Fly Girl: Georgia Grace Edwards

From glacier guide to startup founder, today's guest proves that the most overlooked problems can spark the biggest breakthroughs. Georgia Grace Edwards turned a freezing, frustrating problem on an Alaskan glacier into a game-changing innovation for women everywhere...and her journey is as wild as it is inspiring. This interview is a must-listen for any entrepreneurs and for all women out there who wear the pants.

Check out Georgia Grace's business, Gnara, on Instagram and Youtube. Learn more about the evolution of women's pants. 

Use the discount code: SHEWHAT20 to receive $20 off your first order (minimum purchase amount of $50 required).

For more, visit She What? on Instagram.

Brought to you by Capital Health

Credits:

Producer and Host: Jess Downey

Producer and Host: Maureen Petrosky

Producer and Editor: Leigh Iacobucci

Artwork: Peter Yates Design

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Transcript

Georgia Grace (00:04):

I don't know if I had any interest in starting a business. I was laser focused on solving a problem.

Jess (00:22):

I'm Jess Downey. You might know me as Editor-in-Chief of Real Woman and Thriving Magazines for Capital Help. And

Maureen (00:28):

I'm Maureen Petrosky. You might have seen me on the Today Show or CBS mornings as an entertaining expert or know some of my books like Wine Club and Zero Proof Drinks

Jess (00:36):

And we're two friends who created She What?

Maureen (00:40):

<laugh> a podcast that digs into the personal and often surprising stories of women who inspire us

Jess (00:46):

And they get real about the winds, the fails and everything in between.

Maureen (00:51):

Here we invite her to tell the whole story, the pain she endured, the triumph she celebrated, the friends she made along the way and maybe even how she reinvented herself.

Jess (01:02):

These are the kinds of stories that make us think. They make us laugh, they keep us going.

Maureen (01:07):

Need a dose of inspiration? It's here. Need a fresh perspective? We got that too.

Jess (01:20):

Hi Maureen.

Maureen (01:21):

Hi Jess.

Jess (01:22):

Maureen, what's the biggest swing you took in your twenties?

Maureen (01:25):

Oh my gosh, that feels like a lifetime ago. My twenties were a total whirlwind. I had a literal list of things I wanted to accomplish before I was 30. So...

Jess (01:33):

Of course you did.

Maureen (01:34):

There was a lot. Are you ready? Culinary school. I got married at 23. I went on air as talent for the first time at CNN. I published my first book. I bought a house. I don't know why I was in such a rush, but I did a lot of stuff. How about you, Jess <laugh>?

Jess (01:48):

Yeah, well not surprisingly, I was the opposite in so many ways. I didn't have all these things I wanted to accomplish, but I had big ambition and when I was 22 I packed up my little Mazda MX3 and I drove cross country with my mom and moved to San Francisco where I knew, like, basically no one. And I took a job at a tech startup, a magazine. Big swing, big payoff.

Maureen (02:12):

I still cannot see you at a tech magazine. <laugh>

Jess (02:16):

<laugh>. Touché.

Maureen (02:18):

Well, we get to talk to a lot of women who have taken big risks, big swings. But today's guest completely took the bull by the horns Georgia Grace Edwards, founder of a company called Gnara. It's going to completely blow you away

Jess (02:31):

Without spoiling anything. She took something that genuinely pissed her off <laugh> and she found and perfected a solution. A patent, and a million hours of work later and she's running her own business around this wild idea. Yeah.

Maureen (02:44):

From growing up an Appalachia, to ticking off her bucket list item of being a glacier guide, she is funny, wicked smart, and full of real actionable advice for any of you looking to start a business from scratch. So stick around.

Maureen (03:05):

Georgia. Grace, welcome to She what?

Georgia Grace (03:08):

She peed her pants!

Maureen (03:10):

<laugh>,

Jess (03:12):

Georgia. We had so many questions when we were doing our little pregame, more than usual because you would just have really a fascinating life and we wanna hear all about it. So we're gonna go all the way back to the beginning. You grew up in the Appalachian Mountains in Maryland?

Georgia Grace (03:28):

I did.

Jess (03:29):

Like a coal mining town?

Georgia Grace (03:31):

Yes. In fact, my high school mascot was a mountain ridge miner and it was a person who would walk around with <laugh>, a pickax and cole smeared on the face and overalls and work boots.

Jess (03:44):

That's incredible. Yeah.

Georgia Grace (03:46):

<laugh>. It was something. Yeah.

Jess (03:48):

What was that environment like?

Georgia Grace (03:50):

Pretty much what you would imagine. I think there's been a lot more media and content that have come out in the past five to 10 years especially that have kind of shed light on this part of the country that tends to be pretty forgotten or at least not talked about. But beautiful mountains, lots of blue collar, very traditional, like, no one leaves. So it was kind of a, I don't know, a, a trailblazer move to go somewhere far away from college.

