Toshada Uma (4’8”) is a petite model, blogger and social media maven based out of Mumbai, India. When asked about her love of fashion and beauty, she says, “[It] directly roots from the women who birthed me, [my mom and maternal grandmother]—I could say it’s in my blood.” She began her modeling career several years ago and since then has made a name for herself as a petite body positive advocate.
Though she’s always loved performing and being in front of a camera, Toshada worried about fitting into the modeling industry’s rigid beauty standards. But photographers and modeling agencies began approaching her with offers when she was in high school, and it’s easy to see why—despite standing well below standard model high, her flare and confidence make her a natural. And she says that there’s “definitely” room for more petite models in the fashion industry.
Besides breaking barriers in modeling, Toshada is also exposing her followers to unconventional types of beauty. Toshada has alopecia and at first tried to grow her hair out to cover it. Now, though, she keeps it shaved, saying that “getting over the one ‘flaw,’ as people may call alopecia, made [her] extremely confident.” She creates custom-made wigs, DIY beauty projects and beauty tutorials, all geared toward making people think of beauty in a new way. “When one feels beautiful, it shows,” she says, “and there’s nobody that can change that!”.
]]>Collete Davis (5’2”) is a professional racecar driver, entrepreneur, and national TV host. At 24 years old, Collete has achieved more than most, but her path has been both challenging and untraditional.
Racecar driving is often a family sport, and many successful racers get introduced to the sport as young as 4 years old. Starting to race at age 15 and being the first one in her family to do so gave Collete an unfair advantage, but her competitive and curious personality made her a perfect fit for the racecar industry. As she navigated the world of racing, she often had to find ways to support herself financially. From networking at the track to raising money from angels and venture capitalists, she raised money to pay for her training and build her brand. Now Colette has many wins across multiple types of racing: Monster Jam, Rallycross, Sports Car, Open-wheel, and Karting, with no intention of stopping soon. Each of these racing areas requires a different mindset, and a different understanding of the vehicle, but Collete’s drive (pun intended) and strong belief in herself has allowed her to carve out a space in the industry.
Collete also works to popularize STEM studies and entrepreneurship amongst women. Most recently, she earned a spot on Microsoft’s “People of Action” list and hosted TLC’s hit show ‘Girl Starter’. Collete feels grateful that she grew up in an environment where riding BMX bikes and experimenting with engines was encouraged, and she hopes to normalize this among other females so they too can follow their passions.
]]>Ooshma Garg (5’2”) is the founder and CEO of Gobble, a dinner-delivery service that helps create 15-minute, one-pan meals geared toward bringing together busy families.
Ooshma was inspired to start Gobble in 2010, when running her first startup led to unhealthy eating habits. After her dad spent a few days cooking healthy meals for her, she realized the importance of eating well and with loved ones. Knowing that many busy professionals struggle with making time for eating with their families, she started building Gobble.
Gobble began as a marketplace for local chefs to provide home-cooked meals. However, after realizing that this model wasn't scalable, Ooshma and her team pivoted into what Gobble is today. Gobble’s chefs prepare high quality meals so busy parents can feed their families fresh, delicious meals without having to spend the time shopping, chopping, prepping, or cleaning. And this new model is clearly working: the company has thousands of loyal customers, nearly $30M in total funding, and a monthly growth of over $1 million.
Ooshma describes Gobble as “convenience without compromise, togetherness recaptured, and a mission worth working [on] 24/7.” Her customers have felt the same, and she says that hearing how much the service has impacted them makes all the hard work worthwhile. When asked about her long term vision for the company, she says: “to be the #1 worldwide food brand for families to trust for fresh, easy, options for meals any time any day”.
]]>Daria Tsvenger (5’2’’) is the co-founder of SuperGirls Club, a health and wellness organization for women of all backgrounds. With over 2000 members, SuperGirls Club has become a community marked by its solidarity and diversity.
Daria started the SuperGirls Club after moving to San Francisco from Serbia almost two years ago. Experiencing extreme culture shock and craving a sense of belonging, she worked towards not just building a community for herself, but also towards providing a safe space where others could come and find a community of their own. As a longtime lover of yoga, Daria started out by providing free yoga classes for people in the area, but quickly realized there was so much more that she could offer. She began to incorporate simple programs like meditation workshops and essential oils classes, and would eventually host more significant events in collaboration with other like-minded organizations.
SuperGirls Club has set itself apart as a health and wellness club by prioritizing community as its primary goal. The variety of events that SuperGirls Club now provides — health and wellness career panels, expressive arts workshops, wellness lounges, wellness seminars, etc. — are the means by which women of all backgrounds can come find a sense of belonging together, and encourage one another to be healthy, well and free.
]]>Nitasha Syed (5’2’’) is the founder of Unboxd, a media platform that celebrates the beauty of intelligence through the voices of inspiring women in STEM.
Nitasha’s interest in technology was first piqued by her father who is a computer scientist. From taking apart his old laptops to learning basic practices in programming, she received an early exposure to tech that’s not very common (especially for young women). When choosing a career path, she chose to follow in her father’s footsteps, majoring in computer science and later finding a career as both an engineer and product manager.
