaratX — hundreds of sellers and thousands of customers worldwide, preceded by 13 years of solo jewelry wholesaling built through reinvestment
The Defining Moment
during acquisition talks, the buyer began disrespecting his team — so he walked away from a deal that could have made him a lot of money
His Philosophy on People
people are absolutely everything — take care of your team and customers, hire people who want to run with you, and let them run through the mistakes

Key Quotes

“

It happens. It does happen. You're going to have plenty of moments where your values are threatened, your morality, even your moral compass, your ethics. It does happen. So, recently we were in discussions with a company that was interested in buying us. Now, the reason the deal fell apart was because the other company wasn't respectful to my team.

Josh Burwick
“

Your team is everything, right? People are absolutely everything. That's just a general takeaway for all of business. Take care of people, take care of your team, take care of your customers.

Josh Burwick
“

When somebody won't leave you alone and they want to run with you, let them. People like that, they those are founders. Those are like founders, right? They take ownership of the business. They just just let them run and just do that. Let them run. They're going to make mistakes. Lots of them. And it's going to suck. It's going to hurt. The mistakes are worth letting them run.

Josh Burwick

Episode Chapters

0:00 Episode Teaser 0:30 Starting as a Car Washer 3:30 Transition From Cars to Jewelry 5:45 The Problem & Market Opportunity 7:47 What Kept Josh Going 10:00 How Josh Launched Jewelry Marketplace 11:20 Focusing on the Goal 13:40 Threats to Josh's Morality 17:22 How Important Is Taking Care of People 24:20 How Josh Stays His Real Self 26:43 Building in Public 27:16 How Josh Stays on Top of Things Mentally

