The Jennifer Kamara Podcast

Neha: I don't think most consumers know that about two thirds of, um, you know, items that are made in the food and textile industry contain azo compounds.

So Azo dies, um, and some of these compounds are highly carcinogenic and two-thirds of the items that are being. You know, contain these compounds. And so it's, it's also about caring, about, the safety of your consumer, and really doing what's right

Jennifer: Hey fam, we've got an amazing guest with us today on the podcast. Her name is Neha and she's the founder of a, which is a fashion label that caters exclusively to women of peer in our glass shaped bodies. She tells us all about what it's like to build a clothing brand, and she gets into the specifics.

So this will be a great one for y'all. We're looking to start your own clothing line. Neha is formally of Minted. She also went to Stanford Graduate School of Business in Caltech. She's a phenomenal dancer, amazing person, and general hype woman. I bring you Neha. Enjoy.

Jennifer Bonus: Hello beautiful

Neha: Hi.

Jennifer Bonus: everyone. It's so great to have you.

Neha: having me.

Jennifer Bonus: So great to have you on the pod. What an honor for me, I'm so excited to chat and learn all about, um, today, which is the exclusive brand that is manufacturing clothing for women of peer and hourglass body types.

This is the answer to all of these questions and searches that women have been looking for. So, so very thrilled to get into that with you today.

Neha: Yay. I'm excited.

Jennifer: Really wanted to, over the course of our time together, get a sense for what it's like to build a clothing brand, and particularly in your case from your perspective. So first of all, where did the inspiration for this come from for you? I know it's a personal story.

Neha: Yeah. So, um, you're exactly right that, you know, we design clothes for women with pear and hourglass shapes, which means that they have a different waist to hip ratio than the standard size chart. So they typically have a smaller waist relative to their hip size. Or you can look at it like a, you know, bigger booty and thighs.

Relative to their waist size. Um, and I have this body type, I'm a pear shaped woman, um, and have sort of struggled with fit issues my entire life. Um, I just have, you know, so many memories of growing up, especially when I hit my teen years. I'd go shopping for pants and nothing would ever fit. , um, you know, if it, if it fit my hips, it was way too big on the waist.

If it fit my waist, it was too tight on the hips and thighs. Um, I've had like a tailor in every city that I've ever lived in who's just used to altering my clothes. Um, and for years I thought the problem was me, you know, I just thought there's something wrong with my body. I thought I was over, I was a size two on the top.

Um, but I was two sizes bigger on the bottom, and I just thought that the, you know, I thought. Overweight, I thought there was something wrong with my body. And then in 2017, I visited Rwanda, um, and I was there, it was my last day and I was shopping in the city. Um, and I, I walked into this local store and it was just like some sort of miracle.

Every single item in the store fit me perfectly. And I, you know, spoke to the store manager and I was like, what is going on? Like, I've never had. Experience in my life. And he said that, you know, a long time ago they threw out American size charts because it didn't work for women in their country who tend to have this naturally curvier body shape, regardless of their size.

Um, and that's when the light bulb sort of went off for me, where I, I was like, wow, this is actually a size chart problem. This is not an issue with my body. And actually there are parts of the world where clothes fit me perfectly. so I came back and I started researching what the heck was going on with American sizing and that was sort of the genesis of, of, um,

Jennifer: It's crazy to me to think that this is the first exclusive label for women with this body shape. sounds kind of like the western ideal of beauty, which has. Precipitated across society of you need to be like straight and really skinny to be beautiful.

Whereas like I grew up in Sierra Leone and yes, I'm used to women being really curvy on the hips and booty and that's a beautiful thing.

Neha: Yeah, absolutely. The um, India's going through sort of a similar, renaissance. So in the last few years there's been a sort of coordinated effort from all the top fashion design schools there to just completely reduce size charts within India as well. Cause they're realizing. American sizing doesn't work for their population.

So I think there's sort of, you know, brands are starting to pay attention. The industry's starting to pay attention.

Jennifer: Yeah. Yeah. well, better late than never. Goodness that you're building this as a solution. So then what do pants need to do to sit on your booty? Well, for pier and hourglass shaped women,

Neha: Yeah. So there's a few things on the fit side and then there's just a few things on the design side. So on the fit side, I would say the biggest sort of area is this waist to hip ratio. So, um, typically women that we would classify as pair or hour class have a waist to hip ratio that's 70% or less.

Um, and what you'll see in most size charts, if you just go to any of your favorite brands, you'll typically see that ratio as like, You know, 72, 70 5% or higher. Um, and so just altering that waist to hip ratio is sort of the first step. But then there's a lot of small details. And this comes from, you know, just sort of repeated rounds of fit testing and also measuring our customer and, and understanding the shape of her body.

