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Nadia Boujarwah

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26
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2018-02-16
most recent
2018-02-16
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1
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  1. “The next five years at DIA are exciting. I think for us, we are really excited, I think, for the opportunities that we have to set a new trajectory for this category overall and really be a part of making completely new experiences, experiences that many of our customers never thought were going to be possible, possible for the community that we serve and just being able to do that for more and more women over time.”

    2018-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How To Think About Founder-Category Fit, Why The Biggest Opportunities Are In Category Re-Architecture & What Can Be Done To Increase The Amount of Women In VC with Nadia Boujarwah, Founder & CEO @ Dia & Co · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “I think one of the biggest opportunities that we have for change in the world of VC is really in having more women venture capitalists. I think that there are so many opportunities, so many businesses that are likely not getting funded today that could have transformative impacts on the world simply because of the gender dynamics that exist in venture. And it's certainly not sufficient, but it is necessary for us to have many”

    2018-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How To Think About Founder-Category Fit, Why The Biggest Opportunities Are In Category Re-Architecture & What Can Be Done To Increase The Amount of Women In VC with Nadia Boujarwah, Founder & CEO @ Dia & Co · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Think one of the most insightful newsletters that I read is one called Loose Threads, written by a guy named Virtue Siegel, and he writes primarily about retail, but is just really, really insightful around some of the most fascinating dynamics that are going on in the industry overall and it's always a great read.”

    2018-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How To Think About Founder-Category Fit, Why The Biggest Opportunities Are In Category Re-Architecture & What Can Be Done To Increase The Amount of Women In VC with Nadia Boujarwah, Founder & CEO @ Dia & Co · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “The best piece of advice that I've applied to the DIA journey is probably something that I learned a lot earlier from my wise wise mother who is full of one-liners and one of my favorite is she always says you don't have the luxury of thin skin on the front lines and that's been one that's really interesting for us because the truth is that D is a very very personal endeavor you know in a lot of ways this is a business that I'm building for myself and for women like me and despite the fact that it is so personal I can't take any of those personally and really being able to charge through the ups and the downs the rejection the challenges and having that armor that's required for true resilience in an endeavor like this is something that I value very very much”

    2018-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How To Think About Founder-Category Fit, Why The Biggest Opportunities Are In Category Re-Architecture & What Can Be Done To Increase The Amount of Women In VC with Nadia Boujarwah, Founder & CEO @ Dia & Co · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Think nearly every company will tell you that they are customer centric, and that has to do with getting products out faster and cheaper and kind of all the functional benefits of being able to serve a customer. I think customer devotion is something completely different. It absolutely includes customer centricity, but it adds on top of that really being committed to seeing the world through the eyes of your customer and the problem that you are solving for them. And as a result, being able to build a much more emotional and enduring relationship with the customer that you serve.”

    2018-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How To Think About Founder-Category Fit, Why The Biggest Opportunities Are In Category Re-Architecture & What Can Be Done To Increase The Amount of Women In VC with Nadia Boujarwah, Founder & CEO @ Dia & Co · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “This island is tough. If it's Desert Island, I'm probably taking nonfiction, but as it relates to our current conversation, I think one of the books that articulates best how we think about our customers, a book called Competing Against Lock, which really talks about how you come to identify exactly what your customer is hiring you to do and building a business around that, which I think is critical.”

    2018-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How To Think About Founder-Category Fit, Why The Biggest Opportunities Are In Category Re-Architecture & What Can Be Done To Increase The Amount of Women In VC with Nadia Boujarwah, Founder & CEO @ Dia & Co · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “And making sure that that happens in the same way that it would happen with a female VC and a male founder, two male founder and a male VC or two females in the same situation needs to absolutely be the case. I think in reality the examples that have come forward are very clear in terms of how inappropriate was. And, you know, I think that really recognizing in many cases, you know, that the power dynamics in these situations are very distinct and being very cognizant of that, I think is something that's very important, but that's very different from being able to build a great relationship with somebody who you're committed to work with for years and years. And, you know, we certainly have the benefit of having really great relationships with all the folks around the table that we invest in very heavily. And the truth is that these are very personal interactions.”

    2018-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How To Think About Founder-Category Fit, Why The Biggest Opportunities Are In Category Re-Architecture & What Can Be Done To Increase The Amount of Women In VC with Nadia Boujarwah, Founder & CEO @ Dia & Co · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Honestly, that would be really unfortunate collateral damage of this conversation because the truth is that as a founder, the relationship that I'm able to build, the trust, the partnership that we have with the members of our board and with our investors is critical to our success.”