Full Transcript

BTW: This episode of the Be Yourself Podcast is produced by Beverly Media. Want a podcast that looks and sounds this good? Check out Beverly Production →
0:00 Episode Teaser
Josh It happens. It does happen. You're going to have plenty of moments where your values are threatened, your morality, even your moral compass, your ethics. It does happen. So, recently we were in discussions with a company that was interested in buying us. Now, the reason the deal fell apart was because the other company wasn't respectful to my team.
0:30 Starting as a Car Washer
Serhiy Hey everybody, welcome to the second season of the Be Yourself podcast, the podcast on expressing our true selves. Today virtually expressing himself, Josh Berick, who is a CEO and co-founder of Current X. It's a jewelry online marketplace with products in over 16 countries. Josh, welcome to the show, man.
Josh Thanks for having me, Siri. It's good to be here.
Serhiy Josh, the show is about finding our true path in life. My first question to you is, was it straightforward for you to start doing what you're doing now or was it a road with a few bumps? Tell tell us a little bit how how it all started as far as your professional life.
Josh Yeah. Oh boy. loaded question there. Yeah. So, no, it was super easy. Yeah. So, man, talk about bumps in the road, not a straight path. Um, nothing uh turned out as it seemed. Nothing. No. No. I think So, you didn't you didn't call for running a jewelry online marketplace? Not at all. No. Um, yeah. the the path has been a a long winding challenging road that started actually in one industry in automotive and ended well not ended but here's where I currently am.
Serhiy What was the was there like a pivotal moment that prompted understanding that something wasn't meant for you and something else was better? So yeah, I'm all about, you know, radical changes in life. Have you ever had something like that? C can you tell us a little bit about that experience?
Josh Yeah, definitely. Definitely. So, um I'm a I'm a serial entrepreneur. Um I I have a habit of just finding opportunities. I see opportunities. I see that it's, you know, whether it's a problem that needs to be solved or a product gap in the market, something always pulls me into um fixing it or solving it. And so, I actually started on the automotive side. that I started washing cars and I worked my way that was the path that I was originally on. I was, you know, trying to be a general manager of a dealership. And so I I washed cars, I I wrote service repair orders, I sold cars, I kind of worked my way through the chain. And then uh around 2007 I saw an opportunity in jewelry and that provided a a fork in the road and I didn't know anything about jewelry back then. I didn't know anything about diamonds. I didn't know I knew absolutely nothing. I just saw that there was a possible opportunity. Um and that that is what started this whole thing.
3:30 Transition From Cars to Jewelry
Serhiy But but how did you come come across like I mean I don't see a direct correlation between a guy who's like uh in in the automotive motive industry and then somehow he he starts you know checking uh the cost of diamonds or something.
Josh Yeah no so I'll I'll tell you exactly what happened. So before this point, so this was I started in automotive in like 2003 and um around 2007. Uh so in between 2003 and 2007, I had tried a bunch of things like I was buying and selling domains. I was, you know, trying to launch small different websites. I had a a small dropshipping company that um in the real early internet days, I was trying things on eBay. I was just trying to figure out how to like buy and resell and just go down that path, right? Like I was also detailing cars on my own back then and I was just trying to like do stuff and figure out, you know, like what I I was good at. And what happened was uh I was online searching for products to sell and I saw this this guy this uh jewelry manufacturer in India. He was really small. It was just just him and his son. And he sold like maybe 20 rings a month. You know, he had a really small eBay store. And this is like early eBay days when like PayPal was just getting started, like 2010 or something, like 2007.
Josh And um so I saw the prices, right, that he was selling for on eBay and I was like, "Okay, this there's like got to be something wrong." Because they were they were significantly cheaper. And so I'm like, "Okay, maybe there's an opportunity to resell. Like maybe I could create a brand over here and develop a relationship." So that's how it started. So I I literally contacted the guy and I'm like, "Hey, if I buy a few diamond rings from you, like, will you give me a discount?" And he's like, "Yeah, sure." Yeah. And so there it was.
5:45 The Problem & Market Opportunity
Serhiy And that that led me down the the jewelry path. So the problem at hand was you thought that some gems or some products were overpriced. Is that the problem?
Josh Well, yeah. So I I found a spot in the US, a price to compete at and I saw that uh there was a source that I could buy from and that I could make, you know, a little bit of uh of margin. And I didn't know anything about rings back then or jewelry. I just saw that hey maybe there's an opportunity here for me to enter the market and learn it and there was.
Serhiy In speaking of incremental steps baby steps how long did it take for you to put this thing together and I can see that you have a co-founder so you were not alone in this.
Josh Uh back then I was yeah back then I was alone um so I did that. So the short answer is I I I I kind of just figured it out as I went, right? So like I I actually lost money on the first sale. So I Yeah. So I I I couldn't sell it for as much as I thought I could. And that was probably just error on my part. But so I I just started learning, right? I started buying different styles. Every time I sold one, I reinvested the profit to buy more. I started trying different things. I'm like, "Okay, what about like ruby rings or or earrings or bracelets or pendants?" And yeah, I just slowly started expanding. And I did that by myself. And then I started wholesaling to other jewelry stores, to other smaller smaller dealers, other businesses. And I did that by myself until 2020. So 13 years.
