Everything about my work within the fashion industry is disruptive. At large — the mainstream fashion industry is pretentious, exclusionary, racist, fatphobic, ableist and more. It is built off over consumption, mass production, and exploitative labor. With SmartGlamour — I am offering customizable, ethically made, affordable clothing in sizes XXS-15X and beyond — the largest size range I have yet to see. Our models represent everyone — of every size, shape, height, weight, gender, ability, ethnicity, and age. I don’t photoshop or airbrush them in any way. They are welcome to wear their glasses, flat shoes, use any kind of mobility device etc. I make the clothing to fit them — I don’t cast models to fit my clothing.
As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Mallorie Dunn.
Mallorie Dunn is a NYC based fashion designer, business owner, and professor. After graduating from the Fashion Institute of Technology and Pratt Institute, she worked in both corporate design and freelance sectors before launching her clothing brand, SmartGlamour in Spring 2014. She is also an adjunct professor for Parsons/Open Campus at The New School.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
All my life, I was interested in fashion, personal style, and clothing — but I didn’t realize it could be a career until high school. I had assumed maybe I’d be a math teacher — but when I learned my high school offered a fashion design course, my whole perspective changed. However, leaving high school and moving to NYC (I’m originally from Newburgh, NY) — attending FIT for fashion design — I quickly learned just how image and appearance obsessed our society, and the fashion industry is. I was not interested in fashion for the “glam” or brand names — I just love clothing, making things, and using those things to express yourself as a person. And I feel that should be available to all people — not only a select few.
After FIT, I transferred to Pratt Institute and got a degree in Art and Design Education. I was disillusioned by the fashion industry, didn’t want to participate in it — and thought maybe teaching would be a better fit after all. But — then I missed making clothes! So I tailored my degree toward teaching fashion — doing my student teaching at the High School of Fashion Industries in Chelsea. After Pratt, I decided to give the industry a try, and began work in corporate fashion in the Juniors sector. Unfortunately, all of my negative assumptions proved to be true — and I was completely put off by the high pressure, complete lack of creativity, and beyond unethical production of mass market clothing.
I moved into a life of freelance — doing everything I knew how to do — from alterations, to custom pieces, to teaching design to others — and it was during that time that I had the creative space and emotional energy to come up with my current brand, SmartGlamour — which I then launched in February 2014.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
Everything about my work within the fashion industry is disruptive. At large — the mainstream fashion industry is pretentious, exclusionary, racist, fatphobic, ableist and more. It is built off over consumption, mass production, and exploitative labor. With SmartGlamour — I am offering customizable, ethically made, affordable clothing in sizes XXS-15X and beyond — the largest size range I have yet to see. Our models represent everyone — of every size, shape, height, weight, gender, ability, ethnicity, and age. I don’t photoshop or airbrush them in any way. They are welcome to wear their glasses, flat shoes, use any kind of mobility device etc. I make the clothing to fit them — I don’t cast models to fit my clothing. And I work hard to pair models with outfits I think would speak to them and their personality. What you end up with — are happy, confident, radiant people modeling clothing they actually like and feel comfortable in — and that resonates with our customers very strongly.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I don’t think I made any funny mistakes — that I can remember — but I think the biggest problem solving moments came from hosting our first few events. At our launch event, our first runway show, in February 2014 — I had selected a venue specifically for the way the room was laid out, with an area for my models to “be” before walking out onto the runway. When I arrived day of the event — the partition was gone, and room was rearranged and we had to problem solve to create a new space that would work on the fly. This taught me to always double check, ask every question, discuss every small detail — to ensure expectations are met.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
I haven’t really had any specific mentors per say — within the inclusive fashion industry — it’s just not really a space where tons of folks have come before current indie brands. However, I have had incredible teachers in the past, and have a very supportive group of family and friends. Very often — my models become my friends, as we build a safe, inclusive community of folks. The people I have met through running SmartGlamour are some of the most inspiring, caring, kind, and helpful individuals I’ve had the pleasure to know. They are the people that keep me motivated.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
I don’t believe there are many current systems or structures, that have been around for decades, that are positive. American society has been built up on the backs of Black folks, people of color, indigenous folks — so any industry or system that has lasted decades — either exploited those people or excluded those people. This is why we need disruption. Racist, fatphobic, transphobic, homophobic systems must be torn down and replaced in order to create true equity and justice for all.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
I believe the most impactful advice I’ve ever gotten was from a stranger, who worked at my local laundromat. She told me “You don’t have to wait to be happy.” I was just 20 at the time, and it really gave me the courage I needed to make some dramatic personal changes in my life. Obviously, we can’t wish away all of our hardships — but some things are in our control, and that was a great reminder of that fact.
The next best piece of advice, I’d say — came from my mother when I was in high school, in the form of a ring. Engraved on it was “To thine ownself be true” and I wore it everyday. In college, I got that tattooed on my wrist, instead of wearing the ring daily. It’s just a classic reminder to stay true to myself.
And then lastly, my most recent example — is advice I’ve given to myself. I am an over achiever and perfectionist in recovery, and am definitely harder on myself than anyone else will ever be. Watching TV a few months ago — I heard the addage “I am enough and I have enough time.” — and it’s become a bit of a mantra for me.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
I have already begun this a bit — but I plan to move further into the fashion education space. Fast fashion and mass manufacturing works for a number of reasons — but one of the largest, is that consumers are uninformed on exactly how clothing is made, and at whose expense. I teach virtual classes, but am also a fashion business professor at Parsons — and I teach these classes from an inlcusive, ethical, sustainable angle. If we truly want the fashion industry to change — we must also change the way fashion is taught to future designers and fashion industry professionals.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?
Women are challenged in this society first, simply by existing in a patriarchal system. Men are the majority of CEOs, investors, executives and so on — they hold the most power. This then trickles down into every aspect of women attempting to run businesses and disrupt systems with those businesses. For me, specifically — I also do “womens’ work” — I sew clothing, and I heal women and femmes. These aren’t industries or causes that men take seriously.
Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?
I don’t really listen to, or read, any business related media. I am, however, constantly taking in media made by, and discussing the lives of, marginalized groups. I think it’s of great importance to learn all you can about everyone around you — especially if you are creating a business that supports them, hires them, and caters to them. My favorite authors and content creators in that space are: Ijeoma Oluo, Sonya Renee Taylor, Ragen Chastain, The Stoop, Queery, Substantia Jones, and Rachel Cargle
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Oh I suppose I combined this question with the advice question above — as my advice were all “quotes.” I really just don’t separate “business” from life, in that way. I run my business the same way I run my life.
If I could pass on advice to other women entrepreneurs — it would be to remember to take care of yourself. You can’t pour from an empty cup.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I would encourage as many people as possible to believe that they are enough — right now — as they are. And I also hope to inspire folks to look further into ethical, accessible, inclusive fashion — to shop in ways that cause less harm to people and the planet.
I’d argue the events ecosystem has largely been overlooked by the VC community. There’s been lots of investment in video streaming solutions, especially recently, but by far the most dollars in this ecosystem are spent not with software providers but with small business venues and vendors around the world. Outside of the wedding market, which is less than 20 percent of the overall events industry, those small businesses lack a marketplace where they can promote themselves and be found. We’re committed to solving that problem.
As a part of our series about strong women leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Daphne Hoppenot.
Hoppenot began her career at enterprise software firm Yext, where she ran partnerships for seven years. She helped plan hundreds of events for the company, from private dinners to trade show booths at major conferences, but was frustrated at having to constantly search for new venues, design or theme ideas, and vendors. In 2019, after raising an initial financing round from previous colleagues and two top New York venture funds, she launched The Vendry, a marketplace for the corporate events industry, connecting planners with the best agencies, venues, and vendors for their events.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit. Recently I found the first business plan I ever wrote which, embarrassingly, was for a Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen fan club. I was also always inclined towards the hard sciences, so I studied engineering in college and then joined what, at the time, was an early stage startup called Yext. After that company IPO-ed seven years later I got the guts to set out and do my own thing.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
I’d argue the events ecosystem has largely been overlooked by the VC community. There’s been lots of investment in video streaming solutions, especially recently, but by far the most dollars in this ecosystem are spent not with software providers but with small business venues and vendors around the world. Outside of the wedding market, which is less than 20 percent of the overall events industry, those small businesses lack a marketplace where they can promote themselves and be found. We’re committed to solving that problem.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I was walking to my friend’s house in London, ready for the first time to tell someone other than my husband about the company I was planning to launch. On the streets of London, on that walk, I decided I needed a domain. I always wanted the “ven” sound in our name, because it fits in with “Event,” “Venue,” Vendor,” so I quickly looked up a couple options on GoDaddy and purchased evendra.com for $12. Over the next five months all I heard from friends, family, and investors was how awful my company name was. I heard from multiple different people that it sounded like a pharmaceutical company or a witch’s name. I was thrilled when we came up with The Vendry and I could move forward under a name I was proud of. Lesson learned to do some market research on your company name.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
My closest mentors are my old colleagues at Yext, across different levels of the organization. We were all in the engine room together for seven years, building a company from nothing into a publicly-traded global software brand, so that tends to be the community of people I lean on for advice. The most formative advice I got when I was starting The Vendry came from Yext’s CEO, Howard, who I’m proud to also count as an angel investor. I went to him early with my pitch, and at that point was taking more of a “boil the ocean” strategy, explaining how we’d cater our platform to the entire event market — from parents planning mitzvahs to event marketers producing major conferences. His advice to me was to focus, that building a platform that speaks to the needs of a social planner is very different from one for a professional planner and, if the market gap I was passionate about was in the latter, to focus there. That was one of the best strategic decisions we’ve made to date.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
With any disruption to an existing norm there will be winners and losers, and it’s a balance of understanding if the net gain for society is positive. The easy example is social media being a conduit of connection and joyful sharing across the globe, but also having the side effect of proliferating fake news that damages our society. Or self-driving cars being a net gain for society if there are fewer traffic accidents, but eliminating the jobs of millions of Uber, taxi, schoolbus, and truck drivers whose skillset is no longer relevant.
Sometimes, a system is so entrenched that only the government has the power to force positive disruption. That’s why we don’t allow companies to be monopolies. As another example, I’d argue that we’d benefit as a society by having a multi-party political system. Has our two-party system “withstood the test of time” or is it so entrenched that we’re unable to change it? Sometimes disruption needs to happen artificially, by the government deciding that a new norm would be in all of our best interests.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
I have mini mantras that I try to live by. Don’t be a drone. Feel the dirt. Channel your energy.
When I went to Princeton, something like 30 percent of the students graduating were going into investment banking and, especially as a Financial Engineering major, it felt like that was the pre-programmed outcome for me. I made this commitment to myself to not be a drone — to make sure I wasn’t making major life decisions just because of the environment around me but because I intrinsically felt confident it was the right decision to me.
After graduating and joining a tech startup, I was living a good life in the East Village full of work, Saturday brunches, and bopping around Manhattan with friends. But I couldn’t get rid of this nagging feeling that I was living in NYC on the surface, and not really getting to know the city and my fellow New Yorkers. I started volunteering regularly with New York Cares, and it was by far one of the most meaningful experiences of my early adulthood. I felt like I was digging in and getting to know the city with the level of depth it deserved.
Lastly, I launched The Vendry a week before giving birth to my son, and soon after our family went through a difficult health scare. With so many stresses (and joys!) that I was dealing with on a day to day basis, I had to really learn to compartmentalize my focus on a single task or subject. Being a working parent has absolutely made me a better professional, and it comes from refining the ability to channel my energy throughout the day.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
The live events industry has been devastated by COVID. We believe that as the economy rebounds, and the professionals in this industry get back on their feet, there is a role for a new type of jobs marketplace specifically tuned to the needs of event professionals.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?
Fear of being a stereotype. When I was pregnant, I had this urgent desire to prove to everyone that I wasn’t going to have a baby and promptly forget every professional ambition I had beforehand. I also wanted to prove that having a baby wouldn’t in any way deter me from being a successful founder. And then we went through the health scare I mentioned, and one of the most difficult things for me as our family’s future stood uncertain was “Am I going to prove to my investors that investing in a pregnant founder is a bad idea?” I felt a burden to not hurt the next pregnant women that went to them raising money. I’m lucky in that my family is ok and healthy and we were able to move on, but it never leaves my mind that I’m part of a small, special group of women who have successfully raised venture capital and that any success I could have in the future will help change people’s mindsets around the feasibility of women, even more so women with young children, being able to found great, global technology companies.
Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?
The Handmaid’s Tale left a mark on me like no other TV show I’ve ever watched. In particular I was struck by the scenes of diplomacy, with other nations doing business with Gilead and disapproving of the way they treated women but also accepting in part that it was Gilead’s culture. I wish it were as easy as a diplomat or businessperson to say “f-that” and not engage with societies that hold their women down, but of course it isn’t that simple. There are some countries around the world where I’m not sure I could morally justify The Vendry doing business.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
My maternal grandpa was an immigrant from Croatia who came to the US as a doctor and for a better life for his family. “Money is like manure, it’s only good if you spread it around.” was his favorite quote, and one he referred to often as he slipped us $10 bills to go buy some ice cream. I hope to embody the spirit of that quote throughout my life, and I admire leaders like MacKenzie Scott (formerly Bezos) who are generously reallocating their wealth to segments of society that can make better use of it.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Paying it forward. We as humans are naturally inclined towards reciprocity, it’s in our DNA to want a clean balance sheet with everyone around us. I’ve gotten so much help, so much good advice from people who don’t need anything from me. My new thing is to promise those people that I will pay it forward and really commit to doing that.
How can our readers follow you online?
They can follow my personal instagram @daphne.e.hoppenot.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
We’re reinventing wine for the modern consumer. Our 250ml cans equate to a glass and a half, and are easily packable to enjoy on any occasion. We understand consumers want convenience, our cans allow you to take our wine with you wherever you’d like, and there is no worrying about bottle openers or glasses. We’re actively sourcing our wine from the best wine regions in the world, ensuring you are getting the high-quality wine you deserve, in a can.
As a part of our series about strong women leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jessica Hershfield.
Jessica Hershfield is the Founder and CEO of Just Enough Wines. Jessica, Stanford ’12, pursued a career in big tech, working at Google, Uber, and Lime; before following her passion for wine. As a first time founder, she is excited about reinventing canned wine for the modern consumer.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
Since graduating from Stanford, I have pursued a career in big tech. I started by working on Google Glass, helping set up and run their physical retail store in San Francisco. In the summer of 2014, I left, and followed a boy I was dating to Singapore. While there, I joined Uber as one of their first marketing hires in the region. After a year of amazing experiences throughout Asia, and beating the heat of Singapore, I realized it was time to come home. I wanted to work for a team that directly impacted every Uber rider globally, and decided I wanted to switch from Marketing to Product. I joined the HQ marketplace team at Uber working on the rider incentives product. After 3.5 years at Uber, I left to pursue other ventures. I took about 6 months off, tried and failed to start a business. I attempted to start an alcoholic popsicle company (there is a theme of alcohol in my life), but don’t think I was in the right headspace to start a business. A few months later I was asked to join Lime to help start and grow their Product Operations organization.
Despite the innovation in big tech, throughout the years I found myself unfulfilled. I was wondering why I was not following my passions. At the end of 2019 I was in Spain, wine tasting, and dreading going back to work. I was much more fascinated by the culture of wine, then the inner workings of a scooter. Wine has always been something I have loved. I wanted to solve my own problem — either drinking too much wine, or not finishing the bottle and wasting it a few days later; so I landed on a single format solution to wine. After a year at Lime, I left, and started Just Enough Wines in the beginning of 2020.
Living in San Francisco, I naturally gravitated to canned drinks as a portable and convenient way to take with me as I explored local parks and beaches, but I struggled to find a canned wine that actually tasted… good. I couldn’t understand how there could be an incredible wine region an hour drive from me, but I couldn’t find a canned wine solution that held up to the quality of wine found in a traditional bottle. I set out to make a canned wine that escapes the poor quality expectation, allowing us all to drink the wine we desire whenever and wherever we want.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
The wine industry, while incredibly large, is still very antiquated. The US wine market alone is a $75 billion dollar industry. However, there are countless reports talking about the decline in wine sales, driven by the fact that my generation of millennials are not pursuing wine like other generations. The traditional format of wine packaged in a glass bottle, and sold through tasting rooms, is failing to interest my generation.
We’re reinventing wine for the modern consumer. Our 250ml cans equate to a glass and a half, and are easily packable to enjoy on any occasion. We understand consumers want convenience, our cans allow you to take our wine with you wherever you’d like, and there is no worrying about bottle openers or glasses. We’re actively sourcing our wine from the best wine regions in the world, ensuring you are getting the high-quality wine you deserve, in a can.
We also know our customers care about sustainability. With aluminum being the most commonly recycled material out there, we are so excited to bring our love for wine and love for the planet together. We’re also donating 1% of revenues to environmentally friendly non-profits through our partnership with 1% for the Planet.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Before we launched, we set up a landing page to collect email signups. We ran a small social media ad campaign as a test to see if we could drive people to the landing page and get some sign-ups. We were excited because we had some good click-through rates, and people were getting to our landing page, but not a single sign-up. Not ONE. After some back and forth checking to make sure the ads were correct, we realized that the part on the landing page where you enter your email was broken.. and had been broken for weeks. While disappointing, I will now always test the end to end flow of a consumer before launching anything related to the website.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
Going into an industry I knew nothing about, I relied very heavily on mentors. Some mentors have included industry professionals with years of experience in wine, other founders (including my boyfriend Bradley who is also less than a year into his own startup), social media influencers, and my parents.
I’ll tell the story of Ross Bentley. Ross has over 10 years experience in the wine industry, building some big name wine brands. He came on to help with wine operations, initially leaning in heavily on sourcing and tasting the wine. The first time we ever tasted wine with him, I had this preconceived notion that tasting the wine was going to be super nuanced. I was slightly nervous going in, thinking he was going to start smelling random things like tobacco and barnyard, and tasting notes of cherry and allspice. I was worried I was going to be out of my league. However, the biggest advice he gave us was before doing anything, smell and taste the wine, and just say to yourself, “do I like this? Would I drink a whole can of this?” And that was it. No complicated wine jargon, just simply, do you like it. The complicated wine jargon came later ☺.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
A pivotal part of my career was spent at Uber, one of the biggest disruptors of our time. I fully believe in the positive change that Uber brought — it provided more reliable transportation to more people at affordable rates. I know we can’t imagine a world without Uber anymore, and I stand by the work they have done to change the ecosystem of transportation.
That being said, I know Uber had an impact on the existing modes of transportation that existed. I know the taxi industry was hit hard by Uber, and some people may have lost a job they had known for years. While the disruption was a positive overall, that was a not so positive impact of Uber.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
Just do one thing each day — In the beginning stages of starting a company, the biggest challenge I faced was motivation. There would be days where I didn’t know what to do next, or where to even start on something. In those days, I told myself just to do one thing each day. Just take one step forward. Eventually you get to a place where you gain traction, and you no longer have the time to do just one thing each day.
Spend the time to build the brand — Before we did any building, we spent weeks focusing on our brand story and narrative, really diving into what we stand for and what we want to share. Having a solid understanding of our brand helped drive every decision we made. From what wine to source and why, to the colors we used, to the copy on our website; having a solid understanding of your brand is super important to ensure a consistent experience for our customers.
Remember to celebrate the milestones — When you start to build a company, things get really busy, really fast. It’s easy to forget to take a moment to celebrate when successes do happen. However, it’s so important to remember why you’re doing this by taking the time to celebrate wins, even if small. I remember we celebrated when we got to our 100th Instagram follower. While small in comparison, this was a big win at the time for us.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
We believe we’re at the precipice of canned wine, and it’s only going to get bigger. We plan on scaling to more states, bringing our wine to more people. We’re also going to add more varietals to our lineup, ensuring everyone gets to enjoy the high-quality wine they prefer from a can.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?
One of the biggest challenges I have faced throughout all aspects of my career is imposter syndrome. I have felt my accomplishments didn’t matter, and that I would be exposed as not being capable of doing the role I was supposed to do.
A lot of women I know face this similar challenge at a greater extent compared to their male counterparts. The wine industry is a typically male-dominated industry, and at times I found myself wondering if I could break into this industry, especially as a woman. Would I be able to stand up for myself and my company’s needs enough? While men do face imposter syndrome, they don’t have to worry about the added pressure of being a woman in a male-dominated field.
Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?
It might sound cliché, but I love “How I Built This with Guy Raz.” Every entrepreneur dreams about starting a successful business, and I love listening to the stories of people who have done it. Most of the time, you learn about the scrappiness, about how things never go completely as planned, and how you have to roll with the punches. It is inspiring to hear about how it can be done.
My favorite one is the story of Spanks. Sara Blakely is an inspiration for women to follow their passion, not be afraid of rejection, and how to start a company while maintaining your life. As a woman trying to pursue my passion, while still navigating the confusing social expectations of the world, I would like to be more like her.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
The wallpaper of my phone reads, “stop doubting yourself, work hard, and make it happen.” Every time I go to pick up my phone, it’s a constant reminder that I can do this. Doubt is the enemy of success, and I truly believe that if I set my mind to something, I can make it happen.
I have wanted to start companies before. In the past, I stayed in my job, and remained paralyzed from taking the leap to start my company because I was afraid. It takes work to remind myself that I can do this, and this is a reminder to myself that I can.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I took a leap, and escaped the “expected” of my reality. I would love for people to take a step back from their day to day expectations, and really think about why they are making the choices that they are making. Are you expected to be in a certain job, or hold a certain title, or live a certain way? Does this make you happy? I would love for people to holistically think about the life they want to lead and take steps to make that happen. It won’t always be easy, but I truly believe there are ways to make it happen if you try.
How can our readers follow you online?
You can learn more about our company and myself at justenoughwines.com. We’re also available on social media @justenoughwines, and my personal page @jesshershfield.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Our mission is to empower everyone to design spaces, together. The Landing is a fundamentally different approach to the existing options of endless choice filtered on price or convenience (e.g. online furniture marketplaces), or alternatively, a “full service” design tool that removes all decision-making from the consumer (e.g. e-design services). We’ve created a set of tools, inspiration, and light-touch support that fits seamlessly into your existing process, but just makes it easier. At the core of this is our free, online, collaborative design tool.
As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ellie Buckingham and Miri Buckland.
Ellie Buckingham and Miri Buckland are Co-founders, and CEO and COO, respectively, of The Landing. Prior to The Landing, Buckingham spent her days on the trading floor at Goldman Sachs and her nights in the painting studio. Buckland studied Economics at Oxford and worked in Corporate Strategy at SKY TV before moving to Silicon Valley to study at Stanford and launch The Landing.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
The Landing was born during a chance roadtrip we found ourselves on in September 2017. We had both just started at Stanford Business School, and the recent pain of moving and furnishing our dorm rooms was top of mind.
Ellie is the quintessential advice giver and “design-y best friend” — the daughter of an interior designer with a BA in Fine Arts who always found herself designing in her free time. Very left brain/right brain, she was a double major in Economics for good measure and was coming into business school with years of experience on the trading floor in Goldman Sachs.
Miri was the perennial mover and customer in need of design help. Originally from London, Miri has moved around a ton, each time gaining deeper appreciation for the impact our spaces can have on our wellbeing, especially in new environments. She was entering Stanford with a background in operations, analysis and corporate strategy at Sky TV in London.
Seated next to each other on that long drive to Southern California, we discovered our endless curiosity for why things didn’t work and how to make them better, a shared passion for magical customer experiences, and the complementary way our brains worked. Bonding over our terrible moving/furnishing experiences, the seed of The Landing was born!
We then spent months diving into the customer problem both in and out of the classroom, including many afternoons at IKEA with clipboards and our best interviewing techniques. We discovered not only a need for a new approach to furnishing, but also our complementary skill sets, Ellie’s creative thinking combined with Miri’s systems-orientation, and similar values: eternal optimism, grit, EQ over ego, and making empathetic team building a priority. With the support of professors and resources from both Stanford Business School and Stanford’s d.school, we started rapidly prototyping different solutions to the furnishing problem. We ran a beta in SF the summer of 2019, and in the year since then, we have built out a team, created and launched our interactive design tool, partnered with over 25 inspiring suppliers and started creating space, together.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
Our mission is to empower everyone to design spaces, together. The Landing is a fundamentally different approach to the existing options of endless choice filtered on price or convenience (e.g. online furniture marketplaces), or alternatively, a “full service” design tool that removes all decision-making from the consumer (e.g. e-design services). We’ve created a set of tools, inspiration, and light-touch support that fits seamlessly into your existing process, but just makes it easier. At the core of this is our free, online, collaborative design tool.
