Companies to Watch: Celebrating Pride with LGBTQ+ New York Founders
Pride Month 2021 is special: It marks the 10-year anniversary of the signing of the Marriage Equality Act. But not only that, after almost all of the annual festivities were canceled last year due to the pandemic, New Yorkers got to largely return to the parties and gatherings they love, celebrating not only the month but also the city’s burgeoning recovery.
Pandemic or otherwise, several industry and investor groups — Gaingels, Out in Tech, Lesbians Who Tech, to name a few — continued the work of supporting LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs and startups through it all. And this month, the Gender Recognition Act was signed in New York, enacting a law that would offer a neutral “X” designation for transgender, gender non-confirming, and non-binary New Yorkers to more easily update and access driver’s licenses, birth certificates, and other official documents.
To close out Pride Month, we spoke to a couple of LGBTQ+ New York founders about growing their businesses and how they celebrate Pride.
ADAY
What does your company do?
ADAY co-founder and co-CEO Meg He: ADAY is a direct-to-consumer brand with a mission of lifting the standard for clothing. We combine seasonless design with technical fabrics and a sustainable supply chain to create a versatile wardrobe that does more with less.
Of course, we have to talk about the last year of COVID-19. As a DTC fashion startup, what was customer reaction like? Did “wardrobe-from-home” open up new opportunities for ADAY — how did you adjust your strategy?
MH: A big part of our customer acquisition story is around travel, so we had to change a lot of our marketing when people stopped traveling — luckily, there were many new storylines revolving around the home as all of our products are so versatile and comfortable. We saw a lot of brands intuitively chasing demand, so more marketing, more sales, more messaging around buying — because we were all sitting on so much inventory. Instead, we went to our best repeat customers and asked them, "What do you actually really want?" We reduced our number of new and returning styles for 2020 by 50 percent by cutting everything that our repeat customers didn’t unanimously love, allowing us to really focus on our core customer.
When (if?) more regular office culture returns, should that extend to our attire? Are we taking Zoom clothes back into the office? What are post-pandemic office outfits going to look like?
MH: I think the key thing we learned about the pandemic is that all clothing needs to be comfortable all the time, period. Post-pandemic outfits will prioritize this, forcing the industry to a higher standard for fabric breathability, hand-feel and quality, as consumers prioritize how they feel as well as how they look. We’ll be taking Zoom-feeling clothes back to the office, but they’ll look like tailored pants and dress shirts, which is why at ADAY, our mission is to build a better wardrobe that can do more with less.
ADAY builds sustainability into the ADAY brand. How does that show up in the clothing pieces you offer?
MH: We don’t believe in replacing the content of our wardrobes every season. Instead, we strive to create comfortable, seasonless essentials that do more and last longer. We see sustainability as a baseline and apply sustainable practices at every stage of our process (from design right through to our logistics). For our partners, we only choose those that actively work on reducing the environmental impact of their processes, whether through energy-efficient or renewable energy manufacturing or waste recycling manufacturing.
We view sustainability as making products that are better for both the environment and our customers, so we also focus on the idea of cost per wear: the price of a garment / the versatility + longevity of the piece. Globally, the average garment is worn seven times before it is discarded (!!!). We’re working to increase that number dramatically—the average cost per wear of an ADAY piece is 52 cents if you wear your ADAY once a week for 5 years.
Further, many of our products are made with custom-developed recycled fabrics, recycled post-consumer plastic (plastic bottles), as well as plant-based fabrics made from beechwood trees in a closed-loop production process, so that no waste is generated from the production process, including materials, energy and water. For 2021, our product team is in the process of developing bio-based and recycled versions of our most popular fabrics.
You closed your Series A just before COVID-19 took NYC into full lockdown. How has the last year of a pandemic shifted your business plans for that investment? Or did you just power through?
MH: One of the big changes has been around financial literacy for the whole team, we focused on gross return margin of investment (GMROI) as a metric that we made the core of our business. How fast is the inventory churn? Which pieces will maximize profit at the end of the day? We learned so much, reminding ourselves how we can build this business in a sustainable way by focusing a lot more on efficiency and margins. Profitability became a much higher priority, especially as we couldn’t rely on the consumer climate. It brought profitability up years ahead of schedule for us.
What’s on the horizon for the rest of 2021? Are there any projects you plan to prioritize, either because COVID-19 put them on the backburner or moved them to the frontburner?
MH: We’re launching a whole new category for us: accessories!
Okay, some rapid fire questions. First: where do you get your favorite pizza slice?
MH: There’s no way to answer this without getting judged. Roberta’s.
What about your favorite bagel?
MH: Bergen Bagels everything bagel — also the police station opposite is the precinct used as the exterior view for Brooklyn 99.
What’s the best place in New York for a coffee or lunch meeting (remember in-person meetings)?
MH: I love “twalks” — meetings where we talk and walk. I think it’s a better forum for us to brainstorm the best ideas and connections, rather than a set meeting place. My favorite spot is meeting people at Fort Greene or Prospect Park off-leash hours while my dog gets to play.
What’s your favorite remote work office hack?
