Harnessing Resilience and Resourcefulness in Business
BY ELYSE KAYE
I spent the first 20 years of my career working for corporations and consultancies building brands and product lines. The business plan for Bloom Bras was written the year I got out of college. I could not find a sports bra that worked for me. The market was there and continued to grow but I was concerned by the failure rate of companies. As I moved through my career, I would pull out the business plan every few years and get overwhelmed knowing the amount of time, effort, and money it would take to make it happen. I moved from brand and product management leading innovation and marketing teams around the globe launching dozens of brands and hundreds of product lines. Most recent successes included the turnaround of the Four Paws® Brand for Central Garden & Pet, the launch from the ground up of the House of Marley Brand from HoMedics, and the expansion of licensed brands for Black & Decker. It gave me the knowledge of bringing together what a consumer wants, what a customer will put on a shelf, and what a manufacturer can produce.
In 2011, I ran my first half marathon. I did what so many women do which is wear two sports bras or an underwire under a sports bra. I had chaffed skin from the wires rubbing against me and the back hooks digging in. I was running on behalf of the charity Imerman Angels which matches cancer patients with survivors of a similar cancer and demographic so that no one goes through cancer alone. When I ran the marathon, I had not trained at all and had never run more than 5 miles. Life got in the way of training. The night before the race, a woman got up and told her story. As a three-time survivor of aggressive breast cancer, she should not be alive. At the time I thought, “My mind has never been clearer, my spirit and will have never been stronger. My body is catching up. I do not care if I walk, crawl or you carry me over that finish line tomorrow, I will finish the race.”
Several things I took away from this experience… the first was that I had to complete the race that next morning even though I was totally unprepared. Second, If I did not take action, I would never be able to create a company that could help people facing similar challenges. Third, I wanted breast cancer survivors to be a driving force behind the design. I began to collect information and inspiration.
The Bloom Bras business plan became the thing that kept me up at night
70% of women are a D cup or above. You would never use the same mechanism to carry a 3-pound rock as you would a 10 pounder so why would the same two pieces of fabric sewn together suffice for a bustier woman? It clearly was not a design flaw but more of an engineering challenge. I was in an aerial yoga class and saw a very large man cocooning in his silk, leading me to ponder why that could not be used to hold up my GGs. Questions like how does a pulley system bring a piano or a delicate piece of art to a second story ran through my head. The Bloom Bras business plan became the thing that kept me up at night. Over the next several years I spent several hundreds of hours listening to stories like Sara Blakely’s from Spanx and Steve Madden selling shoes from his trunk.
We look at entrepreneurs as fearless and that is not a word that I would use to describe myself. I started reaching out to designers who kept coming back with sports bra concepts that looked and functioned like everything out there. I finally got the number of Camilla Huey, the corset maker for Oprah, Aretha, Katy Perry, ballerinas, opera singers, etc., and reached out. I was struggling with materials, so I went to an event where Dr. Yvonne Cagel, a decorated NASA scientist, was speaking, and I invited her to collaborate. Another woman I met at an event was neighbors with the ex- head of finance of Victoria Secret so I picked up the phone and luckily so did she. Resourceful and resilient are probably more accurate descriptors of my own entrepreneurship.
Once we had a few prototypes for Bloom Bras, I posted a note on a Facebook group to recruit women of varying sizes to try them on. I am smaller in stature with a larger chest but if you put 10 women who are a 38DDD next to each other, they will all be different with a variety of desired features. Normally, companies use fit models to showcase their brand, but I did not believe that was an appropriate reflection. I had 165 women show up to test out the products. This was the best research I possibly could do and it was free. We wanted to talk about our frustrations and to be heard. No one enjoyed shopping for sports bras.
After this, I launched a Kickstarter campaign. Being from the midwest and a GenXer who came from a very conservative corporate background, I and many of the people in my network were not familiar with crowdfunding. I was so grateful for the amazing interns who helped me curate a video for the campaign. I put it online and over 240,000 people came through within the month. My goal was to raise $20,000 which we hit within the first 80 hours. I remember sitting there one night watching the view counts go up and seeing some of the sharing and tagging which overwhelmed me with emotion. My big question was would the product resonate more with women like me who are smaller in stature but busty, the traditional plus-sized community (a term I hate), new moms, breast cancer survivors, or no one at all?
If my background has taught me anything, it is resilience. Jumping forward, Bloom Bras is now the most body-inclusive product on the market ranging in size from 28C - 56L designed for adjustability, comfort, breathability, without harmful underwire and to lift vs. squish. 2020 was a great year for our business with a major retailer committing to putting the entire line into 21 stores. Because I am self-funded, I paid for the inventory in January, it was produced in February and the world came to a halt in March. It was one of the scariest moments. All of that inventory was delivered to my apartment because the retailer turned it away. But everyone was working and exercising from home plus sitting by their computer online shopping. Our sales started to climb. And I was at home reading stories of these incredibly heroic healthcare workers who were on their feet all day, moving at the speed of light, unable to take breaks let alone have time to do laundry. We offered free Bloom Bras to these healthcare workers and as a result, our community rallied around the brand.
The thing I am most proud of is the authenticity of the Bloom Bras brand and our ability to remain dedicated to showcasing diversity with a product that matches. The magic of community is what I focus on daily. When I get a love letter from one of our consumers, it brings me to tears and reminds me why I built this business.
ABOUT ELYSE KAYE
Elyse Kaye is the Founder and CEO of Bloom Bras – a line of patented activewear designed to lift vs squish for curvy women. When the pandemic hit, she pivoted and co-founded SF Pro-Tex, mobilizing US- Based factories manufacturing PPE for government entities and corporations. Elyse has spent her career leading innovation and marketing teams launching dozens of brands and hundreds of product lines. Recent successes include the turnaround of the Four Paws® Brand for Central Garden & Pet, the launch from the ground up of the House of Marley Brand from HoMedics, and the expansion of licensed brands for Black & Decker through her product development consultancy, AHA Product Solutions. Elyse holds several dozen patents. Elyse was a contributing author in The Product Manager’s Handbook and gives talks around the globe regarding building a brand, bringing innovation to life, and female mentorship. In her free time, she is a certified fitness teacher and enthusiast.