This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 032 / There’s No Right Time To Start A Business with Melissa Lorenzo-Hervé

Episode Date: October 7, 2020

In this episode, I welcome guest Melissa Lorenzo-Hervé - Full-Time Attorney Editor, CEO/Co-Founder/Creative Director of Pirouette, wife and mother of 2. Melissa shares with us some great insight into managing a very busy life, as well as how one goes about starting a new business with limited time. It may feel like other people have more capacity, more talent or more luck than you. It’s easy to compare ourselves to others and feel behind. But like Melissa, like myself (regular people like you!) we are so much more capable than we give ourselves credit for. This has nothing to do with perfection, there’s no perfect way to start a business, there’s no perfect way to do any of this. We as women are so many things to so many people. But who are you, for YOU? There’s purpose inside you. There are dreams and passions, for you, and I believe it’s time to honor them. Because I can’t think of anything more important to redefining Woman’s Work, than the notion that we show up as our authentic selves, with all our gifts, with all of our strengths, so we can take the world to its feet. This is Woman’s Work To learn more about what we are up to outside of this podcast, visit us at NicoleKalil.com

Coming up on this episode of This Is Woman's Work. Every day do two or three things. Keep it moving forward. That's how you're going to get to your goal. That's how you're going to figure out all the other things that seem overwhelming and that you have zero expertise in. You need to move it forward. You need to move the ball forward every day and have those tasks that you're doing crossed off. Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of This Is Woman's Work. I'm your host, Nicole Kalil. And like you, I am many things to many people. Partner to Jay, mama to an oh-so-curious seven-year-old JJ. I mean, seriously, when do the never-ending questions stop? Business owner, speaker, coach, podcaster, sister, daughter, friend, and the list goes on. It can feel a little exhausting at times. There

are days where I just like to be world traveler or expert cocktail at the pool drinker. Like, how do I get that job? I'd be so good at it. I'm sure you can relate, which is why I asked Melissa Lorenzo-Hervé to join us today, because this woman has some serious capacity. Full-time attorney editor, wife, mother of two, and CEO, creative director, and co-founder of her online clothing business, Pirouette, that makes multifunctional dresses for women that allows them to go from day to night with ease. Because who has time to change multiple times a day? And outside of the obvious fact that Melissa is just a badass, I thought she could give us some great insight into managing a very busy life, as well as how one goes about starting

a new business with limited time. Melissa, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me. So fun. Oh, my pleasure. I'm super excited about our conversation. So let me start by asking, how do you do it? Like, how do you do all of this? Okay. I laugh because it's the number one question I get before people even ask about the dresses.

They're like, how do you do all of this? So obviously something has to give right when someone is wearing a lot of different hats in one day like I do and for me I think it's an especially hard challenge because I'm very bad at time management actually and what I've figured out is I need to dedicate my time and my energy to the things that not only feel important right now but that will feel important when I look back a year from now and five years from now and 15 years from now. And that's helped me figure out what I should be doing. And since we all have the same amount of hours every day and every week, I've just figured out, well, this is what's not important.

And then this is what is important. And then outsourcing things. Pre-pandemic, we've always had someone who comes and helps out with cleaning and laundry every week. And then bringing on freshly post-pandemic so that I'm dedicate enough time to my full-time job, which is how I self-fund my startup. That's how Pierwet has always been bootstrapped. And then when the kids are in bed, going back to work and catching up with what I didn't get done during the day. And as they've gotten older, the number one thing that's helped, and I think this helps

other moms, whether they're founders or not, is what yesterday, jokingly, I called insourcing. When I was talking to someone in Vegas, I was saying, well, why am I taking out what's in the dishwasher? Why am I emptying the dryer? These are things that one of my kids can do, right? They're old enough and big enough and smart enough that they can do this without screwing it up. So I actually have to hold myself back from doing things that maybe at that moment will give me a little serotonin rush because one less thing to do later. And in my mind, yes, that dishwasher is empty. But that was time I could have spent doing something else. Most of us are at a time deficit anyway.