So, for example, if you have a larger butt, the shape of your crotch curve has to be different to accommodate. A larger seat. Um, and you know, I, I mean in 2021 when I was sort of doing all the design work and um, and fit testing, I just remember there were like weeks where I was just trying on different pants and studying all the different wrinkles that form when you put on pants.

And then if you like take out a stitch here, does that wrinkle go away? If you like stitch deeper here, does that wrinkle go away? So there's so many like small adjustments. Um, That, you know, a, a, a, you know, talented pattern maker would be able to help with. But the biggest one is the waist to hip ratio.

Jennifer: And this seems like something where to a customer who doesn't think about it, it may seem so simple, but I'm pretty sure to a pattern maker and a designer, there's so many details that you need to take care of. Because for me, I always look at how does it fit on my butt and does it look good? That's like.

and this is can if your butt looks good at it. And I think that that's kind of what you were describing as well, the waist to hip ratio. And how does it look with the wrinkles?

Neha: Yeah.

Jennifer: So then let's, ,you started to talk about the pattern makers. How do you approach designing the clothing?

Neha: Yeah. So, um, you know, we started in a different way than I would say most brands start. So most brands start with the design work, which is to say like, what should this piece look like? And they'll sketch it out. Um, and then they get into sort of the sizing and the tech pack. A tech pack is a very detailed list of instructions.

That you hand off to a factory or a producer, it can be like 10, 15 pages and it contains every little detail about that design. And then you go into sampling the design and then production. Um, but they start with the design work, the sketch work. And we started with the data. So, The first thing we did was we, um, built a fresh data set of 314 pair and hourglass shaped women because we knew that the standard size chart wouldn't work.

So we gathered all of their measurements, and then we built a fresh size chart based off of these women. And that was, you know, that data was collected, um, through focus groups and surveys and, um, existing data sets that are on the internet. So that whole combination. Then we started to design with this customers like sizing and their, you know, sort of their emotions and how they feel in mind.

Um, so what does that mean? For example, we know that a woman who has a smaller waist hip ratio, she probably wants to show off her waist, so everything should be high wasted. We know that she might be feeling a little bit of discomfort in her hips and thighs, so let's see if we can incorporate stretch.

You know, thinking about what qualities are really important to her. So we learned from, you know, all of our focus groups and surveys, that machine washability is just like a no-brainer. Now you have to have machine washability. So making sure that every fabric we select is machine washable. So we did sort of data then, like layering on top of that design, um, design work that's very informed by the consumer.

And then we went into sampling, so pattern making, sampling, and production. And that was done. , you know, in with partnership with sort of factories that are experienced in this. Um, and then, , once we got the samples made, we went through very rigorous round of fit testing. So most brands, what they'll do is they'll fit test one size, um, and then they'll just add two inches, add two inches, add two inches, and get to the remaining sizes.

Um, and that's why you'll see, you know, clothes sometimes fit an extra small or small really well, and then by the time you get to extra larger, plus the fit is completely off because they never actually tested. in that size. So what we did is we actually fit, tested every single size for every single design.

And for some of the designs it took like 13 rounds of fit testing like so again and again and again so that someone would try it on, then give us feedback, we would fix it, then they'd try it on, give us back, we'd fix it. So, that was another sort of thing that we added into the process that wasn't there before.

And once we nailed the fit, then we sort of started making quantities.

Jennifer: Wow, what a process. You can tell the care and love that you put into it, and I'm sure this comes through in the clothing, just the fact that you're even testing each size. Speaking of size and the size chart. It sounds like you created your, size chart that's specific to women of this figure type.

Is that correct? is that available for other brands folks to use? Sounds like a huge amount of work that you've.

Neha: Yeah, so we ha, I mean, we don't have the individual data points available for others to use, but that has bubbled up into the size charts that you see on our website. So you can see for each of the sizes what the waist and hip and, you know, back rise, front rise, what all of those measurements are. So if other brands wanna leverage that, amazing, we would love to have more brands that are designing for this.

Jennifer: Paving the way forward for the industry. And then how do you think about what designs you want on the clothing? I heard a lot of focus group work, and sounds like you were thinking practicality wise as well. Things need to be machine washable. How about the actual, like look of the finished product?

Neha: Yeah, so I would say some of that is just me working in partnership with Karthik, who's my very talented designer. He is based out of India. So a lot of it was just sort of our sensibility and our design perspective. Um, so you'll notice, for example, our designs are really. Simple. You don't see a lot of bells and whistles on the outside.