Throughout her experience in tech, Nitasha was well aware of the many unflattering descriptions of women in STEM. Popular culture often shows them as being stiff, boring, and unattractive, and as a society we’ve learned that beauty and charm are for the non-intelligent and intellect belongs to the nerdy and socially awkward. But Nitasha knew these perceptions were both untrue and heavily damaging to the potential of young women who believed this.
“It pains me to think about how many women could have pursued STEM had the stereotype of women who work in STEM been different in the media”, says Nitasha. Unfortunately, she’s had many women tell her they were interested in math or science but made a conscious decision to stop pursuing it so they could fit in socially. This is ultimately what led her to start Unboxd.
Unboxd is aiming to give these girls their STEM role models by sharing the stories of women currently in the field. With inspiring features on some of today’s movers and shakers, the Uboxd team is helping to slowly change the narrative about these women while giving young girls new role models to look up to.
Emily Lau (5’2’’) is the founder of The Little Bra Company (TLBC), a company that specializes in lingerie for smaller-framed women. Emily started The Little Bra Company in 2007 because she couldn’t find any attractive bras that fit her smaller frame and chest. As Emily put it “the bras that fit better looked like training bras, and the ones that were sexier did not fit quite right.”
She used this as inspiration to design a bra specifically for petite women. In the same way that petite-sized clothing fit a petite woman better because the shoulders, waists and inseams are proportionately narrower and shorter, all details of TLBC’s bras are scaled down to better fit and flatter a petite frame. As Emily’s business has grown, it has evolved beyond just offering the petite woman a specialized fitting bra to now offering a complete bra wardrobe—everything from a fashionable lace push-up bra to a sports bra, so that the petite buyer will have everything she needs in her lingerie drawer.
Prior to starting The Little Bra Company, Emily worked as a writer/producer for the History and Discovery Channels. As a TV writer, Emily learned how to put together compelling stories and captivate an audience which has helped her build TLBC brand and business. Moving forward, Emily’s vision is to continue making her products available to as many petite women as possible. On that end, she’s working with some international partners and distributors to extend her company’s reach globally.
]]>Sara Mauskopf (5’2’’) is a wife, mother of two, and CEO of Winnie, a child care discovery platform for modern parents. Whether you want to ask other parents for advice, find new things to do with your kids, or just get to the nearest changing table, Winnie can help.
Sara Mauskopf graduated from MIT with a major in Computer Science and minors in Math and Women’s Studies. Post-graduation, Sara spent nine years in the Bay Area going from one tech giant to another: from Google, to YouTube, to Twitter, and then to Postmates. But it was after giving birth to her first child in 2015 that she realized there was a big void in the tech world for parenting apps at which point she left her position at Postmates to co-found Winnie.
Sara and co-founder, Anne, set out to make a “Yelp for Parents.” The app they created provides information about millions of different places throughout the U.S. just for parents. It answers questions like, ‘does this restaurant have changing tables in the restroom?’ or ‘does this preschool have open spaces for enrollment?’
In Sara’s view, parenting is the most important job in the world, which is why she’s so passionate and dedicated to building Winnie. It’s also why she prioritizes raising her two children amongst the many responsibilities of running a business. Having two children, however, has not slowed her down one bit. “I feel like being a mom has given me superpowers,” she says, and Winnie’s success is a testament to this very fact. Sara’s business has seen exponential growth with over 1 million users in 10,000 cities across the United States in just under 3 years.
]]>Amanda Curtis (5’4’’) is the CEO and co-founder of Nineteenth Amendment, a platform that gives designers and brands of all sizes technology to facilitate on-demand manufacturing and inventory-free retailing. Nineteenth Amendment has worked with 500 brands from 30 countries, is in partnership with the Council of Fashion Designers of America, and was the first startup to partner with Macy's.
Prior to founding Nineteenth Amendment, Amanda worked as a fashion designer, designing for big names such as Richie Rich, DVF, and a-list celebs like Ellen Degeneres. During this time, Amanda grew increasingly frustrated with the severe technological deficiency that plagued the fashion industry and set out to do something about it.
While at Harvard iLab in 2012, Amanda met her soon-to-be co-founder, Gemma Sole. Together, Gemma and Amanda brainstormed the idea that would become Nineteenth Amendment. The idea was to throw out the traditional model of how brands work with manufacturers and replace it with a much more efficient and sustainable method. In the old model, brands would invest a lot of money into inventory prior to selling to consumers. With the new model, brands sell to consumers first, then get those purchases made on-demand with a Nineteenth Amendment US based manufacturers in as little as four weeks. With this idea, Gemma and Amanda would end up rallying investors and partnering up with seven other fashion startups and established retailers to develop their technology
Fast forward five years, and Nineteenth Amendment has been featured in a number of reputable publications including Forbes, The NY Times, Huffington Post, InStyle, Wall Street Journal, WWD, The Chicago Tribune, New York Observer, etc, with partnerships with Macy’s, Disney, Microsoft, Lord & Taylor, and Dell. The tremendous success of this company is an excellent example of what happens when ingenuity revitalizes an outdated system.