Maureen (04:23):

So were you there for your family's jobs or because - Yes. - You weren't from there originally, right? Like you don't have a lineage in the Appalachian Mountains, right?

Georgia Grace (04:33):

No. Um, yeah, that's a place where it's, if you don't have multiple generations there, you're definitely an outsider, especially compared to the American West, which is so much more transient.

Jess (04:44):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>

Georgia Grace (04:44):

But yeah, I don't have really a lineage there. I was born in Massachusetts but spent, I don't know, everything from age two through graduating high school in this town called Frostburg, which is about as far west as you can go in Maryland in what they call the panhandle part of the state. I grew up about six miles south of the Mason Dixon line, which was the big dividing line in the Civil War is how it gets its fame. But my dad taught at the local university there, so that's how my family ended up there.

Jess (05:13):

It was like a college town too. College town,

Georgia Grace (05:15):

Yes.

Jess (05:16):

And you didn't just leave you, you've been everywhere like <laugh> fascinated by all the places you visited. But we want to know how you became a summer glacier guide in Alaska because that sounds both fascinating and slightly terrifying. Oh yeah. How did that happen for you?

Georgia Grace (05:34):

Oh, it's such a good story. In middle school, my grandmother took the family on a cruise to Alaska, which was a very big deal for my family because I was lucky in that my parents had summers off. So we would travel a lot, but it was usually like eight weeks of car camping at national parks. It was not this more bougie like true out there adventure experience. And, and the crews left from Seattle and went up and down the coast in Alaska and one of the stops was in Juneau and the only excursion that we signed up for was this glacier walk. So you would get off the boat, get onto a helicopter and fly to the glacier and do this half hour walk and then go back down. And they could not get me back in the helicopter on that glacier walk <laugh> like I just kept wandering off. I was so in awe and my mom was like, Georgia Grace, we need to get back in the helicopter now. And I was like, okay mom. But one day like

Maureen (06:29):

Every mom says to their kids, "yeah, yeah, get back in this helicopter!"

Georgia Grace (06:33):

<laugh>. Yeah. So relatable, right? Uh, I got back in and I was like, mom, I'm gonna work here one day. And she was like, that's nice, like, buckle your seatbelt <laugh>. But I've always been someone who keeps bucket lists of things that I wanna do. And I think part of that, like I'm very grateful to have grown up in a place that was super safe, but it was also very sheltered. And so I think especially once I got to college, I felt like there were all these experiences that I had missed out on or didn't know anything about, hadn't left the country. And so I proactively looked up this helicopter company from years ago and sent in an application and the hiring manager called me and clearly hadn't looked at a single material I had submitted <laugh>, oh you must be a University of Alaska student. This must just be like a convenient summer job for you. And I was like, ah, similar latitude but just a flight away, you know? And then he was like, oh well you must be like a earth science major, so you already know a lot about glaciers. And I was an international politics and economics major <laugh>

Maureen (07:39):

Perfect fit. Oh

Georgia Grace (07:40):

No, but I'm a quick learner. And then he was kind of like, why do you want this job? And I told that story and he still wasn't convinced, but I remembered that because it was so many cruise ship tourists who take that excursion specifically. There's a lot of different languages. And so I said, do you have anyone who can give tours in Spanish? And he said, oh no, we're actually looking for that. Can you do that? And I was like, see <laugh> could I actually, no. I was in like intermediate Spanish. I didn't even know the, the glacial terms in English, let alone another language. But I think I only gave two tours in Spanish the whole time. And oh thank goodness they were so in awe that me saying Look blue ice here and this ice here was a soul. A soul. Exactly.

Jess (08:26):

Wow. That you so you weren't the prototypical person that he was looking for. But

Georgia Grace (08:30):

Wait, I forgot the end of this story, which is that I show up in Alaska. I asked the company to pick me up from the airport and go to the office and they're like, who are you? And I'm like, I'm George Grace, I'm here to be your glacier guide giving tours in Spanish. And they were like, we have no record of you. Oh wow. It turns out the guy who had hired me was fired that week for too many DUIs. Oh wow. And had never passed along the fact that he had hired me. So now I'm in Alaska by myself. The housing that I didn't know that Juno had like downtown and then airport. So the room I'm subletting is 10 miles from the airport and I have no transportation other than a borrowed bike. So I end up biking 20 miles a day as my commute to and from this job? No. And because they already booked other glacier guides, I actually had to start as a first. I was like the informational safety video person who would fit you for your glacial mm-hmm <affirmative>. Boots. And then I got to be the helicopter fueler <laugh>, just like literally loading gas into helicopters all day. Okay.

Maureen (09:30):

You were flexible <laugh>.

Georgia Grace (09:31):

Yeah, but I think by like the second week I was back into glacier guide territory <laugh>.

Jess (09:37):

Okay, so you, you were used to rolling with the punches right from the jump. So that's good.

Georgia Grace (09:42):

Used to things not going according to plan.

Maureen (09:44):

Was it Alaska where you started kind of brewing on the idea of this pants that you were gonna make one day?

