The New Fashion Start-Up Ecosystem

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Show Overview:

The intersection of Fashion and Technology continues to grow and transform how we shop, style, and coordinate our clothes and accessories. Today we are going to talk with Lisa Morales-Hellebo about surviving your first cohort, sustainable fashion and how it’s never too late to start your own business.

 

About GFGF:

The Get Found Get Funded podcast is at the intersection of entrepreneurship and social justice where we focus on entrepreneurship as a possible path to wealth creation — specifically for Black and Latinx communities.

 

Featured Guest: Lisa Morales-Hellebo

Born in the Bronx, New York, Lisa Morales-Hellebo received her BFA in Graphic Design with University Honors from Carnegie Mellon University.

Over the span of her 25 year career, she’s become a VC, product strategist, entrepreneur, & creative director. Lisa is also currently a co-founder of The New York Supply Chain Meetup and The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation; and is co-founder and general partner of Refashiond Ventures

In 2014, Lisa founded and launched the New York Fashion Tech Lab with Springboard Enterprises and the Partnership Fund for NYC while serving as Executive Director for the first year. Lisa’s previous fashion tech startup, Shopsy, raised capital and participated in TechStars in 2012 after she was selected as one of the Top 10 Women in DC Tech. Lisa currently lives in the NYC suburbs of Westchester County with her husband, two sons, and their dog, Rocky.

 

Key Takeaways: 

  • Anyone can start a business at any time.
  • While starting your venture your peers may underestimate you or even talk down to you, don’t let that impact the way you see yourself or what you think of your ideas.  
  • Share your ideas and workshop them, even if you fear said ideas being stolen.  

 

Timestamps:

1:03 – Introduction 

4:06 – When did Lisa know entrepreneurship was an option for her? 

5:24 – What did Lisa do during her time in Silicon Valley?

8:25 – Getting into fashion supply chains. 

17:33 – Coming up with the name “Refashiond.”

18:35 – Failure as the catalyst.

22:06 – Building partnerships and ecosystem.    

26:58 – How to get credibility. Are accelerators right for everyone?

35:35 – Trends in the fashion space that Lisa is seeing.

40:50 – Advice for starting a shoe business.

46:44 – Using waste wisely and the fashion supply chain ecosystem. 

50:35 – Passion and vision are key. 

52:35 – Wrapup.

55:34 – Outro

 

Items Mentioned in the Show:

LisaHellebo.com  

https://theworldwidesupplychainfederation.com/ 

Meetup.com 

https://bymilaner.com/ 

Quotes from the Show:

  • “It took me until I was 37-years-old with two kids, and a mortgage, and married, to realize that people like me, women, minorities… mom’s could actually be founders of their own tech companies.”
  • “The biggest variable for success is access and opportunity.”
  • “Supply chains are like air [or] oxygen. You don’t recognize it, you don’t say oh great oxygen today, you just breathe so when there’s little oxygen you definitely notice it.”
  • “There’s a fine line between insanity and genius and I think the only difference is if you can get other people to get on board with your insanity.”
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