So all those minutes that I can shave off doing things that my kids can do, and then they will feel more independent and then they get better at things. And they're part of living in a space where they know that they're contributors and that's what I do. So that's part of how I do it all. But the other main thing is staying up late and not getting a full seven hours of sleep every night. I think to, you know, really recognizing what works for each of us individually, right? I've heard, you know, there's the book about the 5am club and I always joke around. I'm, I'm the president of the get up whenever the, you know, what I want club. But we all need to know what our, like our, our best situation is or our best amount of sleep,

and then we've got to play to our strengths or play to those. So the fact that you don't get tired before midnight, that's, that makes sense to me that you would play to that strength in this particular case. You also said a handful of other things that really jumped out at me. I love insourcing. It's funny. I occasionally catch myself doing things for JJ and I'm like, why am I doing this? She absolutely can do this as part of her chores. And it's right. It's that like little dopamine hit of getting something crossed off the list or that thought that pops in, like it's easier if I do it, right? But how important it is for everybody to do their part. And I loved the question that you asked, not just what feels like the right choice right now,

but what will feel like the right choice a year from now. I love that perspective. What inspired you to focus on fashion? It probably wasn't just a whim, right? You've been in this long term and plus you're working and you have kids, so you wouldn't be taking on extra work if it wasn't an inspiration or a passion. So what inspired you to focus on fashion and very specifically for women of all sizes and making sure to be focused to have everything made in the U.S.? Talk to us a little bit about that. So two main things. The first is the thing we can't help, right? There are things that we're just born with. I always loved fashion. I always loved fashion magazines.

I actually hoarded them whenever I could find them in college or even growing up at my grandmother's houses. And I just had this natural sensitivity and attraction to how women dress and how that could be improved and how you could communicate a certain message if you look a certain way. And that was just something that was born in me. And as a little kid, I would try to draw and I was really bad at it. And I would try to draw pictures. And so when someone's doodling, maybe they're doodling flowers, maybe someone else is doodling logos, I was doodling dresses on women. And when I go to sleep at night, I'm thinking of dresses. And when I dream, I see dresses that I've never seen before. And it's very frustrating to wake up and not be able to replicate that by drawing because I have no idea how to draw. And so as I got older and was very interested in becoming a lawyer and very interested in migrant workers' rights and reading Sassy magazine and reading about the laws in Cuba versus the laws in the US, because that's where my parents are from.

That was another thing that I was really interested in. And there was some representation there in terms of if you become a lawyer, this is what your life is like. And so that was the path I took, even though I remember graduating, having majored in political science, really wanting to just go to FIT or go to Parsons. This was what I wanted to do with my life. But of course, I didn't have a way of affording that I could get a law school loan and figure out I will pay that back with my lawyer salary. I didn't have any formula or recipe in my mind for this is how you get into fashion, or these are people who get into fashion, because everything I read was women who got into fashion because of their parents or their husband or

they were allowed to study that and that was their way into that industry so I just became a lawyer and for some things I loved it and for some things I really hated it and then when I switched into publishing having lived and worked in New York for so long and being a problem solver for most things, I was very frustrated that women were wasting time getting dressed in the morning and then having to waste more time changing to be able to go out after work and not seeing men go through any of that. And just being in a typical New York City office space, you see women crammed into these bathrooms trying to change, schlepping extra outfits to work, whereas the guys in the office would just take off their tie or take off their jacket, or in some cases, the way they went to work was the way that you could go

to a bar, and that bothered me, that feeling that there was this gender inequity when it came to time. We all know about the salaries and how unfair it is for women when they don't get paid the same, that men get paid for the same job. But just to see day after day, day after day, me and a bunch of other women just not knowing, well, if I wear this to work, I can't wear this after work. Or there was a thing that was unplanned that I have to miss out on because I'm dressed for work. I'm not dressed to go to that party or to go to that bar. And I just wanted to come up with a dress that could bridge that and could look fabulous when you went to work and could look fabulous if you had to go out after work.

And some of those dresses end up being transformers. And some of them are just dresses that you could style a different way. But because of the pattern, because of the design, they're nice enough that you could navigate them in these different environments, work and after work. I love that. I can't think of how many wasted hours I'm sure I've spent standing in my closet going, okay, not only what do I wear here, but what do I wear? Or like packing for a work trip. And it's like, okay, 400 outfits later. Yeah. Well, that's the thing. We get analysis paralysis, right? The conundrum of choice. We're staring at our closets, maybe 500 different combinations.

