Our Partner Nishat Mills Won an ISPO Award for Their brrr° Fabric
Congratulations to our partner Nishat Mills for winning a Top Ten ISPO Textrends award for their brrr° fabric.
The fabric, NDS/AU-2410/2023, is a 220 GSM fabric that can be used both for bottom weights as well as tops. That makes it a versatile option for many kinds of activewear and outdoor garments.
We're excited to partner with Nishat on this and other innovative cooling performance fabrics made with brrr° cooling technology.
brrr° Welcomes Retail Executive Christopher Heyn to Board
We are excited to welcome seasoned retail and apparel executive Christopher Heyn to our Board of Directors!
Heyn has extensive experience in the apparel and retail industry and has propelled numerous brands to growth and prominence in their category.
He was most recently Chief Executive Officer of Southern Tide, which is one of the fastest-growing lifestyle apparel brands in the United States with leisure and activewear collections for men, women and children as well as collegiate themed apparel and fashion accessories.
While at Southern Tide, Heyn led the brand’s omni channel expansion to build its direct-to-consumer and business-to-business efforts, oversaw the opening of 20 retail stores, improved the catalogue, and expanded product availability to more than 1,200 specialty retailers including premium department stores as well as the resort and golf channel. He also enhanced the company’s brand ambassador program to promote Southern Tide among influencers on college campuses, launched a women’s collection, and oversaw the creation of a brrr° Collection of apparel that instantly and continuously draws heat and moisture away from the skin.
Earlier in his career, Heyn was CEO and Chairman of sportswear marketer Summit Golf Brands, where he transformed the company’s operations by enhancing revenue and profitability to propel Summit Golf to become the third-largest golf apparel company in the country. He previously served as Senior Vice President of the National Basketball Association’s Global Merchandise Group and served as President of Nautica, where he helped elevate the brand to become the #2 ranked men’s sportswear collection in the United States.
“Chris is one of the most insightful and forward-thinking leaders in apparel and retail, and we are fortunate to add his expertise and wisdom to our Board of Directors,” said Mary-Cathryn Kolb, Founder and CEO of brrr°. “Chris has a special talent for spotting and responding to consumer demands, and we welcome his hands-on leadership and institutional knowledge as we strengthen our board and enter a new stage of growth.”
brrr° Founder & CEO Speaks at EY Forum
We were excited to see brrr° Founder & CEO Mary-Cathryn Kolb featured at a fireside chat about the power of resilience as part of the EY Strategic Growth Forum in California last week.
Kolb joined milk + honey spa founder Alissa Bayer on stage and they talked about pivoting their business models during the pandemic, how they are supporting employees through unprecedented stress on their personal and professional lives, and how they are managing the ongoing global supply chain disruptions.
The entrepreneurs talked about what resilience looks like in action, and how determination and grit shape them as leaders and decision makers.
"It's about progress over perfection," Kolb said.
The EY Strategic Growth Forum is an annual event that forges high-value CEO-to-CEO connections. This year's gathering featured Emmy winning actor and director Dan Levy of Schitt's Creek, former professional driver and entrepreneur Danica Patrick, VF Corporation CEO Steve Rendle, and Athena Technology Acquisition Corp. Co-Founder and CEO Phyllis Newhouse, who is the only Black female CEO of a SPAC listed company on the New York Stock Exchange.
brrr° Founder & CEO Mary-Cathryn Kolb Presents at Venture Atlanta 2021
We were excited to see brrr° Founder & CEO Mary-Cathryn Kolb take the stage at the #VA2021 investor conference hosted by Venture Atlanta.
This was a record-breaking and hyper competitive year for the conference with more than 400 applicants, and brrr° was honored to be chosen as one of the most promising tech companies in the Southeast.
It was the second time Kolb was chosen to present on-stage in front of a limited group of investors and sponsors including Invesco, Mailchimp, Stax, Cherry Bekaert, Truist and Goldman Sachs to name a few.
“The energy and pent-up demand to connect growth stage companies with investors who are actively seeking to place funds was palpable at Venture Atlanta,” said Kolb, who founded brrr° in 2014 after previous leadership roles at companies including Spanx and TOMS Shoes. “We deeply appreciate the opportunity to tell our story of innovation and traction at a time when we are actively raising a new round of venture capital.”
Since it was created in 2007, Venture Atlanta has grown to become one of the leading investor conferences in the country by helping launch more than 500 companies who raised more than $6.5 billion in funding to date.
