Joanna Hartzmark: Female-founder changing the game in fashion and tech

JoAnna Hartzmark is the Founder and CEO of Revelle, an e-commerce brand sitting at the cutting edge of fashion and technology. JoAnna is a champion of women, serving as a change agent to facilitate meaningful success in their lives. Through her creation of her fashion company, Revelle, she is able to empower women and make their lives a whole lot easier! Join us for an awesome conversation with Joanna, Michael, and Erin.

Erin  00:06

Hi, everyone, welcome to call me crazy. I'm Erin master Pietro joined alongside Michael Benatar. And this is the show where we interview inspiring founders like today's guest, Joanna, who is the founder and CEO of Ravel an ecommerce brands sitting at the edge of fashion and technology. And she is up to big things, changing the game in retail. So we're excited to get into that with you, Joanna, welcome to the show.

00:31

Thank you. So glad to be here.

Michael Benatar  00:34

So tell us how you got this started and tell us what Ravel is. Because I thought it was kind of interesting the way you're approaching it online. Because I think that's a big issue for a lot of people is just figuring out a size right. And I think that's what you've kind of solved.

00:48

Yeah, I mean, Ravel is at its core about addressing the fact that clothing sizing is ridiculously inconsistent. And I think there are very few people that I present that idea to who haven't experienced the problem themselves. It's a very ubiquitous problem. But when thinking about how to solve it, I really tried to understand what was causing this constant frustration, is it the size chart, which I think is a huge component, this linear line that we're trying to force our bodies into? Or is it something more complex? You know, I tried to think about what type of technological solutions could address this problem, because that's my background. But what I realized was that there are huge emotional components to how you feel when you put on clothing. And when you get dressed in the morning, and creating a solution that purely tried to help you find clothes that quote unquote, technically fit, your body wouldn't actually solve the problem because everyone feels differently about their body and wants clothes to fit differently. And so I really spent a long time thinking about how to build Ravel in a way that would take those emotional aspects into account and acknowledge everyone's unique feelings about their body rather than trying to dictate to them how they're supposed to feel or what is supposed to fit.

Michael Benatar  01:59

So So how does it work from I guess we can go to the tech standpoint, how did you figure out because this custom for everybody that goes on there.

02:09

So it's not custom what it is at its inception. So right now in this current phase, it's helping women navigate the 1000s of brands that are out there already. So when I thought about how to solve this problem, I did have a moment where I thought, should I do custom clothing or something along those lines, but what I realized was that, in addition to women's bodies being infinitely complex, women's wardrobes are also quite complex. And so there are 10s of 1000s of brands out there that do fit different women differently. But I wanted to be able to help women navigate that rather than creating one seemingly perfect solution that wouldn't actually give them the wardrobe that they wanted, and so on. From a technological standpoint, the key insight is really that we just get rid of talking about size at first. And we really think about shape. every woman's body has her own shape. And every brand actually cuts their clothes to a unique shape as well. But there's not transparency to the customer about what brands are cut to different shapes. Women just learn that as they shop, they learn which brands work for them and which ones don't. And they just figure that out. as they grow up. I want to demystify that, and give women the ability to navigate all of the brands and find all of the products that will make them feel the way that they want to feel in their bodies. And so in that sense, it is custom because the experience is personalized to every single woman. However, we're not creating custom clothes, what we're doing is we're helping you navigate the sea of options out there to find the ones that will make you feel beautiful.

Erin  03:32

I think this is brilliant on so many levels I've been in retail for as old as I am basically, you're right, every brand is cut a different way. And another I like that you're not making your own clothes because people like brands so you can connect people with brands that they like, and that fit them and that's tough because you might love you know, Tibi or some brand but it only fits you know rail people with the you know, boys shape body and then maybe like you know, Rebecca Taylor or some other brand might fit more curvy. I think that's really cool. And it's hard to navigate that i i use Rent the Runway right now, which is kind of it's I guess it's to love to hear more about your tech and how it works. But yes, I'm what I'm liking about rent the runways. I can search for brands and let me the freshness all the time. But I was searching through the brands last night and there's so many brands and like if I didn't know the brands I like they were just like 1,000,008 million bees. Like, I just want to know which ones I'm gonna like. So I the time it took to search through was annoying. So how does the tech work for you? Like, how many questions Do women have to ask? And then what did you do to kind of put these brands in the right, I guess buckets? I guess that's the tech you came up with?