Bee Mattox (5’2’’) is the Cofounder and Chief Product Officer of Dance Reality — an app that uses augmented reality (AR) to help users learn and practice dance patterns by placing footprints onto the floor in front of them. Dance Reality has been featured in 50 articles in 18 countries, including Mashable, Forbes, The Verge, CNET, GeekWire, and VentureBeat. The app has helped countless people across the world learn to dance from the comfort and privacy of their homes.
Bee has always had an interest in dance. She grew up learning all different types including tap, ballet, jazz, hip hop, modern, African, and would later on take up an interest in salsa. As Apple’s AR technology developed, Bee and her co-founder saw a perfect opportunity to bring a new technology to the market. Dance Reality is the first product to teach a physical activity using AR from the convenience of your smartphone or tablet.
Despite everything they’ve accomplished so far, this is just the beginning for Bee and the Dance Reality team. As they grow, they plan to roll out a number of new features: full dance classes with "holograms" of world-class dance instructors and a hands-free version that uses an AR headset. Their vision is to expand to yoga, martial arts, and sports coaching and become the leading platform to teach physical activities using immersive technology.
]]>Malia Makaila (5’5’’), is a petite, American model of Hawaiian and Portuguese descent represented by State Management, New York.
From a young age, Malia gravitated toward the arts, particularly dancing, acting and modeling. She began her dancing career at the age of nine traveling to dance competitions and going to annual recitals. She received her big break during her freshman year of college when she become a cheerleader for the Philadelphia Eagles. It was during her time as a cheerleader that she gained experience as a model as she traveled and did photoshoots with the Eagles’ cheer team.
Malia graduated from University of the Arts, Philadelphia in 2016 with a BFA in dance and immediately started solidifying her career in modeling. Breaking into the modeling world as a petite woman can be very daunting, but Malia followed her childhood dreams regardless. With aspirations to make the modeling industry more inclusive to people of all shapes and sizes, Malia ultimately signed with State Management modeling in New York city.
Malia is still a model on the petite board of the State Management New York agency, and is excited to be a force in the ever evolving world of modeling. She is confident that with more efforts from petite and plus sized models, the industry will only continue to become more inclusive over time.
]]>Kelly Ernst (5’2’’) is the CEO and founder of Redenim, a company that helps women find the perfect pair of jeans. Kelly and the powerful AI technology that drives Redenim have been featured in several prominent blogs and magazines such as WIRED, Built In Austin, and StarterNoise. Kelly even won the Gentleman Jack Pitch Distilled Competition — a live pitch competition in Austin, Texas — in 2017.
Prior to starting Redenim, Kelly worked as a tech developer across several industries including education, finance, and government so problem solving always came naturally to her. She always struggled to find that perfect pair of jeans and knew that most other women did as well and was driven to find an innovative solution.
Before building her company, Kelly started collecting a lot of data to try and figure out which jeans would fit best based on factors like height and weight. While Redenim first began as a side project, Kelly was ultimately left with no choice but to work on it full-time; around the time that a startup accelerator program had taken interest in Redenim, Kelly was also laid-off from her full time job. Not long after she got laid off, Kelly started developing an artificially intelligent recommendation engine called ‘JEANome’ that would find the right jeans in a scalable way. This algorithmuses information it receives from customers to identify the right size and style of jeans. As a customer, the process of finding the perfect pair of jeans has never been easier: (1) Create a profile with your measurements (2) The algorithm uses that info to find your perfect pair (3) Redenim ships you three pairs of pants that you can choose from. The technology behind Kelly’s start-up allows for an incredibly efficient and user-friendly process and is helping women of all shapes and sizes find the perfect pair of jeans with much less hassle.
Michelle Bacharach (5’3”), is the co-founder and CEO of FINDMINE, a technology that uses artificial intelligence to help companies automate the process of styling the items they have for sale in both the clothing and home furniture space. In doing so, FINDMINE has helped brands make anywhere from 4 - 7.5% more revenue which translates to $1M - $30M in extra cash. This might seem shocking but it totally makes sense; consumers will buy more when they can see how to use what they’re buying.
After graduating from UC Berkeley and going through a process of trying on different career ‘hats’ post-graduation, Michelle ultimately decided to go to business school and then move in the direction of entrepreneurship. She realized that when she shopped, she was able to find items she liked, but often wasn’t sure how to style them. She could pick out a piece of furniture or some articles of clothing, for example, but she couldn’t create an entire outfit or complete a layout for a dining area. She would find herself googling things like “what goes with a white leather couch?”. This problem, of course, isn’t unique to Michelle; many (perhaps most) customers struggle with this exact issue. But the solution to this in modern businesses is a manual process — furniture stores have featured layouts to show how to pair different pieces; clothing companies use mannequins to show how certain items can be used in an outfit. Michelle’s revolutionary idea was to automate this process instead, and thus, FINDMINE was born. Using artificial intelligence, FINDMINE allows businesses to style ensembles for every item they sell; a feat that would be virtually impossible to do manually for most businesses. This allows customers to find desirable items and then browse through all of the suggested combinations created by the FINDMINE algorithm.
Michelle and the FINDMINE team have worked with fashion brands like John Varvatos, Perry Ellis, Laundry by Shelli Segal, and many other household names. The success of their business is due to the passion that drives great innovation and the relentless efforts to continually upgrade the algorithm that sits at the heart of their business.
