Sarah LaFleur (M.M.LaFleur) - Changing workwear for women and adapting through COVID

Presenter: Burkland Associates helps you build the right systems that can keep up with your growth and can handle all the finance, accounting, tax and hiring services that consumer startups need to scale. For more information head to burklandassociates.com Presenter: Skillful runs online, immersive programs that help people launch and accelerate their careers in business roles in tech - Strategy & Ops, Product, Strategic Finance and Growth. Click Here to Apply to the Next Cohort   Thank you Will McClelland for the intro to our guest today, Sarah LaFleur, founder of M.M.LaFleur. M.M.LaFleur creates luxury apparel and accessories with the same attention to detail as high-end fashion houses. This was a great chat about how to launch an apparel brand and as well as how to adapt during COVID and new market tastes. Without further ado, here's Sarah. Some of the questions I ask her: What was your attraction to entrepreneurship? Why did you decide to focus on women's workwear? What were the current options for women when it came to workwear and what did you set out to change? What were the first steps when deciding you wanted to found the company? How did you think about sourcing materials? What was your approach to production? How do you approach personalization to your customers? What was the launch strategy? How did you reach your target audience? Has COVID changed your business since people are not yet going back into the office? As we come out of COVID (hopefully soon), what do you see changing when it comes to formal wear (if anything)? When did you decide to raise capital?What was that process like?What was the most common reason why an investor would pass? What's one thing you would change about the fundraising process? What's one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?The Second Sex by Simone DebuarInternal What's one piece of advice for founders? What's the best piece of advice that you've received?

Om Podcasten

The Consumer VC takes a look into early-stage consumer investing and venture capital. If you are interested in learning about consumer trends, have a b2c business and interested in learning about the fundraising process at the early stage, you have come to the right place. Mike interviews some of the top venture capitalists in the world that focus on B2C and consumer type companies or have a deep track record investing in these categories such as marketplaces, SaaS, social, CPG and non-tech subscription. Mike also interviews founders that are building some of the most disruptive consumer facing companies in the world. The conversation usually includes the insight the founder discovered, fundraising strategy, and the pitch. This podcast also includes bonus episodes. Each bonus episode dives into a particular subject that might not have to due with the fundraise or venture capital, but still would be helpful to founders. For example, a bonus episode on brand strategy or how to construct a board of directors. All bonus episodes will be clearly labeled. For all episodes, please visit www.theconsumervc.com. For updates, you can follow @mikegelb on Twitter.