Georgia Grace (09:52):

Yeah, I was one of the only women on the glacier. Some days I was the only woman up there and you're up there for eight to 12 hours a day and all the guys could just turn around unzip, go wherever in between these helicopter tours landing and I would have to trek across the glacier, avoid these giant life or death crevasses, <laugh>, take off three to four layers in freezing temperatures, do my thing, put it all back on and hike back to the, the base camp area where we greeted people. And that was a huge waste of time and energy and I was always freezing for hours after. So I started dehydrating myself and that's kind of the strategy I used for most of the summer. But the whole time I was doing it, I was like, this makes zero sense. I'm a guide, I'm supposed to be at peak physical performance, I'm responsible for other people's safety and I'm not drinking water to get around this. And then I just became kind of obsessed with the idea, looked into the history of women's pants or the lack thereof. And that's kind of where it all started. And it's like, if, if there isn't a solution here, why not? Why not me try one?

Jess (10:56):

The history of women's pants things has me a little passionate and obsessed because I was like a tomboy kid and my mom used to try to make me wear dresses and I was so anti. The idea that we just like started wearing pants not that long ago is crazy.

Georgia Grace (11:13):

And people don't realize it is such a young industry. Probably the youngest industry in apparel is women's pants specifically. Like women could not wear pants on the floor of the US Senate until 1993.

Maureen (11:25):

She what?

Jess (11:26):

She what? <laugh>? Yeah.

Georgia Grace (11:28):

Yeah. And we opened a store on Pearl Street in Boulder, um, October through January this past January. And when I would talk to customers who came in about it, there were so many women who were like, oh yes. Like my mom had to like submit a petition to my middle school so that I wouldn't have to wear the itty bitty skirt as part of the uniform when there are women who are like, yeah, through the seventies and eighties when I was at college I wasn't allowed to wear slacks when I wanted to. Or even women who were in you know, early corporate professions of being in law or business, they were like, yeah it wasn't appropriate for me to wear anything other than a skirt. And these are modern women who like this generation, which is also a very interesting dynamic. The focus of startups is always like, how are you changing the future? And something that I've really loved and didn't expect about this journey is actually being able to reach back into the past. That's

Jess (12:20):

So cool. A hundred percent.

Maureen (12:21):

So like you had this experience as a glacial tour guide, but yeah, you then come home to college again and then decide you're gonna do the company. Like what's the evolution like from the idea to your pair of pants?

Georgia Grace (12:35):

Yeah, this has been more reflected back to me than how I remember it, but apparently I was just like the pee pants girl on campus <laugh> and was just constantly talking about this. I didn't realize that I was that hyper fixated on it, but people were like, no, like you would bring this up in the dining hall anytime we went for a run around campus. You were talking about it like you were always asking like I, I don't know what questions I was asking. I think they were along the lines of like, can you believe that we have to do this? Or like why isn't there something that makes this easier? And then I guess I just sat on the idea. It wasn't until my senior spring that I went to Middlebury and we have a one month semester in January called J-Term. And so it's these super focused four week classes and there's one called Middlebury Entrepreneurs where you enter the class with super rough prototype of what you're thinking and you exit four weeks later with a full business model you've done at least one or two pitch competitions.

Georgia Grace (13:31):

And so without that dedicated time and space to really explore this idea risk-free full on, I'm not sure that I ever would've taken it past the point of living in my head. But that winter break I went home and one of my best childhood friends who had sewn a lot of her own prom dresses, she helped me sew some initial prototypes. I hadn't sewn since seventh grade home economics class. So they were rough what what I could do <laugh>, <laugh>, um, I had sewn or I had zippers in backwards, I had them sideways. It was a disaster. But we got a bunch of items from Joanne Fabrics, like we had Velcro and snaps and zippers and all different closure mechanisms. And then we went to Goodwill and just got a bunch of jeans and snow pants and sweatpants, all different sorts of fabrics and materials and just started experimenting. And the Go Fly that you see today directly comes from the best iteration out of those initial prototypes that we did that winter break and then brought into class January of 2018.

Jess (14:36):

This is so much better than my imagination. The fact that you channeled Molly Ringwald then like this is the best ever. So this idea, it seems really simple and in making the prototype like how does it look in your head versus then when you're actually sewing and bringing in fabrics and materials, like how does it have to keep evolving and evolving?

Georgia Grace (14:56):

Yeah, it's funny, the two reactions we get most commonly are either, oh my God this is so revolutionary. Wow. And like, oh how did this not exist before? It seems so simple. It's, it's both this like mind blowing concept and also not that complicated when you really think about it. The things that were most important to me in the design process were that it was super functional and two maybe even ahead of that that you couldn't tell the zipper was there. So that meant that a lot of those early iterations meant that we had to design the best pair of pants period that just so happened to have a pea zipper because if anything was off with the pockets or the fit or the length or whatever it was gonna detract from the value of what became the goly itself. So

Jess (15:47):

It's almost like a secret thing, like it looks like a regular pair of pants.