We exist to empower creativity and we’re here to shake up the belief that individuals are either inherently creative or not. We’re not here to tell you what to do in the traditional interior designer sense or impose an off-the-shelf design you’ve seen elsewhere. Instead, we’re empowering anyone to design, envision, explore and execute on their vision for an inspiring space. We’re here to help you discover, to support you if you need it, and to enable you to collaborate with people who know you best.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Last summer, in the middle of graduation, we started running a very manual beta test in San Francisco. We wanted to test our idea of providing an end-to-end furnishing solution, which, in reality, meant designing customers’ apartments over Google Slides, ordering all of their items to our storage unit in the Mission, renting a u-haul, delivering and assembling over 200 pieces of furniture in 10 weeks. Needless to say, we came out of the summer both physically and mentally stronger than ever and with many funny stories of things gone wrong. A particular instance that comes to mind was when we delivered a couch to a customer that came in 2 halves. It was only once we had lugged it across the city and up 2 flights of stairs that we realised the supplier had sent us two left-hand sides! Thankfully, our customer was incredibly understanding and put up with half of a couch for a few days!
Our beta test was super high-touch and not a scalable business model but we are so glad that we took the time to go through the furnishing journey with our customers and really listen to them. We proved and disproved so many of our hypotheses in such a short time. If we hadn’t taken the time to do that, we would be building a completely different business, and one that few people actually want.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
Anne Raimondi — our GSB lecturer turned mentor and investor Anne has been an amazing source of inspiration, support, and guidance along the way. From our first day’s in Anne’s startup garage class at the GSB, to our regular meetings since, she has been a calm and guiding force, always asking the right probing questions to see things from a different perspective, and giving us the confidence needed to take the leap. She always encouraged us to keep asking “why” and get as close as possible to our customers, letting their feedback guide us.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
When you think of disruption in business, you often think about things that ultimately have a positive impact on consumers by giving them access to higher-value options. We purposefully didn’t say cheaper or better — often times, in mature industries, customers are getting over-engineered products with features they don’t actually need, so ‘disruptors’ can come in at the lower-end of the market and provide simpler, cheaper products that actually are better-fit to the customer need. On the other hand, improvements to supply-chain often result in the same products but lower cost, which can be amazing. We’ve seen this a lot in direct-to-consumer companies that have “cut out the middleman” and provided customers access to the same products, with less mark-up.
However, we think this type of disruption has likely had a net negative impact in the home furnishing industry. We’ve seen a flood of mass-market furniture brands providing cheaper, mass-produced products to consumers. On the surface, this is great, because the products are cheaper. In practice, this has meant lower-quality, shorter-lasting products that consumers have to replace frequently and ultimately end up in landfills. While it’s a generalization, these products tend to also be built by large companies that are less intentional about values, employee culture, and sustainability.
At The Landing, we’ve been very intentional about building against this mass-produced reality, and instead have built with value in mind, when curating our product assortment. We don’t think of products in terms of ticket price, but in terms of value — while our product mix might be more expensive than that on a Wayfair, we know the quality is higher so you are getting a longer-lasting, better designer product. Some investors have called this “disruptive” when really, we’re just taking the industry back to the standard of quality it had before it was “disrupted” in the first place.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
“Create space for joy”. A core belief at The Landing is the importance of creating physical, mental, and shared space. Our homes are the backdrops to our lives and now, amidst COVID, we’re using our spaces in more ways that we could ever have imagined. Beyond the physical, we believe that our outer world shapes, encourages, and expresses our inner worlds. This belief is so core to our business, our mission, and our team that we turned it into a company value of “creating space for joy”. For us, this means celebrating each other, making time for the activities and people who bring us joy, and encouraging our users to create joy through creativity on The Landing.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
We’re just getting started! In a broader sense, we fundamentally believe that the shopping experience, especially in the home furnishing market, is changing. We’re no longer optimizing around conversion, but engagement. If you think about furniture shopping in the physical world, it is fun, collaborative, social and interactive. But online, it has typically been all about search, endless choice, price and convenience. We believe that consumers crave a new experience — a personalized experience that allows them to collaborate with friends and brings entertainment back into the furnishing journey. We have many exciting new features in the works to make The Landing even more collaborative and social experience.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?
We’re deep believers in the fact that ‘weaknesses’ and strengths are often two sides of the same coin. There is a lot of talk about how women leaders are ‘too sensitive’ or ‘too emotional’. While we think using ‘too’ in terms of any adjective is problematic in it’s implied judgment, we embrace the idea of sensitivity, emotion, and most importantly empathy in the way we’re building our company.
Our natural inclination to empathy is a superpower that we believe we have as ‘women disruptors’ that is not as typically exhibited in male-dominated environments (though to be honest, even this generalization of both gender-identities feels unfair!). When we look back at what it took to pivot company strategy so quickly and launch effectively in a pandemic, the unsung hero was our and team’s ability to continue to perform at a very high-level while moving through immense change. We know this level of excellence was enabled by a deep sense of empathy — a combination of personalized support, creating space, and a sense of responsibility for each other.
Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?
This is a tough one — there are so many to choose from!
We love the podcast “How to Fail by Elizabeth Day”, a podcast that self-describes as celebrating the things that haven’t gone right. It’s about understanding that learning how we fail in life, actually means learning how to succeed better. From authors and journalists, to musicians and chefs, Elizabeth delves into the stories of her guests three biggest failures. It’s her reframing of failure as something to be celebrated, talked about, encouraged and important, that is so refreshing and so relatable. Failure is a crucial part of the journey in starting a business and trying to build something that hasn’t been done before. There are highs and lows on a daily basis, and some of our biggest directional shifts have come from being proven wrong in our hypotheses. The way we frame failure is critical to our leadership as founders and our team culture.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
One of our favorite quotes came from a professor at the GSB during our last lectures before graduation. He said, “Regret for what you’ve done can be tempered with time. Regret for what you’ve not done cannot”. This quote so perfectly captures our perspective on taking the leap of faith to start The Landing and pursue entrepreneurship. As we approached graduation and faced the choice of a traditional, steady corporate job versus the unpredictable adventure of starting a business, we both knew in our gut that it wasn’t really a choice at all. We had cultivated the perfect storm of finding each other (the ying to our yang), deep conviction in the problem we’re trying to solve, and unbounded determination. As Ellie always says, the risk wasn’t in taking the leap of faith, the risk was in not taking the leap.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Our goal is to be one of the leading voices in a new wave of companies that refuses to accept the status quo, and instead builds a new, more equitable normal. We hope to inspire a movement within entrepreneurship that prioritizes how we build our companies, as well as what we build.
We never expected to launch our company amidst a global pandemic and a period of unprecedented national movement, but we’re incredibly grateful for the opportunity to do so. We are planting the seeds today for a radically different tomorrow — making diversity, equity and inclusion a priority from the get-go. We want to do things differently in the home-furnishing market, a market that is traditionally dominated by white- and male-owned brands. We’re starting by committing to the 15% pledge of having 15% of our brands be Black-owned businesses by the end of the year. We’re also taking an intersectional lens to our existing environmental and sustainability goals, one that advocates for the protection of both people and our planet.
We are in the process of laying the building blocks of our foundation as a company, from values, to policies, to processes, and know that every decision — especially at such an early stage — can have outsized effects on our future. As such, we are committed to weaving the movement for reparation and equity into the fabric of our company through the decisions we make in the platform we are creating, the brands we are elevating, and the team we are building.
We hope we can inspire the new wave of founders to do the same.
How can our readers follow you online?
You can follow us on instagram @thelandinghome and check out our blog at www.thelandinghome.com
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Stringr has really changed the way video is sourced and produced. Our technology connects creators with talent around the globe as well as allows teams to work collaboratively, whether they’re in a studio, the field, or — these days — in their pajamas. Need video from Omaha? It’s a click of a button. How about a live shot on the beach in Hawaii? Another click. Want a full transcript of an interview you just captured live on the Stringr platform? Just press a button. So much of video production used to be completed in-studio, but with our platform, you can source anything, collaborate with colleagues on an edit and publish from anywhere. The power of cloud-based tech with the largest global network of videographers.
As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Lindsay Stewart. Lindsay Stewart is co-founder of Stringr, a media-tech company with an international network of 100,000+ videographers that can be mobilized to capture news in minutes, anywhere. A veteran producer with ABC News, Fox News, and Bloomberg TV, Lindsay spotted inefficiencies in the ways that newsrooms covered breaking news and sought out to change them. Together with co-founder Brian McNeil, Lindsay launched Stringr in 2014.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I always wanted to be a broadcast journalist and spent the first 12 years of my career working for primarily national news organizations including ABC, FNC, and Bloomberg. When I founded Stringr I was working for ABC and thought there had to be a faster way to source video from the field. Fast forward to today and Stringr has more than 100k videographers responding to real-time requests. We also have built the most efficient video production platform that allows teams to work seamlessly in the cloud to source, transcribe, edit, caption video — whether it’s live or taped. And we also have a great internal news and custom content production team under the Embed Studios banner.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
Stringr has really changed the way video is sourced and produced. Our technology connects creators with talent around the globe as well as allows teams to work collaboratively, whether they’re in a studio, the field, or — these days — in their pajamas. Need video from Omaha? It’s a click of a button. How about a live shot on the beach in Hawaii? Another click. Want a full transcript of an interview you just captured live on the Stringr platform? Just press a button. So much of video production used to be completed in-studio, but with our platform, you can source anything, collaborate with colleagues on an edit and publish from anywhere. The power of cloud-based tech with the largest global network of videographers.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I forgot to hit the submit button for my Trademark application and a little later someone else claimed they had the rights to the mark. Not exactly funny, but pretty boneheaded. I make sure to hit submit now when generating new lines of business for the company.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
I have so many people who have mentored me along the way. I am incredibly lucky.
Jon Brady (Now with Sinclair) and Don Fair (I hired him! He now runs Embed.News, Stringr’s news service): These two were my bosses in the LA bureau at FNC. They taught me how to hold a good editorial meeting (all ideas allowed, but expect a vigorous debate.) They also worked me pretty hard — so now, no job can make me tired.
Dan Schnur (UC Berkeley): Dan worked in politics for many years running communications for various campaigns. One of the messages he repeats over and over to his students — and in my case, a journalist who interviewed him a lot — is, “hang a lantern on it” meaning if you have a problem, talk about it openly and quickly, so that a swarm of speculation doesn’t consume you. I try to bring this mentality to problems at Stringr. Did we make a mistake with a partner? Call them, shine a light on it. Dedicate yourself to identifying the problem and then fixing it to the best of your ability.
Ross Becker (Hubbard Broadcasting) — Ross was the first on-air “talent” I worked with. He taught me how to write a broadcast story and how to ask questions, but more importantly, he taught me how to listen and respond with better questions.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
I’m pretty convinced that the only people who like speaking of disruption in a good light are journalists and VCs who also love to use the word “unicorn” a lot. I mean — even the old phrase — “change is good” is usually invoked within a context of uncertainty. So when you change or disrupt something that means you are changing people and the processes you hold dear. And don’t get me wrong: change needs to happen. But when you budge the status quo around — it’s a tough battle. You have to understand your customer. When I say that, I don’t mean just the executives who buy new products, I mean the people who will use your product. What makes them excited? What makes them scared? And if their excitement doesn’t outweigh their fear — tough times ahead. At the end of the day, we should be disruptive. Being disruptive is good when it’s constructive and serves a need that is being ignored.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
“Building a business takes seven years.” — Lots of folks think or hear that building a company is an 18-month process. It’s not.
“Hang a lantern on it.” (again) At Stringr I say, point your finger at the problem, not another person — which is another way to say seeing an issue in plain light is the first step towards coming up with a solution or at the very least, not taking that path again.
“Push for the fast no.” In a world where everything is tough and you want to be accepted, and you want your company to succeed, sometimes you delay following up fearing “the no,” hoping you are going to get that yes. I’ve found that when raising capital, following up until someone says no — actually nets some unexpected yeses. This makes up for the Nos you thought would turn into yeses. There are a lot of those too.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
We are taking our capabilities and putting them in the hands of more people creating video: brands, agencies, e-commerce. It’s incredible how many people want or need to tell their story, the story of their company, the story of their blender — with video.
