By Justin Reyes
In early 2008, Sarah Coronado was determined to build a business of her own. As a product manager, Sarah was all familiar with the wave of software startups springing up all across Silicon Valley.
In her attempt to build a viable software product, she came up short. Even with her software background, Sarah was unable to find a product/market fit for any of the products she wanted to build.
Undeterred, Sarah continued validating to find the business that she could call her own. The opportunity came along after a frustrating experience shopping for denim. It started when she went on a search for a pair of jeans that fit after her pregnancy. After many long hours walking around in the mall, Sarah was unable to find denim jeans that were tailored to fit her petite size. This frustration made Sarah realize that there was a market for a flattering petite premium jean.
After doing initial research, she was surprised that 5’6 was considered petite in the industry, despite the fact 50-70 million women are under 5’4. On top of that, she saw the landscape changing between branding and social media. It was then that Sarah knew she was onto something and decided to take the plunge.
In a few months, “Lotus Premium Denim” was launched.
Finally, petite women could find a jean that didn’t need alteration, tailored specifically to their petite proportions. Although she was a risk taker at heart, Sarah didn’t want to make any more costly mistakes that would waste time and money. So, she decided to sign up for Femgineer’s “Lean Product Development” course.
After hearing Poornima’s experience about Mint.com at a “Women 2.0” workshop, and her instruction on scrappy marketing at “General Assembly”, Sarah without any hesistation immediately signed up for the course when she saw it was being offered.
As a student in the course, Sarah was impressed that the course did not just solely focus on product development but other aspects as well such as customer development and marketing.
[quote author=”Sarah Coronado”]Poornima taught us to build a product roadmap, which gave us a month by month picture of our objectives to help us execute better. After doing this I was not too overwhelmed with the task at hand…It’s something I’m definitely going to implement for Lotus kickstarter campaign.[/quote]
Besides the lectures, Sarah found the supportive community and feedback from other students during the lab particularly helpful. In addition to the supportive community of other entrepreneurs and software developers, students were able to receive 1-1 time and mentorship with Poornima.
[quote author=”Sarah Coronado”]For me delegation has alway been hard, but Poornima said that unless I delegate I was going to to be burnt out leaving no room to motivate or provide leadership to the rest of my team.[/quote]
Since the “Lean Product Development” course, Lotus Premium Denim has a growing list of online orders. It has even caught the eye of Levi’s creative director, Stefano Aldighieri who offered Sarah a contact to assist in the manufacturing process.
As of now, Sarah is looking forward to launching Lotus Premium Denim’s Kickstarter campaign and is currently organizing trunk shows and working to partner with retailers and boutiques with similar alignment.
She attributes many of her early success to Poornima’s guidance and the “Lean Product Development” course.
[quote author=”Sarah Coronado”]If you want a cheat sheet to building a company the right way, Femgineer’s Lean Product Development course is the best investment. Poornima will show you what to avoid and really hone down on your idea, so that it is both marketable and viable.[/quote]
If you’re trying to build an online business like Sarah and want to know how to reach out to customers and create a marketing campaign, then apply to attend the next iteration of Femgineer’s Lean Product Development course!