7:47 What Kept Josh Going
Serhiy So 13 years. And what gave you the energy to not, you know, to not just, I don't know, like dis because I'm sure you you had uh reasons, you know, to to just drop it all all and so what kept you motivated and did did you at that point did you see a perfect fit between you know your personality traits and the what the business required, you know, to to to operate.
Josh Yeah, good question. It was really hard at first, especially like the first couple years because I was trying, you know, just just trying things kind of randomly, right? Like I'd buy a bracelet style that I thought looked good and I' I'd, you know, put it on a third party site or I'd buy a couple rings or some earrings. So, it was really hit and miss. So yeah, sometimes man, sometimes I'd buy three or four things and like I wouldn't sell anything for such a long time, right? So I'm like, "Oh my god, you get super discouraged, right?" But um slowly incremental steps, right? They're just baby steps like like I I said in a video, uh you know, the the bottom of one hill is uh is just the top of the next, right? A viral video that you you you like we made for you from Danny's podcast. Denny shout out the other way around. It's the top of one hill is just the bottom of an X. That's Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, so you just, you know, like you have periods where you're discouraged and where you're like, "This isn't going to work. Like I don't know what I'm doing." And you know, you get that doubt and um and then you just slowly get a little bit better each time, right? and you figure out, okay, this is the market that I'm best at, right? So, like I realized I was really good at selling bridal and engagement rings. Good value there. Yeah. So, I built a little just tiny brand. It was, you know, just me.
10:00 How Josh Launched Jewelry Marketplace
Josh And then what happened was a lot of the uh the relationships that I developed um they came back and they said hey like you also have all this technology experience now like why don't you build another channel build a market to sell on because there there was not a lot of competition there my first answer was no who who who suggested you that who manufacturers that I was working Yeah. they said they're like here they're like here's our you know it was like thousands of diamonds and I was like oh my god I was like how am I going to figure this out? That's overwhelming right? Yeah. I was like how am I going to figure out how to like handle this and but we did you learn Yeah. Wow.
Serhiy So many things to unpack here. Yeah. I'm guessing that you were driven by the incremental success you were having, but at the same time, it seems like you had really good partners from your this last stage.
Josh I I had good help for sure, especially on on the business side. Yeah. But those little wins, they definitely helped, you know, helped keep me going.
11:20 Focusing on the Goal
Josh I think one of the most important things is if you're constantly focused on the goal, right? If you all like every day you wake up and you just have that thing in mind, you're like, "Okay, I'm going to learn something new. I'm going to figure this thing out that I couldn't figure out yesterday. I'm going to keep going. I'm going to keep walking." And you just keep telling yourself that. It'll it'll help with the motivation.
Serhiy Compounds. It does. And at some point there is just a point of no no return. You look you look behind and you see that you have amassed this knowledge. you have amassed the experience and look at now it just and you're like number one destination for so many so many people. You know what's interesting here you said that you get up in the morning thinking about the goal and I think one of the secrets from Steven KBY book the seven secrets of highly effective people is that you have to start something understanding the end goal right but you it's interesting that you didn't say like get up and think about million dollars. You get up and think about doing the quality job or you get up and think about that I'm going to learn something new. So for you the goal is not you know qualitative uh it's I mean quantitative pardon me for my pronunciation but it's more like quality right so uh is that is am I get am I on to something.
Josh That's definitely a part of it I always like you do I I do believe yeah you have to keep the ultimate goal in mind like whatever that mission is that you set out to do right like if you say my mission is to sell flowers to a million people then that's the thing you should focus on. But there's always that should be that should stay and that's like a guiding point. But little the little things that sometimes you have to do, right? Like you you said it great where like you look back and all of a sudden you're like oh my god like I did all these steps like thousands of things and that's also really important because if you you can't do everything all at once, right? So, you have to do the little steps. And even if it seems like it's meaningless, right? Like even if you feel like you have those days where you just don't get a whole lot done, but you've completed some things or helped some customers or or whatever, it's still a job well done. It it compounds.
13:40 Threats to Josh's Morality
Serhiy Do you have an understanding of your core values at this point in life? Definitely. And how often something threatens your core values as you go through business?
