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Key Takeaways
- Jason Arasheben got his first celebrity client by quoting a $40,000 price he pulled out of nowhere, then scrambled overnight to find someone who could actually make it.
- Arasheben treated rejection as fuel, not a stop sign, getting told no by UCLA seven times and by clients 70 to 100 times before his first yes.
Jason Arasheben is a celebrity among celebrities. As the founder of luxury jeweler Jason of Beverly Hills, he’s designed custom pieces for stars like Rihanna, Justin Bieber, Kim Kardashian and Drake, crafted championship rings for the NBA and NFL, and built one of the most recognizable brands in high-end jewelry.
Along the way, he’s fielded no shortage of unusual requests.
“We’ve made diamond fish tanks and $2 million diamond shoes. We’ve had someone ask for a massive Jesus pendant with their own face instead of Jesus’ (which I declined to make). We’ve even had someone want a diamond pendant modeled after their own male anatomy,” Arasheben says.
Suffice it to say, it’s been a wild ride. But you don’t get diamonds without a little pressure.
Diamond in the rough
Coming from a family of immigrants, Arasheben’s life seemed predetermined. His parents moved from Iran when he was a toddler with dreams of their son becoming one of the “big four”: a doctor, lawyer, architect or engineer.
Despite his entrepreneurial instincts, Arasheben initially gave in to those expectations, working his way into UCLA with plans to attend law school after graduation. But torts never took. Instead, he found himself increasingly drawn to the luster of Los Angeles nightlife.
“I was blowing money fast,” he admits. “Come sophomore year, I realized I was $28,000 in debt.”
Not wanting to tell his parents — and wanting even less to take a job at a retail chain — Arasheben found himself backed into a corner. Then, while shopping for hairclips with a woman he was dating, he had an epiphany.
“I was like, ‘Wait a minute. I have a captive audience on the UCLA campus. I have a group of potential customers. I had $400 left. I could either make the minimum payment on my credit card and live off Ramen for a week, or buy $400 worth of wholesale items, and sell them to the girls on campus.’”
To Arasheben, it seemed like the perfect business. The only problem was getting UCLA on board.
“I approached UCLA and had this idea of setting up a six-foot table on campus to sell to these girls, and they said no straight to my face,” he recalls.
But Arasheben didn’t give up.
“I doubled back and asked again, Arasheben says. “For seven straight days, I went in and pleaded with them. On the last day, I said, ‘I’m in the business program here. Being a place of education, you need to harness my entrepreneurial spirit.’”
They still said no.
Then he offered to give 20% of his revenue to the school, and their tune quickly changed.
A cut above
The next day, Arashaben spent his last $400 on silver trinkets, plastic hair clips and other accessories. He borrowed a table and a black tablecloth and set up shop on North Campus.
“I thought it was a great way to not only make money, but meet girls too,” Arashaben laughs.
The idea took off immediately. He sold $800 worth of merchandise on his first day, then $1,000, then $5,000.
As demand grew, Arasheben hired friends to run a second table on the South side of campus. Before long, he had replicated the model across So-Cal, expanding to six total campuses: USC, Cal State Northridge, UC Santa Barbara, Cal State Fullerton, UC Irvine and, of course, UCLA.
By his senior year, Arasheben was making real money.
Looking to expand beyond campuses, he built acrylic countertop displays, filled them with accessories, and pitched them to nail salons throughout Southern California.
“I drove to every single nail salon from Calabasas to San Diego, and I would say, ‘I’m going to place this display on your countertop, and every two weeks I’m going to come back, see what you sold, and you pay me for it.’”
By the middle of his senior year, he estimates 250 salons had signed on.
Then, while studying for the LSAT, he had a realization. He looked up the starting salary for a first-year Harvard Law graduate. At the time, it was around $110,000 a year.
“I said, ‘This doesn’t make any business sense whatsoever because I’m going to go to law school, lose four or five years of income-earning potential, then come out in debt and make less than I’m making now. That makes no sense at all.’”
So Arasheben told his parents he wasn’t going to law school. He was going to keep growing the business he had built through college campuses and nail salons — even though, at the time, he didn’t have a brand or a long-term plan.
Unsurprisingly, the decision didn’t go over well. Arasheben didn’t speak to his father for the next two years.
“The way my brain works, if he had told me, ‘Congratulations, I think it’s a great idea,’ I would’ve had a lot less motivation,” Arasheben admits. “That’s always been my mentality. If you close a door in front of me, I’m going to find a way to break it down.”