That's informed by, by our design aesthetic. But all of the beauty of the pant is, is on the inside. It's in the small details. So, for example, um, in our flex waste pant, we've invented this. Um, hidden expandable waistband, and you can't see it from the outside at all, but when you put it on the pocket increases or decreases in size, and it gives you two to three inches of stretch at the waist.

Um, so that's something that like, you know, highly functional. That's something that we love about the pant, but you can't, you can't tell it from the outside. Um, so some of it

Jennifer: love a flex waste pant. We can get some extra room. You can have some room for dessert. Thank you for.

Neha: it's, you know, it's even, um, I just find as women, they're like, as you're going through the month, sometimes you're bloated on some days you're not less bloated. Like you just want a pant that's comfortable on the waist. So yeah, so I think a lot of it was our design sensibility, and then we did. Do a little bit of, um, you know, seeing what's sort of trending in the market.

Like wide leg pants have been really in for the last couple of years. So one of our designs is a wide leg, so we did kind of triangulate with that, but I think a lot of it was just our design perspective.

Jennifer: I love the more simpler designs because then you can pair that with. Anything, you can dress it up with a nicer sweater or top or dress it down with a T-shirt and it goes, and it's just super practical in a staple of your wardrobe.

Neha: Mm-hmm. . Yeah.

Jennifer: how then do you think about sourcing material, coming back to how do we build this product that we love to wear so much?

Neha: Yeah. So, um, so once you've done sort of your design work, some people, like, some brands I really admire, like apc, you know, they actually start with the fabric. So they first start with the fabric and then they design around that fabric. Um, for us, we started with. The sizing and the fit. And once we did that, we did design work and then we move on to fabric.

So based for this design, what fabric do we think is going to be best suited? Um, we knew from the get-go we wanted to work with sustainable fabrics. Responsible production is one of our brand pillars. So, um, that already narrows down the universe of fabrics to a select few. Um, and then part of the reason that I chose to work in India, part of it is because, You know, my heritage is in India.

Um, I'm familiar with the culture and the way of doing business there. Um, but also it's a huge textile hub. Um, and especially when it comes to natural fabrics like cotton. um, Lisl, et cetera. Um, they just have huge swats of the country that are known to produce this fabric. So, um, we started there. So we started with, you know, what was domestically available, um, and would work well for our designs.

Um, and then most recently we launched, um, a wool collection and that. Wool is, you know, predominantly produced in Australia and New Zealand. And so again, we went to the source and we tried to source, um, really sustainable dead stock wool from Australia.

Jennifer: amazing. When you say sustainable, how should we think about that?

Neha: Yeah, so I think it's, um, it's a, it's a scale. And I think that no fiber is parti is, is a hundred percent sustainable, but it's about sort of making, um, you know, incremental improvements. So for example, if you're a brand that uses cotton, can you use organic cotton instead of regular cotton, which uses.

Water doesn't use toxic pesticides, um, is much better for the environment. Um, if you love the hand feel of silk and the drape of silk, can you replace that with something like Lisel or 10 Cell, which has a very similar hand feel, but it's made from, uh, cellulose waste. So I think it's about, um, sort of making those incremental changes and still retaining the sort of beauty and functionality of your piece.

Jennifer: As a. A consumer. That's something that I truly care about. I know that so much of my carbon footprint is caught up in clothing, for instance, in manufacturing. And so trying to work with more sustainable brands. sounds like a way to look at how sustainable a brand is, is whatever they might say on their website.

but is there a way to parse that out even further?

Neha: Yeah, I would say two things in general. You can see if a brand cares about sustainability by clicking on their ethics and sustainability page. Some brands don't even have that page. That's a huge red flag for me. Um, and then some brands, you'll click on it and they'll only talk about sustainability, but they won't talk about.

Or vice versa. And those are two separate things. So ethics is about, you know, do you pay your workers fairly? Are they working in livable conditions? Those types of things. And then sustainability is, you know, the, the fabrics and materials that they use. So they'll usually sort of detail it out on that page.

You can also, when it comes to, you know, piece by piece, you can double click on what the fabric. Composition is for each garment. Um, and you wanna be, in general, this is a, I'm, I'm painting with a broad stroke here, but in general, natural fibers tend to be better than synthetic fibers. Um, and then even within natural fibers, when you look at things that are organic,

Jennifer: Hmm.

Neha: to be better for the environment, use less water and less pesticides than non-organic fibers.

So cotton is actually, I love cotton, but it's one of the worst fibers for the environment. But if you look at organic cotton, it's a huge improvement. Um, so I think that can be like one way, you know, as a customer to sort of narrow it down.