Josh I will tell you most recently I had this experience. Um if it happens, it does happen. You're going to have plenty of moments where your values are threatened, your um your morality even, right? your moral compass, um your ethics, it it does happen. Um so recently we were in discussions with uh with a company that was interested in buying us and Okay. Yep. And it wasn't the first time that it happened, but it was definitely the first time we got really really close to a deal. Now, the reason the deal fell apart was because uh the other company uh wasn't respectful to my team. Um there was there was just some severe disrespect and it it sounded like they wanted me uh to leave my team and go with them, right? And leave my team in the dust. Yep. And guess what I said? Nope. So, I walked I walked from a deal. I walked from a deal that could have made me a lot of money and I chose not to because I value my team and I value the company and I value our customers. So, I didn't do it. And it it made me think, right? When you're offered a lot of money, it makes you think. Um, but you can't compromise. You cannot compromise. makes you think what what do you stand for in life? 100%.
Serhiy Let's put things in into perspective real quick. Can you give us some numbers just to understand the volume of your of your business?
Josh Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah. So, we've got uh several uh hundred sellers, thousands of customers. Um yeah, we started I mean we started with with Z well we started with a few I guess because uh we already had some relationships but you know over the last few years we've grown substantially um both on the on the business and on the u uh on the the retail side as well. And that's really the goal. We we want to continue helping jewelry brands all over the world bring their products onto our marketplace so that people like you and I can shop and have wonderful options and we try and make it as easy as possible as well. And we're just that's where we're going to stay. We're going to keep going. We're just going to keep adding um more beautiful uh more beautiful jewelry into the world and help people along the way.
Josh I have this saying now I tell I tell people all the time. They're like, "What do you do?" And I'm like, "You know what the short answer is? I just put more beauty into the world." That's all I.
17:22 How Important Is Taking Care of People Around
Serhiy Speaking of people, uh I mean is there like something that we should understand because there are a lot of people starting business right now and you started in 2020 according to Chad GPD. Is that correct?
Josh Yeah. Yeah. That's when we launched Kodex. Yeah.
Serhiy What should We understand as as people who start businesses as far as people go like it like can you save entrepreneurs and small business owners days, weeks, months of time by just maybe some discoveries that you have made already about people.
Josh Yeah, definitely. Um, your your team is everything, right? People are absolutely everything. That's just a general takeaway for all of business. Take care of people, take care of your team, take care of your customers. Um, if you're if you're just a solo founder, that's fine. But if you do decide to take on partners, spend time, right, and really finding great partners that are going to complement your skill sets, right? like figure out what you're good at, figure out what you're not good at, figure out where you need help, find the people to help you. Um, and and just take care of people. Like people are truly the key to to business, no matter no matter the technology you're using, you always need people.
Serhiy Do you do you hire superstars or do you nurture superstars?
Josh Both. So, you definitely want superstars that do things better than you, right? Like there's this I feel like sometimes there's this uh there's this fear in first-time founders where they're like, "Oh my god, like I don't want to hire somebody that's way smarter than me that does this thing way better." It's actually the opposite. You do want that person because you don't want to focus your energy on that stuff. You want to let them run and let them do it right right off the gate.
Serhiy Do you think it's a good idea to hire someone who's also very skilled? Because that could be a direct threat, you know, to my ego, you know, so it's not an easy thing to do.
Josh Yeah. No, that's fair. I think if these skill sets complement each other, right? Like let's say you know you have a founder co-founder team and one's going to handle sales and operations and the other is going to handle all the marketing and and customer support. Right. If you're both excellent a players at both of those things, you're you're going to have a great team, right? No. Um now what you I think what you don't want to do is you don't want when you're talking about startups, right? especially early stage startups, small teams, you know, under 10 people, you know, one to 10 people. What you don't want to do is you don't want to hire people that uh have been in much much larger companies and that's the only thing that they've done, right? Yeah. They're not Yeah. You know, because they're not going to understand the startup world. It's not their fault. It's just they're not going to be likely not going to be a good fit for that. So you do want to hire people that are a players in the startup world, but also you do want to nurture people too. You want to give people opportunity and uh let people demonstrate that opportunity and you know you have to hire fast and sometimes you also have to fire fast. You have to let people go that just aren't working out and that's okay. It's part of the journey. Um but do your best to take care of people along the way. you know, be really kind to those that maybe don't go as far as you do. Um, and just keep going. Just keep at it.
Serhiy Yeah. You know, I'm I'm hiring now. And I mean, I I'm going to tell you, man, even though I consider myself an extrovert, it's still exhausting for me to go to go through hiring process. I don't like since I'm pretty empathetic, I don't like saying no. But you know I have I special I have the an ethics code that I I cannot just ghost people. So I always say like no and I explain why and it takes a lot out of me you know. So, it's a pretty pretty hurtful uh process. But when you find people who for some reason they just they just want to go with you. They just want to climb they just want to climb this hill with you. I think it's your obligation as as as a business owner to to to just give them more even like you know what then just I don't know man. What are some is there are there some additional motivational perks that you that you that you institute in in your business or something?
