How the Founders of Stylisted Built a Partnership and a Platform to Empower Women

This episode is presented by Chicago Sport and Social Club, reminding you that summer is just around the corner. Get into a summer volleyball league now and use code "GOALS" to get 5 percent off until March 15. It's no secret that we're majorly in awe of the ladies of Stylisted — after all, this isn't the first time we've talked (okay, gushed) about co-founders Julia and Lauren on aSweatLife. But when we brought them into evolveHER to be interviewed during our Lunch-and-Learn live podcast recordings, we were reminded all over again why these ladies have inspired us so much in the first place. Seeing them speak in front of an all-female audience (many of whom had entrepreneurial inclinations) was nothing short of a kick in the pants to go after what you want. Another thing that really came through over the microphone was the true teamwork and friendship that acts as the foundation of Stylisted. "The partnership is our business," Lauren stated matter-of-factly. "It was in the very beginning and it is to this day." As friends and partners, Julia and Lauren learned to rally each other when one was feeling down. At the same time, they learned one major entrepreneurial lesson early on: never be afraid to ask for help, whether from each other or from outside resources. "People want to help," stressed Julia. "Everyone is eager in a way to show off what they're good at and help you out... definitely don't be afraid of that." Just in case we weren't convinced, Lauren added, "Your ability to ask for help and leave your shame at the door is all you have for the first two years.” When you don't have money or experience, you're forced to admit when you don't know something. Luckily, as the co-founders discovered, all it takes is a simple ask, and the entrepreneurial community is usually excited to help a fellow founder. Julia and Lauren recognize that they're fortunate to have been able to grow together as founders, when all too often you read about rough breakups and unwanted exits between partners in start-ups. They attribute that path to having the same long-term vision for the company. At evolveHER, Julia and Lauren spoke about the importance of having the same overall vision for a company when working with a partner and co-founder — but at the same time, they make sure to set small, achievable goals that you can accomplish on a shorter timeline. With balanced goals and a balanced partnership, one thing is clear: the Stylisted co-founders are paving the way for female entrepreneurs in the tech space to empower each other.   ---   KG:All right, welcome to the #WeGotGoals podcast, live edition from SweatWorkingWeek. My name is Kristen Geil. I am sitting here with Julia and Lauren from Stylisted. Hi Guys. Thanks for being here. JC, LK: Hello, thanks for having us. KG: We're excited to hear everything that you have to say. So let's start from the beginning. The story of how you guys came to be is more than just, you saw a problem and you worked to create a solution. It's also about the two of you coming together with your unique strengths to make an idea into a reality. Can you guys share your origin story with us? JC: Sure. It’s Lauren's brainchild, so I'll let her tell the tale for us. LK: Stylisted was very much born from a personal pain point. We were inspired by a professor who told us to start what we know. We had both just moved to Chicago to attend business school and we were both entrepreneurial. We had always wanted to start a business and we had kicked around a bunch of ideas, but this start what you know concept, which seems so obvious to us now, was kind of a novel idea. We had these ideas that had nothing to do with our experience or expertise. And after many failed attempts to get my makeup done before friend's wedding, all coming to a head at a wedding that I had in Atlanta. I called Julia and I said, why is it so difficult to find out who's good and who's available when it comes to event prep? I want to get my makeup done or my hair done, but I don't know who's in my area, who can do a great job. And she completely commiserated, shared her own failed attempts and also kind of educated me on this call and told me about the life of the freelance makeup artist. She had worked directly with makeup artists in her time at NARS cosmetics before business school and understood their pain points that they work at some salon or cosmetic counter only to be told how much, how many hours that can work and when and to give 50 percent to the salon owner. And they want to freelance more to supplement their income, but they can't find clients. So Julia's experience in my experience really came together. It was the perfect marriage and we decided to build a solution. KG: So how did Stylisted start? I know you didn't come up with the app right off the bat. JC: No, it was incredibly manual. We took a Powerpoint Deck and I reached out to makeup artists and hairstylists that I knew from my previous position. I told them about the idea. We got validation that they wanted what we were proposing to build and got them to send little bios, photos of their work and we created this pdf deck and started sending it to all of our friends who are getting married, who had business school formals, interviews, things like that. Anything you could think of where you'd want a blowout or you know, full-on makeup for you and your friends and people were being very receptive to it and they liked the idea. They started asking to book people and the stylists were getting excited about it. So that was our absolutely free way of starting the business and beginning to test it out. KG: And then you saw that there was a demand for these services and you moved forward with creating an app from there. JC:A website, your website first we scraped together our pennies and decided to hire someone. Actually it was like a godsend. Lauren met our CTO, advisor, our technical advisor at an internship and he recommended this guy to us who needed to diversify his portfolio. He had been doing political websites in DC and we're like, we have a doozy for you. We're going to have you build this beauty website. LK:Here’s something different. JC:And he did it for a few thousand dollars and a lot of hours and sweat and we spent our Christmas vacation our second year of business school just working on the website and iterating. And then we launched essentially when we graduated. KG:Wow. That's a lot to accomplish while you're still in business school and dealing with all of that course load. JC:Yes it is. But we at Chicago Booth, we did the new venture challenge, which essentially was a class that allowed us to grow and cultivate this business and test it out and get feedback. So I would argue that it's easier to do it in business school then it would be for someone with a full time job family, things like that. We were very much in a position to take the risk and spend the time. KG:And because you guys were in this together from the start, you had that advantage of having someone to lean on when things got tough, sleepless nights. I'm sure countless hours spent trying to accomplish just one thing. We've all heard about accountability is the strategy for going after your goals, but you take it to a new level when you're talking about starting a company with a partner and a co-founder. So how do you think that partnership has impacted your business and how you guys approach goals as a team? LK: I mean the, the partnership is our business. It was the v...