Where It All Started
Life often presents us with unexpected opportunities that can completely transform our career paths. This happened to me in an entrepreneurship class at Mount Royal University while I was taking my undergrad in communications. In this course, we were assigned a challenge: build a company by delving deep into real-world problems, engage in customer discovery to unearth underlying issues, and subsequently employ innovative frameworks to craft feasible solutions. Navigating the intricacies of venturing into the "grey zone"—those ambiguous areas of innovation lacking clear rules and guidelines—stirred my enthusiasm, inspiring me to dive into the world of startups to learn more about the entrepreneurial process.
My Journey To LEWK
Since graduating, my career has evolved through significant roles in Canadian-based startups. At Inspired Go, a healthy meal delivery service, I was the Director of Operations and Expansion, managing over 100 employees and contractors in four cities across Canada. Moving on to Flahmingo, a fractional investing platform, I served as the Director of People and Operations, overseeing teams in nine different countries while navigating the complexities in a highly regulated industry. Each role provided valuable insights into the challenges and realities of starting and growing a business.
Amidst the bustling chaos of the startup world, the persistent dream of launching my own venture remained. My journey took an unexpected turn after moving on from my role at Flahmingo. It all began with a simple invitation from a friend for a casual coffee chat, where she eagerly shared her vision for a business venture.
That friend turned out to be Sheena, now my esteemed co-founder. Having transitioned from the corporate world to spearheading a consulting business aimed at supporting creative entrepreneurs, Sheena had her finger on the pulse of fashion and ecommerce trends. One standout scenario she encountered was the challenge of curating and personalizing the online shopping experience with clients in the fashion/retail industry. Like many businesses, due to COVID restrictions, businesses in the fashion/retail space had to find a new way to connect with clients. Fashion stylists and ecommerce retailers leveraged tools like flat lays or shoppable mood boards to enhance the online shopping experience. These curated collections provide customers with ideas on how to pair items together and curate specific looks, such as "date night," helping them make more confident and personalized purchasing decisions. The manual process of creating shoppable mood boards hindered scalability and efficiency, highlighting the need for a more streamlined approach.
This challenge resonated with a broad audience, including millennial women navigating pivotal life moments—whether emerging from maternity leave, tying the knot, or climbing the career ladder. Yet, amidst these diverse life transitions, there was a common thread: the overwhelming and time-consuming ordeal of shopping for clothes online, leaving shoppers uncertain and lacking confidence in their selections.
As Sheena shared her vision with me, we both wondered - how can we make this service less manual, more accessible, highly scalable and personal by using technology? Thus, our journey began—fueled by innovation, passion, and a shared commitment to create the future of retail by personalizing it and making it simpler for consumers.
Our entrepreneurial journey kicked off with the crucial step of validating the issue Sheena had identified. We were determined to ensure her observations were not merely influenced by founder bias. To achieve this, we conducted 250 interviews with shoppers across various customer segments we suspected might encounter this challenge.
Through these extensive interviews, a clear pattern began to emerge—a prevailing frustration among online shoppers with the conventional experience of browsing for clothing. The laborious task of sifting through countless product pages on popular retail websites proved incompatible with their hectic lifestyles. Moreover, the time-consuming prospect of piecing together an outfit suitable for a specific occasion added an extra layer of complexity to an already overwhelming process.
During the time we were conducting customer discovery, the transformative potential of artificial intelligence was at the forefront of society cue: ChatGPT. We started to talk to technical experts in our network to understand how we could use AI to improve the online shopping experience. We wanted to test out a simple AI shopping tool, so we began with the development of a minimal viable product (MVP), designed to function as a personalized stylist accessible directly to consumers. Through our platform, LEWK, users could effortlessly seek styling recommendations tailored to their specific occasions, supported by shoppable mood boards curated by artificial intelligence.
As the positive feedback and user engagement poured in, validating our concept's appeal to online shoppers, we sought to expand into the retail space. Collaborating with retailers, we ventured into testing our product within their ecosystems, eager to gauge their perspectives and refine our offering. Encouraged by their enthusiastic response and readiness to explore further, we recognized an opportunity to pivot from a direct-to-consumer (D2C) model to a business-to-business (B2B) approach.
As we refined our product strategy, we embarked on a fresh perspective by shifting our focus to the retailer's needs. Through extensive customer interviews, we discovered a common challenge plaguing online retailers—conversion rates sitting at an industry average of 2.6% and billions of dollars lost due to cart abandonment driven by shopper overwhelm.
Leveraging the foundation of our MVP, and the understanding that personalization in an ecommerce setting is known to drive 74% of people to purchase online, we envisioned a B2B solution: a white-label plug-in seamlessly integrated into fashion retailers' storefronts. This innovative tool would offer personalized styling advice to shoppers in the form of shoppable mood boards, cutting down thousands of product options to 4 item outfits.
By harnessing data such as an online shopper's size, style preferences, and the occasion they're shopping for, our plug-in would dynamically curate tailored styling recommendations from the retailer's product catalog, increasing the likelihood of purchase by 3 times. This strategic pivot not only aligned with the evolving needs of online shoppers but also empowered retailers to enhance the shopping experience and combat cart abandonment effectively.
We are currently piloting this product with three Canadian-based retailers to test out the idea with their customers. Our goal is to receive constant feedback and iterate the product with retailers and shoppers in mind. We are no longer building this business ourselves (thankfully). We have a team of software developers and advisors helping us build our product and our vision. We’ve appreciated people taking a chance on our idea and helping us take a concept and turn it into a tangible product. Our goal is to commercially launch this product by the end of the year and bring a new shopping experience to the forefront.
Top Two Lesson I’ve Learned
Embarking on the journey of entrepreneurship has undoubtedly been one of the most challenging yet profoundly rewarding experiences of my career. Building a company instills a deep sense of purpose, driven by the mission we are committed to achieving. Our goal is clear: to revolutionize the online shopping experience and, eventually, to transform how people shop both online and in physical stores. This journey has imparted two crucial lessons: 1) success is seldom a matter of luck; rather, it is often the result of the network you cultivate and 2) patience and resilience are essential—this endeavour is demanding.