Previous participants include ParkMobile (bought by EasyPark Group), Kabbage (bought by American Express), Cloud Sherpas (bought by Accenture) Pindrop and SalesLoft, which was recently valued at $1.1 billion.
brrr° Selected as a Venture Atlanta 2021 Presenting Company
Over $6.5 billion in funding awarded to date; leading tech investment conference continues to select large and diverse lineup of innovators from the Southeast’s hottest tech markets.
ATLANTA – Sept. 22 2021 – brrr° is pleased to have been chosen as one of the top technology companies in the Southeast to present at Venture Atlanta 2021 conference in a hyper-competitive year with a record-breaking pool of 400-plus applicants.
This is the second time brrr° has been invited to present, and its first appearance was in 2017 when it was included in the startup showcase. This year’s Venture Atlanta conference will be held October 20-21, with more than 300 investors from funds across the nation participating.
For 14 years, the annual Venture Atlanta conference has been selecting the most promising tech companies to pitch their investment case to the top investment firms in America. Venture Atlanta has helped launch more than 500 companies and raise $6.5 billion to expand the region’s vibrant tech community.
“We are excited to be in front of influential investors at Venture Atlanta at a time when we’re actively raising a new round of venture funding to support our growth,” said Mary-Cathryn Kolb, the Founder & CEO of brrr°.
Kolb started brrr° in 2014 to develop advanced performance cooling fabric technology that helps keep people more comfortable in their everyday lives. brrr°’s patented technology combines the power of natural cooling minerals, active wicking, and rapid drying to create a “Triple Chill Effect®” that instantly and continuously draws heat and moisture away from the skin. Its newest offering is brrr° Pro, which uses micro cooling minerals to amplify the cooling effect. Retailers including Southern Tide, Vineyard Vines, Reebok, Shinesty, Simms Fishing, and Sheex use brrr° to enhance their products.
This year’s Venture Atlanta will be held in person with a limited number of tickets available and will also be offered online for those who wish to tune in virtually. For those attending in person, Venture Atlanta is back with its always-great sessions, company presentations, networking opportunities, and outdoor dinner events.
“Venture Atlanta has become the authority for recognizing technology innovation across the Southeast and beyond, connecting the best and brightest innovators with top-tier, national investors and other leaders in our tech ecosystem,” said Venture Atlanta CEO Allyson Eman. “We again set a new record with over 400 applicants for Venture Atlanta Momentum 2021—it’s our most competitive year ever and reflects yet another raising of the bar in terms of presenter quality.”
Building off last year’s successful virtual model, Venture Atlanta’s online experience offers a high-production-quality option that mirrors the benefits of the live conference. Virtual attendees can connect with others at the conference, set up one-on-one meetings, stroll the virtual show floor, watch pitches in real-time, and use features like live chat and audience polling. Each ticket purchased provides attendees with on-demand access to all Venture Atlanta pitches and content for a full year.
Invesco is this year’s premier sponsor, with Mailchimp and Stax as presenting sponsors. Venture Atlanta will conclude with Atlanta Startup Battle, in which the top five ASB companies will pitch on stage against one another to win a $100,000 investment.
To learn more about brrr°, visit brrr.com. For additional information about Venture Atlanta, to register for the event, or to view the conference schedule, please visit www.ventureatlanta.org.
About Venture Atlanta
Venture Atlanta, the Southeast’s technology innovation event, is where the region’s most promising tech companies meet the country's top-tier investors. As the Southeast's largest investor showcase helping launch more than 500 companies and raise $6.5 billion in funding to date, the event connects the region’s top entrepreneurs with local and national investors and others in the technology ecosystem who can help them raise the capital they need to grow their businesses. The annual nonprofit event is a collaboration of the Atlanta CEO Council, Metro Atlanta Chamber, and the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG). For more information, visit www.ventureatlanta.org. For updates, follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn, and visit our blog.
About brrr°
brrr° was founded in 2014 with a vision of developing technologically advanced performance cooling fabrics that improve the items we wear and touch in our everyday lives. brrr° uses natural cooling minerals, active wicking, and rapid drying to create a “Triple Chill Effect®” that immediately and continuously draws heat and moisture away from the skin. Our newest offering is brrr° Pro, a performance level technology that uses micro cooling minerals to amplify the cooling effect and is our most advanced cooling fabric yet. Atlanta-based brrr° is privately held and led by Founder & CEO Mary-Cathryn Kolb, who previously held senior positions at Spanx, Seven7 Jeans, Von Dutch, and TOMS Shoes. For more information, please visit brrr.com.
