Hello and welcome to Founders Feature, a newsletter all about the journeys of young startup founders. For this first edition, I interviewed Adriana Crovetto, Co-founder of Oaseas, a sustainable fashion marketplace based in Switzerland.
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Here’s what Oaseas is all about:
🏠 The Basics
The Problem:
The sustainability aspect of fashion still isn't addressed enough. However, there are many individual small brands doing great work in sustainable fashion, but these brands are unknown for a majority of people.
The Solution:
Oaseas is a marketplace connecting the sustainable fashion brands with customers looking for affordable sustainable fashion. We host brands which are 'born sustainable', brands that have sustainability at the core of their value proposition. Our goal is to make people more aware of the sustainable brands that are out there, and showing that there is no need to sacrifice sustainability to wear your desired style.
The Team:
3 Co-founders: 2 active directors in the company (Adriana & Mar), 1 board member. Their team has already expanded to 7 members. Mar & Adriana both have a big passion for fashion and Adriana has founded and sold another fashion company while at university.
🚀 The Journey
How did you come up with your startup/solution?
I was working on my previous ethical fashion brand and noticed that the sustainability part of fashion still isn't addressed enough. However, there are some incredible brands out there that are doing great work in this space. I noticed that as an insider I could see all these brands and be aware of them but for a majority of the people they are unknown. The majority of sustainable brands were founded less than 10 years ago and the awareness is still pretty low. This is something we wanted to change. Also, we saw that a majority of sustainable brands are seen as 'green', unfashionable and low quality. But brands that create stylish clothes in a sustainable way do exist, they just need more visibility to compete with high-street retailers.
Additionally, of course sustainability involves accepting the fact that you have to pay a little more for things, but it doesn't have to cost the world. This is why we wanted to set an affordable price range on our platform for the brands we work with, so that our customers know they can find something that is both affordable and fashionable.
"We're super motivated to be the next Zalando in the fashion industry."
Why is this the right time for this problem to be solved?
We're really at a turning point in the industry, where sustainability is first and foremost on the minds of people when they are buying things. Impact shopping is an emerging trend. People like to shop knowing they are doing something good in the process.
What is a recent success you are proud of?
We recently donated 10% of our proceeds to WWF for the first time for the preservation of the oceans. Oceans, lakes, and seas are the focus of the impact Oaseas wants to have on nature. As a student it is harder to give back, so it was very exciting to be able to give back some of the revenue earned after only 6 months of operation.
We also feel incredibly lucky to have built such great relationships with the brands on the platform, some even with exclusivity agreements.
What is a recent challenge you have faced?
The biggest struggle we have faced is Covid and the uncertainty surrounding consumer behaviour. What clothes need to be ordered in? Will people be going out? This is incredibly difficult because the logistics of the business need to be planned quite a bit in advance, which items to order for stock, etc. The uncertainty makes you as a company very risk averse and only lets you grow on a step by step basis, in order to not take too great risks, while still staying flexible.
What do you wish you knew before you started and is there anything you would have done differently in hindsight?
In hindsight I'm just very confident in the decision I made to start the company, rather than accept one of the corporate jobs I had been offered.
We make mistakes everyday and that is just part of the learning. As an entrepreneur you really learn so much in such a short period of time.
"Having a kid, a dog, or a startup is the same thing; it's never the right moment."
🧠 The Lessons
What is the best advice you have been given recently?
I have many mentors I am really grateful for, but there is no mentor that can just answer your problems. A decision has to really come from you, because otherwise it's not a decision. It's important to learn to go against the advice of mentors. You grow so much from learning to make your own decisions.
Whenever I'm faced with something that went wrong I go back to this quote from Churchill:
"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."
Here are two more of my favourite quotes:
Dalai Lama: "Be the change you wish to see in the world"
Einstein: "Imagination is more important than knowledge"
What advice would you give to other young founders?
Everything can be learned. Not knowing how to do something, and not having previous experience shouldn't stop you. There is no entrepreneur that started something knowing everything.
You need to get over the constant feeling of not knowing and realise that there is no one out there who will just magically enlighten you. And then one day you decide that you just have to figure it out yourself.
What is the biggest lesson you have learned so far?
The team is the most critical piece of the puzzle
Discovering what we don’t like or what does not work is the closest step to success we can take
✨ The Inspiration
Who inspires you?
My dad (first and foremost), Oriana Fallaci (journalist & reporter), Ray Dalio (funds manager), Steve Jobs (the guru), Whitney Wolfe Herd (founder of Bumble), Katrina Lake (Founder of Stitch Fix), Giorgia Meloni (Italian Politician), Christine Lagarde (IMF president), Luis von Ahn (founder of Duolingo & Captcha)
What book do you think everyone should read?
Book: The pleasure of finding things out - Richard Feynman
Podcast: How I built this - NPR
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Know a founder who should absolutely be featured or have any feedback? Let me know in the comments!