The Retail X Series Podcast
Are you an early stage founder revolutionizing the future of retail? Then you’re in the right place. My name is Sapna Shah and I’m an angel investor investing at the preseed stage in retail tech, ecommerce, marketplaces and consumer. I’m also the founder of Retail X Series, an ecosystem to help early-stage founders in the retail sector. Retail X Series includes events, a YouTube channel, a Slack community, resources for founders, and this podcast. In this podcast, I interview founders, investors and experts in the retail space, and we dig deep into the tactics around key topics that early-stage founders want to hear about. Welcome to the Retail X podcast.
The Retail X Series Podcast
How to Build an Apparel Brand Featuring Siyana & Andy Huszar
•
Sapna Shah
•
Episode 29
Building an apparel brand, particularly in womenswear, is incredibly challenging. This episode features Siyana and Andy Huszar, who founded and scaled Marcella from zero to success by prioritizing slow, profitable growth. Siyana and Andy talk about their early moments on Etsy to dealing with a COVID pivot to fundraising in difficult environments. Topics:
- Why Etsy was a great place to learn about retail and launch a proof of concept
- Early keys to success on Etsy
- How starting small with production and making small mistakes was important for early testing
- Moving off Etsy onto their own DTC channel
- Why they took the slower growth approach and how that has paid off now
- How the COVID curveball resulted in a pivot to face masks – and a test of wholesale partners
- Production planning tips to reduce inventory risk
- The challenges of fundraising for an apparel business, and what has worked for Siyana and Andy to date (spoiler: profitability!)
Music by Eino Toivanen, kongano.com
Edited by Deven Shah
Learn more at Retail X Series and follow @retailxseries on Twitter and Instagram.
To submit a pitch or to find out more about Sapna Shah, check out Red Giraffe Advisors.