Female Founders: Marie Stolt, Maria Lager & Yvet Malmveld of Understatement Lingerie On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
There is no such thing as overnight success. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Success isn’t linear and you might wait a long time before your idea becomes reality — just don’t give up and never stop believing in yourself
As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Marie Stolt, Maria Lager & Yvet Malmveld, founders of Understatement Lingerie.
Marie Stolt: Has a background in management consulting from Accenture and Business Development from Carlsberg. Her biggest assets are her strategic sense & analytical thinking.
Maria Lager: Worked in PR, marketing and branding for over 10 years, founding a Swedish PR agency. Her biggest strengths are her broad network & communication skills.
Yvet Malmveld: Has 10+ years of experience in product development, production & supply chain with G-star RAW, HEMA & Kuyichi. Her biggest strengths are her strong knowledge in apparel and leadership skills.
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 that adrenalin-filled day of June 1st, 2017, this business has been a roller coaster in the best of ways. Understatement was born from the desire of creating women’s underwear for women.
We were lacking an underwear brand combining both comfort and style and with a contemporary way of portraying women. So we started with getting rid of all the annoying stuff that never should have been put into underwear in the first place. No more underwire, we said bye-bye to restrictive padding, and so long to itchy bitchy tags.
Since then, we have come a looong way. Building our community, evolving as people, and growing as a team. Always focusing on developing our products. Making better, smarter, and more sustainable choices. Finding solutions to problems we couldn’t imagine facing when we started.
The core of what we are and what we do is all of us coming together. In the joint effort of making every day a bit more exciting for as many women as we can. Boosting each other to live life, knowing that we can be whoever we want to be.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
We receive daily comments from customer service, social channels and even on paid ads — on how we as a brand contribute to increase self-esteem in women by normalizing all body types, ages and ethnicities in our communication. Feedback on an amazing product but more important our inclusive approach of showing women just as they are. We are overwhelmed by all the amazing feedback we have received from women all over the world.
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 the start up phase, we had no clue whatsoever on how to design underwear. We just knew what we wanted out of the perfect bralettes and panties — but not how to actually make them. We found our first factory outside of Riga, Latvia by intensive research on Linkedin and scheduled a first introduction call via Zoom. The owner of the factory asked us if we had patterns for the collection and Marie went on and on about the underwear being in neutral colors, no crazy zig zag pattern etc. only to realize later that she was not asking about the print-pattern, but about the garment patterns! They came back to us with a polite “thank you but no thank you.” Luckily, we managed to find a small factory that welcomed us despite our shortcomings in pattern design.
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 about that?
Well as they say, it takes a village! Starting with our partners, families and friends that encouraged us to just go for it and give this a try, cheered us on, and supported us where they could along the way. We’ve also had advisors & mentors along the way, Stefan Fragner, our mentor since day one being one of them — we ended up recruiting him a year ago.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?
It feels as if we’re stuck in a bit of a vicious circle. There are more men than women starting companies, and there is more funding going to those men who do so. It’s definitely a bit of a boys club that can be intimidating to try and get into as a woman. It requires confidence to do that, just like it requires confidence to take the leap of faith and start your own business. Women are sometimes a bit too humble about their capabilities, which holds us back from just going for it. We think we need to master all necessary skills ourselves, but that’s not the case. It’s OK not to, and ask for help. It’s OK to do things ‘good enough’ at the start, and from there build a team of people around you that are amazing at things that you may be not as good at, or do not enjoy as much. That’s never stopped a man from just trying.
Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?
As individuals, as women, we should lift each other up whenever we have the chance to do so. Cheer each other on, and help each other out, support other female founders and female-founded companies.
For us as a company and brand, we think it’s important to paint an honest picture that women can identify with. We want women to realize that it’s OK to be as they are by showing our products on bodies they can relate to, as well as share and highlight stories of women that inspire us in different ways. That builds confidence, not only about our bodies but also about ourselves, women and everything we’re capable of — such as creating successful companies.
Sweden might be a bit ahead in this, because there are quite a few initiatives here that aim at encouraging more women to start their own businesses or help female-founded businesses to raise funds. We are very fortunate here in Sweden as well when it comes to paid parental leave for both parents, as well as almost free child care, things you can also benefit from when you are self-employed. This is so important to create a more level playing field for men and women alike, and something we hope other countries will get to as well.
This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?
Women simply bring a different perspective. This leads to services and products that are at the core designed to cater to a different and wider audience, including women specifically. Next to that women have a different perspective at doing business and leadership. It has been proven that this leads to more inclusive workplaces and often better performance for companies. Half the population consists of women and this must be reflected in what the world should look like.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?
You have to be bold and strong — Most people think you have to be an “alpha” to make your own business. But to be successful, we believe being naive (a least a bit) and a very humble team-player who gets shit done is the most important capability to be truly effective and successful over time — in the end being a good listener and creating genuine relations with customers, investors and team members will be key to succeed over time.
It’s All About the Product and Timing — Yes the product has to be great, but products don’t win. Businesses, teams and communities do. Key to our success has been to constantly involve, engage and talk to the women using our product and connect with them far beyond the product.
You need Senior competence — Since you usually don’t have the possibility to employ senior people in a startup phase, we believe in hiring talent and training skills. A strong drive and willingness to learn is by far more important when building your core team. If you have a strong vision you will find top talent that are more motivated to create change than solely by money.
Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?
First of all you need to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. As a founder, you always have the feeling that you’re never done and there are always a lot of things to do and improve. This is both good and bad. Bad because you’re never satisfied with what you’ve achieved, as you always see new goals and challenges, and good as exactly this is what drives you and the company forward, allowing you to make giant steps. We believe that being a humble team player is the key in order to succeed over time.
Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)
- Don’t be afraid to ask for help — you are going to need it. Just because you’re working for yourself doesn’t mean you have to do everything yourself. Gather people around you that are not only smarter than you but also are crucial and can challenge you.
- Cash (flow) is king. It’s a cliché but so true. If we hadn’t done the nitty gritty stock planning from day one, we’d end up not being able to afford our purchases.
- Done is better than perfect. Don’t overthink every single detail. You can always make tweaks, adjustments and improvements along the way.
- Just do it. Now. We have learned that circumstances are never perfect for anything in life. Don’t look for the perfect timing, because it might never come. Just do it now.
- There is no such thing as overnight success. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Success isn’t linear and you might wait a long time before your idea becomes reality — just don’t give up and never stop believing in yourself
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
With Understatement, we built a new type of underwear brand. Where the measures of beauty, style and comfort are defined by us being women. Our commitment to the women of the world influences everything we do with Understatement. From the women working in the female-run factory in Europe to all the women who wear our products — we want to contribute to a world where every woman can be whoever she wants to be. Through our campaigns, we donate a percentage of our profits to organizations that contribute towards creating a world free of discrimination against women, supporting the 5th goal of the UN.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
Understatement is more than a company. We are a rapidly growing movement of women coming together, enabling and encouraging each other to be whoever we want to be. Every single day. So if we can continue to get more women to feel empowered we reached our mission.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
There are so many inspiring women we’d be delighted to get to know but we have to say Melinda Gates, badass business woman, philanthropist, and coming out from a rather public divorce from one of the richest men in the world, stronger than ever. A great example of resilience, strength, and using your personal success to make the world a better place.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Female Founders: Marie Stolt, Maria Lager & Yvet Malmveld of Understatement Lingerie On The Five… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.