We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Garik Himebaugh a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Garik, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear from you about what you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry and why it matters.

The main thing Corporate America gets wrong about fashion is the same thing it gets wrong about business in general, and that is that the purpose of business is to maximize profits, or “shareholder value.” The consequences of getting this wrong are far reaching and extremely problematic.

This is the reason so many fashion brands today have embraced the fast fashion business model. If you can sell cheap trendy clothes, and convince consumers that their clothing is disposable (that’s right, they want you to throw away your clothes) then you can basically convince consumers to shop for clothes all the time, all year long. Fashion used to have 2 seasons a year, but in the quest for infinite profits the industry has embraced this position of trying to sell people things they don’t need, all the time.

The consequences of this are an industry where over 50% of new clothes end up in a landfill in less than one year, 60% of new clothes are fossil fuel based fabrics like polyester, and less than 5% of clothing makers earn a living wage.

When you instead take the stakeholder theory of capitalism, which we’re a fan of, it considers all the stakeholders of a business: the clothing makers, the cotton farmers, the planet, the wellbeing of consumers, and it envisions a business that benefits them all.

And that’s why we exist. We’re really inspired by the fashion brands that say “hey, you can slow down, you don’t have to buy clothes all the time.” And the brands that pay clothing makers a living wage, use more sustainable fabrics, and work hard to reduce their environmental footprint.

We help people find and support those brands, by shopping for fashion they’ll love for many years to come.

Garik, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I ended up working in fashion by accident really. About 7 years ago I started graduate school, going for my MBA at the University of Iowa.

But my longterm goal was to start a business. So one weekend, there was a Startup Weekend event on campus, where like it sounds, you try to build a startup in a weekend.

The theme was fashion, and I thought “oh, I love fashion.” I developed a personal interest in fashion when I was 25 and realized the power of clothes to help express ourselves and improve confidence. But I never thought I’d work in fashion.

I won that event and was on my way building a startup that was working on solving the problem of helping men shop for clothes online. I was doing this with a personalised shopping experience delivered via chatbot.

That’s when I stumbled into ethical fashion. Exploring Boston one weekend in the summer, I encountered a brand that pays all of their shoemakers a living wage. I bought a pair of boots on the spot, but more importantly I started asking questions..

Questions like why aren’t all clothes made this way? Why can’t I shop entire outfits only from brands like this?

So 5 years ago I pivoted my startup and Eco-Stylist was born. We help you dress like you give a damn.

Today, Eco-Stylist is the trusted go-to resource to discover and shop sustainable clothes. We have a brand directory of 100+ certified brands, a marketplace of 1,500+ items, and a blog with shopping guides and educational content.

Eco-Stylist’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable clothing by cultivating a community of brands you can trust.

One thing we’re really proud of is having our content reach over a million people. As a bootstrapped startup that’s pretty exciting, but it’s also just the beginning.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

5 years ago when I started we were pretty early in the sustainable clothing space. Going through my first startup accelerator, I remember I would pitch Eco-Stylist to a room full of people and judges, and then receive feedback from judges, again and again, that “no one cares about sustainability” and “no one wants to buy sustainable clothing.”

Looking back it’s pretty funny because people don’t say things like that anymore, it’s obvious now that people do care. But when you’re an innovator and you’re early onto an idea that’s not widespread, people will doubt you.

And if I had let their opinions shape me, I would have stopped. But I learned a really important lesson from that experience, and that is to trust yourself.

Feedback is important, and you can often learn a lot from judges and other people, but ultimately you have to decide what information is useful and how to use it. If you’ve spent time in a space, if you’ve talked to many users or customers, then you have to factor all of that into your decision making.

In my case I had people telling me my idea was trash, but I also had evidence from talking to hundreds of people and spending time in sustainability focused communities, that people did care. So I learned to trust myself.

Have you ever had to pivot?

We’ve had many pivots at Eco-Stylist. We started with a sustainable version of a personalised shopping experience delivered via chatbot. Then we ditched that and built out a website, started a blog, added a brand directory, offered a premium 1-1 personal styling experience, added a shop, and did virtual personal styling.

Today, you’ll notice we don’t do a lot of the things I just mentioned, but some of them we still do. We’ve made some pivots.

But we’ve never lost sight of our users along the way. We’re as passionate as ever about helping people cut through the noise and shop sustainable fashion. And we aim to make that the best and easiest experience possible.

I think pivoting is part of the game, and we need to be open to continually learning and growing.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.eco-stylist.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yourecostylist/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yourecostylist/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/yourecostylist
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpUm09c6JQewi2LXsnd3rlw