04:45

Yes, that's that's the technology and I could bore you forever with it. But um, at its most basic level, you answer a couple of questions about your body. It takes a couple of minutes max, at the beginning of the experience, just sort of describe your body shape. Tell us a little Little bit about yourself. And then from that we get you immediately into the experience. And you can continue to tell us what you like and you don't like and it will refine itself to you. But that initial onboarding, if you will, is very quick. From the technological side. Sorry, go ahead.

Michael Benatar  05:16

Yeah.

05:18

From the from the technological side, what I had to do was to build an algorithm that just, like you said, categorizes and buckets all of these brands into a way that I can match them with women's bodies. And so I spent a huge amount of time when I started this, at home, sitting with my computer, figuring out how to build that algorithm, that technology. And so it took hundreds, probably 1000s of hours of research and different brands, trials, myself serving many women, having a lot of different women with different body shapes also go on go and try on lots of different clothes, and aggregating all of those 10s of 1000s of pieces of data to build the algorithm itself. And so that's the technology that fuels this experience. And similar to Rent the Runway, it's technologically fueled. But I wouldn't necessarily say it's a pure tech company by any means. Because the women are too important a component of it.

Michael Benatar  06:07

And what's your what's your background? That because it's very interesting the way you approach it, because it was like, okay, there's clearly an issue. You're, you're shopping for clothes. And you found that issue, how did you kind of come up with this? What was your background before?

06:21

So I had a really nonlinear professional career. I'm really a firm believer that the best paths in life are not straight. And so I started my career in financial services. So I worked for a bank, I actually worked as an analyst, designing digital financial products. And so that's really where I cut my teeth on the analytical, technical side of things. I also studied behavioral economics in college. And so I love the idea of bringing together analytical rigor and human biases. And that's sort of what behavioral economics is all about. People are irrational. And so how can you understand them using quantitative analysis when human beings don't behave like math problems. And so I brought that into financial services and realized that I just, frankly didn't like finance, it was a little bit too cut and dried. I didn't feel like I was getting that human element that I had loved in college. And so I went to business school to figure out what industry would give me that would allow me to feel like I was emotionally connected with my customers. And so I went into luxury retail, I worked at Gucci. And then I worked at Ralph Lauren, really, during the time that these big luxury brands were starting to understand that ecommerce was really going to happen and they couldn't deny it, they needed to start selling things online. And so I worked in helping them understand how ecommerce could translate from their traditional fashion houses. And at the end of the day, realize that they were held back by their reputations and their traditions and weren't going to be able to make quick and agile innovations in digital the way that I would have been excited about. And so that's when I actually moved over into the tech space. And I worked at a tech startup that is at the intersection of retail and technology is actually somewhat similar to Rent the Runway, it was at the time called gwynnie. b. Now it's called castle. And what it is, is a clothing rental technology platform that can be used by any retailer who wants to rent their clothes. But at the time, it was built on one brand in order to make sure that the technology was sound. And that brand was for plus size women clothing rental for plus size women. And so that's when I really started to understand how technology can fuel ecommerce. But also its limitations because especially in the plus community size, and fit is just so critical, because they have fewer options and their opportunities that is so limited. And so that's when I really started thinking about not just these problems, but also these additional burdens that seem to be placed on women. That technology isn't really solving. I was looking around at the other tech startups and saying, you know, a lot of these companies aren't solving problems for women or potentially are trying but are really just making them shop more. What would it be like to create a company that actually was trying to address a real everyday problem that every woman experiences and just trying to add value to her life?

Michael Benatar  09:12

And with with this, do you see the people that you're helping? Do they actually end up shopping more with those brands? Because of the fit now they know like, Oh, yeah, I can buy all these? How do you kind of laid out for them? Do you say, okay, you can only fit into Gucci slacks, because those are your perfect fit. How does that how does that all work?

