Author:Whitney BauckUpdated:Sep 19, 2019Original:Sep 19, 2019In our long-running series, "How I'm Making It," we talk to people making a living in the fashion and beauty industries about how they broke in and found success.
Read on to hear how she built a committed community of customers, why so many investors "don't know shit" and the connection she sees between sustainability and her faith.I was working as an attorney for six years while I ran the business on the side. It got to a point where I had to make a decision: either continue my legal career, or see where this company would take me.
We raised a small friends and family $500K round and actually did have two VCs in that round. Our very first yes was Arlan Hamilton of Backstage Capital, who invests solely in minority founders. And then a year later we started our seed round, which we just closed in December, led by Cue Ball. That being said, the VCs we did bring on are incredibly diverse. We're very selective about who we want on our investment table.
Haute Hijab has a really dedicated and connected community who buy your products repeatedly and show up at events. How did you build that? We know that posts about women empowerment do incredible. Posts with me and Ahmed do really well. The other thing [people] love is travel stuff. Now we've got it down to a science, but there's always going to be elements of spontaneity with Lives or Stories.
When you started out you were selling vintage scarves, and then you started working with deadstock fabric. How has your sourcing changed as you've grown? We actually just set up this whole sustainability committee. One of our designers was a consultant at Eileen Fisher who helped with the Green Eileen initiative; she's an incredible innovator in the space.