Arasheben kept growing the business, but he also realized it was time to think bigger.
“I came to the realization that, while I was making good money, I needed something that was even more scalable,” he says. “And something with a brand behind it.”
A gem of an opportunity
The business was generating between $20,000 and $30,000 a month. But just as quickly as the money came in, Arasheben was spending it, taking full advantage of LA nightlife. At the time, he was going out to clubs almost every night and living month to month. Looking back, he calls it one of the best investments he ever made.
“It allowed me to rub shoulders with high-net-worth individuals, like athletes and actors,” he says. “When I bought a table at a club, it was next to someone who could afford high-end jewelry.”
Noticing the oversized chains and diamond jewelry worn by many of his fellow clubgoers, Arasheben decided to take his business in a new direction — toward the Hollywood Hills.
He began designing custom diamond pendants for NBA players, hoping to show them the pieces the next time their paths crossed at a club.
“Did I have any experience in the diamond industry? Zero,” Arasheben admits. “Did I know what the hell I was doing? Not at all. But I knew that’s what I wanted.”
Arasheben’s nightly outings became as much about business as they were about debauchery. He set a goal of introducing himself to 10 new people each night, refusing to leave until he did.
“Reputation matters and who you are matters, and I knew that I had to sell because I really didn’t have product to sell,” he explains. “Once I sold myself, my product and service would keep the customers coming back. But to get that customer, I need to sell them on the idea that I am not only credible but somebody that they would like to do business with.”
His networking strategies ranged from standard, like eye contact and firm handshakes, to sitcom-style antics like spilling his drink on someone “accidentally” to break the ice, something he says he’s done multiple times.
“I wanted every interaction to be a memorable one,” Arasheben laughs. “I used to wear loud outfits because I wanted them to remember me.”
The crown jewel
Arasheben estimates he got “about 70 to 100” nos before he finally got a yes from former basketball star Anthony Mason.
“Every single time I go out, you’re pitching me that you want to design me a piece of jewelry,” Mason said. “And today’s your lucky day. I’ve had enough drinks that I want you to come to my hotel tomorrow. We’re playing the Lakers. Before I leave for the game. I want you to come and bring all your jewelry.”
Arasheben jumped on the opportunity, agreeing to meet Mason at 3 p.m. the next day. There was just one problem: He didn’t actually have any jewelry.
“All I had was one design on a sheet of paper that he didn’t even like, and he wanted me to come the next day,” the founder recalls. “But I was not going to waste the opportunity.”
Arasheben got to work, putting together a makeshift catalog with a little Elmer’s glue and elbow grease, which he presented to Mason the next day.
“He asked where the jewelry was, and I told him everything I did was bespoke,” Arasheben recalls. “I showed him all of these designs, some of which weren’t even mine. He saw a bracelet that he liked, and I said, ‘No problem. I’m going to make it for you.’ He asked how much, and I said, ‘$40,000.’ I just threw a number out of my butt. I had no clue what the price should be or how much it was going to cost me to make it.”
Not to be deterred, Arasheben got to work, knocking on doors in the Downtown jewelry district and making connections until he found someone who could manufacture the bracelet for him.
“Looking back on it, they overcharged me,” he recalls. “I ended up making like $2,000 on a $40,000 sale. But he loved it.”
It paid off. Arasheben quickly capitalized on the opportunity, turning Mason into his first celebrity ambassador. Today, he’s the face of one of the world’s most recognizable luxury jewelry brands.
Eyes open for opportunity
Many successful entrepreneurs swear by manifestation and vision boards when thinking about the future. Arasheben prefers to take it one opportunity at a time.
“I like not knowing what opportunities lie ahead. I like knowing that tomorrow could bring a different opportunity than today,” he says. “I was talking to my son about this the other day. He said, ‘I don’t know what I want to do. I can’t tell you what I’m going to be doing a year from now.’
“I asked him, ‘How many red cars did you see today?’ He said, ‘I don’t know.’ Then I asked, ‘If I gave you $5 for every red car you saw today, would you know?’ He said, ‘Absolutely.’
“I told him that’s exactly how you should look at life. Every person you meet and every experience you have could be an opportunity — you just don’t know which one yet. You have to keep your eyes open for it. So I don’t know what tomorrow holds, but I know it’ll be something great because I’m always looking for that red car.”