Jennifer: Got it. Makes sense. And then as a brand, how are you browsing through and searching and making those decisions?

Neha: Yeah, so, uh, I started really wide, so it was just a, um, you know, first we just created a very, uh, large list of all the factories that I could think of. So it was a combination of like, Google searches, um, you know, speaking to small brands and seeing where they get their items sourced or produced. Um, and then also something that I did, um, I remember in the early days was I looked at some, some American brands that are very transparent.

So I think Gap was one of them and there were a couple of others. And they're extremely trans Everlane. They're extremely transparent about exactly who their factor. Are, um, and where they're located. So adding those folks to the list, um, and then starting to just cold call and reach out to them, um, and see if they're willing to work with us as a small business.

Some of them, you know, were not comfortable working on such small quantities, but they'd be willing to refer us to someone who would. Um, and I think. , you know, these days, factories, at least in India, are very comfortable with the types of questions that brands ask when it comes to ethics and sustainability.

Like, are you certified? Do you have one of these three major certifications? Um, would you be open to a site visit or a factory visit? Um, can I send the fabric that you produce for testing? I wanna make sure that it's not using any of these toxic.

Jennifer: Mm.

Neha: so they, uh, if they say no to any of those things, you are, you know, it's a red flag, but they are usually, you know, quite forthcoming to those types of questions.

So I started off with a list of, I think it was like 50 or 75 factories, and then we narrowed it down and narrowed it down. Um, and I think by the time we were sourcing actual fabric, it came down to 12 factories and then we narrowed it down to a few more, and then I started doing personal site visits. So in addition to making sure that their.

Third party audited and checked off. I also spent multiple days in the factories that we ultimately ended up working with. Just seeing, you know, what are the conditions on the floor, speaking to the employees and just making sure that we were comfortable with the situation there.

Jennifer: how wonderful. I wish all brands took this level of care in selecting the partners that they work with.

Neha: Yeah. I mean, I think it is, it is an upfront investment. Um, but it's, it's also about, um, . I mean, on the one hand it's about relationship building and, and all of that. And also I think some of it is also about the safety to the consumer. Um, I don't think most consumers know that about two thirds of, um, you know, items that are made in the food and textile industry contain azo compounds.

So Azo dies, um, and some of these compounds are highly carcinogenic and two-thirds of the items that are being. You know, contain these compounds. And so it's, it's also about caring, about, the safety of your consumer, and really doing what's right. Um, and it's, it's a one time cost. You know, it's not a, it's not a huge ongoing cost.

Jennifer: Absolutely. Are some constraints. Maybe some people can't travel, but I think if you're trying to build a brand like this, it pays off to to care. And I think your customers will reward you in loyalty. Uh, this reminds me so much of fast fashion and how rampant it is.

Neha: Yeah. It's a very strange convert. It's a strange dichotomy. On the one hand, I think there's a lot of conversation around fast fashion and how we need to slow things down. On the other hand, sheen is growing exponentially and people continue to shop from there, even though they put out thousands, thousands of styles a day, which is insanely quick.

Um, so I think There is a, there's a dichotomy here. And the pressure, can come from both sides on the one hand, from consumers, like if we start asking questions about where is your ethics and sustainability page? Why are your factories not certified? Asking those questions of brands and, and putting pressure on them.

And then ultimately from brands to require that their factories get certified. so until that happens, you know that there's going to be mass exploitation.

Jennifer: right. What's really powerful for me to think about is the fact that we do, to your point, have so much of this power, consumers can influence 65% of global greenhouse gas emissions just by what we demand. and it all starts with us. So we can keep demanding more

Neha: A hundred percent. all of the factories that I worked with who were certified said that the reason they got certified, it's not cheap for them to get certified. Um, the reason that they got certified was because the brands that were shopping from them said, our consumers are looking for this. They are looking for ethics and sustainability.

So we simply cannot work with a factory that's not certified. So it a hundred percent comes from the consumer.

Jennifer: We're so empowered. I remember going through a purge of my clothing in my closet a few years back and saying and making a stand that I will not shop from fast fashion and I will only shop from sustainable brands and also having fewer clothing. And I think you can pay a little bit more and have fewer items that last you much, much longer.

And that. Much better for the environment and actually feels great.

Neha: Yeah. You know, I, I, I'll just say one more thing. It's, I'm so passionate about this topic, and then we

Jennifer: I love it. You too,

Neha: One , one thing I will say, um, and I, I made a short clip about this for our brand profile, but, um, I think people tend to think about their purchases as one-offs. You know, like, I spent this much during one clothing hall with sheen not to throw sheen under the bus.