Georgia Grace (15:50):

You can't tell it's there. Yeah. Which adds another layer of complexity when you're marketing. First of all, we're marketing a solution to a problem that historically has never been recognized as a problem to begin with. And then on top of that there are so many people who try on our pants, love the feel the fit, the pockets and still don't know there's a zipper there. That's how discreet it is. So sometimes we're people can't tell what's special about the product because it's not obvious.

Maureen (16:17):

Okay. So for our listeners who don't know what Go Fly is and your product, tell them what is so special about it. What are we talking about? Because I feel like the three of us know, but let's give a little insight to someone listening for the first time.

Georgia Grace (16:30):

Yes. So there is picture a pair of pants that has a traditional fly that you use on your jeans or whatever other pair to get them on and off. And then there's a second fly that begins directly beneath it and wraps all the way around to the back waistband. So we say whether it's number one or number two, we got you <laugh>. You can create a huge opening. Amazing. And then it's covered by a flap on the outside, which is the same way that you have a flap covering the fly at the top of your pants. That flap extends the whole length. It runs on the existing seam line that all pants already have. So it's not a lot of added bulk and that's why it's not obvious. And then there's also a flap on the inside so that it's comfortable, comfortable enough that you can go commando if that's your ride. <laugh>

Jess (17:11):

You thought of everything.

Maureen (17:12):

Okay, I like it. Yeah, you thought of everything. Yeah <laugh>. Yeah I would think that if there was bulk there it wouldn't be comfortable to spend the day hiking in or doing any outdoor activities in. Right. And so do they come in like different weights and like is there a lightweight fly go fly? Is there like a super warm like I'm getting ready to go to Iceland and do a glacier hike so yes I need like super warm pants.

Georgia Grace (17:37):

You need these, you need the Go There pants.

Maureen (17:39):

Do you have different levels?

Georgia Grace (17:40):

All of my initial prototypes tended to be in the vein of snow pants because I was picturing this cold, obvious pain point cold weather scenario that I had worked in quickly came to realize that making a snow pant is super expensive. The cost of the raw materials alone are exorbitant and then it's also very seasonal and that you can only really sell it during winter. And then it's also like women in snow sports it's getting better but it is still quite niche compared to women's participation in other activities. Okay. So what we started with we, we didn't have enough capital to do a full line. So we started with what we call the go there pant. And that is a true year round pant that does everything. It's quick dry, it's wicking, it's water repellent. There's three different ways to wear the bottom so you can cinch them into joggers which is helpful if you are in the snow or if you're in tick country or if you wanna keep leaves out you can also roll them up and they snap into Capris for warmer weather things or you can wear them as a traditional kind of boot cut if you're just around town and not doing something super technical outdoorsy.

Georgia Grace (18:48):

So they really do do it all, but that's the pant that people use for everything. And then because it's harness compatible, it's also been really popular among rock climbers and mountaineers 'cause you don't have to take off a harness in order to do your business, which is a whole other part of this equation that is crazy to me that we put women into life or death situations to use the bathroom and it's a hundred percent avoidable. Like the number of women who have come to us with stories of being stranded on multi-pitch climbs at dusk because they had to take off their harness to pee and the person on belay didn't hear and then the harness goes away. It's crazy. <laugh>

Maureen (19:26):

That's terrifying. <laugh>. Yeah, it's really terrifying. Okay, I wanna back up a little bit. So you have this idea you're in college and you mentioned a pitch presentation or like how do you go from now idea you had the time to ruminate over it and kind of work on it. You've worked through some different materials and moving it from like a service based industry where you're installing zippers in existing pants. Yes. To now being apparel like it seems like such a huge risky jump or someone like me or maybe anyone else that's out there thinking like I have a really great idea but then how does it actually get to be reality?

Georgia Grace (20:06):

Yeah, making it tangible as quickly as possible I think is key. 'cause otherwise it just, it could live in your head forever and never be perfect. And to this day I am mortified by our first production run. I still have glimpses of them out in the wild every now and again and I'm always like thank you so much for supporting our crowdfunding campaign. Can I please update the pair of pants that you're currently wearing? <laugh> <laugh>. So we had these rough hand zone prototypes and and none of them were a pair of pants that we had built head to toe from scratch. They were all some other brands pants that we ripped out the crotch seam and added our own zipper into. So the first pitch competition I did was it was called Suit Pitch and it was this community model of pitching where it was like a potluck, you pay however much you wanna donate, you listen to a couple pitches while you're eating your soup and then whoever wins gets whatever that community pool of earnings is.

