Interview: Isaac Gottesman, dimend SCAASI

By Chris Karr in Miscellaneous on Feb 14, 2006 3:58PM

Issac Gottesman is an owner and founder (along with his wife Barbara) of dimend SCAASI, a jewelry business located in the East Loop. Isaac has been in the Chicago area for over ten years, selling many engagement rings and wedding bands to hopeful couples over that time. His business is notable for its adoption of cutting edge technologies used to provide the best experience to his clients. He not only sells jewels and rings, he's also a designer using the latest CAD/CAM tools to craft and create individual keepsakes for his clients. By his estimate, at least seventy percent of the rings he sells are custom-made from scratch.

Last week, Isaac sat down with us to discuss the jewelry trade and he was kind enough to give us clueless guys some hints for Valentine's Day.

Chicagoist: Tell us a bit about yourself and your business.

Isaac Gottesman: My name is Isaac Gottesman and I'm the owner of dimend SCAASI. We're jewelry designers, but we do much more than that. We emphasize in bridal jewelry - mostly engagement and bridal bands - which is my most favorite of all because being a part of our customers' future lives together is just a great place to be.

Chicagoist: On our way up here, we noticed that there's quite a cluster of jewelry businesses around the intersection of Madison and Wabash - can you tell us why that is?

Isaac: For years, it's been that way. This building hosts quite a few jewelers - dozens - and many jewelry-related businesses. For generations, this has been a jewelers building.

(More after the jump.)

Chicagoist: Can you tell us a bit about how dimend SCAASI handles new customers?

Isaac: Buying a diamond ring is something that's very intimidating for most people. Most guys know absolutely nothing about diamonds - or where to even start. We put great emphasis on teaching our customers what they need to know about diamonds. I couldn't say everything about diamonds, but within the first half hour to forty-five minutes, they will know what diamond they want to choose - rather than me saying, "You're a friend of Joe. Here, I have a special deal for you!" That doesn't happen. I teach our customers about what makes a diamond sparkly so they can choose themselves.

We call this system "InnerView" and it allows customers to see diamonds and magnify them up to three hundred times on large-screen TV's. We analyze them together. We've even taken this one step further and we can do this online with our customers. So, you can be anywhere in the world, choose a diamond and see it with a gemologist, learn about it, see where the inclusions are, and choose the diamond that you like even if you're not here.

So, education - that's really important.

Chicagoist: If we were one of the many the typical clueless guys looking to pop the question on Valentine's Day - what's your advice?

Isaac: The one greatest tool that's been around for a while is the Internet. Information is readily available if you just bothered to type a few keywords. You can teach yourself most of what most jewelers know about diamonds in a matter of a day or two. There's a lot of information - all you have to do is look for it and read. On a lot of different sites, you can compare prices online. You can go to a lot of different places and choose the place you like the most.

For a lot of guys that come and see us, it's helpful to establish a relationship with a local jeweler in their area, too. We do a lot of business online, but we're also strong in the local community. For a lot of guys, this is important because they don't know a lot about diamonds. Even if you read, learning firsthand and seeing all the examples is very helpful.

Also in the long run, eventually when it becomes time for wedding bands or gifts or the first baby comes along - you want to find that jeweler that you're happy with - one you can trust. One that you can call and say, "Hey, I need some diamond stud earrings." Imagine if you had to go over and over for every purchase, interviewing fifteen different jewelers. It's very exhausting. Choose that one person and establish a relationship with that jeweler that you're comfortable with. I think that will prove to be very fruitful.

Chicagoist: What's the most common mistake or misconception that you seen when guys come into your office?

Isaac: Where do I start? There's a lot!

Size. I think that many of our clients are looking to get a bigger diamond for their money. The thing here we put the biggest emphasis on is quality - the quality of the cut of the diamond. A different conversation would be what's inside the diamond, how white the actual diamond is, and how clean it is. But the quality of the cut - the proportions - and the relationship between the different components of the diamond will affect - sometimes drastically - the way the diamond appears. So cut is the most important aspect of the diamond.

The second mistake that I see happening is a lot of guys going out and finding a good diamond and then compromising on the setting completely. My advice is to look around. Online, there are a lot of opportunities to look - but scrutinize how a setting is built. For example, many of the settings you see out there are created in two parts: the shank, which is the ring - the body part - and the head. What most places out there will do is buy the different components and solder them together. They buy the shank and then the head, put them together and solder it, and put the diamond in and then you have a ring.

We take a different approach. The way we create a ring in one piece to fit your diamond and finger size. It's really important that what dresses up your diamond is not compromised and that the look flows beautifully. That's something that we specialize in. All of our rings are handcrafted and we don't place any less emphasis on the ring than the diamond.