]]>Amy Nelson (5’4”) is the founder of The Riveter, a coworking and community space, built by women for all. They currently have five locations in Seattle and Los Angeles.
Amy’s vision to start a co-working space for professional women was borne out of the challenges she faced as a woman working in the corporate world. Working as a corporate litigator, Amy reached the height of her frustrations when she was pregnant with her second child and didn’t receive an advancement opportunity simply because the company would be inconvenienced by her maternity leave. Disillusioned by a broken system, Amy was determined to work toward a better solution not just for herself, but for all women who faced the inequality of a flawed business structure.
As if to sarcastically avoid “inconveniencing” her employer for a third time, she decided to quit her job while pregnant with her third child to start something of her own. When she started taking business classes she quickly realized that they were all held in very male-centric, shared corporate work spaces. Video games, ping-pong, and foosball were common features in these spaces; there was no consideration for the professional woman, and certainly none for the pregnant and professional woman. But why? With more and more women venturing into business, why were all of these spaces so mindful of the businessman and not the businesswoman? These kinds of questions would shape the the framework for Amy’s business — a framework that has made The Riveter a unique and successful fixture in the business world.
Put simply, The Riveter is a shared workspace that keeps women in mind first. They strive to create a community and provide resources that fosters wellness and success for women in business.
Vanessa Jeswani (5’1’’) and her husband Kish Vasnani are the founders of Nomad Lane, a business that crafts thoughtfully-designed travel accessories.
Vanessa began her career working in digital marketing with companies such as Estee Lauder, American Express, and British Airways. While she found these opportunities to be interesting and rewarding, she was determined to be in the driver’s seat of her own business.
Not long after beginning her career in digital marketing, Vanessa had begun to lay the groundwork for Nomad Lane. With her marketing know-how, she prioritized steadily building a brand over selling an actual product, which was a major key to the ultimate success of the company. Building up a travel-based brand was an authentic effort for Vanessa, since travel had been for her and her husband much more than a leisure hobby or business activity. For Vanessa and Kish, traveling served as an integral part of their love story. From the motorcycle rides on the streets of Mumbai to ATV-ing across the hills of Mykonos, the two fell in love on-the-go. It was this love that overflowed into a passion project — Nomad Lane is not merely a business selling travel accessories, but a project to facilitate the joy of well-prepared travel with high quality, well-designed, handmade products.
Vanessa’s story is a perfect example of how passion makes for the best product. Nomad Lane stands apart as a travel-accessory based brand because of its strict attention to detail and sincere care for great travel experiences. From meticulously picking out the best artisans to handcraft the products to surveying travelers to see how they pack; these are all marks of careful, passionate ownership that make Nomad Lane truly stand out as a company.
]]>Elisa Camahort Page (5’2’’) is a successful consultant, author, and most notably the co-founder of BlogHer. After graduating from San Jose State University with a BA in Theater Arts, Elisa moved to New York to pursue a career in acting. Elisa soon grew disillusioned with how big a role networking and “who you know” played in the industry, not just talent and hard work. She moved back to the Bay Area, and worked first in commodities before eventually landing a job in the marketing department of a tech company. Elisa’s flexibility and quickness to learn served her well, and it allowed her to thrive in a number of different industries. She got into tech just as the industry really began to boom in 1997, and she was senior director of product management at a different tech company by 2003 just six years later. Unfortunately the tech industry was, and still is, a male dominated industry, and having hit the glass ceiling hard, she decided to try out consulting and entrepreneurship, where her talent and experience in public speaking helped her to succeed.
In 2005, she co-founded BlogHer, an online media company by and for female bloggers, with Jory Des Jardins and Lisa Stone. At first, BlogHer was a side project...a conference...but after the tremendous success of that first conference, she and her co-founders realized just how much the conference was needed. They grew the BlogHer conference and featured speakers like Serena Williams and Barack Obama, created a website to showcase the work of the bloggers in their community, and launched a publishing network to help blogger monetize their work. Elisa and her co-founders bootstrapped for two years in order to grow the community of women bloggers as organically as possible, but ultimately raised four rounds of venture capital before being acquired in 2014. (Fun fact: Female-founding team represent only 3% of the start-ups funded by venture capital. Three. Percent.)
Elisa now works as a consultant with companies like NPR, and gives back as much as she can by working with organizations like Hack the Hood, DigitalUndivided, and the NanoSTEAM Foundation, among others. But the project she’s currently most excited about is her book titled “Roadmap for Revolutionaries: Resistance, Activism, and Advocacy for All,” co-authored with Carolyn Gerin and Jamia Wilson, and due to release next week on September 18. As a former political blogger, Elisa has always cared deeply about politics, and after the 2016 election, she realized she wanted to write a book to help people manage and protect their personal democracy. Set to be “a direct, snappy guidebook on engaging in effective day-to-day activism and advocacy at all levels,” Elisa’s book is poised to help people advocate politically on a local level, in their own backyard. With all that she’s done to empower and inspire already, we’re sure that Elisa’s book will be no different.