Georgia Grace (20:59):

And so I won that which was really cool. That was $250. Okay. And I took that $250 to a local seamstress in Vermont who helped me refine the design. 'cause at this point the zipper was still pretty exposed. I hadn't figured out the flap situation. So it was like, you know, um blue pants with a bright yellow zipper or you know lime green, hot pink zippers. It was very obvious that's what I pitched in. I can't believe anyone even took me seriously. But that traction was enough to be like okay I think we're onto something. And then the work with the seamstress was enough to ultimately take that to a tech pack designer and a tech pack is basically blueprint for a product. So it's what a factory follows to manufacture something. Vermont had a lot of cool pitch competitions. There were two others that I did that senior year and right after I graduated, one was called peak pitch where instead of an elevator pitch you would ride a chairlift with an angel investor and pitch them on the way up and then if they were interested you could follow them down. That's cool.

Jess (22:00):

That's like the elevator pitch on steroids. I love that.

Georgia Grace (22:04):

Yes. High consequence elevator pitch. That was really cool. And then the one where I was like okay I think we're actually really onto something was called Road Pitch and it was motorcyclists who ride town to town in Vermont and entrepreneurs in each town pitch them as part of like a pit stop basically. And I get on stage and look out at this audience of RA a hundred people and it's all middle aged dudes and leather like motorcycle pants and chaps. And I was like oh no this is definitely not, I don't think my target customer <laugh>. Yeah. And it ended up going so well we won the Investors Choice Award and the People's Choice Award and that was a couple thousand and that allowed us to keep moving along in the prototyping process. But every single person in that audience, if they hadn't experienced the pain point themselves, they all had a female partner they had ridden with whether it was a wife or a girlfriend or a daughter or a family member. And so that's why they knew it was an issue because they were someone who was also involved in like keeping watch and looking for a spot And at

Jess (23:11):

At some point you got a huge purchase order from Moose Jaw. Am I jumping us ahead in the story too much? But that's, that had to be a huge moment.

Georgia Grace (23:19):

That was another one of those. Okay. I think we're onto something moments. Yeah there have been a couple and that was another one. So let's see, we opened a crowdfunding campaign the following year. I was on a Fulbright Fellowship in the Czech Republic. So I was teaching English out of business academy and then like running home to my Soviet block apartment <laugh> to put up this crowdfunding campaign after schooly today. So

Jess (23:41):

You're just still working on this then in the background. Like this is

Georgia Grace (23:44):

Total background side hustle, let's just keep exploring it. 'cause at each stage, even though I thought we were onto something I still didn't know it was more than like this college project that I was just maintaining an interest in. I didn't know it was gonna be a full blown business. And so we started that manufacturing run at the end of 2019 into the beginning of 2020. We all know what happened then for us that meant that our factory, which was a fair trade zero waste factory in India went out of business literally overnight. So we lost everything that had not left the factory, which was what we had just invested all of our crowdfunding money into.

Maureen (24:20):

So what was that like? What numbers are we talking here? Like how much can you raise?

Georgia Grace (24:24):

It was our gold is presale $15,000 worth of product and we sold 55,000. So it was about 500 pairs and we had two thirds of it I wanna say had left the factory before COD hit. But the remaining one third there was no way to manufacture. We no longer had raw materials, we didn't have a factory, we had nothing granted, no other brands had much going for them either. Like the billion dollar brands in the industry didn't have inventory for most of the two years of the pandemic. Everything was on back order. And so I said okay, if we can't have product during this time, I instead I'm gonna use this time to learn everything that I can about business and the backend part of this and then we'll come out swinging at the end of this. Is

Jess (25:08):

This all when you were traveling or is this

Georgia Grace (25:11):

Now I'm working in economic consulting in Boston. Okay. So very corporate <laugh>. So we did the Moss Jaw mountaineering outdoor industry accelerator, which is ultimately what moved me and the business to Colorado. And Moss Jaw was the second largest outdoor retailer behind REI at the time. And we ended that accelerator with a $50,000 purchase order and they paid for it front, which is unheard of. Usually you're looking at net 30, net 60, net 90 or worse when you're working with a retailer. And so to have that cash up front gave us a big chunk to place the purchase order. And then we followed that accelerator with the Mass challenge accelerator and that was not industry specific in terms of outdoor or apparel, it was biotech, it was everything. And I won that pitch competition which was a hundred thousand dollars cash and that was enough to hit the bank account and immediately get wired to a factory overseas for the first production event. So we never had actual inventory until summer of 2022 and we launched that in every single Mora store nationwide as well as online and pretty immediately sold out.

Maureen (26:23):

I have a million questions. <laugh> <laugh> I feel like. Okay so I think the whole idea of like pitch presentations and accelerators is fascinating for somebody that's doing or has an idea, how do they find out about those things? And like you said you were in some that were industry specific, but then also like you just mentioned the biotech accelerator, like yeah what is that? How do people find them? Were you just super lucky, like you must have had some insight to know how to like nail all these?

Georgia Grace (26:54):

I think having a liberal arts education though it wasn't specific to apparel or textiles or any of the stuff that I now deal with on a daily business. It really taught me how to think critically and how to write and speak well and those are the skills that are so crucial to a pitch competition. 'cause a lot of times the early stages of getting into a pitch or some kind of award that gives you press and money is filling out an application which is really similar to like grant writing or even like writing a scientific paper. You just follow the prompt and answer the questions. It's amazing how many people don't do that. And then for me, and this has changed, like the bigger we get, I think the more pressure I get from investor specifically to, there'll be like, pitch competitions aren't worth your time.

