Introducing New Brunswick Startup: *ELLA
With Propel ICT’s Demo Day coming up on September 22, we’re chatting with all of the New Brunswick companies who will be pitching this year at the Capitol Theatre in Moncton.
Today we’re meeting Kelly Lawson, founder of *ELLA.
What’s *ELLA’s “elevator pitch”?
PLEASE DOWNLOAD MY APP.
Kidding.
Here we go:
The average North American woman spends nearly $300 every month on fashion, and in less than a month, 50 per cent of those items become obsolete. This amounts to over $50 Billion worth of nearly new fashion items just sitting in closets across the U.S. In our lifetime, we ladies will have invested over $250 thousand dollars on fashion with precious little, if any return on that investment.
That’s so not cool. Amiright?
*ELLA is a community driven platform that enables women to post their unused fashion items in less than 30 seconds. With proprietary algorithms, it connects women based on common size, style, location and social connections. Better yet, it targets buyers by learning and curating items within the app based on the individual buying habits and preferences of users.
Who’s on your team?
We have a seriously kick-ass team of creatives, techies and lovers of fashion. Namely, we have Sean McGrath and Matt Reed, two Saint John guys that could pretty much code their way into or out of the next zombie apocalypse. They are also incredibly creative with a great business acumen and are certainly not strangers to the online marketing/growth-hacking space, a paramount component of our business model.
We have also recently recruited a lover of fashion and super brilliant accountant, Haley Adams-Green. She can make a mean financial projection spreadsheet, and she also has a thing for Louis Vuitton handbags and shopping fashion.
Then there’s me, the one who collects brilliant people to the team, makes piles of money selling my pre-owned fashion on *ELLA and accepts media interviews.
What’s next for you?
A revolving wardrobe of deliciousness.
Oh, you meant for the business.
Well, we have validated our business idea, we have dedicated a lot of time learning from our customers, and we have begun agile development. Currently we have our beta platform available in the Apple iTunes store with over 200 beta users testing our platform. In just two short weeks we have literally watched thousands of dollars transfer hands for pre-owned fashion via our beta testers. We are ready now to take on investment and accelerate the bejeezers out of our agile development and our go-to-market strategy.
Excited about *ELLA? Visit http://app.thisisella.com to download the app today.
Want to meet the other startups?
[mks_highlight color=”#f4d613″]Meet SITEFLO
Meet SimpTek
Meet Liv9
Meet Ongozah[/mks_highlight]