09:33

Well, it's really two questions. I mean, one, the goal of Ravel is not to get people to shop more. And so that's not our objective. Our objective is you come to the site and you're interacting with us and when you're ready to shop, we're there and we you have a personal store where everything is going to fit you the way that you want. And so that really is an important distinction for me that we're not trying to get you every time you come to the site. We want you to transact that's just not what we're about. As far as how it's framed. We give you The genes that we feel like are going to fit you the way that you want, for example, based on what you've said, but you can always access and browse every single product that we have on the site, I felt that it was really important to always allow women to find whatever they want, and not feel as though we were restricting their access in some way. Because I feel as though a lot of companies nowadays are trying to use technology to dictate how people are supposed to behave. And you create these bubbles, where you don't get to see what's happening outside the bubble. And especially when it comes to style, you might want to try something that's really out there for you. And it's a brand new style or trend and you know, nothing in our algorithm would have known that you want to try that style, we want you to be able to find that if you're seeking it out.

Erin  10:43

And I know once I start using it Michaels gonna be like, Is there a man version is there you guys do men rent, the runway doesn't

10:51

Rent the Runway doesn't yet. And

Michael Benatar  10:55

it's great, she shows up, she gets this box of clothes every month. And I'm always jealous, because it's nice, you get all these new things. And then next month, you get another back box of new things

11:05

completely. And the truth is that this problem of clothing fit is not exclusive to women by any means men deal with this problem, too. And so eventually, I want us to have all product categories. And you know, all people are able to shop on this site, we decided to start with women because the issue of fit is more complex for women's bodies, and also the sort of exoticness factors that impact how women feel about their bodies, and thus how they feel about fit are more complex as well. So it felt like a better opportunity to start with but don't worry, men's is coming. Okay, good,

Michael Benatar  11:37

then do you? Do you ever remember, I think it was like two or three years ago, there was a company or app that would like scan your body? And then they'd say, Okay, this is what will fit for you. I think I did it. But I never, I remember I was like in a large like black suit or something like a stretch.

11:54

Yeah, it's called the zozo suit. Yeah. And so there are lots of companies like that, that are using body scanning technology in some way to try to, you know, map the human genome or perfect fit based on really understanding every single detail of your body. Ravel is taking the exact opposite approach, we think there's an element. And there are so many people trying to solve this problem and coming at it from different angles. And I think they're all incredibly cool. I just personally believe that it gives an element of false precision about how things fit you and again, gives the technology or the company the misperception that they know exactly what your body should want, as far as clothing is concerned. Whereas I think there's so much that subjective about getting dressed and how things fit that if I were to try to get the most precise measurements, and give you a garment that technically falls on your body the way that I say is right, you could still hate it. And then I've still failed.

Michael Benatar  12:54

Is are the because I know because I used to do a lot of commercial photography, I know there was fit models, and those were where they actually sized out everybody to fit into their, to their jeans into their shirts. Is this. I mean, I'm not saying it's a problem at that level. But would it be different if somebody would come in to the fit model realm and say, Okay, this is more of the standard size? So let's try to get people that are shaped like me, are you to size up more when they're actually stitching these things together? Because that's where it seems like the sorry, the the big issue is right, like, at the beginning, they're getting people that because the European sizes like mango men, for instance, everything is a little bit tighter on me or Zara, like Sorry, I have to wear like a triple XL, even though normally I'll just wear a larger medium. So it is kind of interesting how everybody goes about it and their own, like theories on it. But is that do you see that as an issue or a way to solve it even more for everybody? I don't know, I was just thinking about that. Because it seems interesting.