I mean, there's multiple brands that do this,

Jennifer: For the general audience, what is.

Neha: Sheen is a fast fashion brand, sort of akin to h and m and Zara and, and those, but, but much faster. So those brands put out about, uh, you know, hundreds of styles a day. Sheen is putting out thousands of styles a day. Um, and it was one of the fastest growing, uh, if not the fastest growing clothing retailer during the pandemic.

So, um, you know, I think people tend to think about, okay, well one, you know, a top at Sheen was only $10, or I only spent $50 total and I got all these items, but then those products don't last. They're deliberately designed to fall apart after one or two washes so that you'll keep coming back and shopping more. And so what I encourage people to do is to think about, well, how much did you spend in a year at this brand, not one clothing hall? And you realize that actually you spent a lot of money with them. It was just, it was broken down across so many purchases. Um, and that sort of puts it into perspective, right?

There's no free lunches. You, if you pay for $10 t-shirt, it's gonna fall apart and you're gonna have to go back and buy another t-shirt,

Jennifer: Great advice, Neha. So then , I understand that you manufacture in India

How do you handle shipping?

Neha: We ship in two steps, sort of. One is, uh, bulk shipping from India to the us and then we, um, ship direct to consumer once we're in the us. We have a facility here, um, that stores our items, um, and fulfillment. I'm currently doing all out of hand because we're still a very l small brand. So, um, I fulfill everything myself here.

Jennifer: Okay, and I know you're powered by shop.

Neha: Yes. Powered by Shopify.

Jennifer: Shopify is making everything much easier. So I used to work at a direct to consumer company that manufactured goods in China and then sent to the us We had a facility here and then fulfilled, we were hit by a ton of the price increases with the containers.

And so just curious what's that like today? Is it getting better?

Neha: Yeah, we have been hit with higher shipping costs, um, and we have not passed those on to our customer because everyone is hurting right now. Um, yes, so we, we did get hit with, um, you know, with the bulk shipping that comes from India, it was a surcharge. So they've just kept that as a separate surcharge and I anticipate that at some point that surcharge will go away.

Um, but domestic shipping, they. increase the prices across the board. So I'm, I'm not optimistic that those prices will go down. Um, so a lot of brands have increased their prices and I understand where they're coming from. We made a choice not to do that.

Jennifer: again, what a wonderful brand. Speaking of prices, how are, how did you decide on pricing? How did you think about that? Some people start with the cost of the goods and then add a margin on top of that. Other people work backwards by looking at comparative prices of items on the market. What was your take

Neha: Um, so I think, you know, of course you have to break even. So you start with the bottoms up analysis and you see, you know, sort of what is the minimum price that I can charge and you triangulate with what's out there in the market. Um, what other brands are charging and what consumers are telling you they're interested in.

Um, one thing that I didn't do early on that I would tell. Brands to think about is wholesale versus retail pricing. And to from the beginning, think about what percentage of your business do you intend to be wholesale, um, because wholesale discounts are, you know, 60 to 70% off. And then what percentage of your business do you intend to be retail?

Um, and, and make sure you work that into your cost structure.

Jennifer: Did you decide on your pricing based off of some of these focus groups too,

Neha: yes. Yeah. So we did test in focus groups and in, in some of the surveys we sent out, we also did some light, um, ad testing on Facebook. So we would put up ads, um, and have the exact same ad, just with different pricing at the bottom and see which one, if there was any marked difference in the click rate.

We've done the same thing that the ad testing with, um, discount offers that we've run, so, whether percent percentage off resonates more or free shipping resonates more. Um, it's usually a pretty and much cheaper than a focus group to run sort of an ad campaign for a couple of weeks.

Jennifer: You've talked so much about data and even here in discovering your price point. I hear you speaking to data, and I just wanna highlight that for listeners, how important that is and how much more robust it can make your decisions, and I'm not surprised whatsoever, Neha. speaking about customers, I was gonna ask how you reach your customers today?

Neha: So, we sell on Shopify, like you mentioned. Um, we're directing consumer largely. We've just started dip tiptoeing into wholesale. Um, and we started doing in-person events as well in the fall, which have been really successful for us. Um, not surprising because women with this body type like to try on.

Clothes before buying. So that's gonna be a big area of growth for us in 2023. Um, in terms of marketing, you know, the, the area we've tried a lot of different. things when it comes to marketing. Um, we've experimented with a lot of different strategies. Um, I think the things that have been the most successful for us are influencer.

Again, not surprising because we're a niche. We're a niche brand. We cater to a niche market, and if we can find an influencer who has our body type, um, She can speak about our products so authentically to her audience. So that's worked really well for us. Um, also Facebook and Instagram ads because we are an e-commerce brand and people just tend to shop on their phone.