Contact:
Mary Jane Credeur
The Credeur Group
mj [at] credeurgroup.com
404.317.2718
AATCC Features brrrº: Innovative Breathable and Sustainable Fabrics
Innovative Breathable and Sustainable Fabrics by Dr. Thanaseelen Rajasakran
Global warming has spawned global “heated” conversations and debates. The threat of climate change and the issue of sustainability affecting lives and livelihoods still does matter. Result: there is immense pressure on a variety of industries in terms of environmental sustainability—escalated by the influence of environmental groups like Extinction Rebellion.
One industry particularly affected by the shifting patterns of generally warmer climates is the sportswear industry. In either hot or cold temperatures, exercise is an essential part of one’s normal wellbeing and existence. Dressing in the right comfortable attire matters as well. However, the Harvard Business Review points out, about 30% of all textile consumption are susceptible to climate change.
The reality check for sportswear manufacturers is that they need to have a re-think when it comes to innovative solutions—as espoused by the Textile Exchange—in creating new materials of comfort for people who exercise. Not only must the solution function excellently, but it must also adhere to sustainability goals.
Breathable Innovation
Researchers have upped the ante with the discovery of new breathable materials. Biomimicry takes innovative concepts from nature, such as the pinecone (with its microporous scale structure), that opens and closes according to outside temperature. Researchers have been working on several innovative technologies, from cellulose-based fibers coated with a thin layer of carbon nanotubes, to wine bottle corks. Granulated cork works on the premise quite like a vehicle radiator that chokes-out excess heat, with the promise to maintain a cooler human body.
Essentially, it means when prevalent environmental conditions are warm and moist on the outside, the fabric essentially allows heat to pass through, and vice versa when the environment is cool and dry, making it easier for individuals when exercising as heat is released in the form of perspiration.
Some fabrics even contain environmentally friendly minerals, which act as “heat scavengers” pulling heat away from the skin surface to provide a cool-to-touch sensation, notes Courtney Cruzan, Vice President of Sourcing and Product Development at brrr°.
Testing and measurement undertaken by Intertek Testing Services in Taiwan, has indicated brrr°’s nylon and polyester fabrics outperform comparable products in lab tests, as per Qmax (cool to the touch) standards, wicking (which draws moisture away from the body), and dry time.
Sustainability Concerns
Still, the question remains if these new fashionable sporting materials support the United Nations Sustainable Development 2030 Goals? Another constant environmental challenge and responsibility that sportswear designers and product developers face today concerns wastewater management, particularly plastic fiber fragments (often called “microfibers”). These are usually smaller than five millimeters and are solid insoluble synthetic polymers, almost invisible to the naked eye. Greenpeace notes there is hardly any global body of water, including lakes, rivers, seas, and the deep ocean that is impervious to plastic.
According to Cruzan, brrr° materials have a proprietary blend of minerals, which are not on the American Apparel & Footwear Association’s Restricted Substance List. Its fabric partners also adhere to strict environmental standards as required by Okeo-Tex and Bluesign certification. Cruzan points out that brrr° materials have sustainability in mind and are “ahead of the SDG2030 goals.”
With meaningful steps to address sustainability issues concerning breathable sportwear, the outlook for sportswear is looking chic and cool. “The future looks bright with more stakeholders jumping on the breathable sportswear sustainability bandwagon,” says Cruzan.
Dr. Thanaseelen Rajasakran is an Assistant Professor at a Malaysian university, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman. He is passionate about all things concerning environmental sustainability.
Original Article Found Here
Mary-Cathryn Kolb of brrr°: Why We Need More Women Founders & Here Is What We Are Doing To Make That Happen
An Interview With Jerome Knyszewski
Women are very observant, insightful and intuitive. We are great at studying problems and finding solutions, and thinking of innovative ways to do things. We can multitask and get stuff done. We also understand the mindset and needs of more than half of the consumers in the country who are buying the products and services that businesses offer.
As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Mary-Cathryn Kolb (Last name pronounced “Cobb”).