We can't think of two, whereas men have their suits and their shirts and their sweaters and their pants that maybe they'd wear without a suit. And they don't have any problem putting these things together, but women are sold to and brainwashed into thinking you have your work outfits and then you have your going work outfits and then you have your going out outfits and then you have your weekend outfits and so we are convinced that we have to have all of these different pieces that don't work with each other and that we have to be trendy and we have to wear something that looks cool right now but might not look cool next season or in a few months and I just wanted to say I'm going to reject all of that

and I'm going to make pieces that you want to wear now you want to wear them next year your daughter might want to wear them and if your mom wanted to she could wear them and so that was a big driving force and breaking through that and coming up with classic pieces that were really well made and would last long enough that you could wear them and wear them and wear them and not have them show any of that wear and tear that's typical of fast fashion. Share with us some of the successes and challenges and sacrifices you've made when starting your own business. I always want to finish with the happy stuff. So I'll start with the challenges first. The challenges are the typical challenges

for founders who are entering an industry that they don't have any background in. So I didn't know how I could just make a ton of dresses that I could sell on a website. I didn't know how to make a website. I didn't know where I could get samples made. I didn't know how I could import the right type of fabric. So I actually did a startup bootcamp with a few other women and the person who led it really

encouraged me and convinced me that I had to worry first about just getting the product, not worry right away about getting the marketing down and getting distribution down and all of these other things. I basically had to just focus on the product. And because I had had a few dresses made by someone in New York, my wedding dress and other dresses and my bridesmaids dresses, I went to him and created a sample. And then I had to have that sample remade. And I met someone who had worked for Calvin Klein and was able to guide me to different sample makers and textile reps and basically getting over the fear of saying that I wanted to do something else than what I was already doing and doing well. That helped me be more comfortable telling people that this is what I want to do.

And then those people connected me to other people. And thankfully, being in New York every day, day five days a week allowed me to run over to the garment district and meet with a button supplier and meet with a textile rep and basically put together all these pieces to get the template made and then from there get recommendations for sewers and cutters and pattern makers and fit models so it was really that ecosystem that I was lucky to be in for so many years that allowed me to connect with all of these people that I couldn't have that connection with where I in Miami or Georgia or most places outside of LA or New York, you don't have that garment district economy working within a few blocks of each other yeah um yeah and you mentioned challenges and

you mentioned successes um the real success I didn't see until I was having trunk shows once I was having trunk shows and having women try on the dresses women of all shapes and sizes and backgrounds and industries and stay-at-home moms and working moms and some who weren't moms giving that feeling of yes you've done something that I've been waiting for look at how you made me look and that just motivated me and made me understand okay you've hit upon something that needs to be replicated and you just need to figure out how to get more women to know about these dresses and you need to figure out how to make more of these more economically so you can have better margins and so that you can offer them at reasonable prices since everything is direct

to consumer and I'm not in stores. So that's always been something that I can go back to and remember her face when she saw herself in that dress or the joy she felt when she tried it on and looked in the mirror. I love that. It's one of the things that you said that felt really relevant to me. And I'm guessing a lot of people who are listening, especially if they've been toying with the idea of starting a business or have a passion. We often have an idea of the thing that we want to do, right? For you, it was fashion. For me, it was helping women increase their confidence.

And so we have that, but there's so much more involved. You start thinking about the marketing and the social media and all the things that you mentioned, and it can get really overwhelming. It feels like a really big mountain to climb. So what advice or lessons would you have for our listeners who might be also thinking about building a business? Well, one thing you need to keep in mind is that you're not going to figure it out on your own anyway, regardless of the industry, regardless of your past role. Maybe you're fabulous at marketing. There are fashion founders that come from the marketing space or the PR space. They've seen gaps, they've created brands. They didn't figure it all out, right? They worked with someone who then helped them with the production side,

