Jennifer Burns never intended to open her own business. But after a dozen years in the wedding industry, she kept hearing the same complaint from brides.
"Wedding after wedding this was a common problem: they were all over the place to buy and sell [wedding products] and ultimately that's what led me to creating Wedzee," Burns said. "They know their colors but don't know what they want, or they just want to browse. And they kept asking me for a solution that I couldn't give them the answer to, so I just said, 'I'm going to make it on my own.'"
She and her husband, Michael, originally launched Kadlee, an e-commerce site which was acquired by India-based Empirical Partners in 2018. The couple then launched Wedzee in October 2019. But when the novel coronavirus forced many industries, including the wedding industry, to be placed on hold, it gave Burns the opportunity to fine-tune the Tampa company.
"The pandemic has really caused us to pause and focus on the foundation of the business," Burns said. "We were ready to launch forward this spring, but the pandemic made us stop, talk to more users, figure out what's working and do a lot more testing. And now we're going to roll out a brand new site design."
The site is a mix of multiple wedding-focused websites. New, used and custom items can all be sold and shipped through the site and it has hyper-specific searches, including by color.
"I've found with working with the brides it's, 'Great, it's time to plan the wedding. But I have no idea what to choose or what I like,' and they spend hours browsing Pinterest," Burns said. "With Wedzee, it will really help drive exact shopping recommendations and product suggestions that meet their style and budget. I want it to be more than an e-commerce platform — I want it to be a planning and community platform as well."
As the site prepares to fully relaunch, it will include a style quiz for soon-to-be brides to narrow down exactly what they may need.
"Each bride has the ability to build out a profile and you put in your wedding date, colors, theme and you can share that with your wedding planner, maid of honor and add them to your profile of likes," Burns said. "So they can see and help shop. It's the best planning tool and also gives the ability to connect everyone in the e-commerce wedding industry together."
Wedzee is in innovation hub Embarc Collective's portfolio and is part of the inaugural TechWomen Rising Accelerator, which focuses on tech-enabled, female-founded startups.
The company is seeking seed funding, with the knowledge it may most likely have to come from beyond the Sunshine State.
"I keep being told again and again that marketplaces take a lot of funding because you need marketing," Burns said, reiterating that she plans to grow and keep the business headquartered in Tampa. "And I've been told there is an appetite for that on the West Coast or East Coast. I don't want to say Tampa isn't a good place because you have opportunities with the Tampa Bay Wave, TechWomen Rising ... it's not a bad place but our business model is better suited elsewhere [for funding]."
With the help of that funding, Burns believes her website can become the go-to site for brides in need.
"My vision is to grow this thing as big as Etsy and WeddingWire," she said. "I want it to be, 'You're getting married, you go to Wedzee.' It will take a lot of marketing, a ton of branding — there are so many drop shipping, e-commerce sites — so they key is to getting their trust and being consistent."