Mary-Cathryn Kolb is the Founder & CEO of brrr°, a startup in Atlanta that develops innovative cooling fabric technology. brrr°’s patented method combines natural cooling minerals, active wicking and rapid drying to create a “Triple Chill Effect” that instantly and continuously draws heat and moisture away from your skin. Their fabrics are used by retailers including Southern Tide, Vineyard Vines, Greyson, Kit and Ace, Bigfoot Sock Co., Sheex bedding and many more. Next spring Reebok and Jockey will launch a program dedicated to our brrrº technology.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
Earlier in my career, I was a senior sales executive at Spanx and I had worked at several fast-growing apparel companies like Von Dutch and TOMS Shoes. I was intrigued by how these little tiny fibers could support our bodies, stretch and move with us, and help us feel our best. I started thinking about what else fabric could do to make us feel better, and what if it could actually help keep us cooler? The idea for brrr° was born.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
Being part of a period of stratospheric growth at Spanx was mind boggling and forced you to pivot and change your mindset constantly. When I joined the company, it was starting to get traction and distribution with retailers, and then all of a sudden celebrities were name-checking Spanx on the red carpet at the Oscars and it became part of the daily uniform for women. And then they expanded into pants and swimwear and men’s undergarments.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
brrr° had huge success right off the bat, with great media coverage and orders from Nieman Marcus and other retailers. We got sucked into the fashion world, and I remember one day we had a meeting where we were having this intense discussion about color trends and hemlines and what would be most popular next season. It struck me that we had strayed so far from our original vision of creating cooling fabric technology, and I had to make some difficult decisions to get us back on track. I brought in a new senior leadership team, recapitalized the company, and doubled down on R&D. It was the best mistake I’ve ever made, and the best corrective move I’ve ever made.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
So many people have been incredible supporters and advocates of brrr° that it’s hard to name just one. Chevy Arnold at EY has been one of my most ardent and vocal mentors, and she has helped nominate or suggest brrr° for several awards, accolades and other programs that help lift us up. I appreciate that I can call her anytime to ask anything and she will have something wise or profound to say. I call her my “Fairy Godsister.”
Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
“Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World,” by Rand Fishkin. It’s brutal, it’s practical and ultimately it’s helpful and inspiring if you still have the guts to create a startup after reading it.
Do you have a favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life or your work?
“Do the next right thing.” It means stay focused on what feels right for the business and for your as a leader right now, and get comfortable with the idea that what’s right is going to evolve and change over time so you need to keep adjusting too. Look for what’s right, and listen to your intuition.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
I’m such a fierce advocate for women, and one of my favorite things to do is talk with a woman who is at the dawn of her career and share what I’ve learned about being an entrepreneur and a CEO, about what it’s like to try to raise capital, about running a team, about the obstacles she’s going to face and what she can do to overcome them. Anything we can do to pay it forward to the next generation matters, and when we take the time to coach women, it has a real impact on their future careers, aspirations and lives.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from founding companies?
It’s only been 100 years since women gained the right to vote, and women still only earn 81 cents for every dollar that a man earns. Women are still the primary child care providers and caregivers for elderly parents, and we do a disproportionate amount of managing family activities, cooking, housecleaning, driving to sports practices, and staying home with a sick child. Women entrepreneurs have a much harder time raising capital, and sometimes they have to fight to be heard in meetings, or be considered for promotions or to lead important projects.
Women need more support at home from their spouses and partners, and they also need more purposeful and intentional support from colleagues and advocate at work.
I feel incredibly lucky that my husband is truly a partner in every part of my life at home and at work. We work carefully to divide and conquer as we raise our kids, and we share the work of drop-offs and pickups at school and other activities, doing laundry, cleaning, cooking meals and running our household. Having a spouse with a genuine partner mindset is one of the big reasons that I am successful.
Can you share with our readers what you are doing to help empower women to become founders?
We have a very inclusive culture at brrr°, where every single employee has a seat at the table and a voice in the discussion. I seek out their opinions and appreciate the input, and even when I don’t agree with it, those different viewpoints help influence and shape my thinking and my own decision making.
We do everything we can to support work-life balance and peoples’ needs outside the home. If an employee is working on an advanced degree and needs a more flexible work schedule or virtual work setup, we work really hard to find a way to make that happen — and that was true before the pandemic. If someone needs to take time off to care for an ill relative or to pursue a life goal, we will do everything we can to give them all the support and flexibility they need.
It’s also important to proactively mentor women by making time to talk about what’s on their mind, questions they have, problems they encounter and don’t know how to address. Sometimes those 15-minute conversations have the biggest impact in developing a future leader.
This might be intuitive to you but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?
