From their days at Facebook and Ross to launching their own footwear brand Birdies, Bianca and Marisa share what they've learned about marketing and manufacturing a new product category.
When friends and Birdies co-founders, Bianca Gates and Marisa Sharkey dove head, or rather feet first, into their shoe company, they didn’t expect they’d be outfitting royal duchess, Meghan Markle. They weren’t even sure how they were going to sell their first run of 2,000 slippers just two years ago.
Both women held highly successful jobs before turning their side hustle into a full-time operation in 2017 and they’ve used their extensive consumer sales background to grow their business incrementally.
In this episode, Bianca and Marisa talk about making their business concept a reality and taking the leap from Facebook and consulting (5:53). They share how leveraging their social networks (11:35), making key influencer marketing choices (14:35), and good timing (16:43) helped them to scale quickly. They also share some insider knowledge about the royal wedding (17:32). Bianca and Marisa talk about manufacturing for a whole new product category (24:04), operating lean (26:08), and investing in technology and data as part of their business strategy (32:15). Lastly, they talk about raising capital and the life-changing decision of entrepreneurship (36:30).
Links and images from this post are on the Lumi blog.