Next up is Samantha Mcgee with her start up called Miss Boulevard. Thank you, Vince, and thank you everyone for joining us today. I want to start by showing you a few quotes and having you reflect on them. Are you alive or just existing? You lose your mind trying to understand mine. There's beauty and simplicity. Find what you die for and then live for it. In a world that's constantly evolving, where uniqueness is both a blessing and a mystery. These four quotes resonate deeply with the essence of my loungewear brand, Miss Boulevard. Now for those of you who may be unfamiliar, loungewear is informal clothing normally worn at home. However, due to the rise of remote work, it is being worn outside of the home more often. The loungewear market is a growing industry. Registered at $6,000,000,000 in 2022, and is expected to grow to $11,000,000,000 by 2030 at a compound annual growth rate of 9.6% Now, who is the generation wearing loungewear The most they are Zell's. Now I want to preface this by saying zillennials is not a term I made up. It is defined as the micro generation of individuals born on the cusp of millennial and generation Z. These individuals are born 1996-2010 and they are struggling with the problem of finding clothing that has a balance between comfort and self expression. With the data provided here, 1,000 US fashion consumers were interviewed to find the most important means of expression. This goes to show that researchers have validated that self expression within fashion is a real thing. So much so that they are going to the depths to differentiate between the various types of self expression. For example, 59% wanted to convey their personality, 28% wanted to express emotion, and 16% wanted to feel belonging to a social group. Now Miss Boulevard does all of that, combining expression and loungewear to create products such as these that allow people to express themselves. This is an example of one of my products, as well as all of the images you have seen so far. The attraction I've made, being a full time college student and working multiple part time jobs, I've been able to sell 203 products totaling up to $5,200 in sales, while also promoting on these five various platforms. I've also been able to get influencer endorsement from Sophia Kirks. She is a lifestyle influencer who is also part of my zillennial demographic. She has 1 million followers on Tiktok and 250,000 on Instagram, compared to the average Instagram following of 2,200 This is important because I actually sent her one of my products and without having to pay her, she promoted on her various platforms. I've also had many opportunities to connect with individuals within the fashion industry. At only 19 years old, I've been connecting with members of the CFDA, which is the Council of Fashion Designers of America. This group is a well known group within the fashion industry. And I've been able to meet with the President, Cassandra Diggs, as well as member Elliott Carlisle. And this group stands for strengthening the American Fashion Designers impact on the global economy. I've also been able to meet with the creator of New York Fashion Week, Fern Malice. And again, I've been able to work backstage, Philadelphia Fashion Week two times. And I'm returning for a third season in September. I work very closely with the co Founders Care, Scott and Kevin Parker, as well as the event and design coordinator, Angela Edmonds. Her and I are so close that she actually asked me to plan her wedding, knowing that I had no prior wedding planning experience. It went so successfully that she actually asked me to work on various events post wedding. I've also been able to connect with Proj Oscar from Project Runway Seasons 19 and the current Season 20. He's invited me to the Project Runway premiere, as well as took me under his wing to act as a mentor to show me the ropes within the fashion industry. Now with all that being said, I've been able to implement all of the fashion connections and knowledge that I've acquired and implement that back into my start up to talk a little bit more about my zillennial customer. They are born 1996-2010 and they tend to be more willing to spend on companies with products that have beliefs similar to their own, such as mine. 54% also have a full time job, while 48% of American zillennials still live at homes with their parents or guardians. Therefore, that allows them to have a more disposable income to purchase on fashionable goods. They also have yet to settle into fixed purchasing habits and enjoy experimentation. Because of that, I'm able to grasp their brand loyalty in the future. They also tend to be very active on social media and since growing up with television ads, they have a longer attention span which allows them to stay longer on social media, which allows me to, again, grasp more of their attention. My competitors, although I know that the loungewear market is very large, there are two competitors that are doing things similarly to me, Mayfair Group and Faded Moon. Similarly, we do campaigns and connect within the community. However, the thing that differentiates me are hosting fashion events such as pop up shops and runway shows. As well as leveraging fashion connections that I've made so far in order to gain more brand awareness. So the products that I offer, the good stuff, the sweatshirts, T shirts, sweatpants and crew neck, and how I make that, I order everything blank from a wholesaler. It costs me 699 for a T shirt and 12 99 for a sweatshirt. I then do everything myself when it comes to the design design application as well as shipping process. So that costs me $2 in vinyl and $5 in labor, which brings my total costs out to 1,399.19 99 in which I turn around, sell that for $30.50 $5 leading me with unit margins of 53.3% and 63.6% Now I understand that it is not feasible for me to continue doing everything myself, which is why I'm looking to outsource to a fulfillment facility to outsource that labor while also switching over to screen printing for more longitvity and then upgrading my quality to higher quality sustainable fabrics. And then in turn, I will up the price, as well as the unit margins, which will then allow me to mark up my products by two to 2.5 so that I can successfully compete within the fashion industry. And when I go into retail, this number will be doubled. So how I'm going to do that? My marketing strategy is to do campaigns, work with influencers, host more fashion events, and give back to the community. And how I will do that, I will implement social media campaigns to propose motivational and relatable quotes. This will be talking about topics such as self expression, mental health, and environmental topics. I will then get influencer endorsement to gain more exposure. And when this resonates with the customer, as in when they purchase, I make sales and then donate accordingly to the various charitable organizations that I work with. And then ultimately granting them access to the Miss Boulevard community. This will give them access to those pop up shops, runway events, things of that nature that I mentioned. How I distribute. I distribute through the virtual and physical channels. Virtual be my e commerce shopify website as well as social media where I drive traffic to my website. I also do partnerships with charitable organizations. For example, a percentage of your purchase on this sweatshirt will go to Ocean Conservancy to save the Oceans. I also do the physical channel where I host pop up shops and do custom orders for local organizations as well as friends and family. And who am I? I'm Samantha Mcgee. I am an entrepreneurship and fashion merchandising double major. And there's two things people always say about me. I'm always smiling and I love fashion. So to combine those two together, Miss Boulevard was born to give people a way of self expression while also feeling comfortable and fashionable. So my ask, I'm looking for connections to brick and mortar opportunities so that I can do pop up shops and retail. I'm also looking for social media influencers to gain more brand awareness as well as the lennial customers or anyone of you who may enjoy my product to purchase, as well as people in the fashion industry to expand my network. I'm also looking for advice from fashion entrepreneurs who have started a large company, as well as sold in a big box stores such as Bergdorf's or Nordstrom. I'm looking to meet one to two times per month. This could be very casually, either on zoom or in person, if you would like to grab coffee. And then lastly, $20,000 in a grant or connections to economic development agencies so that I could do paid marketing and advertising get higher quality, more sustainable fabrics for my products. And lastly, that fulfillment facility so I can focus my efforts on other parts of my start up. If you would please join me at my table, I will have that advisor sign up sheet so that way we can get connected. As well as my contact information and a one page summary print out in my presentation in case you missed anything and of course, samples of my product. Thank you. Thank you, Dan.
2023 Summer Founders Samantha McGhee
From Andrew Brett August 30, 2023
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Samantha McGhee pitches her company, Miss Boulevard, during the 2023 Summer Founders Demoday on August 17, 2023.
The Summer Founders program is a 12-week program designed for students with early stage startups to work on their ventures and receive a stipend, mentorship and education sessions.
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The Summer Founders program is a 12-week program designed for students with early stage startups to work on their ventures and receive a stipend, mentorship and education sessions.
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- Horn Entrepreneurship
- Date Established
- August 30, 2023
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