We are also putting our tech stack in the hands of our customers. Want to shoot live video yourself? Do it with Stringr. Want to store, transcribe and resell your video? Do it with Stringr. Stringr isn’t just a service any longer, it’s a tech platform — it’s likely the most efficient video production tool.
Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?
I was an English major in college, and so lots of what I’ve read in the past has an impact on me. A couple of things come to mind: Proust’s “Remembrance of Things Past.” Why? There’s a part where the main character wonders if a door handle appears to him as it does, because of his own perceptions. Esoteric right? Stay with me. Because of this book, I often ask myself, how much do my perceptions and biases impact how I view something? And for important decisions, I really try to step back from my intrinsic bias. That’s tough. But I try.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Just Do It. –Smart ad agency or creative that works with Nike. I have a bias for action and sometimes I make the wrong or too hasty a decision but I find pushing the ball forward is more important than being right all of the time.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Ha! Not sure if I am a person of great influence… but… I’d make education — especially at the junior high and high school levels — not only more accessible, but more supported. I’d try to figure out a way for communities to support each other better in this realm. They say it takes a village, I really believe that and I wish when it came to education, people like me had easier conduits for being of constructive help to the public education system. I believe that education and access to opportunity fuel equality more than anything.
Meet The Disruptors: How Aviv Shalgi Of Solar Simplified Is Shaking Up The Renewable Energy Industry
Solar Simplified is disrupting the world of alternative renewable energy. We are breaking the reliance of renewable energy developers on the large energy-consuming corporations, such as factories and manufacturers, in order to expand their addressable population to every consumer and business that pays an electricity bill. We enable developers to reach the masses without bearing the costs of building sales, marketing and billing organizations by building a groundbreaking, innovative and highly efficient B2C platform.
As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Aviv Shalgi.
Aviv Shalgi is a serial entrepreneur, and is the CEO of an energy tech startup, Solar Simplified. His military background, engineering career, and consulting experience have allowed Aviv to become a well-rounded business leader. As an innovator, Aviv has always been focused on positive disruption in industries where there are opportunities to solve fundamental problems. This is what drew him to Solar Simplified, where he strives to make affordable renewable energy accessible to everyone, while providing consumers with guaranteed savings and making the process simple and transparent for consumers, solar developers and regulators.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
My military background, engineering career, as well as consulting experience have allowed me to become a well-rounded entrepreneur. As an innovator, I have always been focused on positive disruption in industries where there are opportunities to solve fundamental problems. This is why I felt compelled to join Solar Simplified. Additionally, the company is determined to make a positive impact on the environment, which is extremely important to me.
When I first moved to the U.S., a well-known energy company attempted to scam me. Luckily, I was able to cancel my service before I lost money on the deal; however, I later learned that bait and switch is a common practice by unethical players in the industry. Many Americans are unaware of these shady practices and are often scammed by energy companies. At Solar Simplified, one of my key objectives as CEO is to make solar energy accessible to all, while making the process simple and transparent.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
Solar Simplified is disrupting the world of alternative renewable energy. We are breaking the reliance of renewable energy developers on the large energy-consuming corporations, such as factories and manufacturers, in order to expand their addressable population to every consumer and business that pays an electricity bill. We enable developers to reach the masses without bearing the costs of building sales, marketing and billing organizations by building a groundbreaking, innovative and highly efficient B2C platform.
For years, market conditions have been historically prohibitive. Recently, technological advancements in solar have made significant strides, helping to reduce costs. This coupled with government support has allowed the developers to create lasting infrastructure for the renewable energy industry. Consumer education is the missing link, and our unique grassroots marketing and efficient customer acquisition strategy help to overcome this hurdle.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
In my second week on the job at Taptica, which was the first startup I worked at where I helped to build an innovative targeting algorithm known as behavioral personalization, I was sent to a large gaming conference in Amsterdam all by myself. I developed my pitch during the flight there with key phrases and data points that I learned from our Chief Technology Officer and VP of Product. I attempted to tailor the pitch to what I thought was important and understandable to most business people.
During the second day of the conference, I noticed that there was a gentleman that many seemed to fear, as no one was speaking with him. Due to my naivety, as I had never been in a sales or business development role before and mostly practiced my pitch in my head, I approached him and struck up a conversation, starting with some small talk. I tried to move the conversation to what we were doing and how we can help them to find valuable users who aren’t already players.The gentleman turned out to be associated with Rovio, creators of the Angry Birds saga. Obviously he wasn’t interested in my pitch nor in doing business with us or anyone else. They were at the top of their game and didn’t need anybody’s help, but the conversation itself was nice and he was a great person to meet.
However, due to my naivety and fearlessness, we closed a deal with his team in 12 months. We were the only advertising startup that they trusted at the time, as they were solely focusing on the giants (i.e. Google and Facebook).
I learned that there’s no need to fear anyone. Each person in an organization has goals — the key is understanding what their incentives are, what drives them, what they fear and how you can help them reach their business goals.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
My mom and dad were always my biggest supporters and mentors. From an early age my parents instilled in me that “the sky is not the limit,” and that I should always think big, try to understand the driving forces behind everything, question why things are the way they are and how they can be done better. That has been my approach to every task, problem, and project I’ve been faced with ever since.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
Innovation is always a positive thing in my mind. Disruptive innovation depends on the outcome of the action. Negative disruption happens when we choose to sacrifice our future for a small short term gain with a significant long term loss. This can happen in many industries; however, a large discussion has been had recently in the plastic industry, specifically in regards to plastic wrap. This was an incredible innovation at the time of its invention as it reduced costs significantly for both manufacturers and consumers, and kept food fresh for longer. However, only recently we’ve been learning of the terrible effects it has on our planet. Due to plastic not being naturally recyclable, there are now floating islands of plastic in the oceans.
We believe that Solar Simplified has a positive impact on both society and our environment. Renewable energy is the future, and through our solution everyone is able to share the benefits of renewable energy, including consumers, businesses, developers, and governmental entities. The infrastructure, technology, and government support that has been put in place positions the renewable energy industry for long term success.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
The best advice I’ve ever been given surprisingly came from a Star Wars Movie. During my military service as an officer, I had the incredible honor to initiate and launch a special team that simulated a startup within my unit. My goal was to use our dedicated systems and knowledge in order to build products that would serve a broader audience within the defense sector.
I built a pitch deck, similar to one an entrepreneur would create when pitching to Venture Capitalists, and presented the idea to my superiors. They approved my vision and allowed me to recruit a few extraordinary soldiers for my team.
I received a lot of pushback and faced skepticism from outside actors, especially early on. After feeling slightly defeated, my commanding officer quoted Yoda from Star Wars to me — “Do, or do not, there is no try”. If you are telling yourself that you are trying, you have already accepted the fact that you could be defeated, which is unacceptable in entrepreneurship. You must have unwavering belief in yourself, in your idea and in your team, in order to beat the odds that are stacked against you.
This phrase gave me the courage as a young officer to push forward and never give up. It is fine to pivot and approach the task from every possible angle until you’re able to reach your goal. A year later, I was awarded the Major General of the Intelligence Corps award for Creative Thinking for multiple cross-branch projects that my team and I had created, which showed how unwavering dedication truly pays off.
Lead generation is one of the most important aspects of any business. Can you share some of the strategies you use to generate good, qualified leads?
We believe that consumer education and consumer skepticism related to alternative energy suppliers are the biggest hurdles in our space. As a result, Solar Simplified developed a unique guerilla marketing, hyper-localized approach that reaches and educates consumers which allows us to generate high quality leads and efficiently subscribe consumers and businesses. We continuously seek consumer feedback in order to improve our offering and the customer experience. Solar Simplified takes every opportunity to get in front of the end consumer to educate the public on Community Solar and our offering by sponsoring events, conducting interviews, and holding info sessions. Our goal is to create a new ‘solar for everyone’ category, and for Solar Simplified to become synonymous with this movement.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
Affordable renewable energy should no longer be restricted to corporations, as the market conditions are there for it to become a widespread reality. At Solar Simplified, we have a Robin Hood-like approach and want to make affordable renewable energy accessible to everyone and share the wealth with the end consumer in the form of guaranteed savings. All Americans should have access and be able to support renewable energy in their area while saving money each month on their electric bill. This is especially relevant in times when economic conditions are uncertain, as we have recently been experiencing through this global crisis.
As a company, we have seen great success and overwhelming interest in upstate New York. Our goal for 2020 is to expand across the entirety of New York State, as well as launch several other markets across the East Coast.
Additionally, our mission is to work with state regulators and legislators to make sure initiatives like ours are easier and simpler for customers. Customers have gotten used to simple and easy to use solutions, such as Amazon and Uber, yet the energy industry has not experienced much innovation and remains archaic. We are here to change that by encouraging the use of renewable energy throughout the U.S., while saving our customers money each month.
Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?
I’m a big fan of John F. Kennedy’s space speech. It was an innovative and bold vision back then and it still holds true today. It’s also valuable for every entrepreneur, especially ones who are challenging themselves to be innovative, disruptive and are looking to take society and mankind to the next level. As entrepreneurs, we choose to do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. One has to truly believe in their ability and dreams to risk many years of your adult life knowing that over 90% will fail, and yet still pursue your dreams and try to make them a reality.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Steve Jobs said it best, “Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”
Prior to joining Solar Simplified, I’ve switched careers 3 times until I found what I love to do and what gets me up in the morning. Studies have shown that too many people choose comfort over happiness and often stay in a job or a role they don’t like because searching for what you truly love takes risk, and with risk there’s an option of failing.
We believe in our mission and know that renewables are the future. We need to take care of our environment, as it’s now more important than ever.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I’m a huge supporter of expanding and teaching financial literacy. The most important knowledge people can gain is how to successfully run their own financial life with confidence. It’s a profit and loss statement, a balance sheet and a cash flow statement all in one, just like every business. However, most do not learn in high school or college how to run a personal budget, live below your means, save for a rainy day, plan for retirement, or build and maintain a credit score. Solar Simplified ties directly into the personal finances category, as it allows for consumers to reduce their monthly expenses and learn how to budget as well.
How can our readers follow you online?
You can follow Solar Simplified on Twitter (@SolarSim) and check out our website here.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Female Disruptors: How Eloiza Domingo & Astellas Pharma US Are Shaking Up The Pharmaceutical Industry
With race, language and culture underscoring the healthcare inequities that have impacted underserved communities for decades, cultural competency has become ever more relevant and critical in the healthcare environment today. We serve a broad range of patients at Astellas Pharma, and we’re focused on creating culturally competent health solutions that engage our communities and turn our innovative science into value for patients — because true understanding is necessary to create equity for all patients
As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Eloiza Domingo.
Eloiza Domingo is the Executive Director and Global Head of Engagement, Diversity & Inclusion of Astellas Pharma US. She assumed this role in 2018 with responsibility for developing and implementing a sustainable Diversity and Inclusion strategy that reflects and enhances Astellas’ culture and work environment.
In her previous role as Senior Director and Deputy Chief Diversity Officer at Johns Hopkins Medicine and The Johns Hopkins Health System Corporation, Eloiza led diversity leadership programs across all of the health system’s medical facilities and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. In this role, she led Johns Hopkins Medicine to Forbes Top 100 Places to Work list as well as earning a Diversity Innovation award for the inception of the Center for Transgender Care, a comprehensive health center for transgender patients. Formerly, she was a consultant and department lead for diversity and inclusion at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
Eloiza has been recognized as one of the 100 Most Influential Filipina Women in the World by the Filipina Women’s Network, received the 2017 Senior Executive award from the National Association of Healthcare Executives, and was featured on the Maryland Daily Record’s Very Important Professionals Success by 40 list.
Eloiza holds an M.S. in Higher Education and Student Affairs with a minor in Counseling and concentration in Diversity Education, and a B.A. in Psychology and Sociology with a minor in Spanish from Indiana University in Bloomington, IN. She is currently earning her doctorate in literacy, language and culture from the University of Maryland Baltimore County.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
My parents — both physicians — emigrated from the Philippines in the 1970s in pursuit of the American dream. It was inspiring to understand that they left their families, moved to an area where they didn’t know anyone and established their healthcare careers in a completely different country and culture. I learned how to love being Filipino, but that didn’t happen overnight! When I was little, I stood out, I didn’t speak English well and I didn’t like it — I would wonder, “Why do I speak differently than everyone else, look different, wear different clothes?” But through time and many experiences, I have come to realize that these differences have made me who I am today.