]]>Rajee Aerie (5’0’’) is a fashion model who fiercely advocates for disability representation and inclusion in the media. Being a survivor of Polio, Rajee knows well the challenges that come with being differently abled. At a young age, she had to deal with surgeries, physical therapy and overcoming many other challenges to be able to walk. But because of her resilient spirit and can-do attitude, Rajee graduated from being in a wheelchair to walking with braces and crutches.
In a time where beauty standards are pitifully non-inclusive, Rajee is breaking barriers not only in the fashion industry, but also in new media in general. She (like all of us) has struggled at times to love herself; denigrating the features that make her unique. But with continuous positive affirmation she has learned to love herself and celebrate all of what makes her, her.
Looking to the future, Rajee hopes to continue to advocate for disability representation in the media because she believes it is her purpose. She strongly advocates for women of all colors, shapes, sizes and abilities to be confident and to pursue greatness in any field regardless of the normative ideals that may seem to serve as barriers.
]]>Tuba Mammadov (5’3’’) is a Senior iOS Engineer at VINA, a startup that brings women all over the world together as friends in a similar format as a dating app. Some have described it as the Tinder for finding (girl) friends.
Born in Turkey, Tuba has always had a love for mathematics, and has always had the consistent support of her family to strive to be the best version of herself. While at University, she took her first course in computer engineering and fell in love, knowing instantly that programming was what she wanted to do as a career. She has been working as a software developer for 7 years, and taught herself mobile app development through online videos. Over the course of these 7 years, though, it hasn’t always been easy. There is a significant lack of female representation in the tech industry, and Tuba sometimes found it difficult to find female mentors or role models. As a woman in tech, Tuba felt that men had an inherent disbelief in the capabilities of female developers and as a result, she felt that she needed to work extra hard just to prove herself. That all changed when she began working for VINA, a company run completely by women, for women.
Tuba first learned about VINA when she moved with her husband from Turkey to the US and wanted to make new friends. Shortly after, she was contacted by the company’s CEO regarding a position and says she finds it very exciting to develop an app that she herself uses. Of course, working for a startup comes with many unique challenges. Everyone has much more responsibility and need to make more sacrifices because there are simply less people and more work than at an established company. Tuba clearly hasn’t shied away from that challenge; she’s helped VINA to make millions of connections in 158 countries! As for the future, she hopes to help this number grow to the billions and to inspire new generations of women to get involved in the tech industry!
]]>Maria Bobila (5’2’’) is associate editor at Fashionista! Though Maria started out pre-med at Villanova, she quickly realized that wasn’t for her, so she decided to indulge her more creative side by taking summer courses in fashion design at Parsons, ultimately graduating from Villanova with a degree in Communications and a minor in Art History. After college, Maria studied fashion and lifestyle journalism at the London College of Fashion, which prepared her for a career in freelance writing. Maria’s first glimpse into the fashion industry was from working in retail, which helped her learn how to work with a team, develop a strong work ethic, and take initiative. Taking initiative was especially important for her career in freelance writing, which requires coming up with ideas and managing your own schedule. Maria’s hard work and discipline has paid off immensely. As a freelancer, she’s written for many noted publications such as Vogue.com UK, Refinery29, and InStyle. Now, Maria writes for Fashionista — covering important industry events, fashion trends and niche, under-the-radar designers — alongside an incredible team. As for the future of her career, Maria likes to take things one year at a time, but sees herself continuing to write and giving little-known brands and fashion professionals a voice.
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Chelsea Werner (4’9’’) is a model, gymnast, and Olympic champion! Chelsea, who was born with down syndrome, has been breaking barriers her whole life, first in the world of gymnastics and now in the fashion industry. Despite having a hard time finding a coach who believed in her, Chelsea went on to win the Special Olympics US National Championships four times and is a two-time Special Olympics World Champion, and now competes with her non-disabled peers in USA Gymnastics. For Chelsea, the transition to modeling from gymnastics was a natural one - she has been performing in front of cameras and judges for most of her life, and she loves and feels comfortable in the spotlight. Her hard work and talent as a model has clearly paid off - she walked in New York Fashion Week in both 2016 and 2017, and recently has been featured in the #aeriereal campaign. She believes that this campaign will help raise the bar on diversity and hopes that other brands will follow suit. Despite all her successes, it isn’t easy being different in the fashion industry especially since diversity is only just starting to become part of the conversation. Chelsea hopes that her work will promote diversity and representation in the industry and allow for everyone to be recognized for her own unique beauty.
]]>Yunha Kim (5’4’’) is the founder of Simple Habit which is essentially the Spotify of meditation. Simple Habit brings together world-class meditation experts all in one place. Ranging from mindfulness experts at Google to former monks, these experts offer guided meditations for a variety of goals and needs.
The idea for Simple Habit was born out of Yunha’s own experience with her first startup, Locket, a company that helped users make money in exchange for viewing ads on their mobile lock screens. Having been a risk taker from a young age - Yunha moved from South Korea to the United States for high school when she was 14 years old - Yunha left her job in investment banking at age 23 to pursue Locket, knowing that she might be out of a job if Locket didn’t succeed. Locket grew rapidly, and by the time it was purchased by Wish in 2015, Yunha was completely burned out and having trouble finding ways to relax and give herself time to recharge. She found that short meditation sessions were the best way for her to relax, and it sparked the idea for Simple Habit, which helps people get the benefits of meditation in just five minutes a day. Each five-minute session focuses on a common situation or mood, whether it’s before a job interview, getting over an ex, or unwinding after work. The flexible, on-the-go nature of these meditations allows people to enjoy the benefits of meditation no matter where they are or what they’re doing.