with the manufacturing side, with the sourcing side, but they were able to drive the marketing trade. Some people come from different backgrounds and just through connections, they're able to put together a team. So of course you should plan. If I had to go back in time I would have planned out a lot more what's the PR piece going to look like who should I work with for the web design who should I work with for the branding instead of cobbling it together so slowly little by little I often think hashtag slow motion startup because to me it's felt like such a slow pace compared to everything else in my life that seems to go by very quickly but for founders you shouldn't feel like when I figure this out then I can move forward or when I figure these 12 pieces out I should then put it all together

into a business plan the business plan is going to change over time you can have a wireframe and figure it out little by little but you should just know that the biggest value is going to be drilling down on the part that you're good at and talking to people about what you want to build so that they can start connecting you to other people who are in that space who maybe have advised companies in that space or who know people who actually work full-. And so making those connections are what is really going to help you get to where you need to be when you're starting a company and figuring out all the different pieces. Yes. All the yeses to all of those things. I was nodding the whole time you were talking. I think we get to play to our strengths.

I always think with all the things that I have to do or want to do, I try to put them in one of three categories. What do I want to grow or develop myself, right? So where do I come in? Where can I leverage other people's strengths and expertise either temporarily or while I'm developing my own? And then what can I delegate? Like what needs to get off my plate and never be put back on it? And, you know, again, playing their strengths technology is not my strength. That's the part that scares me. I didn't even have a website until two and a half years into

my business. Really? Yeah. Isn't that crazy? How did people find out about you? Word of mouth. Amazing. Yeah. And I use LinkedIn as my like sort of temporary pseudo website. And I'm not suggesting that that's the way to do it for every business or for everybody listening. I guess my point is, I maybe am a little opposite. I have a tendency to over plan. And so I kept thinking like, I need to get all my ducks in a row. I need to get all of these questions answered before I can move forward. And just the realizing, I think that we both had, or it's just, you need to get into action, right? And some of the things you'll figure out along the way. And some of the things you thought early on will end up being different, right? And some of the things you'll figure out along the way, and some of the

things you thought early on will end up being different, right? It's just action is probably the most important thing. Would you agree? Yeah. And that was part of the bootcamp lesson was that every day do two or three things, keep it moving forward. That's how you're going to get to your goal. That's how you're going to figure out all the other things that seem overwhelming and that you have zero expertise in. You need to move it forward. You need to move the ball forward every day and have those tasks that you're doing crossed off. All right, Melissa, my last question for you is how did you, how do you get past the fear, the what if I fail or what if this all goes horribly wrong? Right. That was something that was holding me back for a really, really, really long time. And I think that's something that destroys a lot of great ideas. What helped me was

a specific quote, and I don't remember the exact quote, but it was by Sally Krawcheck, the founder of Alvest. And she talked about when she started her company, of course, she also had a certain fear of failure because in the financial space, there's so many startups that come and go. And I guess she felt very driven. Like I felt driven. I felt like I needed to do this. It wasn't something I wanted to do. I had enough things on my plate. When I started the company, my kids were very young. I was commuting for over two hours every day from Hoboken to Manhattan and back.

I was exhausted. Before 10 p.m., I was exhausted. And sometimes you have a fire in you that just doesn't go away until you can quell it by starting a company or writing a book or starting your blog. And what helped me was when I heard her say, so what if you fail? At the end of the day, who cares? You tried something. Maybe it didn't work out. You moved on to something else. You got a different

job or you wrote a different book or you started different blog, or you iterated on that idea. But so what? It really isn't a fear that's well-founded because what's going to happen? You're going to lose all your friends and family. You're going to lose your job because you started some company that didn't go anywhere. It really doesn't matter at the end of the day. You probably became a better employee. You probably became a better employee you probably became a better person you know so much more and so I could see the other side of failing not knowing that failure was imminent or even likely but just imagining myself on the other side of that and feeling like yeah I guess I would offload my inventory to TJ Maxx or something I

don't know something will work out and then I'll move on. And then it will have been something that I tried and not regretted. And so I think it really took that imagination and hearing someone else articulate it for me to feel psychologically comfortable with possibly failing and still surviving. Yeah, it's funny. Failure in my mind is not the worst case scenario. Failure is not the worst thing that can happen. Regret is the worst thing that can happen because failing forward is failing forward to regardless of gender. Right. And I think we as women can be more supportive in that space. How do we high five and cheer on and support the woman who takes the risk, chases the dream? It's so important.