It was this combination of experiencing being different and having parents in medicine that led me to join the healthcare industry with a focus in diversity. Living in the same house with two physicians, I had a level of comfort around doctors and hospitals, which provided me with a deeper understanding of the healthcare system. Coupled with my passion for healthcare engagement/health equity and my robust studies of patient/provider concordance, I’ve had the opportunity to have a front row seat to the evolution of Diversity and Inclusion through my career and now as the global head and executive director of diversity and inclusion at Astellas Pharma, which is a Tokyo-based pharmaceutical company dedicated to improving the health of people around the world with a focus on oncology, urology, cardiology, immunology and transplant. I work in the U.S. division, which is located just outside Chicago.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
With race, language and culture underscoring the healthcare inequities that have impacted underserved communities for decades, cultural competency has become ever more relevant and critical in the healthcare environment today. We serve a broad range of patients at Astellas Pharma, and we’re focused on creating culturally competent health solutions that engage our communities and turn our innovative science into value for patients — because true understanding is necessary to create equity for all patients.
We know that disruptive innovation must come from both outside our walls and outside of medicine, so each year at Astellas, we search for the best ideas to tackle challenges that face people impacted by cancer. The Astellas Oncology C3 (Changing Cancer Care) Prize program is a global competition that awards $200,000 in grants and resources to the best ideas beyond medicine that can ease the cancer journey for people living with cancer, their caregivers and families. We are currently looking for ideas to change cancer care, particularly ideas that can help address health disparities stemming from health inequalities, including systematic differences in the health of communities that have unequal positions in society.
Now more than ever, we take our role seriously in bringing different voices to the table through our judges and moving non-treatment ideas forward by connecting C3 Prize recipients to resources and support.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
I’ve had many significant mentors throughout my career, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my family who has always been such an inspiring and supportive part of my journey.
From a young age, I was taught to be proud of who we were. With my parents both being doctors and immigrants from the Philippines, I watched my parents come from nothing — they had five dollars and a radio when they came to America to pursue their careers in medicine. In time, they grew to run a number of cancer centers — it was the American dream and it inspires me every day. Everything about my family drove me to this career and made me confident in my work.
My parents also taught me about the importance of putting patients first. My father worked in oncology and geriatrics and impressed upon me that while many of his patients would pass away, his responsibility was great: to ease suffering and ensure understanding of the situation for the patient and their loved ones. I’ll never forget that childhood lesson that medicine is about putting the person first, which is what drew me to Astellas because here we put the patient first in everything that do.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
Healthy disruption makes an incredibly positive impact on systems, structures and organizations of all types. This type of disruption — or as I prefer to call it, bold, innovative change — must be strategic and aligned with the identity of the institution. It must come through an educated, caring lens. On the other hand, disruption just to “stir the pot” at best fails to create meaningful change, and at worst, can be very destructive.
In a previous role, I served as the deputy chief diversity officer and senior director of diversity at a leading health care system and we disrupted the status quo for how people in the transgender community were able to receive quality, respectful care. We developed a medicine center for transgender health at a time when few such health centers existed on the East Coast, and it was a bold, innovative change that also aligned closely with the organization’s identity, ability and vision. Our vision of reducing health care disparities and improving the overall health of the transgender community was at its core consistent with the organization’s goals, supporting the health of patients and the business of operating a large health system.
Disruption in an organization must be aligned with a deeper identity, or it becomes destructive. I’ve seen this in action for organizations that don’t have a clear identity around diversity and inclusion; because leaders have not established values and vision around what diversity and inclusion mean for the organization, they have no roadmap to return to when the topic arises. With no strategy to guide change, anyone can disrupt, complain, shape identity for any reason — creating chaos instead of understanding and growth. Bold, innovative change takes thoughtfulness and education and in the end, it’s always worth the effort.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?
I’m proud of my willingness to fight for what’s right. Even my name comes from a word for “warrior”; however, I believe there is a critical need to change our collective thinking about how we refer to women with bold ideas. We need to question whether we are perpetuating stereotypes, so that our next generation of women and men can focus on solving the world’s biggest problems on an equal playing field.
There are three core challenges that are being faced by women disruptors that aren’t typically faced by males. First, being taken seriously is a huge problem. Men are typically seen as having greater dominance than women. Additionally, balancing work and family life is complicated — being a working mother or father makes it harder for people to advance in their careers, and women are much more likely than men to express this. Lastly, women disruptors have to preserve through unfathomable criticism. According to research from the Yale School of Management published in the Harvard Business Review, women in generally male-dominated occupations face much higher criticism after making mistakes than men.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
The COVID-19 pandemic has shined a light on long-standing healthcare inequities and has reinforced the role that race, language and culture play in social determinants of health and health outcomes. The movement that I am most passionate about has been highlighted by this pandemic: it has become even more important to not only address the inequities we are witnessing today, but imperative that we help turn the tide when it comes to research issues, namely, diversity in clinical trials.
Blacks, Latinos, Asians among others are significantly underrepresented in clinical research in the U.S. despite the disproportionate number of people in these communities being impacted by many chronic and life-threatening diseases. Of course, many factors play a role in this issue, but we are taking action to make an impact — from expanding our Patient Centricity offerings to including investigative sites in diverse communities.
Certainly, not everyone has the chance to make an impact in clinical trials, but all of us have the ability to take a stand for equity in our areas of influence. For example, last year’s C3 Prize Grand Prize winner Audrey Guth, a breast cancer survivor, started her organization in response to the impact of socioeconomic disparities for moms with cancer. She saw how many moms had to decide between providing childcare for their children or going to get their cancer treatments — so she created the Nanny Angel Network to provide free, specialized childcare for moms going through cancer. This has an impact on the health of moms and kids.
A more equitable world is a healthier world, and more than ever, we can all appreciate the value in being part of that movement.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Mark Twain said, “The two most important days of your life are the day you’re born and the day you find out why.”
Once I realized I was supposed to help in the medical field because of the exposure from my family and I was supposed to help in the field of diversity because of my background, that’s when I got really good at what I was doing. When you’re working for your purpose, not to get recognition, that’s when you’re doing something good.
How can our readers follow you online?
I can be followed on LinkedIn at Eloiza Domingo and I encourage people to follow @AstellasUS on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to stay up to date on things happening at Astellas. The Astellas Oncology C3 Prize winners will be announced in March, so please also visit www.C3Prize.com to find out about the disruptors selected by our panel of judges for their work to change cancer care.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Tanya Zhang of Nimble Made: Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent Times
During challenging times, it’s important to remember that we’re all human with basic needs, but with different experiences and cultural upbringings. The most critical role a leader can play during challenging times is that of a supportive one. When times are tough, it’s a sense of belongingness that keeps people and teams together. Keeping people unified and supported through a common passion or goal is key during challenging times.
As part of my series about the “Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent Times”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Tanya Zhang.
Tanya Zhang is co-founder of Nimble Made, a men’s Actually Slim fit dress shirt brand, founded in 2018 in New York City. She created a better slim fit after seeing that her father was unable to find a proper dress shirt as a slimmer immigrant man working in the U.S. Since launch, Nimble Made has been featured by HuffPost, Forbes and Money as a “Slim Fit That Lives up to its Name” and that strives for more size inclusion and Asian representation in the industry. In the years prior, she was an art director in advertising and served as a consultant in visual and UX design for Fortune 500 companies.
Thank you so much for your time! I know that you are a very busy person. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
I’m a first-generation Chinese-American, born and raised in Los Angeles, CA. After graduating from University of California, San Diego with a Computing in the Arts major, I moved to New York City to start a career in advertising as an art director and designer. I navigated the corporate world for a few years, jumping from agencies to financial tech startups to consulting jobs, before realizing that I needed a bigger challenge to test my potential. I wanted to stop being a resource for someone else, and instead start building towards a dream of my own.
Nimble Made is a men’s Actually Slim fit dress shirt brand that launched in 2018 in New York City. I wanted to create a better slim fit after seeing my father not being able to find a dress shirt as a slimmer immigrant man working in the U.S. He always told me, “American dress shirts don’t fit me.” As a female founder of a DTC e-commerce brand that’s been featured by HuffPost, Forbes, and Money, I’m navigating the dynamic clothing landscape in a predominantly male industry. My experience working on advertising campaigns for brands like H&M has given me the edge in creating my own slim dress shirt brand with a mission for more size inclusion and Asian representation in the fashion industry.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?
At the early stages of a self-funded business, I was doing everything from shipping out orders to answering customer emails to being a spokesperson for the brand. We had decided to pop up at a few professional happy hours and networking events around town to generate some brand awareness.
We were keeping things on a tight budget, which meant that it was going to be a very concise presentation. I ironed some of our dress shirts, deconstructed a small clothing rack I brought from home, and grabbed some business cards. That evening, it was raining in New York City and for some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to take public transit to the event with everything I was carrying. When I arrived at the event and started setting up, I realized I was missing a piece of the clothing rack while building it. During the whole event, I had to keep one hand clutched to it to keep it from falling apart. I was completely out of my element while in a room full of lawyers, feeling insecure about my presentation and finding it difficult to pitch my product.
The mistake here was putting myself in a situation that wasn’t a good use of my skill set, resulting in a mediocre performance considering the amount of time and energy it took. I learned this lesson early on in my entrepreneurship journey: maximize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses. I’m not a good public speaker or a salesperson but I have a great eye for branding, design skills, work ethic as well as the mental toughness that a leader needs to lead her team to success. Since then, I’ve always made sure to position myself where my unique skill sets stand out. In addition, I extended that philosophy to the rest of my team so that everyone else can utilize their unique talents like the crucial puzzle pieces they are.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
In college, I was a part-time graphic designer who created posters, T-shirts and marketing materials for clubs or organizations that needed design work. Melissa Ewart is the full-time studio manager there who leads a team of student designers. I worked there for 4 years and built an extensive portfolio of design work that enabled me to secure an internship at a big ad firm coming out of college. She also tasked me with branding and designing the university’s largest annual music festival, which had over 20 thousand people in attendance, and featured artists like Snoop Dogg, Diplo and Kendrick Lamar. I was the design lead for this project two years in a row.
My studio manager really prepared me for the real-world relationships I would eventually foster with my clients. I learned to take client feedback as constructive comments rather than evaluations of my competence, and began to realize that in order to work well with others, I had to understand their personal motivations for completing the work we shared. At a certain point, I had to condition myself not to be attached to my designs or ideas. This was a crucial improvement that helped when I transitioned to working in advertising agencies, where I had to pitch an abundance of ideas at a time — most of them getting rejected. I learned to listen to clients, which is even more important now that I run my own business. Asking for feedback and listening to the pain points of customers and employees only makes a better product and overall better business.
Extensive research suggests that “purpose driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. When your company started, what was its vision, what was its purpose?
Our vision for Nimble Made is to fill a sizing gap in the men’s dress shirt industry. Traditional retailers cater to the mass market, creating sizes based on the average U.S. man, which makes the industry “slim” size still too baggy for naturally slimmer men like my dad and co-founder. Because of their smaller builds, they struggled with finding a good-fitting dress shirt that they could buy off-the-rack without tailoring. As immigrants to the U.S., there were already systemic disadvantages against them. On top of that, wearing ill-fitting clothing affected their confidence at work, where dress shirts are a staple piece of clothing. If you don’t look good, you don’t feel good, and subsequently can’t perform your best at work.
We created our Actually Slim fit — a fit that was even slimmer than the traditional “Slim Fits” that already exist in the market. Sizes run larger in the US then abroad because companies cater to the “average” male build at 5’9″ and 198 lb. Our customers at 5’9″ in height, in contrast, average 140 lb. There was no trifecta of fit, price, and quality when it came to a good slim dress shirt brand — no other shirt company that elevated the fastest-growing minority group in the US: Asian American Pacific Islanders. We are filling a gap in menswear by creating affordable slim dress shirts that actually fit off-the-rack and helping slim guys feel confident in their clothes at work. Simultaneously, we aim to shine a brighter light on our Asian cultural legacy.
While the dress shirt industry still uses “neck & sleeve length” to determine sizes, our unique sizes are a combination of factors such as height and weight, and includes a trimmed shirt length, sleeve length, and reduced fabric around the back/shoulders for a better slim fit. We strive for more size inclusion to create a slim fit that actually conforms to the shape of your body.
Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion. Can you share with our readers a story from your own experience about how you lead your team during uncertain or difficult times?