    2018-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How To Think About Founder-Category Fit, Why The Biggest Opportunities Are In Category Re-Architecture & What Can Be Done To Increase The Amount of Women In VC with Nadia Boujarwah, Founder & CEO @ Dia & Co · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “In a way that we've now seen it take hold across many different industries and going back to pioneers in this conversation, women like Alan Powell and Susan Thowler and really thinking about where this all began and how far it's come, I think is incredibly exciting and really just gives us an opportunity to really think about lasting change in a way where as an industry, I don't think that there would have been the level of focused momentum around this topic any other time. So really taking advantage of that I think is important and I think is something that we as founders and operators in the press, SVCs, as LPs, the entire ecosystem, I think of tech really has an opportunity to play a part in making sure that the experiences that everyone has across the industry regardless of gender are ones that we can all be proud of and we're really excited to do what we can to be a part of that.”

    2018-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How To Think About Founder-Category Fit, Why The Biggest Opportunities Are In Category Re-Architecture & What Can Be Done To Increase The Amount of Women In VC with Nadia Boujarwah, Founder & CEO @ Dia & Co · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Absolutely. I think this is probably the most important conversation that we're having as an industry at the moment. And I'd say even more broadly than that, I think there's been a true moment of reckoning really nationally around the topic of sexual harassment and the experiences of women in the workplace and beyond. I think we have the bravery of now dozens and dozens and dozens of women who've come forward to share these stories. And that is something that we are incredibly grateful for. We really stand in solidarity with these women and recognize how hard it must have been to come forward in these situations and really continuing to have the conversation will make it hopefully easier and easier over time for women to come forward. I think one of the things that we can actually be one of the silver linings, let's say, is that I think in a large way the tech industry played a part in propelling this conversation into the mainstream.”

    2018-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How To Think About Founder-Category Fit, Why The Biggest Opportunities Are In Category Re-Architecture & What Can Be Done To Increase The Amount of Women In VC with Nadia Boujarwah, Founder & CEO @ Dia & Co · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “I think it's probably both. Again, I think that that's very category dependent, right? I think that, you know, there have always been categories like CPG or beauty that inherently are consolidating categories. And those are really exciting outcomes for those companies. I think the things that we think about in terms of the range of potential outcomes for any business in our business in particular really on the one hand is a very personal set of”

    2018-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How To Think About Founder-Category Fit, Why The Biggest Opportunities Are In Category Re-Architecture & What Can Be Done To Increase The Amount of Women In VC with Nadia Boujarwah, Founder & CEO @ Dia & Co · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Position to be able to do, and that's really quite different from the approach that nearly any other company takes in this category in particular. It's also very distinct for the dynamics in our market. And I'm not sure whether or not that would work in other categories, but in our category, that's absolutely the case.”

    2018-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How To Think About Founder-Category Fit, Why The Biggest Opportunities Are In Category Re-Architecture & What Can Be Done To Increase The Amount of Women In VC with Nadia Boujarwah, Founder & CEO @ Dia & Co · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Yeah, I mean, I think it's a really interesting question. I think from our perspective, commerce is not monolithic. I think every category in commerce has different economics and therefore a different set of opportunities that underlie it. I think for sure in some categories, Amazon is a market maker and really enabling market expansion. I think in our category, the way that we think about it is that most companies that play in our space really focus on being able to capture and fulfill existing demand in the market, which is a natural place for most companies to focus. I think our view on the space has always been market share is not a measure of success at DIA. True market expansion is what's most important to be able to interact with our customers in a way that not only shifts dollars that are being spent either in a different channel or with a different company towards us, but really being able to create dollars for the first time is something that we are uniquely”

    2018-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How To Think About Founder-Category Fit, Why The Biggest Opportunities Are In Category Re-Architecture & What Can Be Done To Increase The Amount of Women In VC with Nadia Boujarwah, Founder & CEO @ Dia & Co · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “I think for us, the goal is to be able to create and nurture and expand on long-term relationships with our customers. And so the metrics that we think are most indicative of the overall health of the business and the impact that we're able to have on the community that we serve is what that relationship looks like over time. So how is her experience getting better with every subsequent interaction that she has with us? How precisely can we measure that improvement? What does it mean about how long we are able to work with her and how much value we can create for her over that timeline? So for us, really, measuring the health and the success of the relationships that we're able to build with customers is amongst the most important things that we measure.”