Georgia Grace (27:42):

It's 5K here, it's 10 K here, it's 50 K here. Like that's small change. But I have always really disagreed with that because every single time I've pitched, not only have I ended up making a connection that results in more funding or more press or something else that's useful to us, it also helps me refine our company strategy because you're getting real time feedback as people react to what you're saying and there's no other opportunity where you can recreate that. It's so valuable. And then it, well, just to answer the last part of that question, where you find these things just, I think the best founders are just like Google Warriors. Like I would just get connected with local entrepreneurial hubs, ask for calendars, ask other founders what they had done. There's a lot of like slack groups and consolidated places. You can find a lot of small business grants. So like hello Alice is a really good resource, especially for female founders. It's a good starting place.

Jess (28:36):

I, as you were talking, it occurs to me that to encounter all these obstacles, which many businesses do, but especially in your circumstances being that you were coming up with something like you said, a problem that nobody needed to be solved but that it was like, oh Dov, of course this needs to be solved. It occurs to me that you need to have this one key ingredient which is passion because mm-hmm <affirmative> if you don't have that it can just be an idea that floats in one ear and not the other. Were you passionate about it because this was an inequity or were you passionate about it because you really felt like you were onto something or both?

Georgia Grace (29:12):

I think the combination, it's interesting that you say passion because I do a lot of speaking engagements and people ask for advice a lot and it's always like I wanna start a business, how do I figure out what it is? But for me, I don't know if I had any interest in starting a business. I was laser focused on solving a problem because I knew, I knew how much it would've impacted my experience. And then the more I got into it, the more I realized how much it was affecting women's experiences everywhere. Like this is not a glacier guiding specific problem. In fact 56% of women have had a bathroom accident outside in the past year and that's self-reported data, which means that number's actually way higher. <laugh>. Yeah. So it's not just like standing on a chunk of ice, this is like walking your dog.

Georgia Grace (29:55):

This is not being able to like find a pit stop on a road trip. This is travel issues, this it's medical and health issues. If you have a walking device, like it just opens up this whole can of worms. And it similar to most innovations that when it improves a situation for one portion of a population, it generally makes the design better for everyone. Mm-hmm <affirmative> And that's like the principle of inclusive design. And so I always say like don't worry about finding the thing that you, you love or you feel so happy about what you're passionate about. I say lean into the thing that you off. 'cause I think that's the thing

Maureen (30:32):

<laugh>, I love that. Yes. Yeah.

Georgia Grace (30:34):

That you're most well positioned to solve for. Yes. And if it you off, it's probably someone else off too. That's

Maureen (30:40):

Great advice. I love it. I always said if I got to be president immediately I would double the amount of women's restrooms that exist in the country because why is there this gigantic line? A hundred percent. So I just, I totally feel you on the like being off part, but have you run into any rub about it being a women's problem? Like as you've been in this business, do you ever feel like there's a stigma around like what you're working on and have you hit any walls because of that?

Georgia Grace (31:08):

Oh totally <laugh> so much though that we actually rebranded. So in college we were shely and there were a lot of different reasons for the rebrand. We started with Shely 'cause I wanted something that was two syllables that had multiple meanings that you could be cheeky with, no pun intended, but kind of <laugh>. And that immediately communicated what the product was and who it was for. So a fly for her basically. Obviously that is way oversimplified but I just needed something that you know like hit you, hit you over the head style marketing in college. We became known as She flies by She Fly, featuring she fly. So there was absolutely no differentiation between the product, the company, and the patented technology. And we needed to be able to scale each of those things independently. So

Maureen (31:56):

Shely was the patent,

Georgia Grace (31:57):

Everything was Shely. Okay. The company, it was called She Fly Pants by Shely the company with a Shely <laugh>. So you know, you couldn't tell what you were ever really talking about. And so that was one reason. And another reason was that we started to become known as leaders in industry and beyond leaders in inclusivity and accessibility and all these other things that are like bad words now but really are good words. And we weren't leading on the social front by having that pronoun, right? Because this technology is technically unisex. It doesn't matter what your anatomy is, it works with all of them. Our focus was just let's help the half of the population that hasn't had any attention given to solving this problem. And so then we rebranded to the Go Fly by Nara. So still there's a lot of different meanings and then Nara comes from the Latin root where naris which means to get to know or to become familiar with.

Georgia Grace (32:53):

So we took this problem that at least half of the population is highly familiar with and solved for it. And even though the Goly is relevant in so many different verticals, not just the outdoor industry, I wanted to still have a nod to the place that we started where the pain point was very obvious. So thinking about historically we call them historically bro terms in the outdoor industry. So shred the no or gnarly still having a nod to that but redefining it in a slightly more feminine or honestly just different way. And then I guess part two of that answer would be just the way that it's received, I do, or I at least was finding that I had to kind of adapt the pitch. This is something I learned from live pitching based on who was in the room. So what I mean by that is generally, I mean women get less than 2% of all venture capital funding.