In March 2020 when the stay-at-home order was implemented as a result of the increasing coronavirus cases across the nation, we immediately saw our sales drop. Our customers, the white collar employees who wore dress shirts to work everyday, had changed their environments by working from home. The pandemic promptly raised everyone’s alertness, shifting their attention to their immediate needs such as physical health and wellbeing.
With the shift to working from home and a lower demand in workplace attire, I had to rethink our brand’s position during a time where dress shirts were less relevant. With a fully remote team at this point, I knew it was of the utmost importance to keep my team focused and motivated during the quarantine — a time where the macroeconomic trends are against our odds.
As a result, we saw an all-time high in sales a few months later this past July. This starkly contrasts our big box competitors who were filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy, since COVID-19 severely hurt their retail presence. Uncertain and difficult times like this one calls for a leader who understands what it takes to weather a storm. For me, that meant stepping up to the plate and taking ownership of the business decisions I had to make during this time. Would we have to call off our digital marketing efforts until the market was a bit more stable? Cut expenses and overhead costs? Continue business as usual?
As a leader, I believe people skills are of the utmost importance. Without my team, the business is nothing. We had to reprioritize most of our ongoing projects to laser in on one or two goals for the quarter. This would ensure that we would be efficient with our resources. I’ve always had a hands-off approach in people management because I believe that this is the only way to empower them to do their best work. In that aspect, managing a fully remote team was no problem. My empathy towards the personal needs and challenges in both my team and customers has led us to build a successful human-first business that sells confidence in a great fitting dress shirt.
Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the motivation to continue through your challenges? What sustains your drive?
In entrepreneurship, there are always doubts and thoughts about giving up. I do my best to not listen to that voice in my head. My passion for filling this gap in menswear and striving for more Asian representation in fashion is too strong for me to ever just quit.
My motivation to plow through challenges is to look at the bigger picture. If we don’t hit our metrics or have low performance, I see that as an opportunity to learn. It’s an ongoing process and, as life’s student, I’m always eager to learn and grow as an individual and not just a business owner. I found entrepreneurship to be the only avenue that would really challenge me to the max, and let me see where my potential would take me. As a first time founder, it’s almost like a personal MBA. While it’s easy to get discouraged by poor metrics or low numbers, it’s important to change your mindset to really question the “why” behind everything. Why did this not perform as well as we thought it would? What are we missing out on? How can we be even better? At the end of the day, it’s all about product market fit and that meant finding the customers who were looking for our product.
Thinking back on the “why” I started Nimble Made is the driving force behind how I’m able to weather the challenges and obstacles that come my way as a leader. Empathizing with the pain points of my customer, even though I don’t wear men’s dress shirts, allows me to feel the struggles they do. I can’t imagine needing to shop in the junior section, constantly having to get my clothes tailored or searching for better alternatives to something as simple as everyday clothing. That’s a pain that I feel on a daily basis that drives me to keep doing my job. At the same time, I use my business to create opportunities that push for a stronger Asian American narrative with diverse models and creators, and that never ceases to excite me.
What would you say is the most critical role of a leader during challenging times?
As someone with a user experience design and consulting background, I’ve listened to focus groups and conducted user research for other companies to find the answers to their biggest problems. The most important skill I’ve learned from these experiences is being an effective listener. What is your audience telling you? How can we dig deeper to understand why they feel a certain way? Understanding the needs of the people who rely on me for guidance is crucial in order to fulfill those needs — both in my team and with my customers.
Through close listening, I can learn about the motivations of the people around me, which teaches me how to support them in times of need. Understanding what they need, why they need it and how best to provide them support — whether through affirmation, acts of service, or giving them my time — is incredibly important as a leader. Along the same line, I must also acknowledge that some people aren’t verbal communicators. In that case, observing and understanding their specific communication style is just as important.
During challenging times, it’s important to remember that we’re all human with basic needs, but with different experiences and cultural upbringings. The most critical role a leader can play during challenging times is that of a supportive one. When times are tough, it’s a sense of belongingness that keeps people and teams together. Keeping people unified and supported through a common passion or goal is key during challenging times.
When the future seems so uncertain, what is the best way to boost morale? What can a leader do to inspire, motivate and engage their team?
It’s hard to fully understand what people are already dealing with in their personal lives. The least I can do is make sure that they enjoy their work. I try to ensure that whatever responsibility they’re tasked with is something that uplifts and fulfills them. When the future seems so uncertain, the best way to boost morale is to show them the conviction that’s expected of a good leader. Be the anchor when your team needs it the most, and inspire them with your boldness. I’m aware of my presence, body language, and the word choice I use when interacting with my team. I make sure to always exude the best qualities of a leader even in times of uncertainty.
Ensuring that your team is continuously inspired, motivated and engaged sets the premise for a positive feedback loop. Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, famously emphasizes the importance of having the right people in the right roles. Optimizing peoples’ skill sets and matching them with work they’re passionate about is the first step. Then, it’s understanding what drives them, what they perceive as an incentive or reward that validates their work. At the end of the day, it’s a value exchange. I lead by believing my team is extracting as much value in working with me and the business as much as I’m extracting value from their work.
Having a system in place is one thing but executing it is another. Lead meetings with an open mind and an open floor, a place where everyone at the table feels like their opinion has equal weight to mine. I have to create an atmosphere that values a diversity of opinions with a “reward” mechanism that keeps the team motivated, inspired, and engaged, especially during uncertain times.
What is the best way to communicate difficult news to one’s team and customers?
Difficult news is both hard to give and receive. The best way to communicate such information is to first put yourself in the shoes of the receiver. We’ve all been on the receiving end of bad news. In our experiences, we have to ask ourselves: how could it have been communicated better? What could have improved the delivery?
Most of the time, the situation requires transparency. Being transparent in the what, why, how, where, when of certain difficult news gives the most context and leaves little for interpretation. The responsibility of delivering difficult news also requires that you understand how the situation unfolded, and owning up to personal mistakes without speaking condescendingly, pointing fingers or attributing blame. Hold an open floor for questions, welcome silence, and give time for people to process and heal.
Difficult news may sometimes present you with the opportunity to show appreciation for teammates or customers that have reached milestones or made noteworthy achievements. I always sandwich difficult news with looking back on past accomplishments and looking forward to what exciting things may be coming next.
How can a leader make plans when the future is so unpredictable?
As a leader, my team looks to me for guidance and direction. When the future is so unpredictable, I remember to lay out bigger-picture goals, let data inform me, and take the best educated guess for what the plan of action may be. There’s almost never a clear answer or a correct way to do things. The best way to approach the planning process is to welcome failure and mistakes at the same time. Turning these into learning opportunities will encourage the kind of risk-taking that’s necessary for creating greater change and success.
Is there a “number one principle” that can help guide a company through the ups and downs of turbulent times?
Resilience is the key to a company’s success. Without resilience, it’s easy to succumb to adversity or obstacles that may arise. The quality of being able to recover or withstand the toughest scenarios and difficulties helps guide a company through rough patches in the road. I’m a firm believer that businesses only fail when their people have given up. So, the number one principle is to persevere through hardship and not give up. For example, when our sales dropped at the onset of the pandemic, we pared down our marketing approach and relooked at our goals. Understanding that company morale is just as important, I knew it would have been hard and nearly impossible to reach our original goals. So we focused on another part of the funnel that we could control — the overall website experience — and spent almost an entire quarter on conversion rate optimization.
It’s always about seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and holding on to the optimism and philosophy that hard work pays off.
Can you share 3 or 4 of the most common mistakes you have seen other businesses make during difficult times? What should one keep in mind to avoid that?
During difficult times, understandably, many businesses decide to close down. This may be due to a variety of reasons, whether it’s financial or otherwise. I acknowledge that operating a business is a privilege that benefits those who are able to secure working capital. My advice is for those who can afford to keep a business going during difficult times. If there’s even a glimmer of hope or something you haven’t tried yet, try it before closing down shop. The entrepreneur journey is one that is racked with obstacles thrown at you everyday. In the course of my journey, I’ve changed the way I look at these “obstacles” to view them more as puzzles, like a crossword, that have yet to be figured out. This mindset makes overcoming obstacles less daunting and more explorative.
Another mistake I’ve seen is when leaders hide information from teammates or employees, believing that it’ll protect them from unwanted news. Even hiding bad news creates an atmosphere of tension. When you offer no explanation, people end up speculating, or worse, think that you have an ulterior motive for hiding information. Bottling up information can be a burden to leaders as well, draining their energy and performance. Overall, it’s a lose-lose scenario.
Lastly, a business should avoid completely pivoting to something drastically different from their core product. This results in a loss of their competitive advantage — it’s almost like starting a whole new business that you need to dedicate extra time and resources to. While it’s okay to shift the strategy a little bit, I wouldn’t go as far to abandon everything the company has built so far. A little bit of resilience here goes a long way. For Nimble Made, we see workplace wear trending more casual in future years. Large firms like Goldman Sachs announced in 2019 a dress code that would be much more flexible, allowing their bankers to go casual in the office environment. Instead of changing our business completely to selling jeans, we’re expanding our dress shirt collection to include casual dress shirts and everyday collared shirts like flannels.
Generating new business, increasing your profits, or at least maintaining your financial stability can be challenging during good times, even more so during turbulent times. Can you share some of the strategies you use to keep forging ahead and not lose growth traction during a difficult economy?
In difficult and uncertain economic times, I look at the numbers. As an e-commerce brand, we look at certain levers like traffic to the website, return on ad spend, and the cost of goods sold, to name a few. When there are unpredictable macroeconomic trends that have thrown the business for a loop, I look across channels to see how the numbers have changed and where the demand has shifted. Generating new business and increasing profits are extremely hard to accomplish in a difficult economy, so the priority is to set up realistic goals with quantifiable metrics in order to hold everyone accountable. Revenue and profit may not be on top of mind during these times. So if the numbers are low in the funnel, what else can improve, even marginally? During Covid-19, we made the conscious decision to halt paid advertising and focus on our website and improve conversion rate. I knew we needed major improvement on our website conversion rate, but as a business goes, it’s easy to get distracted by other important meetings or initiatives. By momentarily halting business as usual, and by formulating a better strategy for these turbulent times, we were able to improve the “machine” of our business. I knew that once the market recovered, we would have an even more solid foundation for how we were presenting ourselves on the website and selling our products. What I’ve learned from this experience is the value of taking a break, stepping back, and visiting the problem with a fresh perspective to really see the holes in the business that you can patch up while sales are slow. This is also another reason to not work on the weekends, if possible, as a business owner. Take a few days off to reset and not think about work. This will only allow you to come back on Monday refreshed with a new way of looking at problems.
Here is the primary question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things a business leader should do to lead effectively during uncertain and turbulent times? Please share a story or an example for each.
The five most important things I do as a leader are: remembering the “why,” focusing on my strengths, finding the right team members, being a good listener, and creating a positive feedback loop.
1: Anchoring yourself in the “why” reminds you at all times of the core reason you started your business. My dad had to settle for baggy dress shirts for the majority of his lifetime and was a consumer that felt almost completely excluded by an entire industry. The fit he was looking for was not available in the mass market and that further isolated him from the western society he was trying to adapt to as an immigrant. This human-first approach to understanding the pain points and struggles of your customer is the “why” behind the business. As someone who experienced my dad’s struggles first-hand, I empathize and constantly remember the struggle my customers go through. Some customers will say that they’ve been looking for a better fit for 10 years until they found Nimble Made. When the going gets tough and hope seems to be lost, I always go back to remembering why I started Nimble Made. At the end of the day, if you have created a solution to a problem you know exists for a lot of people, all you need to do is find them and tell them about it.
2: Focus on your strengths and delegate your weaknesses to people who are better-suited for those tasks. During the early stages of my business, I was doing everything myself, from emailing customers, to fulfilling orders, to running our Facebook ads. I quickly learned that I easily excelled at some aspects of the business but failed miserably at others. When I first started, I was popping up at professional happy hours, networking events to spread more awareness about my brand. From there, I was lugging all these shirts, clothing racks, and materials into New York City and then had to pitch my brand to lawyers, bankers, etc. I realized that I was a really bad salesman and even worse, realized that each one of these events took up way too much of my time and energy. I would be exhausted even the next day after, and I quickly realized it was not a sustainable way to operate as a business leader. I knew I had to find someone who really loved pitching and talking to people to do this job so that I could focus on my own.