    2018-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How To Think About Founder-Category Fit, Why The Biggest Opportunities Are In Category Re-Architecture & What Can Be Done To Increase The Amount of Women In VC with Nadia Boujarwah, Founder & CEO @ Dia & Co · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “I think it was just traction. I'd be interested to hear what Micah said, changed his mind, but by the time that we had found our collective reemerged in conversations, the business was already doing millions of dollars in run rate revenue and the leap of faith that was required was slightly smaller in terms of really being able to see over such a short period of time and really with very, very limited resources the types of interactions and the level of engagement that we were getting from the women who we were working with. I think it was a little bit of an easier sell for sure.”

    2018-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How To Think About Founder-Category Fit, Why The Biggest Opportunities Are In Category Re-Architecture & What Can Be Done To Increase The Amount of Women In VC with Nadia Boujarwah, Founder & CEO @ Dia & Co · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Absolutely. I think the truth is that not having scale is a rare in a business that intends to scale is a rare luxury because you are able to engage so differently with that first couple hundred customers and learn in a much deeper way where the process is resonating, where the product is making the most impact, where she's finding the most value, that ends up being what you extrapolate. But I think, you know, focusing on anything other than that at the beginning really is a recipe for disaster.”

    2018-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How To Think About Founder-Category Fit, Why The Biggest Opportunities Are In Category Re-Architecture & What Can Be Done To Increase The Amount of Women In VC with Nadia Boujarwah, Founder & CEO @ Dia & Co · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “This is fundamentally linked to the idea of really being able to crystallize the nut of the problem for the customer that you're trying to solve. Fundamentally, what we did in the first several months of not having any funding was just spend time with customers. There was nothing fancy about what we were doing. We were shipping product in free USPS boxes. We were buying inventory of stores and shipping it to customers. Everything was completely, you know, the scrappiest possible articulation of what our ideas were and what was fundamental about it was not to have the bells and whistles, but to really be actually able to heal all those things away and try to understand fundamentally what does this customer need from us? What is she going to need for us to be able to do this differently for her and not having resources was actually the most clarifying way to be able to do that?”

    2018-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How To Think About Founder-Category Fit, Why The Biggest Opportunities Are In Category Re-Architecture & What Can Be Done To Increase The Amount of Women In VC with Nadia Boujarwah, Founder & CEO @ Dia & Co · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Sifting through it, I think that leap of faith can be challenging. Ultimately, we ended up not raising money from institutions. There were no institutional investors in our first round we raised around from friends and family. And that was enough to get us going. And then, you know, the traction was clear and it was much easier to have those conversations a few months down the line.”

    2018-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How To Think About Founder-Category Fit, Why The Biggest Opportunities Are In Category Re-Architecture & What Can Be Done To Increase The Amount of Women In VC with Nadia Boujarwah, Founder & CEO @ Dia & Co · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “That's okay. We've forgiven them. We feel very, very fortunate to have the folks that we have around the table and that they've all been incredible partners to us. But, you know, I think it's tough because I think the flip side of really having a distinct and contrarian view on a category is that it takes a leap of faith for other people to also see it. And what we were saying was we understand that plus size women only spend $20 on the dollar, but you have to believe us when we say that it's not her fault. And over the course of the next two to three decades, we think we can fundamentally transform how this industry exists. You have to believe us. I think it's just hard and it takes people time to really be able to see the vision in the same way that you have it when you're trying to articulate something that fundamentally doesn't exist today. Obviously, I think the flip side of it is that if you're successful, these are the most transformative and enduring companies that can be built. But it really does require a leap of faith. And I think in the funding landscape at the early stages, when there are so many companies that each of these firms are meeting and really kind of”

    2018-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How To Think About Founder-Category Fit, Why The Biggest Opportunities Are In Category Re-Architecture & What Can Be Done To Increase The Amount of Women In VC with Nadia Boujarwah, Founder & CEO @ Dia & Co · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Think it really comes down to building a business from the point of view of a problem that you want to solve. And I think as a founder, really having a problem that you believe you are uniquely suited to solve. We think that founder category fit is very important. In addition to choosing the category and how you'd like to architect it to be different. But I think both those things are true. And I think if you can really find a problem that for whatever reasons you believe you bring a distinct perspective to an unrelenting commitment to, that's really, I think, what sets us up or what sets any founder up for the highest likelihood of success over time.”

    2018-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How To Think About Founder-Category Fit, Why The Biggest Opportunities Are In Category Re-Architecture & What Can Be Done To Increase The Amount of Women In VC with Nadia Boujarwah, Founder & CEO @ Dia & Co · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Woman, the truth is that that can be very anxiety ridden in an environment that's very uncomfortable. Everything from sitting rooms being too small to not being sure whether or not your size may be carried in a store are really things that impact the customer experience. At a traditional e-commerce channels have opened up opportunities for this woman in so many ways and we find that our customer really spends disproportionately relative to other customers online. But the fundamental challenge that persists is really a challenge around understanding fit. And that's one that traditionally commerce just does not solve. And so we knew that we were going to have to find a new combination of experiences for her where we were going to be able to solve really what comes down to a psychological and emotional set of experiences around retail, but also just the functional realities of success.”