Um, and then the other thing that you know, has worked really well for us in that I definitely wanna flush out, um, as a brand this year is putting out content just about sort of educating customers. Um, fit issues and what, and, and supply chain and how clothes are made. So we've seen a lot of interest. I mean, our top performing content on social has been this educational content about things like, why don't patterns match at the seams of my clothes?

Or, you know, why do I have this like, , you shaped wrinkle at the crush. Um, you know, what, what, what's going on with outlet malls? Like, how are, why are outlet malls so much cheaper than, than regular clothes? So all of these sort of things that I've learned on my journey building, um, and I'm, I'm so thrilled to share with people.

I think it's important for us to all be more educated. Um, that type of content in addition to sort of just constantly selling, I think has helped sort of build a really strong, strong community.

Jennifer: Absolutely. When you think about your brand, how would you describe it?

Neha: I would say as a brand, we care about three things. Um, the first is really exceptional fit. . The second is great quality, and the third is responsible production. And those are sort of the three things that come in in every collection that we launch. And every piece of marketing that we put out, we try to hit on one or more of those things.

Um, in terms of the sort of internal ethos of our brands, we're a very small team right now. It's just me, my designer. And then, um, most of the other folks we work with are partners or, or contractors. Um, I try to sort of create, um, I've tried to create a sort of flat environment, um, across all of our different stakeholders where we can have, informed decisions that feel sort of, um, you know, not hierarchical and not very top down.

I'm trying to sort of build this brand where we collaborate and create together and we share feedback whether someone's really senior or more junior. And we sort of come up with things and improve upon things together. My designer, um, is, I think he's five years younger than I. , I should know exactly how many years younger he is, but I think he's five years younger.

But some of, some of my coolest, most creative ideas have come from him. Um, and so I think sort of empowering him to sort of feel like he can contribute in a real way and that his ideas will be taken seriously, is is part of the ethos that I'm trying to build out.

Jennifer: Neha, this sounds so amazing. I'm just, I wish I was this exact body type so I could find I'm like me that there's lots of this body. There. Uh, yeah. I love it and I can see how just really high quality clothing that fits right and that are responsibly produced, really resonates with me as a customer.

And, and, and then you tack that on with your differentiator of this is exclusively for women of pier and hourglass shaped bodies. Just makes it such a, such a huge value add for folks. Yeah.

Beautiful. so understanding that folks can find these products on your website, which will link below in the comments on your Instagram, which will also link, and do you wanna shout out any retailers and any popups that you have coming up

Neha: Retailers, none in the US yet. We have a couple in, in Canada, but um, for popups, we are gonna be participating if you're in the Bay Area. We will be extensively participating in Head West Marketplace, which is this, um, wonderful local focused, um, pop-up market that happens a few times a month.

So, um, definitely come and say hi.

Jennifer: And then I wanna ask you a couple questions now just about your journey building as a founder.

Neha: Mm-hmm.

Jennifer: I believe you bootstrapped,

Neha: Yes, a hundred percent bootstrapped.

Jennifer: what was your rationale there, just for other folks that are thinking about doing that?

Neha: Oh, so much to write. I'm actually writing a book about bootstrapping and, and things to know. Um, so my rationale was, uh, look, we're a niche. We're a niche fashion brand, and we're not gonna have this sort of hockey stick growth cuz we're building it up like a small business. So it doesn't seem like it's the right fit for venture or institutional funding.

Um, I also have worked at institutionally backed startups, um, multiple of them, and I do feel as though, um, there is a pressure to sort of increase your market size and to cater to as many people as possible. And I wanted to make sure that we were really focused on our consumer. Um, so I decided not to pursue institutional funding, um, and.

It was, I, you know, there's pros and cons. I think the pro is that I've, I've regained, I've retained a lot of control over my business and over the decisions that we make. The cons are, It's really difficult to sustain yourself, um, with bootstrap funding. And the biggest area where we feel the pain is marketing.

Um, so I think a lot of startup brands don't, don't realize how expensive marketing can be right off the bat. Um, you know, we had sort of in our initial budget we had set aside about 15% and that's not. Of revenue and that's not enough money, um, to, to market. So that's sort of the area where, I think we feel the pinch.

Um, but as of right now, we're doing fine. And, and I don't think we're, we have any plans to raise at the moment.

Jennifer: You obviously have thought so much about this. We'll look out for this book whenever it comes out,

Neha: Yeah.

Jennifer: But the flip side of that is whatever growth you're getting is really organic growth. It is actual signal, not just noise from people who actually love your product and your brand.