3: Create a tight-knit team. Throughout my life and career, people have always told me to surround myself with those that push me and help me grow. That’s no different from building your team. The first part of this is finding the right people. For me, this meant scouting for people who were really passionate about what I was building, and who also had the skill I lacked to provide value to the business. Oftentimes, you might find reliable, diligent people, but they’re not necessarily in a role where they feel they can make the biggest difference or maximize their talents. For example, when I brought on an executive assistant to help me in the day-to-day, I realized that, while they were a determined person, they were slow at finishing tasks and lacked a sense of urgency in their work. Upon talking to them, I realized they weren’t as good with sitting at a desk everyday on the computer. We tried a couple of different arrangements to find a better fit. At the end, they worked best in the warehouse working in fulfillment, as they could be on their feet, working with physical items. Finding the right people, then fitting them into the right roles is instrumental to a business’ success. Understanding who your team consists of, what they need, and why they operate that way motivates and empowers them to do their best work. Check to see if you have a diverse team to provide a variety of opinions and perspectives that can then influence your work.
4: Learn how to listen effectively. During difficult times, it’s even more important to listen closely to your customers and teammates. This goes back to having a human-first approach in your business because it’s often your customers and team members who have the answers and inspire some sort of solution. During COVID-19, we sent out a survey to our customers to see how we could still be of service to them outside of providing them workplace shirts. To our surprise, they still wanted to see us expand our dress shirt collection and even provide some casual options to wear while working from home. They were still eager to buy from us because of our unique Actually Slim fit. As it turned out, some people still needed to wear shirts everyday for their Zoom meetings or to feel more productive at home. At the same time, we listened to our team about their concerns, questions, and thoughts during this turbulent time to understand their number one priorities and what we could do to support them. Being a good listener entails an understanding of your team’s communication styles. For example, someone like me might require a bit of prying in order for me to open up about issues I might have. Recognizing these different communication styles and understanding the unique approach to each of them will allow you to be a better listener. I believe that the most effective way to manage people is not to. But my hands-off approach can only work after optimizing my team and having placed the right people in the right roles.
5: Create support in a positive feedback loop. I learned this in my career as a consultant and realized that I’ve been doing it since I was young. I’m always asking others, “How can I help?” While it may seem counterintuitive, since leaders are traditionally seen as placed on a pedestal, you’re only as good as your team. Helping your team helps you too. As a leader, it’s important to stay connected to the day-to-days of your employees or teammates, to be constantly listening and challenging them. Challenge the way they think and push them to be a better version of themselves. No one does their best when they feel complacent. At the same time, it’s easy for anyone to get tunnel vision, overthink problems, get frustrated and burn out. Projecting a clear vision for the business and everyone involved will bring struggling team members out of that abyss, with an improved outlook on things they once viewed as a roadblock. With the right guidelines and support from a leader, they can take that vision and execute on it, which further drives the business. Ironically, it may almost feel like you’re working for them but everyone’s efforts go towards bettering themselves and their work which betters the business.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Maximize your strengths, minimize your weaknesses.” In a perfectionist society, especially as a female founder in a predominantly male industry, there is pressure to always outperform or put in overtime hours every week. The duality of my Asian American identity leaves me at a crossroads between two different societies, cultures, definitions of success. In the end, it can feel overwhelming to always try and discern what society expects from you. In Reshma Saujani’s Brave, Not Perfect: Fear Less, Fail More, and Live Bolder, she teaches women to be brave in what they do and shed the notion of being perfect the way society has historically tried to teach them. The themes of fearing less, failing more, and living bolder are consistent throughout her book and were relevant to my decision in taking the leap of faith, leaving my corporate job, and thus being the founder of a dress shirt company at a time when everyone is work-at-home. The fear of failure is overwhelming as a first-generation Asian American and first-time founder in a non-conventional career path. Her book really showed that by choosing bravery over perfection, I have agency over my voice and what I wanted to accomplish: more size inclusion and Asian representation in fashion.
How can our readers further follow your work?
Follow our recent news and shirt releases at the Nimble Made website. We’re also on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Linkedin @nimblemade.
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
If every CEO believed that, they’d treat their business like a business, instead of like a job. That would result in more focus, more growth, more job creation, more customers being served, and better lives being lived all around. That’s the movement I want to inspire.
As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Karie Kaufmann. Since 2005, Karie has helped over 1,000 business owners and executives take their business to the next level. She helps business leaders work through the roadblocks and growing pains of rapid growth, enabling sustainable growth and profitability that exceeds their industry average. Karie is certified in both ActionCOACH and Scaling Up frameworks, and is consistently recognized by industry and peer groups as a leader in the business coaching community.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I grew up in a family business and started working for my dad at age 14. After college I wanted to move on from the family business, so I got my MBA and spent the next several years in corporate marketing.
One day, a colleague casually walked into my office and said, “I met someone who does something that I think you’d be good at…” and he introduced me to a business coach. That was in 2004, and I had never even heard of business coaching. Yet, when I met his friend it resonated with me immediately. I wanted to help people like my dad.
By 2005 I jumped into this business, and bringing it full circle, my dad became a (paying!) client in 2009. Now, 15 years in, I’ve coached over 1,000 businesses and trained even more through facilitation and keynote speaking.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
There are thousands of business coaches out there, most of which offer online or group programs, whereas my approach is to go deep with a handful of organizations. While I don’t know that my model of coaching and strategic planning is disruptive per se (after all, I utilize tested & proven frameworks), my clients would undoubtedly say that I massively disrupt their businesses.
I tell (or rather, warn) my clients when we begin that they should expect to be out of their comfort zone, and likely even annoyed with me at times. I won’t even take on a client if I don’t think they, or our relationship, are up to that.
The reason why is that CEOs think they know what their organization needs — and they’re often wrong, or just out of sequence. Because they tend to be big-picture thinkers, the problem they see is often a few steps beyond their actual constraint. So, the first thing that gets disrupted is the leader.
That might mean shifting their identity from a C.E.O. (Chief of Everything Officer) to a C.E.O. (Chief Energy Officer) or getting them to do things they’ve been avoiding. Things like dealing with that person who is a high performer but is toxic, mastering their financial dashboards, or clarifying goals, expectations and performance metrics to get the team aligned.
Right now, in the face of COVID-19, I’m helping some clients to re-think their business model entirely. And while most businesses are retracting or trying to “hide and wait” for things to turn around, my clients are getting more creative than ever.
Helping them to be successful, and even continue to grow, in the most unstable market we’ve ever known is quite complex. And I think the single biggest indicator of their success is the leader’s willingness to be disrupted.
We all need a little help along the journey — who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
One is definitely my dad. Lots of parents tell their kids that they can be anything they want to be, but I’ll never forget when I was a teenager and I told my dad I wanted to be a therapist. He said, “Yeeeaaah… I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
He’s always been my biggest cheerleader, so honestly, I was a little shocked. The thing was, he knew my love for people and desire to help, and knew that I’d have a tendency to take on other people’s problems in an unhealthy way. He knew me well enough to know that wasn’t the right avenue.
The business coaching industry didn’t even exist at that time, but as soon as I started to take my career in this direction, he was the first person to tell me I was made for it. This is my lane.
Another one of my key mentors was my first business coach, Andrew Johnston. See, I had a lot of business experience and education, but I was still pretty young when I started my current business. At industry conferences I was one of only a handful of women, and even fewer in my age group. Thankfully now the industry is becoming more diverse, but at the time, I had a lot of head trash around my age, or other perceived limitations.
Andrew really helped me to build up my skillset, and I started getting really great results with clients, but I still lacked confidence. He’d constantly encourage me that I genuinely was good at this. That I had a gift. That I was making an impact. Eventually I started to believe it, and my business took off.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
I used to worry a lot about the future — always second-guessing if I was making the right decision or speculating how things would turn out. Two key pieces of advice have really helped me to grow in this area and significantly quieted my “worry wart” tendencies.
The first is a Proverb from the Bible that my mother frequently quotes that says, “Don’t borrow worries from tomorrow.” It helps me to live in the present and only focus on what I can control, rather than hypothesizing about what might happen in the future.
The second was something my husband, Scott, said to me years ago. At a time that I was frustrated that he wasn’t showing as much (unnecessary) concern about a situation as I was. He said, “The way I see it, we’ve always been ok, so I think this will be ok too. And even if it goes wrong, we’ll still be ok.”
I realized he was right. After all, this wasn’t a life or death issue on the table. If you zoom out, most of our troubles are temporary, and he has really helped me to keep things in perspective.
The third piece of advice came from a former boss, Brian Buffini. He said to be grateful for your natural gifts, but not prideful. After all, a gift is something you’ve been given — not something you made on your own. God has given each of us unique talents, and it’s up to us to make the most of those gifts and share them with others.
How are you going to shake things up next?
I’m doing a lot more virtual conferences and workshops these days, and the shake-up is to make it an event that I’d actually want to attend.
That’s saying a lot for me, because I was never fan of virtual events — either as a speaker or an attendee. I found it difficult to stay engaged while staring at my screen, and it lacked the impact of live events. Zoom fatigue is real, and I am prone to distraction!
Due to COVID-19, I’ve had to figure out how to make virtual presentations and strategic planning sessions every bit as impactful as a live event. My goal is for attendees to feel as engaged as if we were in the same room, and leave with practical tips that they can implement right away. It’s been a learning curve, but I’ve been getting great feedback on it lately.
As my current coach, Peter Boolkah, always says, “where there’s poop, there’s fertilizer.” I’m thankful that I got disrupted, and I’m better off for it.
Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?
I could talk books and podcasts all day, but I’d have to say the most influential thing for me has been Jim Rohn’s audio programs. His books are great too, but there’s nothing like hearing Jim’s voice sharing simple stories with such profound wisdom.
One of my favorite Jim Rohn quotes is, “Life is not just the passing of time. Life is the collection of experiences and their intensity.” That saying inspired one of our family core values: “We collect experiences.”
My husband and I are intentional to live by that, creating memories with our family whether we’re at home for months on end, or out on adventures. I’ll never regret collecting an experience, even if it only served as a lesson of what not to do.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
One thing I fight to get through to my clients is that being busy is not a badge of honor. It’s a sign of misguided priorities. Stop glorifying busy as if it’s the way your life has to be.
I’m not saying entrepreneurs don’t work hard and put in long hours, but sadly, I think a lot of high performers don’t know any other way. Their identity is wrapped up in their business to the point where they measure their value by hours spent, or in how many people rely on them to solve their problems.
Being in business should give you more life, not suck the life out of you.
If every CEO believed that, they’d treat their business like a business, instead of like a job. That would result in more focus, more growth, more job creation, more customers being served, and better lives being lived all around. That’s the movement I want to inspire.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“I must be willing to give up what I am in order to become what I will be.” — Albert Einstein
I love this quote because it reminds me that I need to leave some things behind if I want to keep growing. We grow into our goals, so the habits, skills or behaviors that I once strived for might now be holding me back. I have to graduate from my old way of being in order to get to the next level, and embrace the discomfort of doing so.
How can our readers follow you online?
On my website (www.kariekaufmann.com) you can sign-up for my Coaching Tips newsletter, where I send out short & sweet business advice and information about upcoming events — both live and virtual. You can also find links to all my social profiles there. I’m very active on YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Female Disruptors: How Ashley Bolling of Closet Freekz Is Shaking up the Fashion Industry With One-of-a-Kind Clothes
Shoppers love the variety of the selection and the exclusiveness of it being a one of a kind piece. Nothing feeds a millennials’ sense of individuality less than a rack of 30 of the same item. We found that people want the excursion of thrifting, without the work and aimlessness of it. But still the uniqueness and thrill of the find. So when it comes to our inventory and merchandising, That’s us! That is the fine and unique line of the Closet Freekz product experience.
As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ashley Bolling.
Ashley Bolling is an emerging business curator with an eye for creative business concepts. She has become a successful entrepreneur with the launch of her sustainable fashion brand, Closet Freekz International in Orlando, Florida. This motivated young businesswomen is on the forefront of becoming a multi-faceted entrepreneur and investor with her ultimate focus on launching her business management firm, Adventureous Jill. Many of Ashley’s best attributes can be accredited to her years as a collegiate athlete at the University of Central Florida and years of service in the U.S. Army. While in the military she began pursing her entrepreneurial interest. She started “Closet Freekz” and steadily gained traction by combining innovative elements of fashion with cutting-edge style. Ashley’s determination helped her endure many early challenges as she continued to expand.
