1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Kara Weber of Brilliant Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: You said you got involved before anybody else because you met this person long back. You resonated with what they were saying. At what stage did you write the check?

Kara Weber: I wrote the check at the pre-seed stage.

Sramana Mitra: This is one of the exceptions where you did do pre-seed.

Kara Weber: She was a rare exception in a couple of ways. I did pre-seed, but she actually already had paying customers. She was able to invest on her own and get her first customers.

Sramana Mitra: That’s not a pre-seed really. That’s a bootstrapped company. That’s bootstrap first, and then raise money later, which I think is one of the best ways to do business.

Kara Weber: I encourage a lot of founders to strongly consider the possibility if it is an option for them. I also understand that for many founders, it’s not an option. In her case, she bootstrapped it for a very brief period. Her bootstrapping period was very short. It wasn’t like she was bootstrapping it for five years. She was six months in at the point when we all came in and supported her. CameraIQ is based in Los Angeles. They are currently raising their Series A and we are at the very beginning of hearing exciting things about that company.

Another company that we’re particularly excited about is on the other side of the spectrum called Haute Hijab. They make very stylish scarves for Muslim women who observe the practice of hair covering. The founder Melanie Elturk realized that there was not a great product solution for those women, particularly a western style brand around that.

The solution before they came to market were cheap hijabs that you would buy at Muslim festivals and conventions, or women in the US and abroad were buying scarves at Forever 21 or Gucci scarves. None of them were designed for this purpose, which had a couple of problems. One was the scarves didn’t stay on your head correctly. They would slip and fall off. Or they were the wrong kind of fabric. It’s really hot to have a scarf covering your hair all day. Silk twill Hermes scarf was just very uncomfortable.

Melanie identified this opportunity to create scarves that were purpose-built for hair covering in stylish prints.

Sramana Mitra: Is this an entrepreneur who comes from that ethnic background?

Kara Weber: She does. She’s an American born-and-bred Muslim woman who was a lawyer. She was actually a judicial clerk and identified this gap. She didn’t come from an entrepreneurial background at all but realized that there was this huge hole in the market. It turned out Melanie is an extraordinarily stylish woman herself with a huge Instagram following. She really understood the problem herself. Because she was a stylish woman, she knew there were thousands, and even millions, of women who were having the same challenge.

She recognized that she can build a brand in the US but that ultimately, taking a western style brand international would be successful because she understood those markets very well. She’s an American Muslim woman who covers her hair and who completely understands the whole issue from a global perspective.

They just raised their seed rounds. It was wildly oversubscribed. She is now batting away suitors trying to give her more money. She’s selling a reasonably priced product. The average is around $20 to $25. They have luxury collections. Now, they’re adding to that by selling under-scarves and moving into products for hair. They have a huge opportunity to meet the very specific needs from a previously underserved audience.

This segment is part 3 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Kara Weber of Brilliant Ventures
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