Assignment:
I was always interested in fashion and beauty but I didn't know exactly how to get into that career so I studied pre-med which is how I ended up then in medical publishing. And I sang in a couple bands as lead singer which is excellent now that I'm an entrepreneur because I have no shame. Hi, I'm Helena Fogarty and I'm the CEO and founder of Mi Ola, sexy bikinis that stay on. If I've been up there in leather pants screaming my head off in CBGBs then I can present to, you know, an angel investor. I wouldn't say I'm a super planner but I started my career as a project manager so I'm very good at setting goals and kind of backing into the things you need to do to achieve those goals.
The web was really starting to develop, the internet was starting to develop, so I became the whiz kid. And I started developing our internet properties back when they were like bulletin board systems before the real, you know, web started. And that got me, after two years to a great position to move to an agency where I led the Avon.com project, the Bloomingdales project, and Vanity Fair corporate projects at an agency in New York. And from there you know I was well in the fashion and beauty space. I went from there to Hearst Publications where I wrote for Cosmo Girl Magazine and actually launched their web entity and worked with Harper's Bazaar.
And then moved from there into traditional fashion. I think a very important lesson to learn is that in your life you can't control everything even though you'd like to, and I thought I was up for a promotion at Chanel, and everyone thought I was up for a promotion and I actually got laid off. I booked a trip immediately here and I was here with a friend who said why don't we just stay here? I said no, that's too crazy. Once I moved down here I was surfing four hours a day and every time I went out to surf, I was having problems with my bikinis. Well we started Mi Ola in 2012 and we had a successful Kickstarter campaign which was great and that was probably our first real milestone. We were covered in CNBC in June of 2012 which was exciting. We launched our first collection and were in stores in January of 2013. We were in Self Magazine and now we're in our second season and delivering to stores and you know prepping for our real first, you know, exciting kind of summer season with a good selection of retailers.
Even before I became a surfer, if I was running and there was any excuse for, to stop running like something was itching or chafing, I would stop. So you know I really need functional garments and that's what I have created. When you read all the books, you know you're supposed to lay out a project plan and try to figure it out. I mean that's a lot of the research that you need to do, and your plans are always going to change. They're always going to change from day to day but you still need to do it and have those milestones. So I was working in this, you know, in this seminar and mapped out a plan. I knew the fashion seasonality and how that worked because I've worked in fashion for so many years and I know that there's three deliveries and you need to have your sample line and your collection line ready at this point. So I just starting marking down those things in the calendar and working back from it.
You know I did the original sketches but they're really ugly and they don't have like this is going to be 2 1/2 inches and this is going to be a 1/4 seam allowance and so I was learning a lot during that and I had a consultant working with me to help do that and to find factories. And you know you just fill in the blanks as you go along. You have to, you know the big deliverables and I'd been in this business for a long time so I kind of knew the framework and then you fill in the blanks. I mean even now this is my second year, I'm preparing for my third year, and we have to have our collection ready in July. And there's a little bit of like okay, you know where are we and what do we have to accomplish by then?
You know clearly if we're going to sell our collection to retailers we need a look book. That needs to be done by July, July 15th. So we need a photo shoot at least a month before if not before and the samples need to be ready for that basically about now. It's very difficult to anticipate what items are going to sell and when you're dealing-- I mean this is a very fashion issue but I have like 700 SKUs because I've got 21 styles and I do four sizes and I've got over, you know, 12 colors. So how do I anticipate what's going to sell? And you know I want to have a broad assortment on, in my website because I think that's really the most important channel for us, but it's not very deep. So if too many people buy the extra small in something, we're going to be out of stock for a little while. And that's the biggest challenge because we don't have a very deep wallet, so I can't stock up on eight of every single style, I've got one or two and then we're going to hustle and make more.
You know I have very loose five and 10 year goals as far as revenue and costs, and those are all associated. Like you have to build those up. You have to know, I mean your revenue, your revenue projections are always a bit of a joke because you don't know where they're going to be. And actually if you put your revenue projections at a reasonable level and you're looking for outside investment, they're looking for a hockey stick. So no matter how realistic your projections are and what they're based on, they're still looking for okay we're going to go here [inaudible] summer and have and have this point and it's going to be astronomical. That's what people are looking for to invest in you.
And that's a challenge for me because I'm a very realistic person who wants to under promise and over deliver. But it's a game when you're looking for investors because investors really want to know the upside potential. And then when they're talk- that's how you get in the door, the upside potential. And then they can knock it down and say these numbers are crazy. You say well, you know they're based on this assumption and this assumption and this assumption. But to get the costs that are associated with that and to know when you are going to hit, going to make a profit you have to have a plan.
You know I'm going to add this head count this year. I'm going to add three people next year including a junior designer. I'm going to allocate one third of the revenue that I get from e-commerce into the cost free commerce just as a ballpark, you know? Let's say 33% of that is going to be cost for my website which also gives me a budget to develop my website, right? And there's a lot of assumptions with that. And then every day you're going to learn something and you're going to have to modify that a little bit. It's an inexact science and I can't wait until I can hire someone to do my financial reporting for me and I can just look at the numbers and be like oh we need to work on this.
And I can't wait until I have a planner that will be giving me kind of the plan of what inventory we want to stock up on instead of me doing that. I don't have as much success as I'd like. I don't have as much press as I'd like. I go crazy about it. But you know what, I'm getting stuff done right now. You know it's a little trite to say this but I think that there's a quote from Steve Jobs that says, you know, "when you look back at your life you'll see how the threads come together to where you end up" and I think that's very true. You know I kind of wove my way through different opportunities that presented themselves into a story that makes sense to where I am right now.
1. How does panning relate to an entrepreneur?
2. Explain how the plans for Mi Ola evolved over time.