And so to your point of wanting to be really focused on your consumer, you're steadily getting to your consumer who are then telling other consumers that fit your product

Neha: Yeah.

Jennifer: What would you say folks who are thinking of starting their brand should ballpark in terms of how much funding to gather for launch of a brand?

And I know this varies based off of how much they, what batch size, but like how should they think about that?

Neha: Yeah. So what I would do, and I actually did this very early, I did this in 2020, um, mostly cuz I had anxiety about, you know, whether I had enough to do money to do this. Um, I would create a rough financial model. , um, to sort of map out what you think your costs will be for launch and then what you think the revenues, the, the revenues are really hard to predict, so I'd just be conservative with those.

Um, so for costs, the main sort of inputs, and you can Google most of these inputs online, or you can cold call retailers and get quotes pretty quickly. Not retailers, sorry. Manufacturers. Um, so the, the main things I would think about. Manufacturing and materials. So here you're thinking about fabric, um, cut and sew, which is the producers.

Any auditing or testing that you might wanna do? Um, the cost of trims, so select buttons, uh, zippers, all of that. Um, any packaging that it would, uh, packaging we can do separately. So I would look at, you know, manufacturing and materials. Um, then I would look at, Packaging. So that's a separate cost where you look at, the material cost of packaging and then if you wanna get it shipped from overseas. So it's often a lot cheaper to get packaging made overseas, but the shipping cost can be really, really high, because boxes have to be laid flat, so it's usually volumetric.

And so I would look into the shipping costs. It's not, I, I'm, I'm getting into that detail here because it's actually a meaningful cost. So you have manufacturing materials, you have packaging. Then I would do shipping costs. So the freight cost, if you're getting it shipped from overseas, um, or if you're getting it made domestically, what that shipping cost is then, um, the labor cost of assembling your boxes and, and getting that out.

Um, even if you're planning to do it yourself initially, you know, down the line, you anticipate that you will have some people who will help you out. And so what would that cost be? Another really important cost is quality. So, um, you know, each piece, each garment that you make will have to be checked for quality to make sure that the measurements are correct.

Um, and I, I did a hundred percent check on all my garments. There are brands who get away with 10, 20% checks. So you can decide what kind of brand you know you wanna be. Um, but for a really high end brand, yes, you need to check a hundred percent of your pieces. So quality control. Um, and then, so that's sort of just in the product space.

And then I would factor in, you know, marketing cost. Um, there's payment processing, which is involved with sales. Um, I would bacon some sort of refund rate that you expect. So whether, you know, we have a really low refund rate at am, ours is just 3%, but. Most e-commerce brands have a 30% refund rate. Um, so thinking about, well, and then they resell some of that.

So you could assume, you know, a five, 10% refund rate. Um, and then the final thing I would add onto that is this is getting su super detailed, but hopefully this is helpful to someone. Um, . Um, the final thing I would add onto that is discounts.

Jennifer: Right.

Neha: So what percentage discount Yeah. On average do you expect to discount your brand?

Um, that's also important to bake into your margin. So, you know, sort of look into all of those costs, um, and you know how much you plan to charge per pan and how many you think you can sell. And once you have your cost structure, you can figure out how long it'll take you to break even. So once you know, you know, okay, say it's gonna take me 12 months, 18 months, nine months to break even.

do I have enough money to sustain myself? Can I do, can I pay for rent? Can I, you know, pay for food? Can I live comfortably? Um, and then one thing I would just say is, you know, to all your expenses, just add a 15%. Bonus. You, you calculate everything to a t and nothing ever goes to plan. You mentioned the shipping thing earlier, Jenny.

Like, um, you know, things go up in price, you can't predict it. Yeah. So just always put a buffer in. Um, and I think that'll give you some, you know, it'll, it at least calmed me down to say, okay, I actually have enough runway for 18 months. Like I have enough saved up to where I can do this

Jennifer: I'm the same. I would have done this to make me feel better. Otherwise that would be a, oh my goodness, what about the time that it takes to manufacture? is that a very long lead time?

Neha: Yeah. It depends on the quantities that you're making. So, um, and also, you know, um, whether you're buying the fabric ready made or whether you're getting the fabric made from scratch. So our fabrics were custom made. That took about 90. We also did it in the middle of the pandemic, but a regular timeline would be about 90, 60 to 90 days to get that fabric made and dyed and quality checked.

Um, and then I would, as it's very dependent on quantit. But, um, you know, I would assume anywhere from one month to three months based on the quantity that you're getting produced for, for production. Um, and you can, and, and you know, a few things I'll say about this is one, you don't need to have the full production made in order to start selling, right?