13:54

I mean, I don't know if I use the word issue. I mean, that's definitely a core of the problem is that every brand needs to find some sort of baseline to start. And so their baseline is generally their fit model, their fit model has a particular shape. And they generally don't acknowledge that externally that this is the baseline that we've used. And so that is a crux of this problem. But I personally haven't done a lot of research on the origin of the size chart and how we ended up here. I think that creating a standard base still isn't going to solve this problem, because the problem is we're trying to force the size chart to be linear. Whereas if you were to really think about the complexity of the different shapes and sizes of women's bodies, you're probably looking at like a massive matrix, not just one linear line. And so creating one standard base is just going to get you to a different linear line. And I just personally feel like we shouldn't be forcing women to conform to this linear line, we should be acknowledging and appreciating all those complexities. And luckily, or unluckily, there are 10s of 1000s of brands out there that all do address different components of that complexity. And so the first step of rebel is to help women navigate that I also hope that then our data will expose some of the key gaps where people aren't able to find the opportunities that they need to get the clothes that fit them. And we'll be able to actually use data to show retailers and brands, how much more opportunity there is out there to expand beyond that linear line.

Erin  15:17

Totally. I'm curious how you started? Like, what was the first step like? Are you kind of have a technical background? But you know, what was your first design? Like? Did you map it out? And then hire like developers to help you create the tech or who was the first couple people you had to help you actually bring this to life? And also, how long? How long ago? Did you first start it? Just a little backstory of like, the big the beginnings?

15:42

The the big milestones, yes, I left gwynnie bee slash castle in November of 2018, I believe it's, you know, 2020 doesn't exist anymore. So I have to do all that math, in my mind. And it took me a little while to sort of explore and decide what I wanted to do next. And so it was quite some time before I was really zeroed in on this problem and wanting to address it. It really also just took a long time of me sitting with my computer trying to figure out how could I build this technology. As you mentioned, I have somewhat of a technological background algorithm development is a part of my background, but not website coding specifically. And so I wanted to spend time architecting the site, understanding how the algorithm would be constructed, and how that would fit into the larger experience. And so I did all of that by myself, all of the market research, the data collection, and the algorithm architecture. And then I hired developers to help me actually bring that to life. And so that was, it was me and the developers for the majority of the build. And then I hired two incredible marketers to help me launch it. We actually, I hired them in February of 2020, as we got ready for our launch plan, and so in March of 2020, the world turned upside down. And we had to reevaluate how we were going to introduce this concept to the world. And so we really did have to shift our perspective on how we would approach it, consider if we were going to still even launch it. And think through how our marketing would work in a world where people were stuck inside in this incredibly stressful situation. And so the three of us, myself in those two markers, spends a lot of time in that first half of 2020, thinking about how to thoughtfully and respectfully still get this out there. And we've been really lucky that people are at home shopping online, and are really eager to talk to a brand that seems to really care about how they feel. And so we've since then expanded, or a team of seven now. And so it's just been really exciting to see it grow even amidst us all being through these screens now. Yeah,

Michael Benatar  17:50

I know a lot of this so

Erin  17:52

cool. Tech, you did the algorithm yourself. That's a huge piece, because I think a lot of people have ideas. And they would have needed to find someone like yourself and a dev team. And just be like, this is what I wanted to do. You know, you actually built it. That's so cool.

18:07

I'm curious how hard Sorry, go ahead.

Erin  18:09

No, no, I was just gonna say I'm curious. Like how your marketing strategy shadier pivoted. And what did you guys do to get those first few customers during such during COVID? Where people, you know, maybe weren't shopping as much? Like, how did you reach your first people?

18:23

And are they were shopping for sweatpants?

Michael Benatar  18:25

Yeah,

Erin  18:26

maybe that was great. A lot of sweat pants. Um,

18:29

I mean, we tried really hard to have a pulse on how people were feeling because there's a balance between it not being respectful to try to sell someone anything, even an idea and also acknowledging that we're all sitting at home, willing to try new things and wanting to connect with one another. And so we specifically thought a lot about that desire for connection. And the fact that truly Ravel's technology that I built is incredibly cool and critical for the site. But what's far more important is the connection between Ravel and its consumers and the fact that that's a very intimate conversation you're having about your body, and you need to build that trust. And so we decided, from a marketing standpoint, to solely focus on how to build that trust, and to help people believe that we truly wanted to help them feel beautiful, not just to make them shop more. And so we completely shifted our marketing messaging to say, we're trying to build this, we're gonna be transparent with you about we're trying to build, it's not perfect, we want you to be a part of this experience and build it with us. And so we, especially at the beginning, grew really slowly, like one person at a time who would come in and give us very detailed intimate feedback about what they were looking for. And it's helped us create a really tight knit community of people who are very passionate and willing to give constructive feedback on what they want to see next because they know that we're listening, and we're trying to build it in partnership with them. And sometimes even in quarantine, you want to look pretty, I remember the first.