Georgia Grace (33:42):

Wow. Which means pretty much every room you pitch in, it's all guys. And so similar to to that first motorcycle pan uh, pitch competition experience, I knew that just because like not every single person at the room in the room might ultimately end up wearing the end product, they could see the value of it. And so the three most common reactions I get in those rooms are, number one, why aren't you doing this in men's pants to now my response to that can be if they'd like to license, they're more than welcome to When it was she fly, it was difficult to say like, oh let's put a she fly in a men's fishing waiter. It just is unnecessarily complicated. The second response is, oh I don't need this but I have a wife, partner, daughter, mother whoever who needs this So therefore I'm bought into solving this problem 'cause I care about them. And then the third reaction, which is the most disappointing one is, oh this is a women's issue I don't wanna touch. It seems complicated and messy

Jess (34:44):

<laugh>.

Georgia Grace (34:46):

And so that obviously still happens. But if you're getting that reaction it says a lot more about that person than it does me. And what I'm saying, if you have that reaction to it,

Jess (34:58):

Wow. Yeah. I mean that's why women wore practically a diaper for most of history when they had their periods right? Because we, it's messy to solve these problems. But now I'm sure Tampax is happy they jumped on the bandwagon to to solve the issue.

Georgia Grace (35:15):

I mean we sent Sally ride first American woman into space in the eighties I think. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and NASA scientists sent her with 100 tampons. Right.

Jess (35:26):

I remember that. <laugh>

Georgia Grace (35:27):

Like this is our nation's best scientific community and they don't know that women don't use 100 tampons on a menstrual cycle. <laugh>. Like there's just a Yeah, because of how taboo it is, it hasn't been talked about. Which means like people's ideas about it are wrong. So wrong. Yes. Yeah. We've,

Maureen (35:44):

And it so shouldn't be taboo. It's literally the one thing we all do. It's a

Georgia Grace (35:49):

Yes. We gave a TED talk and in the opening line of the TED Talk I was like, two things we do as humans are eat and excrete. If we can't like properly solve for these two things, I don't know what we're doing as a human race.

Jess (36:01):

Oh my God. Oh I love it. That is an excellent first line <laugh>. Just to talk a little bit more about the stigma part of it, not only the female aspect, but do you feel that there's like an eye rolling component that you've had to overcome? Because you're talking about relieving yourself. Like is there a a dumbing down that that you've had to like overcome

Georgia Grace (36:21):

<laugh>? Totally. 'cause I think for so many centuries women have been taught to like be disgusted by their own bodies and their own bodily functions. So that's another instance of where we're not just solving for this one problem. It's like so many layers of complexity and contacts that go into this. I think another ex good example of this is when we had the store I bring, I call them Allegra one and Allegra two, they're my two mannequins that are just legs from the waist down. And so we always had the legs out on the street wearing the pants, calling out the features. And I always had the door open so I could always hear how people were, were reacting to these in real time. And sometimes people would be like, Ew, that's gross. And it's like, do you think it's gross when you pee a million times a day?

Georgia Grace (37:03):

Like it's, it's not. Or you would have guys walk by and be like, that is weird. And sometimes I would pop my head out of the door and be like, oh, is it weird for you when you also don't pull down your pants to pee? And then they'd be like, oh, it's just like a reframing of the problem is this. We're not asking for like anything special here. It's just asking for the equivalent. And that gets into like a lot of different waves of feminism. I feel like we've gone through, especially with gear and apparel in the outdoor industry, there used to be no offerings for women. And then we went into this phase of shrink it and pink it where it was the men's version, but it was just smaller and more expensive and usually pink or teal,

Maureen (37:45):

It's like razors. I always thought it was weird when razors were like, our razors were like pink and plastic. And then when I got married I was like, your razor is so much better than mine. Like what is this? And I would never buy a pink razor again. It's like why are we getting the dumb down products or Right. Why are they pink <laugh>?

Georgia Grace (38:02):

Yeah, that's exactly it. Yeah. And it's all marketing this,

Maureen (38:06):

Right? It's like functional pieces. But I think you're doing a stellar job of making them be desirable and designer friendly and look good. And it's so interesting to hear you talk about it because it's so smart. It just seems like you said why hasn't this existed before? So I'm really grateful that you're doing this work for us because it is a pain point. It absolutely. Like Jess and I hike and we're out there and you know, even if you're not climbing a glacier or climbing a mountain, it is something that's just seems like so obvious to be a part of your, you know, closet. Like every woman could use a pair of these pants and I think every man, or even my sons, they're like, oh you have to pee again, mom. Like yes, that happens. We have to, we have different bodies. Like I drink a ton of water so

Jess (38:55):

Tell 'em it's probably their fault. Yeah.

