The fashion industry is the world’s second largest producer of greenhouse gases and environmental pollutants, behind only the oil and gas industry. It’s also rife with waste and excess, having already produced enough apparel to clothe the next six generations.
Now, two recent Stanford graduates are trying to make fashion more sustainable by improving the secondhand shopping experience.
On Thursday, Phoebe Gates, 22, and Sophia Kianni, 23, launched Phia, an app and desktop tool that aggregates secondhand and retail shopping options from across the internet.
“It’s like ‘Google Flights’ for fashion,” Kianni told me. “Phia finds you the best price in one click … and allows you to really easily price compare.”
She added, “How do you know that you’re not getting scammed? How do you know it’s actually the best price possible? We built the tool that we wish had existed back when we were in college,”
While the pair only recently graduated from Stanford, they already have more accolades than many people twice their age. Kianni is founder of the world’s largest youth-led climate nonprofit, Climate Cardinals, and is the youngest United Nations advisor. Gates interned at British Vogue and has become a notable voice in reproductive rights — speaking at events such as Global Citizen and being named the Reproductive Freedom for All’s Champion of the Year last year. She is also the daughter of Bill and Melinda Gates.
While Phia is their first priority — they were up with their team until 3 a.m. working out bugs the night before our interview — they’re not just trying to change the way people shop, they’re also trying to be more transparent about the founder experience.
In early April, they launched “The Burnouts,” a podcast on “Call Her Daddy” founder Alex Cooper’s Unwell Network that chronicles their entrepreneurial experiences.
“We really felt that there was a huge white space in the market … When you look at Founder Podcasts, it’s always experts who’ve sold their companies, who’ve achieved all this,” Gates told me. “But I wanted someone who was just starting out, who was a noob, asking all the questions that everyone else felt were too dumb to ask.”
She added, “One thing for us that’s been really important is shedding some light on what the founder experience is actually like.”
Listening to episodes of “The Burnouts” (a title many of us can relate to) is less “How I Built This” and more how in the world do I build this?!
In the first episode, Gates and Kianni tell guest Kris Jenner about some of their failed business ideas, including a bluetooth tampon, and some of their hacks, such as creating a fake assistant to give them more credibility.
While the podcast reveals the challenges and realities of starting something new, it’s also been launched on a platform with over 34 million listeners — many of whom are young women in Phia’s target demographic. Talking about themselves is good promotion for the fashion app.
“A really critical piece of marketing is this founder-led growth and pulling back the curtain on what it’s like to be a founder and to learn,” Gates said.
Understanding what they’re best suited for, has been key.
“We had all these ideas in these different industries that are fascinating, but it really was this question of are we the right people to build this thing? I remember one thing we discussed was electric cruise ships for shipping … But are we the right people to build that?,” Gates said.
She added, “This entire industry of fashion tech is fascinating to me. Women are spending a huge amount of money on shopping, and the fact we’re not delivering a personalized experience to them that’s good for their wallets and the world is crazy to me.”
While Gates has nothing but appreciation for her family, she is focused on making her own name in the tech world — and far more eager to talk about her own work than her family’s.
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When raising funding for Phia, she didn’t look to her parents. (The cap table is private, but Kris Jenner revealed she is on it).
“We don’t want this to be something that’s funded by my family — we want this to be a real company,” Gates told me. “That’s really important for us … while I have a ton of privilege coming from my family, it’s about having a product that stands on its own.”
Growing up, it was always clear that she would make her own way.
“Seeing the example that my parents led with the foundation and their own work has been an incredible example to me,” she said. “There was never an expectation that we were gonna not work the rest of our lives.”
Earlier this month, her father very pointedly said that he isn’t trying to turn his family into a dynasty. Perhaps that is why Gates and Kianni are seeking to build theirs.
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