Hudson's Lady Black Tie has quickly grown into one of most popular dress shops in Massachusetts
HUDSON - It's not easy being an entrepreneur, especially with no background in business, but with passion and hard work Marissa Tilley found a way. Now she runs one of the most popular dress shops in Massachusetts.
Tilley's love for fashion started when she was a teenager working at New York Fashion Week. Now she has her own shop, Lady Black Tie in Hudson.
"It's been pretty life changing for sure," Tilley told WBZ-TV. "There's something really special about special occasion shopping. I find that it's a bonding experience. I love seeing moms and daughters coming in together. You come in with you friends."
The shop is one of the largest dress retailers in the state, located in a 12,000-square-foot warehouse. She said her store is the most Googled prom shop in Massachusetts.
"We try to make the experience as special as possible for the girls because they do get in the car and come like one to two hours drive just to shop with us," Tilley said.
But it wasn't always that way. She use to work a corporate job.
"I just felt that wasn't my calling and I felt called to do something fun in life. Honesty, I thought a dress store would be super fun. I just thought life would be all about having fun and every day we do have fun here," she said.
In 2018 she opened a small shop in Andover with just three dressing rooms. She was the only employee, and only sold a couple of gowns a day, but that never deterred her.
"I just kind of doubled down on what worked and just kept reinvesting and reinvesting and growing from there," she explained.
She intensively studied the best search engine optimization (SEO) practices to learn how to boost the e-commerce side of her business. Within six months she had to get a warehouse to handle all of the online orders.
Then her business took off, and she sold 66,000 dresses in 2022 alone.
"It happened a lot faster than I thought it would happen. I always dreamed of being where we are now but I thought this would be in like 10 years," she said.
Now it's prom dress shopping season and she says every day is like Christmas in the store.
"We're in the center of the state here. We get girls from north, south, east, and west coming to us," she explained.
Her store was an Inc. 5000 honoree for being one of the fastest growing private companies.
Tilley hopes to continue growing and inspiring other women to take the step towards pursuing their dreams.
"When I was starting so small it could be a little intimidating. But I was thinking five, six years down the road, I was thinking I could be as big as some of the large retailers one day," she said.
Her advice to any female entrepreneur is don't be afraid to start small, but always dream big.