Maureen (38:57):

Yeah. <laugh> honestly. Yeah, that's a whole other thing. Right, right.

Jess (39:01):

Georgia Grace <laugh>, I'm also obsessed with your tagline. We wear the pants. What an awesome, awesome tagline. Yeah,

Georgia Grace (39:09):

<laugh>, we wear

Jess (39:09):

The pants, we all need a shirt that says that. That's amazing.

Georgia Grace (39:12):

We do have shirts that say that actually.

Jess (39:15):

I love that <laugh>.

Maureen (39:16):

Perfect. We wear the pants, we need some Jess.

Jess (39:19):

Yeah, we'll we'll have to get our hands on those.

Maureen (39:21):

Along the way, we always ask all of our guests, what is some great piece of advice or maybe a mantra that you stick with when you're up against those harder days in the business? Can you share any bit of advice with maybe a fellow entrepreneurs?

Georgia Grace (39:36):

Yeah, there is one that's emerged recently. Oh usually in more physical context, less when I'm behind a screen. But I think it was last winter I was skiing with some friends, uh, on a powder day at Vail and there was a, we were on a really steep run and there was almost like a this big like ledge that you had to jump off of to get into the ski run. And I was completely terrified and I didn't know that the people around me heard this, but I said to myself, I am a brave girl. And then I launched in.

Maureen (40:08):

<laugh>.

Georgia Grace (40:08):

And so I'm a brave girl has become a bit of an inside joke and something that I use a lot internally for anything that feels impossible. And then I think the other one that I've been leaning into more recently, I don't love using ai, but I wanna stay relevant and informed as a founder. And so the times that I do, I have it, maybe you can bleep me out in editing <laugh>, but I have all AI chatbots address me as Boss Bitch. <Laugh>,

Jess (40:36):

No bleep necessary. We'll take all of that.

Georgia Grace (40:38):

I think I -

Maureen (40:39):

Like it.

Georgia Grace (40:39):

- That is something that is hard to believe myself, but if someone else addresses me as such, then I can maybe internalize some of it.

Maureen (40:47):

Alright.

Jess (40:48):

You seems like you're, you're well on your way to internalizing that <laugh>. What are you up to next? What do you have on the on the docket?

Georgia Grace (40:55):

Yeah, so we've expanded our products like the Gnara product line, all of which have a go fly a ton in the past three years. And now what we're really focused on is licensing the Go Fly out. Because ultimately my goal with this product and this technology is to have the biggest possible impact on the most amount of people. Which means not just keeping this as a thing that my brand Gnara does, but offering it as something that all brands can adapt into all of their products. So we, our first licensing partner was Libson who put the Go Fly into overalls and they were a majority men's clothing brand. Now their women's overalls are surpassing their men's sales, which I think speaks a lot to, that's awesome how much demand there is to this. And then we partnered with Burton who put the Go Fly into Ski BiVs. So we just launched those this season and I can't quite announce who the next partnerships are, but I can say you're gonna keep seeing Go Fly in a lot of different verticals and a lot of different clothing options from all different brands.

Jess (41:54):

Amazing.

Maureen (41:55):

Amazing. That is so awesome. Well G.G., thank you so much for being with us and we cannot wait to see what you do next and use

Jess (42:03):

Them.

Georgia Grace (42:03):

Thank you so much for having me. Yes, <laugh>,

Maureen (42:08):

I'm obsessed with her

Jess (42:10):

<laugh>. So am I. I'm totally obsessed with her.

Maureen (42:12):

I just love smart women who do things, you know, that don't just complain. Like she had a pain point and she's like, I'm gonna do something.

Jess (42:19):

Lean into the thing that pisses you off. I'm pissed off on the regular, there's so much opportunity for me.

Maureen (42:25):

You have like a hundred businesses to create. I mean come on.

Jess (42:29):

But she had the other component, the thing she said at the end. She's a brave girl.

Maureen (42:32):

Definitely. I think you have to be super vulnerable to put an idea out into the world and like fight for it. You know, in a room full of guys with motorcycle jackets. She is a brave girl in any room.

Jess (42:43):

She was like, Hey, whatever room I'm in, I'm doing it. I'm going for it and I'm not afraid to have a problem and fix it. And so here she is.

Maureen (42:52):

Yeah, and talk about something that could be like construed as taboo. She's making it every day and normal and I love that. And all of the parts I loved.

Jess (43:02):

Same. All the parts. I'm gonna go pee outside now. Bye bye.

Speaker 4 (43:06):

<laugh>,

Jess (43:08):

She What Comes to You from Real Woman Magazine, A product of Capital Health. This episode was produced by Leigh Iacobucci with Music by Epidemic Sound.

Maureen (43:18):

Please, please leave us a rating and review. We want this show to be so great and we need you to help us do that. So follow, subscribe, and next time bring your friends too. Until then, I'm Maureen Petrosky.

Jess (43:30):

And I'm.