Nashville's startup scene is roaring like a Saturday night on Lower Broadway.
Eye-popping funding rounds, multimillion dollar exits and a wave of businesses launching outside of the city's traditional health care ecosystem have elevated Nashville's profile in the startup world, while inspiring a new generation of entrepreneurs to innovate.
To cover this unprecedented era of entrepreneurship in Music City, the Nashville Business Journal is launching a new outlet called Nashville Inno, your go-to source for reporting on early-stage startups and innovative companies and entrepreneurs in Middle Tennessee.
To celebrate Inno's launch, we found six creative Nashville entrepreneurs under the age of 25 that are hustling to build their startups into the city's next success stories.
Some of these young entrepreneurs are juggling running their business while still attending college, while others are searching for funding to take their startups to the next level. All have faced never-before-seen challenges to construct a new business amid a global pandemic.
But as one founder told us, these entrepreneurs "don’t really take ‘no’ for an answer."
Why did you start Ready dress go (stylized: ready dress go)?
Zoe Antell: We started Ready dress go as a way to fix a problem that we were personally dealing with. We joined a business fraternity our freshmen years of college, and we thought that the professional attire market just wasn’t the way we wanted it to be. … We were having such a hard time shopping. It was hard to find things that were appropriate, but cute and for our age group. We found that professional wear was marketed toward a middle-aged woman, and there wasn’t any brand marketing their business wear toward young businesswomen. We wanted to fill that gap in the market.
Jessica Kaplan: Since that initial idea … we’ve landed on a model where we partner with a local manufacturer … based in Nashville. We design the clothes ourselves and work with our manufacturing partner to deliver professional attire that’s fashionable, comfortable and stylish for our demographic.
How would you describe the young women’s business attire your company designs?
Kaplan: We wanted clothing that is comfortable and would make women of all shapes and sizes feel confident. … Another part is being appropriate for work, so clothing that is feminine and youthful but also not going to be a little too short or low cut. Also, our clothes are all machine washable, which was a huge pain point when we talked to our target demographic.
Antell: I would say it’s more about what it’s not that what it is. [Our clothing] doesn’t make you look old. It’s not itchy. … It’s not frumpy.
How did you make the jump from coming up with an idea to actually making the decision to start a business?
Kaplan: I would say we both always had an entrepreneurial spirit, whether we knew it or not. So, for us when we came up with the idea it was never really a question of, “Should we do it or not?” It was, “How are we doing it?”
How has the Wond’ry at Vanderbilt University helped you?
Kaplan: We found out about PreLaunch and PostLaunch, which are basically incubator programs for young entrepreneur students. Those were incredible for us to build our value proposition, our pitch deck, our pitch to potential investors and the basics of our business.
What’s been your biggest challenge thus far?
Antell: Fabrics. Again, a few years in fashion school probably would have helped us in that area. … Fabric sourcing. We said, “We can do this ourselves. We shouldn’t waste any money.” But we didn’t know how to do it and we still don’t really know how to do it. These are challenges that we have to decide if we are going to learn how to do it and put a lot on our plate, or are we going to hire someone? Those things we take on ourselves, like fabric sourcing, are our biggest challenges.
Kaplan: The other layer, besides technical things, is just balancing being a student.
What’s been an inspirational moment for you during this process?
Antell: People texting us, “Wow! I haven’t taken my blazer off.” … These different pieces of feedback that we got, it was like, “Oh my God!” People have our clothes, that we envisioned. … These clothes are actually in people’s hands and they’re wearing them. And they want them.
How has your age factored into your ability to start a company?
Kaplan: Zoe and I don’t really take “no” for an answer when it comes to certain things. We try to be resilient. … We really have not let that become a factor. … But there are moments when we introduce ourselves, and I can tell that maybe we aren’t being taken as seriously as we’d like.
Antell: It’s more that I think we are looked at differently as women in the VC, startup space.
Kaplan: Yeah, a lot of times we are pitching to older men, so driving home our value proposition and why this is a problem is just not as understood. That’s something that we’ve worked on refining in our pitch, because a lot of times we are pitching to people who aren’t our customer demographic.
What are your goals for the next 12 months?
Kaplan: We are about to launch new products. We’ll be launching pants soon. … We’re also just trying to move through as much inventory as possible.
Antell: It’s more than just selling clothes: We’re here to build a community for women … to connect and learn and be there to support each other, because they are all going through the same thing at the same time. This community is called the Boardroom and is essentially our campaign to create a community of these women through resources, content, advice and other aspects to bring women together.
Ages: Both 21 and seniors at Vanderbilt
Company name: Ready dress go
Year founded: 2019
Employees: 2
Total money invested: $5,400 of personal cash to cover startup expenses.
Total money raised: $8,300 through Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management grants and pitch money from various competitions
Revenue (lifetime or 2020): Nearly $6,500 through soft launch of a work-from-home set, which lasted for approximately three weeks
