Compare and despair. It can be so easy to start out, especially as an entrepreneur, and just compare yourself to all the other businesses that either started at the same time as you were in the same category as you. My best advice is that whenever somebody tells me they’re starting a business is to mentally hit mute. Your energy and your time is so precious; wasting energy on focusing on what other people are doing is not going to get you to the place where you deserve to be. It’s easier said than done; we all have our moments where we’re doomscrolling and just feeling that anxiety of comparison, but it’s so important. I think the mute feature on Instagram is the best thing ever for that feeling. If I feel a tinge of anxiety or comparison about a friend group or if somebody didn’t invite me to something, I hit mute.
We created the design process from a place of genuine inclusion and truly wanting everybody to feel great, yet that’s not a talking point for us—it’s just something we do and we’ve always wanted to do and has continued to be really important to the depths of our product development. When that’s truly core to how you create the product, it then bleeds into how the customers react to it, and how the campaign is shot, and which models you use. I have friends who I want to wear this product; I want my 65-year-old mom to feel amazing in this product; I want my 15-year-old niece to feel great in the product…all of those things. I never got a great taste in my mouth from brands that make you feel like you have to like be a certain level of coolness to wear them. There’s a power in being uncool. I’ve been cringe since I was born.
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