Erin  19:51

Literally when I first signed up for rent, the runway was the week of lockdown and I had code and all these nice clothes like frickin not going anywhere. But then that thing trending was like, what was that thing? formal Fridays was trending. And I thought Michael made it up, but I think it was like an SNL skit or something. So I wore all my clothes were formal Friday and took pictures. So there's definitely a need to feel beautiful and good no

Michael Benatar  20:15

matter what. I was also the fun part of quarantine when we thought it was only gonna last a little while. Excited. Yeah. Yeah, well,

20:22

we were all like, oh, two

20:23

weeks inside.

20:24

That sounds so relaxing.

Michael Benatar  20:25

Yeah, sounds great. Um, so how, how? What's like the, like, are you getting a cut from the club? The brands from the money? Like from sales? Sorry? How is that all working? Yeah, how do you make money, but I was trying to fit. I was like sitting here and listening like, okay, they probably just make money, like similar to an affiliate? Like, are you guys getting an affiliate cut? How's that? How's that work?

20:48

Exactly. So are the platform is completely free to all customers, because women shouldn't have to pay to feel beautiful, or to solve this problem. And so from a customer standpoint, it's completely free. But we get an affiliate commission if you decide to buy something. And so we hope that when you're ready to buy, you come through our site, but that's, again, not our objective, there is so much more that we can be doing in the future. And so even though that's how we earn money, now, the idea is really just to build a foundation, so that we can eventually really transform the way that women shop online in general. And I felt really strongly that women shouldn't have to be paying for something like that.

Michael Benatar  21:23

I love it. I love that that's the model because it is something where you know, these applications or whatever you have to pay so much for nickel isn't even gonna work. And I like that you just, it's free, do this, and we'll you know, get a cut, if you happen to want to buy something. And that's, that's great. I wish again, there was something for guys to I love the shop, I

21:41

promise, we're thinking about it.

Michael Benatar  21:44

So yeah, what's the roadmap do? Did you guys raise any capital or what's going on in the future? What's going on with you guys?

Erin  21:50

At this point, we're

21:51

completely self funded. That was a decision that I made, because I felt that it was really difficult once you took on funding to protect your objective and your mission. And especially when we talk about how the objective is to help women feel beautiful, not necessarily shot more. And that means that it's going to be a slower and organic growth, rather than explosive revenue, I decided that I didn't want to have anyone hanging over my head, clouding my objective of helping women. And so as soon as you bring in backing, you get pressured to grow almost at any cost. And I was not ready to do that, to get to the scale that we want, you know, we may have to look at that at some point. But I want to build this slowly and thoughtfully, and really prove that what I'm doing is helping women first because then I'll be able to show our value, rather than just conceptualize my idea and hope to prove, you know, believe in my personality, please Invest in me, you know, instead, I can really show you what we're doing. And I can show people getting value from that. So at this point,

Erin  22:48

it's just us. I feel like the the mission kind of lends itself maybe to an element of like community or social between the users. Is that something you see in the future?

22:59

Yes, as far as the roadmap at the site itself, the goal was to really build a foundation that we could allow our users to take in any number of directions. And so one of them that I feel really strongly about is social connection. I think being able to connect with women who have similar frustrations when shopping, similar body shapes, similar styles is really something that's very important. When you think about finding clothes that fit you don't just want to be dictated to by our service. Hopefully you like it. But we also want the community to help each other out and talk about how they feel about their bodies. And so I hope that this will eventually become much more community oriented. And that is how we structured it. We hope that women want to connect with one another.