In two years, Simple Habit has grown immensely. The company was featured on Shark Tank in 2017 and is recommended by both Apple and Business Insider as a top meditation app. When asked what advice she has for young women interested in starting their own company, Yunha had this to say: “Invest in yourself. Self-care is critical. You will work long days, and stress is inevitable, so it’s important to take a little time each day to step away, breathe and reset.”
]]>This week’s petite wcw is Cindy Gallop (5’3’’), founder of MakeLoveNotPorn! Cindy’s life is a series of incredible accomplishments, and looking at it you wouldn’t think that everything in her life happened more or less by accident. While studying English Literature at Oxford University, Cindy fell in love with theater and started playing around with designing posters for student productions. This soon gave way to actually promoting the shows, and she loved it so much she began to do that professionally. After a successful career in theater promotion, Cindy transferred her skills to the world of advertising. She ultimately became the chair of the US branch of advertising firm Bartle Bogle Hegarty, and in 2003, she was named Advertising Woman of the Year. But in 2005, she had her own personal midlife crisis and decided to resign from BBH without a job to go to, a decision Cindy describes as “the best bloody thing I’ve ever done in my life” - because she ended up working for herself.
In 2009, in a very popular TED Talk, Cindy launched MakeLoveNotPorn. The idea for MakeLoveNotPorn came to Cindy very much by accident, out of her direct experience dating younger men. She began to encounter an issue that would’ve never otherwise crossed her mind - when easy access to porn meets society’s reluctance to talk about sex, porn becomes sex education. She set out to solve this problem by making real-world sex socially acceptable and shareable, in order to make it easier for everyone to talk openly and honestly about sex. MakeLoveNotPorn curates real-world sex videos posted by contributors around the world, known as ‘MakeLoveNotPornstars’, and as Cindy puts it, “the videos are not porn, they are not amateur, they are real-world, social sex.”
MakeLoveNotPorn brought about a huge global - and completely positive - response which has led Cindy to define and pioneer the concept of ‘#sextech’, an industry that’s made up of companies like hers that seek to create a healthy conversation around real-world sex using modern day tech. When asked why so many sextech founders are women, Cindy says, because “women challenge the status quo because we are never it”. Unsurprisingly, with inspirational quotes like that and her unique position in the sextech field, Cindy speaks at conferences around the world, and has become a global champion of sextech.
Despite her strong presence in this field, the stigma surrounding sex has made it difficult for Cindy (and other sextech founders) to find investors. As a result, Cindy founded and is raising AllTheSky Holdings, an investment fund for sextech startups like herself that will also fund the infrastructure of sextech. As Cindy puts it, “When you have a truly world changing startup, you have to change the world to fit it, not the other way around”, and that’s exactly what she’s doing. There’s no question that Cindy is an impactful change agent who will continue to be a vocal advocate and champion for sextech and beyond.
]]>Melissa Butler is the founder of The Lip Bar, a company that truly understands, and emphasizes, that beauty is diverse. The Lip Bar offers natural and affordable lip products in a huge variety of shades - everything from bold pops of color to an impressive array of 17 nudes - so that there is something for every woman, in every price range, without the harmful chemicals often present in cosmetics.
The Lip Bar was born out of Melissa’s own frustrations with a lack of diversity in the beauty industry. When she started The Lip Bar in 2011, there was little to no conversation about inclusion in the beauty industry, and lines with large shade ranges were often laden with chemicals or incredibly expensive. Melissa did not think of herself as a makeup maven or as an entrepreneur, but rather as a consumer who couldn’t find what she needed. As a result, she started experimenting with cosmetic chemistry in her kitchen, and eventually left her job on Wall Street to expand The Lip Bar, first to a food-truck style lipstick truck and now to Target stores all across the country! As evidence of Melissa’s total commitment to the Lip Bar’s core mission of inclusion, she did not accept outside funding until recently. She felt that doing so without being fully prepared for it would force her to compromise. Melissa funded the project largely on her own, by making lifestyle changes like moving from New York City to her hometown of Detroit.
Melissa explains that the cocktail inspired name of the brand and lipstick names like Merlot & Gin-Ger & Tonic come from her goal to help women be unapologetically themselves which is often what happens when you're exposed to alcohol. When asked what advice she has for young founders, she emphasizes having a strong sense of the “why?” If you have a really strong understanding of why you’re doing what you’re doing, it gives you the motivation and ability to move forward. She also stresses how important it is to take the time to develop your brand voice and product. Although it’s tempting to jump in at the ideation stage, it’s really worthwhile to do your research because then you can carve out your space and figure out where in the market you belong.
