What happens when you connect two driven entrepreneurs with lingerie? Secret Blossom; a New York company that was founded by Mimi Dang and Alex Trang. Their speciality is designing and making unique lingerie that’s custom fit, all for an amazing price. To quote Alex: “No one beats our price.”
Photography | Chris Fanning
Used by permission
They’ve launched a Kickstarter program to fund the development of proprietary technology that will be used to accurately capture their client’s measurements which adds to the benefit of custom-fit apparel.
Update
Alex and Mimi’s Kickstarter compaign was successful. Check out their new product website.
Kickstarter
I was fortune to work with Alex and Mimi on the promotional videos for their Kickstarter program.
Check out their Kickstarter campaign, their lingerie fashion line, and our video HERE.
Entrepreneurs
This article is really about two people who are entrepreneurs: Mimi and Alex. I recently wrote that over 40% of the people who we surveyed in the United States want to be entrepreneurs. But what I’ve discovered from my work in the entrepreneur world is that the conversion ratio between want and do is low.
I’m also mindful of a lesson I was taught early in my career: we invest in people.
Photography | Chris Fanning
Used by permission
Mimi Dang is a self-taught designer. Self-taught because she couldn’t afford to go to fashion school. But that significant setback didn’t stop her. Instead, she taught herself how to design and make lingerie by making them for herself. Her friends noticed and began asking her to make them lingerie. And after a lot of hard work, she was able to scale-up her production to support store-level sales, all without sacrificing the key elements of her designs: beauty and a custom fit.
Translating that to the entrepreneur world: Mimi discovered a niche and then worked very hard to fill her niche.
She’s already achieved two key milestones of a successful entrepreneur:
- Not letting adversity stop her
- People are actively seeking out and paying for her products
Alex Trang has a challenge: scaling up sales, keeping prices reasonable, and doing it all without sacrificing Mimi’s drive for designing and making beautiful lingerie that’s custom-fit. That’s where the development of his proprietary technology comes into play along with the Kickstarter program he developed to fund it.
Translation: Alex is in the business of technology, finance, and marketing.
When I was working with Alex, two of the key differentiators I immediately noticed that he shares with other successful entrepreneurs:
- He has an overarching view and strategy about the messaging of Secret Blossom: what the experience should feel and look like.
- He’s also excellent at follow-up. Many times entrepreneurs are either good at big-picture strategy or operational details. Alex does them both well.
The Twist
Like every good story, this one has an intriguing twist: Mimi and Alex are married. How does running a business together affect a personal relationship and vice versa?
To give you a sense of the strength of their relationship, here’s a quote from Alex:
“Seeing the happiness of my wife making carefully crafted lingerie, I realized she has found her purpose. That’s why I started this business with her, so she and I can start offering something to the world, and solve the long-lasting issue with the lingerie industry one person at a time.”
Mimi and Alex remind me of another entrepreneur couple named Jeff and
MacKenzie Bezos. Their legendary roadtrip from New York to Washington became the foundation of Amazon.com.
Amazon was founded over a decade before Kickstarter was around, but I imagine the Bezos couple would have embraced it because Kickstarter does two things:
- Breaks the traditional venture capital financial model
- Allows people to join in on the journey from the spark of an idea to the foundation of a company
Mimi and Alex
This story is about two people: Mimi and Alex. Join them on their journey and let’s discover and be a part of their success.