Women are very observant, insightful, and intuitive. We are great at studying problems and finding solutions, and thinking of innovative ways to do things. We can multitask and get stuff done. We also understand the mindset and needs of more than half of the consumers in the country who are buying the products and services that businesses offer.
Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Can you please share 5 things that can be done or should be done to help empower more women to become founders? If you can, please share an example or story for each.
- Be the hedgehog, not the fox — In the old parable, hedgehogs are decisive and focused but the fox walks around all day checking things out and gets distracted.
- Delegate — Be relentless in getting non-essential tasks off your plate at work and at home so you can focus on higher-payback activities that create more value.
- Fail quickly & fail forward — When something’s clearly not working, identify it, own it, investigate what went wrong, and move quickly to change it.
- Hire the right people — Every employee should add distinct skills, expertise, passion and personality that enriches the culture of the company and makes the whole team stronger.
- Self reflect — Make time to think about how things are going, decisions you made and conversations you had, and reflect on what went well and what didn’t and what you would do differently next time.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
Create more angel funds and venture capital funds that specifically cater to women- and minority-owned startups and early stage companies!
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.
I would love to have lunch with Andrea Hoffman, the Founder and CEO of Culture Shift Labs. She has faced significant adversity in her life, had real life problems and yet she still uses her entire platform to encourage and empower and be positive. Even when times are tough, you should learn from it and move on. She has done an incredible job of paying it forward.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Check us out online:
Blog: https://www.brrr.com/news/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brrrcool
Twitter: @brrrcooltech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/brrr-/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHhNN-WxmAYFvSfVH9kpX4Q
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Orginal article here
Home Textiles Writes About brrrº Pro
Cooling Fabric Company Chills Out with Latest Innovation
brrr° Pro, with enhanced cooling fibers, is aimed at the athletic and fitness market
Atlanta – A new advanced performance cooling fabric has been developed by brrr° under the brrr° Pro label.
According to the company, brrr° Pro has enhanced cooling fibers embedded with micro-cooling minerals, along with hyper-wicking and performance drying to elevate its cooling effect. brrr° Pro polyester scored 0.194 in Qmax testing, which measures the cool-to-the-touch sensation of fabrics. That Qmax score was 81% better than another brand of cooling fabric and 53f% better than the score for comparable performance polyester.
“We are thrilled to bring the cooling performance power of brrr° Pro to the athletic market so hard-working athletes can feel their best when they train, perform and recover," said Mary-Cathryn Kolb, founder and CEO. The company, which holds a provisional patent on brrr° Pro, noted the product has been under development for three years.
brrr° licenses it cooling fabric technology to home goods and technical apparel companies such as Sheex, Southern Tide, Mizzen + Main, Kit and Ace and Forloh.
Original Article here
Why Harry Higgs’ Deep-V Might be the Best Polo in Golf
Harry Higgs is the owner of golf’s most relatable brio. His affinity for naps and quick meals is only matched by that of his buttons-undone, beard-unshaved, shades-on attire.
Frankly, in a sport defined by trim figures and meticulously crafted style, Higgs is a breath of proletarian fresh air. As for his golf game, that’s rounded into form nicely over the last few weeks. At the Safeway Open on Sunday, his best shot was his approach into the par-5 16th. Higgs hit a boomerang hook around a tree from 240 yards out and left himself two feet for eagle.
“Yeah, that was sick,” he said after a final-round 68 put him at 18 under for the week. “Kind of at the moment I needed it. I’ll remember that one for sure.”
After Sunday’s second-place finish at the Safeway Open, Higgs found himself with his second top-20 finish in three starts — and his most visible PGA Tour performance to date. With that in mind, it’s worth digging a bit deeper into his look, particularly his unbuttoned, deep-V Greyson polo.
This three-button polo from Greyson might appear simple, but inside the collar is some of golf’s most comfortable material. Greyson’s trademark “brrrº” technology is built for days in the sun and heat, combining natural cooling minerals, active wicking, and rapid drying technologies to create a shirt that stays in peak performance (and peak comfort), no matter the elements.
Whether you’re popping the color and undoing the buttons in your best Higgsian interpretation, or simply looking to invest in a look you know can withstand the elements, look no further than Greyson.
If Entrepreneurs Processed Risk Like Others, There Would Be No Startups
By: Allen Clary
What was it like to be on the ground floor of Toms Shoes, part of the early team at Spanx, and then leave to start your own textile technology company while a mom and raising a family? Well, that’s been the adventurous and inspiring life of Mary-Cathryn Kolb and in this interview, she talks about her journey and the pursuit of big things. She shares advice and learnings from her career and talks about risk-taking and the insatiable, inescapable entrepreneurial mindset. 