Erin  23:37

I love it

Michael Benatar  23:38

sound great. I mean, it sounds like because if you're similar body types or something you can all talk and chat and like oh, this is working great for me and I really like this. I actually I want you to go through it so I can see how it all operates.

Erin  23:49

Yeah, I was just gonna say the website is Rebel Nation calm. I will be

Michael Benatar  23:54

here we never mentioned it once. Yeah.

Erin  23:57

Yeah, Ra de la nation calm. And I want to ask you the call me crazy question. When When did you make a decision that you were maybe called crazy or like, you know,

Michael Benatar  24:08

I don't think called crazy. I think just, like maybe felt crazy. I don't think called crazy makes it seem like oh man, you recall it? Because I think just maybe

24:18

only once. It definitely happened.

Erin  24:21

When did you maybe feel a little crazy?

Michael Benatar  24:23

Yeah, like that was

24:25

on the first time. The last time? Yes, recent time.

Michael Benatar  24:29

What's your most recent, let's see your most recent,

24:31

the most recent time that I felt crazy. I mean, I felt crazy this entire time I made the decision rather quickly. And once I decided this was the problem. I was full steam ahead and I got a lot of feedback that I made the decision too quickly. And I get that a lot. Just that I'm ready to move and ready to jump on new opportunities. And so I'd say people do openly Call me crazy pretty frequently and I take it as a compliment. Because I think when you're starting your own business, you have Have an element of craziness. Because you have to feel so certain that you're going to succeed that you can get through those really bad days. And so I definitely am a little bit crazy about this. I'm so convinced that women need this and that this is going to add value to their lives. And so I'm happy if you want to call me crazy.

Erin  25:16

Yes, yeah, that's why you're on our show.

Michael Benatar  25:21

I love it. I think, I think the idea is exactly what we kind of need in this new, you know, online shopping era, because everybody kind of ditched the stores this year, last year. And now is online shopping exclusively. I'm sure I've returned many things that haven't fit, you return things that don't fit you like, Oh, I tried these jeans out, they didn't fit, you're almost buying them to then return them. Because you're not sure. And I think this is a great step in the right direction to help kind of even cut down that cost on all the shipping and all the packaging and everything like that. Because that's I mean, everything gets, you know, Amazon ships in these giant boxes and you order like pencils, and what's going on?

25:59

Oh my gosh, I ordered a ruler and it came in a box like entire chart torso. I was like, what, what is this? But it's true, you know, especially with clothing. I don't know about you, Aaron, but I am constantly ordering two, maybe three sizes of the same thing. Yeah. And then you know, you're going to return at least one if not all of them. And so that's a huge thing that Ravel is trying to address. And so you come into this experience, and we recommend what we think is going to fit you but we also tell you what size we think you should buy. But we tell you why we recommend that sighs Oh, and then make an informed decision of like, Oh, well, I said I like a looser fit. But in this particular garment, I want a tighter fit. And so you can make an informed decision about what size you want to get. And hopefully the goal is you only have to order one you know how it's gonna fit. And that's that is the number one thing that I'm hoping we can get rid of because man, the returns get brutal. Yeah, for sure. I'm

Erin  26:53

like you're on it. I think that's really cool.

Michael Benatar  26:55

I think it's great. Do you have a Instagram as well? Right? So people can follow? Yes.

27:00

I mean, yeah, please follow us Rebel Nation is our Instagram, please follow me, Joanna heartsmart is my handle and I show the behind the scenes of you know, my little zoom corner and what it's like to be a solo female founder. And I love hearing from people. And so I would really, we are always looking for feedback. And I'm always just looking for people to tell me I'm crazy and give me ideas. Please follow?

Michael Benatar  27:24

Well, thanks. Thanks for coming on the show. The website is Rebel Nation calm. We'll put it all in the description. We love you coming on. This was great. The company sounds great. Aaron's definitely gonna try it right after this. Thanks for coming on.

27:38

Thank you so much for having me. This is so fun.