26JJ-CPM_Working-Skeleton-Layout_20260406-NT - Flipbook - Page 27
Karen
Caitlin
Boutique Owner
Digital Architect
Malone
Malone Brantley
website, the Shopify backbone, the apps — the
quiet consistency that keeps a small business
from buckling under its own ambition. Lauren,
the youngest, is its voice and pulse, shaping
the social presence, the hiring, the culture.
Their father, Karen adds, is the steady current
beneath it all.
Working as a family means the hard days land
di昀昀erently. “There are slow days, long hours,
seasons where you question everything,”
Karen admits. “Building a business as a family
Lauren
White
Brand Director
means you carry the emotional side of it too.”
What pulls them through is unfashionably
simple: consistency, faith, showing up. And the
locals, she insists, are the true heart of it all —
the ones they greet by name, who feel at home
long after the crowds thin.
Ask what success looks like now, and the
answer has quietly changed shape. “It’s
become so much more than sales or numbers,”
Karen says. Some days it’s a full store and
happy faces; other days it’s simply getting
through the hard moments together and still
believing. “It’s sitting down after a long day,
exhausted but proud, knowing we gave it
everything we had.”
There is, already, a next generation watching
— a ten-month-old granddaughter underfoot,
a grandson on the way. Karen doesn’t presume
they’ll inherit the storefront. She hopes they
inherit the rest: the hard work and kindness,
the creativity and integrity, the understanding
that a life can be built around passion, family,
and community.
Get Connected
(678) 787-0913
franklymydear120@gmail.com
franklymydearboutique.com
