THREE STRANDS RECOVERY WEAR
Year founded: 2019
No. of employees: One
Top executives: Leah Wyrick, CEO and founder
Address: 500 W.Fifth St., Winston-Salem 27101
Website: https://threestrandsrecoverywear.com/
Instagram: @threestrandscorp
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/threestrandscorp/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/three-strands-recovery-wear-corporation/about/
After a successful pilot run and winning a $50,000 NC IDEA grant, Leah Wyrick described the last six months as a whirlwind, but said 2024 promises to be an even bigger year for her company, Three Strands Recovery Wear.
That’s because, come April, the Winston-Salem startup will officially launch its product, the Resilience Bra, in a 3,000-unit run.
Inspired by her mother’s journey with breast cancer, Wyrick founded Three Strands Recovery Wear in 2019 as an undergraduate at Wake Forest University. The Resilience Bra aims to make post-operative recovery better for breast cancer patients by offering a bra that is adjustable, has pockets for drain tubing and comes in a variety of sizes and colors.
Dr. Andy Schneider, Novant Health’s chief of plastic surgery, who helped Wyrick pilot the Resilience Bra in the fall, called it the “real deal.”
All 3,000 bras in the first order have been allocated across more than 10 organizations, such as Cone Health, Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist and the American Cancer Society, Wyrick said.
The Resilience Bra will also launch in a few mastectomy boutiques, including Greensboro’s Second Nature. Mastectomy boutiques sell bras, clothing and other products a breast cancer patient may need, and their employees have a deep understanding of what patients are going through not only physically but emotionally, Wyrick explained.
“We’ve gone through the hospitals to get physician endorsements and we encourage our physicians to write prescriptions for their patients to then go to these boutiques to get fitted for these bras,” she said.
The Resilience Bra is set to be reimbursable through private insurance and Medicare. Wyrick said that the bra qualifies under certain insurance codes for reimbursement and that she is working to get the bra approved for a national reimbursement registry.
Because going through physicians and mastectomy boutiques will ease the reimbursement process, Three Strands Recovery Wear is beginning its launch as a wholesaler. Starting as a B2B will also give the company insights into inventory management and order fulfillment on a large scale.
“We’re planning to build a foundation with our wholesale model with ambassadors, testimonials, and the endorsement of physicians to make it a little easier in the next few years when we do go B2C,” Wyrick said, adding that the bra will still retail for about $70.
With 3,000 bras already spoken for, Three Strands Recovery Wear is putting in a second order to arrive in June that will also include a nude version of the Resilience Bra. Wyrick also expects to grow her team in 2024, as she has been the only full-time employee, aided through contractors and interns. She is adding a fractional CFO this year and plans to hire two employees to handle shipments and sales.
“My strategy is go big or go home,” Wyrick said. “I’m going after all the top cancer institutes in the country … to make the most impact quickly.”