    2018-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How To Think About Founder-Category Fit, Why The Biggest Opportunities Are In Category Re-Architecture & What Can Be Done To Increase The Amount of Women In VC with Nadia Boujarwah, Founder & CEO @ Dia & Co · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Truly, it is a failure almost at every place in the value chain for this customer. It goes so far back as to say on the supply side, we have design educators who are not teaching what it looks like to be successful in garments for this customer. There are nuances to technical design and to grading and to construction that really are required for success on the supply side. That makes its way down the value chain into manufacturing and brands and retailers, all of whom also fundamentally don't view this customer as a core customer, right? And as a result, overcoming those challenges that would require additional investment becomes much, much harder. And I think where it really manifests itself ultimately is in the customer experience where as a plus size woman, the options that you have available to you both in terms of what garments are available in your size and how you're being asked to shop for them are just fundamentally broken. We talk a lot about what it feels like to shop in a physical store as a plus.”

    2018-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How To Think About Founder-Category Fit, Why The Biggest Opportunities Are In Category Re-Architecture & What Can Be Done To Increase The Amount of Women In VC with Nadia Boujarwah, Founder & CEO @ Dia & Co · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Market is because the actual industry side, this is one of the most artificially constrained markets that we think exists. So that 100 million women today is spending only 20 cents on the dollar. What women in smaller sizes are spending, and foundational to our business is the belief that that is not her fault, that is absolutely a supply-side failure. And if we are able to architect the products, the experiences, the community, the brands that really make it possible for her to enjoy this set of experiences to the fullest, she will be spending dollar for dollar and really creating that is the category that we see ourselves as the pioneers of.”

    2018-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How To Think About Founder-Category Fit, Why The Biggest Opportunities Are In Category Re-Architecture & What Can Be Done To Increase The Amount of Women In VC with Nadia Boujarwah, Founder & CEO @ Dia & Co · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Absolutely. So, this is something that we feel very strongly and think a lot about at DIA. And I'd say overall, really the foundation of that thought is the idea that in our view, to be successful in an enduring and transformative way, you really have to be able to own an important problem in the minds of your consumers. And that fundamentally is how we approached our business. I think if you can own a problem in the mind of a consumer and really represent the solution to her, you come to own a category, you come to create a category, and you are able to architect a set of experiences that wouldn't be possible otherwise. And for us, I think what we realized was the category that we wanted to be a part of really didn't exist yet. The flip side of the numbers that we were just talking about on the demand side, there are 100 million women in the U.S. who are size 14 or above. That in and of itself is astounding, but the really, really astonishing part of it, and the reason why we believe the new category needed to be created in”

    2018-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How To Think About Founder-Category Fit, Why The Biggest Opportunities Are In Category Re-Architecture & What Can Be Done To Increase The Amount of Women In VC with Nadia Boujarwah, Founder & CEO @ Dia & Co · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “There are a hundred million women in the US who wear size 14 or above, which is what the industry classifies as plus size. And the truth is that it is an incredibly universal experience across that community within retail. And so we set out to really do nothing but help solve that problem for that community of women. And that's where Dia began.”

    2018-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How To Think About Founder-Category Fit, Why The Biggest Opportunities Are In Category Re-Architecture & What Can Be Done To Increase The Amount of Women In VC with Nadia Boujarwah, Founder & CEO @ Dia & Co · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Really is a business that was founded from very, very personal experience both for me and my co founder Lydia. I've been a plus size woman all my life and I've always enjoyed fashion and style and the truth is that shopping above a certain size is a pretty fundamentally different experience and one that is honestly quite painful. You know, these are experiences that have been very formative for me in my personal life and somewhat fortuitously first six years ago at this point, Lydia and I were at Harvard Business School together and we stumbled upon an article from the New York Times about the rise of a new class of bloggers specifically focused on plus size fashion that really piqued our interest because this was a topic that we both really spent time with personally and that led us down a path of really coming to the discovery that these experiences that we both had really such personal connections to as experiences that was shared by an astounding number of women in the US.”

    2018-02-16 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: How To Think About Founder-Category Fit, Why The Biggest Opportunities Are In Category Re-Architecture & What Can Be Done To Increase The Amount of Women In VC with Nadia Boujarwah, Founder & CEO @ Dia & Co · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source