Hey friends,
Back again with another edition of The Founder recap - this is Episode 43. If you’re new here, my goal is to give you a quick synopsis of what got me thinking from this week’s episode of The Founder Podcast in 5 minutes or less.
No idea what The Founder is? Read this.
Mission control:
Learn -> Founder favorite resources
Free money -> Discount codes
And who am I?
I’m Kallaway - a future founder trying to get some answers before I jump in the ball pit myself.
Let’s get it.
This Week’s Episode (Ep 43) 👗
Guest -> Carly Bigi, Founder & CEO of Laws of Motion
Mission -> Laws of Motion is on a mission to eliminate conventional apparel sizing and empower women with perfect fitting clothes that don’t break the bank.
Episode available on -> Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Website
In this episode we talk with Carly about…
👶 The origin story of Laws of Motion - creating data-driven women’s apparel
😓 What the apparel industry is getting wrong with sizing
🛠️ Custom building a factory to reimagine apparel production from the ground up
📏 Creating the “psychological coefficient” to better assess women’s size fit
😷 Shutting down everything to create PPE during Covid-19
🔨 Brainstorm of the week -> Improving longevity, designing a new umbrella from the ground up and encouraging more entrepreneurship
Summary 🔍
What is Laws of Motion and how did Carly get started?
Carly is a first-time founder who launched Laws of Motion during her MBA at Columbia University.
On where she got the idea for Laws of Motion…
One weekend, I went shopping for work clothes with a male friend. He walked into a menswear shop and spent 30 minutes selecting fabric, getting measured, and sipping whiskey. Three days later, a well-priced and impeccable-fitting suit arrived at his door. I, on the other hand, trekked to a dozen different stores, finding something that sort of fit, that was sort of my style, and sort of my price point. I took it to get tailored, waited a week, and in the end paid twice the price for something I liked half as much.
After realizing there was a massive opportunity to completely rethink womenswear, she dedicated much of her MBA experience to launching Laws of Motion.
Laws of Motion is flipping the apparel industry on its head by providing access to data-driven custom womenswear.
Contrary to the standard sizing options offered by most apparel brands, Laws of Motion uses your personalized measurements and a robust dataset of 10,000 other women to create clothes that fit you perfectly.
Today, they go-to-market with 144 micro-sizes to serve every customer shape and size.
When Covid hit in early March 2020, Laws of Motion shut down their popular apparel line and repurposed the entire company to make PPE. They launched the Hero Initiative and donated 10 medical grade masks for every Hero Robe sold.
Over the course of the pandemic, Laws of Motion has donated 1M masks and delivered 2.4M gowns / 2M shoe covers to help frontline healthcare workers fight the pandemic.
To date, Laws of Motion has raised a small $1M pre-seed round via angel investors.
🚀 Here’s why I’m a fan and excited about Laws of Motion 🚀
After 30 seconds of listening to the interview, you can immediately sense that Carly is fearless.
In order to tackle something as bold as disrupting the entire apparel industry, Carly and team needed to think radically different and challenge the fundamental assumptions of the legacy players who came before them.
While the Laws of Motion product line-up (e.g., Alpha Dress, Vice Jacket, Legend Dress, etc.) are well executed and beautifully designed, I think the massive opportunity lies in the underlying value of their sizing algorithm and proprietary manufacturing process.
After talking to Carly, you get the sense that Laws of Motion is onto something big. If they are able to license their technology to bigger apparel players, there’s no telling how quickly other brands may be able to offer microsizing.
This means that ordering schmediums or super baggy larges will no longer be an issue. In a future world enabled by Laws of Motion technology, I’d be able to order “Kallaway-fit” from all of my favorite brands, receiving perfect fitting clothing every single time.
At the end of the day, the reason you look good or bad in clothes has less to do with the quality of the fabric and more to do with the cut and fit.
Laws of Motion may be the key to enabling a perfect fit from every brand in the world.
Carly’s Startup Manifesto 📜
What’s a Startup Manifesto?
During each episode, I ask all of my founder guests this question:
If you had to write a Startup Manifesto with 5 of the most important key lessons or pitfalls to avoid when starting out, what would they be?
Here’s what Carly had to say:
Don’t think outside the box, think like there is no box.
People are everything.
Rules are suggestions on a good day.
It’s not that something happens, it’s how you handle it. Mistakes are going to happen. If you’re not making mistakes, you’re leaving value on the table.
If you’re going to do, fucking do it. You do not get the time back.
What Got Me Thinking From the Episode 🤔
After reflecting on my conversation with Carly, here’s something that really got my wheels spinning:
Shifting the entire business to support Covid relief 👍🏽
We’ve all heard it over and over for the past 12 months - Covid, Covid, Covid.
Although it’s interesting to understand how the top business minds deal with turbulent times, I try not to make it the main feature of every single podcast episode.
As we know, Covid has certainly impacted some businesses more than others.
Brian Chen from Room and Sib Mahapatra from Branch, both in the office furniture industry, were extremely impacted and saw 50-80% revenue drops overnight.
Other founders like Eliza Blank from The Sill and Matteo Franceschetti from Eight Sleep actually saw significant tailwinds and business uptick due to rapid adoption of ecommerce and work from home solutions.
For many of those that weren’t as negatively impacted, we’ve seen incredible initiatives and aid provided to employees, families and communities to help support the recovery.
The most impressive effort I’ve seen was that of Carly and the Laws of Motion team.
After Carly recovered from being extremely sick with Covid in March, she went all-in on Covid relief. Laws of Motion shut down production on their entire apparel line and dedicated all hands to the cause.
First, they launched the Hero Initiative. Carly and team repurposed the silky liner in their products to make robes, which they sold to their loyal customers for $50. Each robe sold resulted in 10 hospital grade masks to be donated to frontline healthcare workers.
Next, they began manufacturing PPE. When it was all said and done, Carly and her team donated 2.4M gowns and 2M shoe covers. Their PPE production was so effective that they’ve launched a separate PPE-focused business line that will continue to thrive after the pandemic is over.
What fascinates me about this story was not the volume of PPE produced (although impressive), but the mentality required to pull it off.
Carly went ALL IN. She told me that when she emailed her investors and leadership team, it wasn’t even a question if this was the right move. She knew this was what the country needed and the right thing to do. So she did it.
Sometimes, decision making is really simple.
Do the right thing and good things will come.
After providing continuous relief for several months, Laws of Motion has re-enabled their apparel line and now has a thriving PPE business. They’re even considered one of the largest female-owned defense contractors as they prototype producing custom uniforms for the military.
Thank you Carly and team for helping to support this country and fight the virus!
Wrapping it Up 📕
I hope you found this interesting and inspiring! If so and you want to help support our journey to bring The Founder to millions of people across the world, here’s a couple things that would be really valuable to me and the show:
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Listen to the full podcast episode with Carly on Apple or Spotify. If you don’t have an hour to listen to the full episode, pick a couple of topics you’re interested in and skim through (topic time codes in the show notes).
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Till next time ✌️
Kallaway
Want more? Check out other founders we’ve featured on the show!
— 📖 36. Toucan | Taylor Nieman
— 🛋️ 34. Burrow | Stephen Kuhl
— 🛌 30. Eight Sleep | Matteo Franceschetti
— 🌵 25. The Sill | Eliza Blank
— 🥦 22. Levels | Josh Clemente
— 💍 11. The Clear Cut | Olivia Landau and Kyle Simon
— 🥘 7. Kettle & Fire | Justin Mares
— 🥾 2. Thursday Boots | Connor Wilson
See any mistakes or have feedback? Let me know (kallaway@thefounderpod.com)