Um, if you're going the wholesale route, all you need is one sample and you can get, you can start getting orders. And even if you're selling retail, You can start selling like a month before launch with pre-order and just get pre-orders going so you don't have to wait for these really long lead times.

Um, so, but, but that is sort of roughly how long it takes.

Jennifer: That's really, really helpful, Neha. And then how about you and your. Decision to launch this brand and enter into entrepreneurship for yourself? What was that like and what would you say to to be founders that are interested in launching their own clothing brand?

Neha: It's definitely been the steepest learning curve. Like it's, I've, I've grown the most and I've learned more than anything I, I had done in the past. Um, I would say that, um, my advice to entrepreneurs, two, two sort of big things. One is especially if you're coming from an operational role, so I'm talking to folks who are great executors.

You guys have always been top of your class in terms of getting promoted early and, and. , you know, you're really well appreciated. At work, you are probably going to struggle as an entrepreneur because the guideposts are not so clear and you will not see wins on a daily or a weekly basis. Um, So I think it's really one of the earliest pieces of advice that I think about often is to shift your mindset to be from daily and weekly, to be monthly and quarterly, and how much have I accomplished in a month or a quarter?

Um, and sort of. using that guidepost. And the second thing I would say is prior, like really pay attention to your mental health. I start my day at 10:30 AM I'm not ashamed to say it. My workday starts at 10:30 AM which is super late Um, because I have to get a workout in the morning and I don't like getting up early.

And that's really important for my mental health and I've learned. You know, a year into being an entrepreneur, so do whatever it is that you need to do to keep your mental health intact, because it's about, it's a long journey. It's about the long road.

Jennifer: It's actually also the perk of entrepreneurship. You can do what you need to do and you can also create whatever culture you works for yourself and your team. So good for you. Are starting at 10 30. That's awesome. I love it. I've heard, I've had entrepreneurs tell me they need their nine to 10 hours of sleep and they make sure they get that.

I've had entrepreneurs talk about making sure that they get their run in their exercise, their meditation, their journaling, so I'm really glad to hear from you too, that you're prioritizing self-care because it is a marathon. It's definitely not a sprint.

Neha: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Jennifer Bonus: Wonderful. Naja. Let's say folks that are looking to build a clothing brand that are looking for resources on how to do it, what would you refer them to?

Neha: Yeah. So now you know there are some really great resources that are out there, um, like Startup Fashion by Nicole Giordano. Um, she's a founder who's sort of dedicated all of her time and energy to helping startups, or, or new designers. Figure out, um, the different steps. Um, there's also, you know, if you're Bay Area based, um, San Francisco has a fashion incubator where you get connected to mentors, um, in the industry.

Everything from supply chain all the way through to marketing and sales. Um, and you can, you can join, I think it's free to apply and if you get accepted, you know, you have a lot of help. And so there might be, These hubs, um, or, or incubators in different cities across the us. Um, one thing I would also say, you know, that I did in the early days is I took a sewing and alterations course.

Not just one class, but an entire course. I think if you don't come from a traditional design background, it's really important to understand how garments are made, how patterns are made, how you can alter a pattern to fit a different body shape. And to just sort of gain that hands-on experience. Um, and another way, you know, you can sort of, um, Figure out the different steps is if you talk to local makers and local brands, um, and small businesses and see how they got started.

Um, they may have some communities that you can plug into. Um, and then once you launch, I just, I have to, I, I tell every. Every startup this, um, because I just, I think it's the greatest book of all time for marketing. Um, it's Traction, it's by the founder of Duck Dot Go. And I think it's the single best book on marketing for startups that there is out there.

It's super practical, very easy, um, steps and anyone can follow it. So that's some pointers.

Jennifer Bonus: so helpful. My last question for you, how did you come up with the name, um, for your label?

Neha: So, um, uh, um, has two meanings in Hindi, which is my native tongue. Um, the first, which is sort of the, the primary inspiration for the brand, it means ordinary. And so the, the, the thought process was that we wanted to. Make our way of doing things, which is, you know, really focusing on great fundamentals, putting the customer first.

We wanted to make that approach to design ordinary in an industry where everything is really top down. You know, a few fashion houses, sketch some designs, and that flows into the mass market. It's completely different to how we're approaching it. Um, . And then the second meaning of, um, is mangoes. And I just thought it was a fun unit.

Yeah. Um, so, you know, mangoes have the shape that we cater to and so it's like a fun dual meaning for, for our brand.

Jennifer Bonus: Beautiful. Neha, this was so great to have you on. I learned so much. Thank you. Thank you.

Neha: Thank. Thanks so much, Jen.

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