We recently connected with Tuana Schumacher and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Tuana, thanks for joining us today. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?
Being a fashion social media influencer for many years, I dreamed to start my own brand one day. That day came this year, by launching TUAROD, as many of my followers asked me why I wouldn’t start. So I made a few sketches, bought our very first straight stitch, cover stitch and overlock sewing machines, and with locally purchased fabrics, we created the first samples. We then decided to scale it up and included a whole range of industrial machines, personnel and set up a professional website and other online selling points. We are now looking into opening a brick and mortar location here in Miami, for ladies only ;-)
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
After moving to the USA, we recognized that the clothing and apparel market here primarily offers fast fashion items from abroad. What we try to achieve, is to deliver high quality but affordable clothing and apparel to the women in the great USA. We work hard to find the best material and fabrics, to locally produce beautiful, sustainable and affordable pieces.
How’d you meet your business partner?
My business partner is also my life partner: my husband, who I met 22 years ago. With my husband being a mechanical engineer, we merge fashion with engineering to create some really stunning pieces.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
The lesson I had to unlearn, is to be afraid of risks while running the business. It is very scary to make significant spendings for machinery, personnel, material and marketing, especially in the first few months, where potential customers do not know you, and are hesitant to buying from you. And even though we made all our contact and official business details openly available on our online sale channels, it takes hard work and dedication to gain customers’ trust. But fortunately I took the risk, and a beautiful, honest, clean running company is now established.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://tuarod.com
- Instagram: tuarod.official
- Facebook: tuarod.official