Ashley has been able to use her growing business influence to reach a broader audience, while using savvy business tactics to gain more notoriety.
The Closet Freekz International brand offers unique selections of vintage and repurposed fashion options for Men and Women. The future of the store includes an addition of 10–20 unique locations across the country. She wants her brand to represent the freedom to dress how you want, and be as different as you want. She believes, “depending on the day, either create your fashion or let your fashion create you. Either way, fully commit and fully submit.”
Ashley Bolling defines success as an ability to manifest ideas into reality. This savvy, independent entrepreneur has shown that she is capable of conquering any endeavor. While Closet Freekz International continues to blossom, she has several new ventures on the horizon. This fearless, businesswoman has successfully developed a solid foundation to build on for years to come. She is focused on creating a legacy and being a good role model to both young men and women.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I got in the business of resale apparel observing the need in the traditional fashion market space for a high-turnover fashion option that could allow customers access to large quantities of low-cost fashion options that could also be sustainable. Overall, just a DIFFERENT way to shop. For the last 25 years, I saw little advancement in how sellers (especially brick and mortar) enhanced customer’s shopping process and engagement. At the time I started, fast fashion brands dominated the millennial and gen-z attention span and shopping dollar. Meanwhile, textile pollution was holding strong as the world’s #2 largest global polluter. I needed a retail answer that could compete with the allure of popular fast fashion culture; including the ability to bring seasonal trend-relevant collections, stock a supply consistent with fast turnovers, brick and mortar access where big fast fashion stores are typically found, and all while, still achieving a competitive price point to win over the customer. The challenge of that amazing task, (especially during a changing fashion industry and shopping culture over the last 5 years) has advanced us in a unique space where we have become a front facing favorite as an alternative to traditional retail shopping.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
It’s our obsession with the growing uses for the technology industry as a whole and how we can use new concepts to enhance how a young person shops. Our proprietary ‘Silent Shopping’ was one of our first major tech integrations we adopted inside the mall. Having customers access stimulating audio and video channels of their choice via headphones increased the average shopping time of a customer by 60%. Shoppers could even venture around the mall area with to continue their experience shopping and return before leaving. Corporate partners of the mall reached out about how to adopt a further partnership with us based on the talk of the experience by customers. This concept was developed from the original playlist option we launched on eCommerce years ago that let customers shop the website via music. The increase of average time spent on pages was remarkable, and I knew we had to develop something like it for brick and mortar. That is just 1 of 7 concepts so far that makes the way Closet Freekz sells its product to the customer different. We like to encourage the customer to get back into physical shopping more by making it more than shopping but a Retail Attraction. Now that is how you get disruptive.
When it comes to What we sell, we have spent 3 years developing a proprietary sourcing method to gather unique selections of secondhand fashion from all around the world and bringing them in seasonal collections into a store near you. Unlike your traditional second hand retailors like Plato’s Closet or Goodwill, our inventory isn’t just a smorgasbord of discarded trends from your local area. Our fashion is hand selected for rarity, style, and uniqueness from fashion markets globally. Not to mention including products from past trends cross-generationally. How we source has allowed us to develop and bring some of the wildest most unique fashion collections each season to our shelves. Shopper’s love the variety of the selection and the exclusiveness of it being a one of a kind piece. Nothing feeds a millennials’ sense of individuality less than a rack of 30 of the same item. We found that people want the excursion of thrifting, without the work and aimlessness of it. But still the uniqueness and thrill of the find. So when it comes to our inventory and merchandising, That’s us! That is the fine and unique line of the Closet Freekz product experience.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
One of my biggest mentors thus far has been a business and spiritual mentor of mine named Preston Willingham. Preston’s success and expertise, which comes from a lifetime of success in patent and product development, has helped give me raw guidance and honest support throughout my years in business. When I met Preston, he was just at the tail end of finalizing a buyout for his company and the patent he’d created for the design of a global shoe company called Crocs. Since I’ve met Preston, he has only ever spoke to me about the importance of being innovative and about ways to disrupt your marketspace starting from the conception phase. As a serial patent expert, He’s always seen business as a creative space and encouraged me to always start from out of the box when strategizing, and not be afraid to put things in conception that seem different or new.
Preston’s business perspective continues to help me be impactful when growing and scaling my companies. I have grown to appreciate the freedom that Preston’s stratospheric approaches guides me in developing my business.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
The Bigger the problem the bigger the opportunity.
Some of the most widely known entrepreneurs started off just doing something that they were interested in, but were able to pivot the concept to scale because they were able to tap into a larger need for what it was they were providing. When I started my company, originally it was because of my interest in fashion and the brilliance of using resources that already existed. But the ah ha moment that I could make a chain to compete nationally with retail leaders in my price point when I realized there was such a greater need for what my company was doing. Pollution is not just a niche problem. It is an ALL OF US problem. The pollution of textiles will have global effects if likeable, usable, and realistic sustainable alternatives are not developed to substitute them. Thus a global problem will always need a global size network of solutions. Which will leave you a wide-open marketspace for opportunity.
It takes money to make money.
One of my bigger business lessons has been to not be afraid to spend money. Most people starting their first start ups have never maneuvered with anything over a few thousand dollars before in their life. So naturally with starting a business, you nickel and dime everything just to get it moving not even realizing that at some point, the quality of what you can produce in a lot of circumstances require a certain quantity of capital just to function at a healthy operational capacity. I say all the time that I definitely appreciated the learning curve of when I was running a business on nickels, especially because most times if you’ve never done something before, you don’t even know how to spend the money most effectively even if you did get it. But hearing the advice not to be afraid to spend money to produce the most adequate model for success was kind of like a weight off my shoulders and opened a new perspective about how I saw the function on money to a busines. Learning that concepts need money just to spend on making mistakes just to get to the best product was revelation. So when I talk to new entrepreneurs about setting sights for their businesses, the plan to spend money is always in the cards.
Problems are apart of the process.
Back when I was first really growing my business, I was about 23 and still really learning on the fly about cash flow and how to build and raise finances for our operations. We had gotten behind on our rent one month after having the lease a little over a year. There had been so much press and pressure around us opening in this particular location because I was not only the youngest, but the only African American, and the only African American women to get approved by the city to open a business in this very regulated retail area of Downtown Orlando. In fact, the building had denied my application twice originally, deeming our products and the company “too urban”. At the time it required me to reach out to my contacts all the way up to the Mayor in order to shake our approval to gain that level of visibility. So at the first sight of falling behind on our rent, I completely began to panic. At the time I wasn’t really saving much, I was putting everything right back into testing concepts within the company. A month went by, and 2 months went by and I couldn’t support our expenses or my own at the apartment I was living in a block or so away. I had begun looking for someone who could give us a loan, but the process was being drawn out. I stopped by to see one of my mentors one evening on the brink of just feeling unprepared for the opportunity I had fought to get. And I learned one of my biggest lessons that moment when he told problems are apart of the process. And as simple as it sounded, it was the realization that problems weren’t just a phenomenon limited to my experience. That everyone involved, including him, and all the agents working in my leasing offices were not foreign to the idea that I could be experiencing an unplanned problem and just need to simply communicate it to them. It lifted a weight off my shoulders and my life because it lifted the shame in messing up, coming up short, changing the plan, or making mistakes. From there, it empowered my ability to avoid rifts in business altogether moving forward, just by simply communicating when a problem has arisen and that a bit more grace might be needed while we find the solution.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
Well, one thing I love of about Closet Freekz is its endless canvas of integrations that challenge how we shop for and how we collect our fashion as consumers. More immediately, we’ll be live streaming the first virtual fashion show in Central Florida from our live shopping experience Labor Day Weekend. Customers who usually shop via the live shopping feature online, will be able to watch the show across the world as we premier our Fall line. Guest of the show will be experiencing all the sounds of the show via our silent shopping headphones which will allow them to watch the same show, but interchangeably with the music audio of their choice. Guests online will have the option to toggle between camera feeds with either sound track as well. After which, we’ll be doing a virtual press conference explaining the line, that both inhouse and online guests can tune into on a 3rd headphone channel. That’s just one example of how we love to embed tech to enhance how customers can experience a brand. In addition to our up and coming stores in Miami and Atlanta for 2020, we have a few ecommerce enhancements rolling out in 2021 that we hope will help launch sustainable fashion into the subscription market.
Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?
When it comes to the “staple” books of my library, of course reads like The Alchemist, The Magic Ladder to Success, The Power of your Subconscious Mind, and many others were pivotal in helping me though the PROCESS of grass roots entrepreneurship. But I think ironically, it’s been the most random of reads that stick with me in my craft on the day to day. For instance, there is a book entitled There Is a River, The Story of Edger Cayce. And it’s and irrelevant little book in the context of business or entrepreneurship. And quite frankly a dry and drawn out read. But it’s the true story of a man, one of the earliest most documented clairvoyants in America. He’s very average, uneducated, simple, and otherwise carrying no particular talents or skills at all. Yet he lives life in the discovery of a gift that in his sleep he can access all the knowledge of the universe, even though when awakes, he can’t remember or is even intelligent enough to understand the brilliant teachings he’d just given in his readings while being asleep. I liked the book because by the ending of both his life and the book, he’d been the vehicle of information for a lot of other brilliant minds in the medical field who went on to start research and develop cures that changed how we use medicine here today. But the take away from it for me is that at any time, at all times, even the most simple man (women), without needing to be the most educated, have the most talent, or be the most equipped in business.. You can always access the power of the all-knowing source inside you to guide you and help you though along the way. Whatever for you that may be. And I think it’s the overall trust in oneself that makes a disruptor a disruptor. Because even when you’re pursuing a path not yet uncovered or going up against changing the way something has always been… you can trust that there is indeed “a river, whose streams make glad where the most high dwells”. He entitled the book after Psalms 46, which after reading it, becomes one of the last most brilliant and inspiring things I realized he did.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I’ve been intentional on the idea of strengthening a generation of women and minorities in business. I believe there is an uprising renegade wave of brilliant disruptive business concepts that would come from the watering and nurturing of traditionally dispositioned entrepreneurs. For instance, In February 2021, I’ll be publicly launching my business management and investment firm. Part of the ideal I developed the firm around, was my past success in taking first time entrepreneurs who were either athletes, army veterans, and convicted felons on as clients. What I’ve found from this, that for different reasons, each of these types of individuals tend to carry unique sets of mental discipline, resilience, and networking skills that breed valuable traits for successful entrepreneurship. The only problem is really their positioning to knowing where to get resources to operate their concept to scale. With the structure and resources my firm provides, these innovative creators can have the opportunity to access a vehicle for ideas they have had time to put thought into, without necessarily needing the skill set and training in that industry to see it develop and scale. I like the empowerment that gives non-traditional entrepreneurs in the market space.
I’d also like to see younger women become exposed to more glorified ideals of businesswomen as well. As pretentious as it sounds even to me, as if Women in business don’t have enough to do as it is to be successful. But adding and exposing a level of “rock stardom” and glamour to the ideal of what it is to be a women in business can influence the younger generation greatly into choosing that path over more saturated lanes like beauty, and entertainment. I think women can be much more instrumental and dynamic in the big business ecosystem if they could potentially be groomed up that way. If I could choose an impact to leave, it would be to influence future generations of young women into this life. To give more support, stability, and power for women in the business world altogether. A “Girls club” per say to balance out the “Boy’s Club”. If I have daughters one day… my hope is that that barrier of entry in business will be more than broken. In fact, quite the opposite. That “being in business” for young girls, would be right up there with wanting to be a Disney princess or a ballerina.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
We build our businesses as we build ourselves
This is one of the most relevant truths that I heard from one of my favorite shows, Billions on Showtime. I thought it was the most wise and true quote that any true entrepreneur could know. Many of the short falls I’ve experienced in my company so far, and even the most accomplished moments were direct correlations to my own life and how I was growing out as an owner and growing up as an individual. The tempo of how I’ve had to build my own character is intertwined with the times that my company really needed those qualities from me as a leader. And in times where I felt like I had failed or hit a bottom… the way I built my company back up for it’s return was the same tools that I built myself up to return. I really do feel that an entrepreneur’s business overtime becomes nothing but a reflection on a canvas of who that person is creatively, in talent, in morals, and in leadership. So absolutely I believe that we build our businesses as we build ourselves. And quite possible just having that reflection as a guide can mirror back to you strength, courage, and insight as you continue to build along the way.
