'I thought I wasn't up to it. I was fresh out of college and I'm not a big fashionista'

But the chance to build her own clothing business was too good for this young entrepreneur to pass up.

By Malindi Demery Co-founder, Malena

I GRADUATED FROM college in 2014 having studied business at IADT in Dún Laoghaire. I always had a keen interest in marketing but wasn’t usually too keen on numbers or accounting.

When I finished the course, all I wanted was to get a job and some life experience, then maybe look into doing my own business down the line – but not straight away. I think I secretly wanted the safety net of working for someone else for a while.

I was going to start like any other college graduate does, by sending out CVs. However, one of my good friends, Colman Hourihan, got approached by the Freddy clothing brand to be the distributor for Ireland.

He suggested to me that I should give it a go as he specialises in a slightly different market segment and was convinced it had to be driven by someone young.

I said no at first. I thought it simply wasn’t something I was up to. I was fresh out of college and I’m not a big fashionista.

I was apprehensive because I’d never done fashion before or anything like setting up a business, but I got the samples sent over and it clicked with me straight away, mainly because the products were so comfortable.

In the end, I mainly decided to take the leap because I saw the potential for Freddy jeans to take off in Ireland, and I felt like I would kick myself if I passed up on the opportunity.

Marketing

I set up the business with my sister, Elena, in our house in Blackrock, and we had no idea where to start. From company registration to sorting out all the tax and getting an accountant, I had no idea what was the first step.

When it came to marketing the business, we just began showing off the products to shops and got into eight retailers straight away. But we did come across some stores that weren’t so convinced.

Malena
Source: Malena

The easiest way to market the product to people, I’ve found, is to let them try on the jeans. Once they see how comfy they are, they’re usually sold.

After we got our first few shops on board, we launched the website in September using the Shopify platform to build our own marketplace online. Then I got to do what I loved to do – market the product.

It was amazing to build momentum behind the business, because we can show off how genuinely happy customers are with the product and build up a huge amount of testimonials organically.

We have gotten so many emails from celebrities and bloggers looking to wear our products and I was unaware of how uncommon this is in the fashion industry. Usually companies like us have to go out and ask the rich and famous to wear our brand, but it was the complete opposite.

Our success marketing the pants did lead to one issue though: we ran out of stock quite quickly. It is a good problem to have, but I don’t like letting customers down by not having their sizes in stock.

To keep our shelves full, you have to order six months in advance. So, initially we didn’t order a lot, but once we sold out we ordered more stock in for the next season. Then all that sold out.

We were constantly left with low numbers of stock and for the last two months I have been out of all my bestsellers. It’s so hard to predict how much we will need season on season.

But as I said, if that’s our worst problem, things aren’t going too badly. It has only been 18 months and we’re in 50 shops in Ireland and in about 10 in Northern Ireland and want to provide more to UK stores.

I think the next step for us is to open up our own stores, because I believe a Freddy pants store would do very well. I have my eyes on opening in a location just off Grafton Street in Dublin and in the Chelsea area of London.

Sister, sister

It has been great to start this business with my sister, and it has been nice to have someone to share this journey with rather than doing it all on my own.

She’s younger than me (21) and, just like myself, she has thrown herself into the business. All of her friends go away for the whole summer, like most college students do, and instead she stays in Ireland to work full-time in the company.

Even during the college year, she works on the business before college, after college and even between classes when she has breaks. It was quite difficult at the start for me because I was the only one at it full time, and it felt like there was more pressure on me to make it work.

We’re a great team. We work together, live together, go to the gym together and are very honest with one another when it comes to the business. Not every entrepreneur has that. Since we’re family, we can lay it all out on the table when needs be so there’s no hard feelings.

But as an entrepreneur, it is hard to switch off. That’s the negative to working for yourself. I have my email on my phone and I am always tempted to check it at the weekend when I should be trying to relax.

Since we have moved from the house to an actual office, it has helped me to switch off, but I honestly never really do. My sister is the same. We’re just really hungry to work on the business and don’t want to take our eye off the ball.

However, it’s not all negative. I love this life, because I get to build up a business from scratch. Also, being my own boss, I like being able to take the odd half day, but my favourite thing about being an entrepreneur is going on Instagram and seeing people tag our products in their posts.

I love seeing how much our customers love our products. It’s hard to quantify or put into words how meaningful that positive feedback is to me. All I can say is that it really keeps you going.

Malindi Demery is the ‎co-founder of Malena, which distributes Freddy jeans in Ireland and the UK. This article was written in conversation with Killian Woods as part of a series on unlikely entrepreneurs.

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