Audio Of The Week: Nadia Boujarwah on Positively Gotham Gal
Nadia Boujarwah is the co-founder and CEO of our portfolio company Dia & Co.
She dropped by the Gotham Gal’s offices last week and they recorded a conversation about starting an apparel business in the competitive online commerce sector.
Here it is:
Comments (Archived):
Dia is a fabulous idea. [1] They should put up a separate site for larger and extra sized men. Someone is (or will be) doing that.[1] My daughter uses stitchfix.com and loves it. When it is time for a gift she often asks me for money to cover what she is buying there. She has facetimed me with purchases to ask my opinion (I am good with fashion, dress and styling). This is the same but for plus size women.
Big client Torrid. Started 2001. Great growth. First plus size supermodel: https://www.allure.com/stor…
Whats is interesting about Torrid as well as Dia is that the site is dedicated to the larger larger woman not just the large or medium woman. I think both (as well as competitors) are missing the market between ‘close to model build’ (my daughters who have plenty of choices) and ‘not really heavy but not skinny’ build (my wife and honestly many other mothers). I don’t know what this middle ground is called. But I think it probably is a big opportunity that both are missing. Not saying you can’t buy clothes for (whatever) that size is. But the marketing and photography don’t seem to be showing that at all. And I don’t think anyone is doing as a dedicated ‘we dress you’ site which is what stitchfix and dia is doing. Dia at least has a niche ‘plus size’. Stitchfix is the entire market any size and any gender.Separately plenty of the weight that at least some of these women are showing comes from the following:1) Obsession with eating brought on by tasty foods (back in the day very few looked like this or even the middle ground I have highlighted). And food and eating as a sport and importantly entertainment rather than for what it is actually supposed to be about. (You mentioned that steak even in a comment here, right?)2) Mothers obsessions with schlepping their kids to all sorts of after school activities (blame the colleges also for wanting stupid shit on college applications for this as well). [1] Not putting themselves first. Keeping up with the other mothers.3) Modern day pressures of working as well as raising a family. Neglecting yourself.4) Food for pleasure and emotional eating.5) Not getting (because of some the other points I’ve made) enough sleep hence having a greater appetite. And then eating even more emotionally and using it as a drug and it becomes an addiction (really).[1] I was reading about the Harvard diversity lawsuit and how they require community service as do all colleges apparently. Funny how the world did fine prior to this requirement which magically appeared in the past 30 years or so I never had anything close to that back when I applied to colleges.