]]>Lwany attended the Savannah College of Art and Design where she received a B.F.A. in Fashion Marketing and Management and now works as a stylist, marketing consultant and Youtuber. Having originally attended college for fashion design, Lwany switched over to marketing and styling because of her love for creating stories through clothing and her desire to create a sense of realism in her work. After a few years of styling, she noticed the lack of diversity in the images used by the fashion industry and started to showcase a more diverse range of images through her own work. Her Youtube series “How to 5’2”” offers fashion advice to inspire petite women to dress how they want while flattering their bodies at the same time. Lwany, passionate about doing as much good as she can, is also the founder of ACTVSM Creative whose mission is to create relevant media content that promotes social, political, and environmental reform within the fashion industry. When shopping, Lwany strives to make smart purchases that are at the intersection of four basic requirements: socially responsible, well-made, flattering, and affordable. She describes her personal style as nonchalant yet sophisticated and innocently sexy. Like many petite women, Lwany is frustrated by the frequent misinterpretation of the word ‘petite’ and the lack of options that accompanies it. She hopes that one day more people will understand that being petite has to do with height and proportions not shape and size.
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Standing at 4’11 and 3/4”, Amanda Chatel is a force to be reckoned with. She currently writes for Bustle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, and Mic and is also working on publishing her own book. For Amanda, the cliché of always wanting to be a writer was not a cliché; it was a reality. Writing has and always will be her greatest love (excluding, of course, her dog, Hubbell). Amanda started writing about sex and relationships since a fateful article in 2010 which covered a blowjob class at Babeland. Despite it not being her first choice in format or content, Amanda writes about sex and relationships with a candor that can be difficult given our society’s tendency to suppress female sexuality. In her pieces, she uses honesty and accessibility to encourage women to understand their bodies and their minds. Discussing topics like female sexuality - sometimes unfairly labeled as taboo - can be difficult, but the support of her friends and family make things a lot easier who are liberal and feminist and recognize the importance of what Amanda is doing. She hopes that her honesty and willingness to share her personal experiences will resonate with her audience and make them feel less alone. As Amanda perfectly puts it, “Life is too short to be suppressed. Life is also too short to allow your thoughts to be dictated to you by the patriarchy.” Sex and relationships is by no means the limit for Amanda’s writing, and she’s currently working on a memoir that describes her marriage, its end, and the ways she dealt with the whole experience including consulting a Voodoo priestess in New Orleans and hosting a divorce party at The Plaza. When asked what advice Amanda has for young writers, she said “pitch like crazy” to the publications that you read, and network with other writers who are not your competition, but rather your colleagues. Lastly, she strongly advises you not to have a back-up plan because “Back-up plans make it too easy to give up.”
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Avani Patel is the founder of Trendseeder and Director of Harvard Business School’s Startup Studio in New York City. Trendseeder is a program that offers consumer focused start-ups the tools they need to grow by offering access to expertise and growth opportunities. With over 200 mentors in their network, Trendseeder is most excited about working with start-ups that have a great team, a defensible business, and one they can truly help grow. Like most entrepreneurs, Avani has always had the entrepreneurial bug, and Trendseeder was born out of a combination of this natural desire to create and her non-traditional career path. While still in law school at Northwestern, Avani and her sister started a contemporary fashion line, Nasaani, because they were tired of the offerings available to them. Along with founding Nasaani, Avani had a successful career in corporate law. Starting her own fashion line and working in law helped Avani realize what it takes to start a business and that she could’ve really used a program like Trendseeder to scale her fashion line, and this is ultimately what led to the creation of the program. Trendseeder has been a huge success, and Harvard Business School - recognizing her deep understanding of the start-up world - gave her the opportunity to launch and head their start-up studio which supports HBS alumni founders in NYC. When asked what advice she would give to women, she emphasized that there isn’t one specific path to success, and that it’s important to do things you love and can learn from. Most importantly, be open to new opportunities, because if you plan too carefully, you might just miss out on the best experiences of all.
]]>Tiffany Wong is the co-founder of Velé. Velé, whose name comes from the Latin word “wanted”, a brand dedicated to empowering women on both the production and consumer sides of the fashion industry, making them feel worthy and wanted. Tiffany, together with her co-founder, Lauren, had become disillusioned with the fashion industry and its commodification of women: on the production side, less than 5% of garment workers are paid a living wage (80% of those workers are women), and on the consumer side, the industry perpetuates harmful beauty standards and presents the message that women need to define their worth in material goods. Velé offers an alternative by working with a family-owned factory in Spain, where workers are paid three times Spain’s minimum wage, and by creating sustainable basics for all women. All of Velé’s pieces are also ethically produced, and the company focuses on producing pieces that stand the test of time. As if this isn’t enough, Velé also donates 10% of every purchase to Not For Sale, a non-profit fighting against human-trafficking. Velé’s dedication to inclusivity and sustainability stems from Tiffany’s personal experiences. Standing at 5’1”, Tiffany has often struggled to find clothing that fit and never felt that her body type was represented in the fashion industry. Sustainability has also always been important to her, and she started her career in fashion working for YSTR, a clothing company with an emphasis on environmentally friendly production. Though personally passionate about sustainable fashion, Tiffany noticed that the sustainable fashion space was often inaccessible to women of color, and she wanted Velé to be accessible to women of all races which she showcases through the diverse models on her site. When asked what advice she would give to young women starting their own businesses, she advised that they reach out to as many people as possible. In Tiffany’s experience, people are very willing to help new entrepreneurs because they were once in those very shoes themselves.