Josh Definitely, dude. You said it. Yeah, you said it the best. Yeah. Um when somebody won't leave you alone and they they want to run with you, let them. And I've learned this too. Um people like that, right, that they th those are founders. Those are like founders, right? They take ownership of the business. They just just let them run and just do that. Let them run. They're going to make mistakes. Lots of them. And it's going to suck. It's going to hurt. The mistakes are worth letting them run. I promise you. Let them run. Coach, advise, right? Guide them, and eventually they're going to carve their own path, and you won't you don't have to worry about them. Um, yeah, definitely take care of those people.
Serhiy Yeah, you're right. Man, some some people just do things that you didn't expect. And I'm like, and that's so cool, man. Like, I think it's it's our job to to just I think Fred Duca, he's the the founder of Subway uh sandwiches. He he said that our job as leaders is just take take take barriers away. Just let just let people walk and that's it or run or whatever they're doing.
Josh That's really cool man.
24:20 How Josh Stays His Real Self
Serhiy Cool man. Uh I want to ask you uh on the point of authenticity also and people u how important it is for you to be able to be a real self among your your colleagues uh business partners or or sometimes uh you have to wear a mask.
Josh Yes. So do you have Yeah. Maybe you can tell tell us some stories that would be interesting. Yeah definitely. Uh I'll be honest with you. Yeah. No, that's something I struggle with too. Uh I think every founder does because um you do want to remain authentic but sometimes you do have to be guarded. Um you have to be careful some boundaries. Yeah. Yeah. You have to set boundaries and sometimes you know you might you might be having a like a really bad day and you might be like you might be feeling it, right? You might have some big feels about something that happened, but you have to go to a board meeting or you have to sit in on a presentation or you have to do something for your team and so you got to put the mask on. Suck it up. Yeah. And do do whatever you have to get done, man.
Josh Yeah. And it's it's really hard sometimes. Um it's hard to to find that balance. But I think I think if you stick to your core values and you stand up for for what you believe in and support your people and make sure you take care of your customers, right? Whatever your product is, um everything else is uh less important. Uh people bad things are going to happen. They they will like people are going to hurt you. They're going to betray you. They're going to lie to you. They're gonna uh deceive you. Um they're going to be after something that you might not even know that you gave up, right? That's okay. It's gonna happen. Um but stick to your core values. Stick to your core your core person and um you'll be all right.
26:43 Building in Public
Serhiy I think I think I I read on your uh LinkedIn something uh that you share you share the results of the company right now. Yeah, I is that is that called building in public? I heard this term.
Josh Yeah, I think it's part of it. Yeah, I think part of building in public is sharing, you know, sharing growth milestones, sharing product updates. We try and and do we could probably do a way better job at it to be honest. But yeah, we definitely try and do that.
27:16 How Josh Stays on Top of Things Mentally
Serhiy Because I mean uh for for all of us trying to find the best application of our of our energy. I mean uh there's so many things we can do. How how do how do we not get overwhelmed? Maybe you have some personal like go-to secrets or things that you do just to not get overwhelmed. Especially because I I I I I get a feeling that you have a pre-operationally heavy business.
Josh It is, you know. Yeah, you're right. You know, and I personally like if I get up in the morning and I like god forbid take the phone first thing at like and I check the you know I like from the start of the day I'm just I I don't I'm I'm under stress already. Yeah. So any any any tips on how not to go freaking crazy as you grow as a business?
Josh Definitely. Um, so I I used to be like that. Uh, I used to like like the first thing I do when I'd wake up, and this was even back like in my teens, like in my teen years, like I' first thing I do, I'd wake up and I'd like get on the computer or I'd turn on the TV or I'd like immediately start consuming something, right? So, I'd say one thing that helps not getting overwhelmed is take somewhere in between five and 30 minutes in the morning. Like when you first get up, just do nothing. Just be with your thoughts. They can be from the previous day. Just do nothing. Don't grab the phone. Don't turn on the TV. Don't look at IG. Don't log in to whatever. Don't check your email. Just even if it's five minutes, take five minutes, get off the bed, put your feet on the ground, feel the ground, you know, get up, walk, go get some water um and just be with yourself. And then um throughout the day as things happen, right, bunch of stressors happen, things go wrong, you get stressed, take breaks. Get up, go walk outside. If you have a dog, go walk the dog. That's what I do. So, my I walk the dog. I get up. I take the dog for a walk. And then you're you're you kind of give yourself some time to decompress and and to relax. Um and you're not going to get it right every day. I don't. Right. Some Oh, that's a good one. Oh, dude. Yeah. Some days, you know, I'm just like a stress ball and my wife is like, "Bro, you okay?" I'm like, "No. But yeah, yeah, that's what I do. I take breaks. I I try and, you know, carve out time for myself.
Serhiy And that was really awesome. I mean, like authentic authentic conversation. I told you I'd give it to you. Yeah, I'm really thankful. Uh, I think I think I think I got what I need. I think I I'm thankful that you helped me to actually carve out the actual uh tactics, you know, structure of my podcast. Good guys, stay tuned. And Josh, thank you so much, man.
Josh Thank you, man. It was a pleasure. Love it.
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