And that's why I love having conversations like this. And I read a meme recently, and it in addition to like baby showers and wedding showers, we should have starting a business shower. I saw that and I don't know if I retweeted it or reposted it on Instagram, but I was like, this, this is what people need to do. Totally. I mean, I, I guess, cause I got married later in life. I, I, when we did the, you know, wedding showers and all of that, I was kind of like, I don't really need all this stuff, but you know, whatever, every time I've started a business, I would have gladly done a starting a business shower. And, you know, whether it's the sticky notes and, you know, an extra monitor or whatever we need to run our business, or even just the

support, the people in our lives saying, how can we help? Whether it's to become a client or purchase the product, or if that doesn't resonate, or if it doesn't fit you, mention it on social media or tell a friend about it. There's so many ways we can support each other. It's a really big pet peeve of mine when we, as women don't support our people, when we don't support the women in our lives who are, who are doing cool things anyways.

Well, that's the thing. I wish more people had a peek into the behind the scenes. And I think your podcast does a lot to help women have that sort of exposure because by the time you heard about that person's company, that person has done so much. She's ran so many miles to get it. She's incorporated. She's probably spoken to lawyers. She's probably sought a trademark. She's had to meet with maybe manufacturers abroad or certainly outside of her town. There's so much work that goes into the creation of any company from scratch to actual

launch that maybe if more women had an idea about that situation that's going on at 2 a.m when she's doing her work and transferring money from her checking to her business account and posting and seeking out the podcast and the PR, maybe then they'd say, oh, wow, let me at least give her a shout out. Let me at least visit her website, increase traffic, help her with her SEO, put her in touch with my brother who does social media, right? Something if they could see everything it took for that person to get it all together to actually start her company. Such a great point and add in the overcoming the fear and the doubts and the negative self-talk and the, all the no's and rejection you do face along the way. Exactly. So much rejection. Yeah. And so much missing out, right? Like when we're starting a company, it's not just that we're not hanging out watching

a movie or going on a date night. We're missing out on things with our friends, right? We're missing out sometimes on a promotion. We're missing out on things that we normally would like to do and that our friends would like to do but we can't because we've got bills to pay and a company to scale and all these additional tasks that we're doing not because it's a fun hobby but because we really feel it's our purpose and we're solving a problem that no one else is right there are plenty of other people making dresses i didn't need to make another dress but i really really felt i needed to make this kind of dress. I needed to make a dress that looked fabulous on a size 16 petite woman.

I needed to make a dress that fit a woman really, really well, whether she was young and fit or older and on a diet. And so from the outside, this labor of love, but from the inside, their purpose on this earth. Melissa, thank you so much. This has been such a great conversation and I so appreciate your perspective and your story. Thank you so much. I've loved talking to you and learning more about your podcast. Thanks for bringing women to share their stories with so many people. Yeah, my pleasure. To learn more about Melissa and to check out her amazing clothing line, her passion, and also one-of-a-O-U-E-T-T-E-N-Y-C.com. Or follow her on Instagram at pirouettenyc. And if you'll forgive me a brief plug, my Confidence Building Online course is coming

to you soon. Follow me at Nicole M. Khalil or visit nKhalil.com to learn more and to pre-register. This is confidence. It's not about confidence in general. It's a course built to guide and support you in building your confidence so you can chase that dream, take that risk, or maybe even start that business. It may feel like other people have more capacity, more talent, or more luck than you. It's easy to compare ourselves to others and feel behind. But like Melissa, like myself, regular people like you are so much more capable than we give ourselves credit for. This has nothing to do with perfection. And I know we're all tired. There's no perfect way to start a business. There's no perfect way to do any of this. We as women are so many things to so many people, but who are you for you?

There is purpose inside you. There are dreams and passions inside you for you. And I believe it's time to honor them because I can't think of anything more important to redefining woman's work than the notion that we show up as our authentic selves with all our gifts, all our strengths, so we can take the world to its feet. This is Woman's Work.