Building a VC-Funded Fashion E-Commerce Company: Weddington Way CEO Ilana Stern (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: What is your perspective on this theme that often gets discussed that there’s a bias against women in Silicon Valley. Do you buy it?

Ilana Stern: It’s a hard question to answer. I think I’ve been really fortunate in fund raising, team building, and getting support from my environment. I don’t feel disadvantaged. I am a minority, so it’s not unusual for me to walk into a room of a hundred men and I’m the only woman. I look back and thank my dad for being intentional with me from a very young age and challenging me to make my voice be heard and just helping me build my confidence. It hasn’t been a challenge for me but it is very much a reality that I’m a minority. >>>

Building a VC-Funded Fashion E-Commerce Company: Weddington Way CEO Ilana Stern (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: How do you assess the TAM? How big is the bridesmaid dress category?

Ilana Stern: Bridesmaid dresses itself is about a $2 billion category housed within the $14 billion wedding fashion industry. Overall, the wedding industry is $100 billion.

Sramana Mitra: Your growth strategy is wedding industry merchandise or collaborative e-commerce?

>>>

Building a VC-Funded Fashion E-Commerce Company: Weddington Way CEO Ilana Stern (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What has been your inventory strategy starting from the beginning to where you’re now doing private label. Can you step us through how the inventory strategy has evolved over time?

Ilana Stern: The brands that we launched with are special occasion dress brands that are all made to order. Essentially, it’s a non-inventory business because the dresses are produced for a specific customer. What’s special about that is there’s a tremendous amount of variety that we’re able to offer a bride with the made-to-order model. >>>

Building a VC-Funded Fashion E-Commerce Company: Weddington Way CEO Ilana Stern (Part 2)

Ilana Stern: What was really interesting was that I saw this disconnect between the supply side and the demand side. If you took a millennial bride and looked at how she lived her life in general, it’s very different from how her mother lived her life in terms of how she consumes media, how she connects and stays in touch with friends, and how she shops. If you put a millennial in the position of being the bride and planning a wedding, she could actually take her wedding and hand it over to her mom. Her mom could plan it the same way she did 30 years ago, and not much has changed. It was this disconnect between consumer behavior and what the industry was offering the consumer that got me really excited about the industry. >>>

Building a VC-Funded Fashion E-Commerce Company: Weddington Way CEO Ilana Stern (Part 1)

There aren’t that many venture-funded fashion e-commerce companies out there. The main reason is that the venture capital business is dominated by men, and typically, women happen to be more in tune with fashion. Ilana Stern is building a very interesting fashion company focused on bridesmaid dresses as the starting point.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with your personal story. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised and in what kind of circumstances?

Ilana Stern: I’m originally from Los Angeles. I was very close with my family. My dad is actually an entrepreneur of sorts. I was inspired by his hard work and passion for what he does. When I was 18, I left LA and went to the University of Pennsylvania for undergraduate studies. >>>

Building a New Online Fashion Brand: Combatant Gentlemen CEO Vishaal Melwani (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: What about team? What size is your team?

Vishaal Melwani: We’ve grown from a humble three to 22 now. The team is focused on three prongs: development and engineering, creative, and production. On the development side, we really focus on leading the cutting-edge on user interface. On our site, we focus on Fit Tech. A lot of guys don’t know their suit size so we’ve done stuff where we matched BMI to suit size. >>>

Building a New Online Fashion Brand: Combatant Gentlemen CEO Vishaal Melwani (Part 6)

Vishal Melwani: That’s what a lot of people take for granted. You go up and you pitch your business. You focus on metrics and what you want to disrupt. Really, everyone’s a human being. Every human being that I know of, especially in business, loves stories. If you can’t tell a good story, you’re not going to get anything out of it. We went up there and said, “I’m a third-generation tailor. This is what I grew up in and we wanted to create a business for the guys that we know. Our guys are party animals. They’re business minded. They want to have a great time and pay a lot. They want to look great. We’re unapologetic about it.” Luckily enough, we took home first place. From there, we got our first seed check from Dapples for $500,000.

Sramana Mitra: How much did you raise?

>>>

Building a New Online Fashion Brand: Combatant Gentlemen CEO Vishaal Melwani (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: The first $700,000 of revenue, did that come from any of these cohorts?

Vishaal Melwani: Yes, all these cohorts really converted well for us. We noticed it right away. Word of mouth also became really big for us. One investment banker would get a white shirt and he would then spread that through his office. We would get inundated with orders because we serve a purpose for this guy. Every other guy that he knows has to go through the same thing. He has to wear white shirts. Garnering that user on the first acquisition and then letting him be that brand architect for us after that was huge. It’s something that we really didn’t expect.

>>>