Sujene Kong is the co-founder of FEND, a foldable helmet perfectly tailored to the city biker. Not only is it easy to fold and place into your bag, but it’s breathable, chic, affordable, and most importantly, safe. Sujene, an avid biker herself, was often guilty of not wearing a helmet, before her partner and co-founder, Christian was involved in a biking accident. The accident was a wake-up call for both of them, and they set out to create a helmet that you would have no reason to ride without. Sujene works primarily on the business side of FEND and has over 14 years of experience working in fashion and merchandising for luxury brands such as Jimmy Choo, Saint Laurent, and Burberry. Sujene’s business mind and experience along with Christian’s background in design and engineering made them the perfect pair to take FEND to the next level. Creating the perfect helmet for the city biker hasn’t been easy, though. Over the last two years, Sujene has made frequent trips back and forth to China to oversee production, helped guide FEND through safety certifications and patents, and spread the word about the product. What’s even more impressive is that FEND is completely self-funded, which has helped them remain true to Sujene and Christian’s original vision of creating a truly safe, convenient, and competitively-priced helmet for the city biker. Sujene and Christian’s vision is to continue creating innovative products that will change the way the city biker approaches safety and to eventually create a full line of bicycle products that will include children’s sizes. When asked what advice she would give to young female entrepreneurs she said, “keep pushing and stay committed to your vision”.
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Today’s feature is dedicated to a person whose life ended much too early: Kate Spade. After earning a degree in journalism, she went to work for Mademoiselle, where she eventually become a senior fashion editor and head of accessories. In 1991, she left to start her own line. Like most other entrepreneurs, Kate set out to create what she wasn’t finding: bags that were both functional and fashionable. She often found herself having to choose between the two, and as Kate put it, “handbags should be both. That’s what designers were forgetting”, so she set out to create bags that were less serious, more personal, and timeless. Many years later, her “sassy but classy” style lives on in the form of handbags, shoes, furniture and more. In addition to being a visionary designer, she was a fierce advocate for women’s empowerment and founded the Kate Spade & Company Foundation to help women achieve economic independence. Needless to say, Kate was someone who made a tremendous impact on the fashion industry and beyond and will be truly missed.
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Miki Agrawal is the founder and brain behind multiple companies including the gluten-free restaurant concept Wild, period/pee-proof underwear brands THINX & Icon, and now most recently her modern bidet brand TUSHY. All of these companies have received acclaim; THINX was one of Time Magazine’s 25 Best New Inventions, and The Atlantic said that TUSHY will show that the bidet can be embraced. Though all of Miki’s products are different, they all have one thing in common: Miki saw a problem, and fixed it. This is a philosophy she learned from her parents, who taught her to question everything. Each of Miki’s businesses tackle practical, widespread, sometimes taboo-to-talk-about issues with a funny, carefree, and witty attitude, producing bidets that are “the iphone for the toilet” and emphasizing that period-underwear is “patriarchy-proof.” In addition to changing the lives of her customers with her innovative products, Miki has made an even larger impact, as each of her companies also give back. With the proceeds made from each product, Miki’s companies have given thousands of families in India access to clean sanitation, provided 100,000+ women access to menstrual products, and helped break down the taboo surrounding menstruation. Amidst all her entrepreneurial success, the broader impact she has made is Miki’s proudest accomplishment. Miki is also an accomplished author, with one book out and one on the way. Her first book, Do Cool Shit, provides a step by step outline of her entrepreneurial successes, making her creative process completely transparent. Due to come out in January, her second book, DISRUPTHER is a “manifesto for the modern women”, which tackles 13 common beliefs that are holding women back and disrupting them one by one. Despite everything she’s done so far, we have a feeling that Miki isn’t close to being done, and we can’t wait to see what other cool s*** she tackles next.
]]>Standing at 5'2", Nina Faulhaber is the co-founder of ADAY, a clothing line that was named as one of the most innovative in the world by Fast Company in 2018. Dedicated to creating minimal, versatile, sustainable, and comfortable pieces, ADAY pushes for a move away from the clutter of fast fashion towards quality pieces that last, encouraging consumers to buy less. In addition to quality, their clothing is so versatile that you can wear them to the fitness studio and the office. Nina grew up in Germany and competed in gymnastics on the state level, and her childhood wardrobe was made up of comfortable, well-made essentials that reflected her athlete lifestyle. As she got older, she moved away from the world of gymnastics and into the world of finance, first working at Goldman Sachs, and then at Index Ventures where she worked with entrepreneurs. She longed for her childhood wardrobe which was simple, functional, and minimal, but designed for adults. This sparked the idea for ADAY, and Nina and co-founder Meg created the product that they themselves felt they needed. Having raised $3.1 million in venture funding and seeing great success so far, Nina says they’re just getting started. There are still many essential pieces they’re hoping to recreate and many more women to reach. With influential fashion icons like Lupita Nyong’o and Anne V wearing their pieces, we’re sure it won’t be long before many other fashionable women catch on.