MH: The midday “fight break”. My partner is a professional brazilian jiu jitsu athlete and we have mats at home, so we can fit in a short sparring session between meetings.
What's one norm that was new to your team during the pandemic that you're definitely going to keep post-pandemic?
MH: This was driven by the Black Lives Matter movement, rather than the pandemic. We have a diversity and inclusion re-learning section of our team meeting every 2-4 weeks, where a team member shares research they’ve done so we can educate ourselves on diversity, racism, inclusion, etc. Topics have included the slave trade, the Chinese Exclusion Act, gerrymandering, appropriating Black culture, Christopher Columbus
And, lastly, in honor of Pride Month, what’s your favorite local LGBT+ establishment, and what’s your favorite way to celebrate Pride?
MH: House of Yes ✨ It’s important to talk about Pride and what that means to different people. I hope everyone celebrates it by having these conversations with their friends and also on their social media, as well as being part of all the rainbow dance parties. I think gender and sexual identity is part of a beautiful lifelong discovery and re-discovery journey.
TRUSTY.CARE
What does your company do?
Trusty.care co-founder and CEO Joseph Schneier: Trusty.care builds tools to help people get the right health insurance and to manage their insurance and benefits when they don’t have an HR department to turn to.
What led you to want to build a company in the health tech/insurtech space? And why are you focusing on retirees?
JS: I am motivated by a desire to leave the world a better place, but am interested in problems that are complicated and not sexy. For too long, the insurance side of healthcare has not been speaking to the care side of healthcare, but it represents one of the biggest opportunities to improve people’s lives.
Technology tools often feel foreign to older people. Has platform adoption for that population been a challenge? How have you built it to be accessible to them?
JS: When we started Trusty.care we had a lot of assumptions about older adults using technology, most of them have been proven wrong. Our users are coming in mostly on mobile devices and with higher levels of technology knowledge than we expected. That said, we are building on web apps, not mobile apps, because getting an older adult to download an app has been an obstacle.
The other core element of our model addresses this, as well — we sell to professionals that work with older adults. For the most part, these professionals are on the phone with the older adult as they are going through the product. By not opting to disintermediate the professionals with technology we get to leverage their expertise in helping older adults to get the information they need from our platform. We do have to think about things like font size, contrast, and ADA compliance.
It’s bringing more financial stability to elders, but what about the health insurance brokers? What benefit is there for the providers in Trusty.care?
JS: Our customers are health insurance brokers and carriers, and they are using our product for several core reasons: We reduce administrative costs and spend on alternative products; we improve speed to sale of an insurance product; we decrease churn of consumers from a brokerage; we improve member retention in a plan; and we identify gaps in payments.
You completed your seed round in mid-2020, right in the middle of the peak of COVID-19 in New York. Did the pandemic make fundraising more challenging?
JS: We completed a note round in mid-2020 and a priced round in early 2021. During COVID-19 we raised a total of $5.5 million. In the very start of the pandemic, I think we were really worried about raising capital and there were definitely a few funds that passed because (I think) we weren’t able to meet in person. That said, we feel really positive about what we were able to accomplish, so I can’t really complain. I think in some ways it created some efficiencies and we were able to get to faster “yeses” and “nos”.
If you could wave a magic wand to fix one big problem with the US healthcare system, what would it be?
JS: I would make dental care a medical expense covered by health insurance. It would have the most dramatic effect on the health of this country and it is such a major issue that we still consider this to be a luxury.
What’s on the horizon for the rest of 2021? Are there any projects you plan to prioritize, either because COVID-19 put them on the backburner or moved them to the frontburner?
JS: At the start of COVID-19, we made the choice to just hyper focus on our customers and build for them. It was the smartest thing we have done as a company and I think now that things are coming back, we want to mostly make sure that we don’t get distracted but keep our focus. Our priority in 2021 is onboarding our 37,000 customers into our product and making sure they have a successful open enrollment during the fall.
Okay, some rapid fire questions. First: where do you get your favorite pizza slice?
JS: I have Celiac Disease and am lactose intolerant...so pizza is a rarity for me. If people have recommendations, I would love to get them!
What about your favorite bagel?
JS: Gluten free bagels are a travesty, unfortunately. The only ones I have liked are from Black Seed Bagels.
What’s the best place in New York for a coffee or lunch meeting (remember in-person meetings)?
JS: I personally like meetings at places like the Yale Club because it is quiet.
What’s your favorite remote work office hack?
JS: I set up a weightlifting room in my office at home. In between meetings, I will go over and just do a few reps, it really has helped me to stay grounded and release a little stress during the day.
What’s one new thing your team is doing to stay connected while everyone works from afar?
JS: We are trying everything we can think of, we have morning meditation sessions, a mental health wellness group that meets weekly, monthly game nights, and on our weekly standup call, we have a 30 minute window where no one is allowed to talk about work.
And, lastly, in honor of Pride Month, what’s your favorite local LGBT+ establishment, and what’s your favorite way to celebrate Pride?
JS: My favorite LGBT+ establishment is Julius’ and my favorite way to celebrate Pride was probably what happened this year — I had the opportunity to take my daughter’s girlfriend to her first Pride event and just it made me so happy.