The other mistake is certification. Who certifies your diamond? When you go in and buy a new house, there are two appraisers available. One will go in and inspect it in a half an hour and tell you, "Good house - go buy it." He's cheap and will only cost fifty dollars. The other will cost five hundred dollars, but will spend three hours, give you a twenty-page report on what's in the house, and you can analyze it and figure out whether you want the house or not. The same happens with certification. There are a lot of certificates out there. Those are the laboratories that will certify the quality of your diamond. The GIA - Gemological Institute of America - is the one laboratory that we recommend. It's a not-for-profit organization. They're extremely strict, in fact.

We donate money every year to their research department because I buy most of my diamonds sight-unseen based on the GIA report alone - that's how much I trust this lab, but I wouldn't buy or sell any diamond based on any other laboratory's certification alone, unless I inspected it first in person. For the consumer, you want to get what's promised, and you want the strictest opinion.

If anyone wants to sell you a diamond that is not certified - run. There are no such things as non-certified diamonds. Every fine quality diamond is certified.

And then we have the whole synthetic issue. Synthetic diamonds are starting to become more common - we'll see more and more within the next three to five years as the process becomes cheaper to do. The GIA will scan a diamond for the possibility that it's a synthetic stone. I'm not aware of any other laboratory that does that.

Chicagoist: How did you get started in this business?

Isaac: I started overseas in Israel, where I was born and raised, as a security guard at the diamond exchange. At the time, I had a British girlfriend who was studying at the GIA to become a gemologist. When she came back, I read her notebooks and I was fascinated with the information and the whole product, and its distribution. I realized for the first time ever, that this was something that really interested me. I took a gemology course in Israel. I was the only one there who wasn't a "son of" - the only one who was a security guard and didn't know how to hold tweezers. Everyone else was very comfortable holding the tweezers and loupe. Shortly after, I started working for a company in Israel for free to get into the trade. I would stay late at night, since Israel is eight hours ahead, to make phone calls and get accounts in the US.

It went well, so after a year, my boss said, "Why don't you go visit your clients in the US?" Which I did. I landed in New York. At the time, New York was pretty dirty. There was a bum in every street corner and it was not very appealing. My buddy lived in Colorado Springs, so I flew there. And I just fell in love. I fell in love with the people, I had McDonald's twice a day - we didn't have McDonald's there in Israel at the time. I rented a Chevy and cruised the streets in the Chevy. But more than anything, the people were so nice, so friendly, so eager to talk to me and learn about what we do. Something that I immediately realized was that this was something I could do here as a living. I realized that you didn't need to be the brightest guy on earth - the market is so big and you can do well.

So, I called my boss and told him that we were wasting our time selling quarters of a point - that's smaller than a grain of salt - to watch manufacturers in Switzerland. I told my boss that we were wasting our time and that I was young and unattached and happy to work. I told him that if we started and office and distribution here, we could do well. He said, "You're nuts, come back home." I said, "I can't - I won't have enough money for an airline ticket."

So, I went out on my own at that point. He went out of business six months later, so it was good that I insisted upon staying. I started my business in New York, from where I'd travel for my wholesale business. I got here to Chicago two years later. It was weird - everything fell into place like I was meant to end up here my whole life. I found an apartment right away. I found an office space, even an easy phone number. Everything fell into place. Time goes really fast - it's been over thirteen years now.

Chicagoist: Do you have any Valentine advice for the hapless guys out there?

Isaac: I can tell you that the ladies love jewelry and if you're not sure what will bring a smile to her face, a diamond ring or a colored stone or other piece of jewelry will always bring a smile to a lady's face. In fact it's the ladies that keep us in business - not so much the guys. I would say go for color this year. Color is out there and I'm not talking about engagement rings. I'm talking about other pieces of jewelry - rings with colored stones. Green is very much the color to be, so is pink. I'd say don't be afraid to get something that she's not seen before. Get her something that you like and give it to her. If you come to us, you'll probably not go wrong with any of the selections that we have to offer.

While it may be a bit late to visit Isaac in time for Valentine's Day, should you guys find yourself popping a question, buying an "I'm a doofus" gift, or looking for something shiny to decorate your significant other, give dimend SCAASI a visit. Last year while we were shopping for an engagement ring for our fianceé, we visited Isaac for a few hours and he gave us the crash course in settings, types of diamonds, and cuts. We came out of the office a good bit smarter and not as poor as we thought we would be. It was a nice laid-back and educational experience and one that we'd recommend heartily.