SPONSOR: Executive Launch - from corporate executive to startup founder. https://execlaunch.com
Full Episode at https://youtu.be/wSTtsjTMMyI and additional episodes at https://planyourstart.com/podcast.
0:07 Allen and Mary-Cathryn are both from the state of Georgia - Mary-Cathryn from Thomasville, Allen from Savannah.
3:47 She lives in Atlanta now and has pitched and developed key relationships at the annual Venture Atlanta conference - https://ventureatlanta.org.
8:50 How do natural-born entrepreneurs see risk? Mary-Cathryn says “we don’t”. It excites and energizes us.
10:35 If someone had told her how hard it was going to be and all of the things that would go wrong - she wouldn’t have believed and would have kept going. That says it all about the way natural-born entrepreneurs process risk.
12:17 She lost a co-founder and most doubted the company could or should move forward. She never considered stopping.
14:00 Are you wired to be an entrepreneur or can you learn to become one? Mary-Cathryn has always known she was wired to be one. It’s her “north star”.
14:47 There’s a spectrum of entrepreneurship, the moderate risk end and the massive risk end of the spectrum.
16:55 If you go for high risk, high reward, you must be mentally tough and a little lucky. There’s either win or lose on that end of the spectrum, no in-between.
17:45 If you think you can be happy working for others, then by all means do that. There is too much romanticism in entrepreneurship as viewed from the outside.
18:40 If you are wired this way, to be a risk taking entrepreneur, then you probably don’t have a choice but to pursue it.
21:40 She explains how, since she was a little girl, there was never a question that she wanted to do big things and was always enterprising.
22:30 Allen & Mary-Cathryn discuss ‘failure’ and how it’s often celebrated in entrepreneurship but in fact ‘fear of failure’ is a strong motivator and failure should be avoided at nearly all cost.
26:28 Mary-Cathryn talks about growing up with a twin, her college experience at SMU, graduating and going to Los Angeles, then New York to pursue an acting and vocalist career - her childhood dream.
31:34 But it was feast or famine and it’s where she learned about ‘financial runways’ and frugality. She was offered a position with a major designer, so she relocated to New York - her first project was with Beyoncé!
38:35 While in NY her college friend from SMU, Blake Mycoskie, called and asked her to work for Toms Shoes on the ground floor.
40:45 Later, Spanx called, recruited to be one one of the first 30 employees. So she relocated to Atlanta, her husband enrolled at Georgia Tech for his MBA.
42:15 She explains how special the experience and culture was in the early days of Spanx - an amazing sisterhood amongst that early team.
47:10 But with time came new leadership and change. She didn’t feel the changes were best for the team and customers. She felt she had to speak up and take a stand. She knew she’d either be heard or be let go. She was let go. It was her Jerry Maguire moment.
51:20 Discussion on how hard it is for those with intense entrepreneurial mindsets to last very long inside of someone else’s company. And when she took that stand, she had no idea what was on the other side, no backup plan.
55:00 There was an intense emotional hangover after leaving, she needed a break to reboot, but knew immediately that she would start something of her own.
56:50 So brrrº was born and with a strong commitment to product, company culture, and shared ownership.
58:50 Working with a polymer scientist and textile engineer, a ‘cool to the touch’ fabric (not just polyester moisture wicking) was developed - patented “Triple Chill Effect”.
1:05:45 She explains brrrº is an “ingredient” brand - embedded into fabric of major brands you already know.
1:06:45 Initially designed for women but now brrrº is embedded in menswear also. Bed, Bath, & Beyond now carries ‘cooling sheets’ powered by brrrº. Her newest project is bringing a much needed cooling effect to children’s car seats!
1:10:00 What advice for someone creating in the clothing or garment space? Mary-Cathryn says make the business as lean as possible and go big on social media!
1:14:00 Take the risk of entrepreneurship if it’s for you but know that it’s lonely, will take twice as much money and time that you imagine - so get a support system.
1:15:30 This is a personal journey, she has three young daughters and wants them to see up-close what a successful woman entrepreneur and working mom looks like and that family and career can coexist if that’s what you want.
Full Episode at https://youtu.be/wSTtsjTMMyI and additional episodes at https://planyourstart.com/podcast.
brrr: https://brrr.com
Plan Your Start: https://planyourstart.com
Original Article on LinkedIn
