Episode 011 – Breaking the Rules to Design a Better Bra with Wherewithal

Today on The Heart-led Brand Podcast, we’re chatting with Danielle Rushton of Wherewithal!

Wherewithal is a woman's intimate apparel company that is redefining the bras and bra sizing for women in the 21st century. Their patented bra design allows women to personalize their bra size at any moment, while making Wherewithal the most size inclusive bra company to-date, with less than 2 years in-market.

Their founder, Danielle, is a self-taught designer, a mental health advocate, and passionate about connecting with women through foundational pieces that allow them the confidence and all day support they need to create the lives they want to live.

Episode Highlights:

How Danielle came up with her innovative, patented bra design and started Wherewithal:

“I wear a lot of off the shoulder because there's no cleavage, but you still get to show a little collarbone action. So that's how I felt most feminine, I think. So that meant I was wearing my strapless bra a lot, which meant it was falling down every five seconds. And I kind of reverse engineered in my head. ‘Well, why do I hate strapless bras? I hate them because they fall down. And why do they fall down? Because without shoulder straps, we lose support of our upper bust. Gravity, you know, every step you take, it's going to start shifting down.’

And so I thought if there was something that could anchor the upper bust that we could adjust and secure, so we knew it felt like it would stay and then just reinforce it underneath. So it kind of looks like a band, but you have these adjustable elements. I think that would work.

And so I chopped up two of my bras and sewed them together. And this is my “Franken-bra” that I literally just made for myself. Nobody was going to see this thing! It was just going to be a little like secret weapon to wear my off the shoulder dresses and things. And then oddly enough, the next day, a podcast I listened to was talking about five things men must have created because they're awful and number five was a strapless bra and I was like, ‘Wait a second… do w e all hate our bras or is it not just a me thing?’

That podcast had a Facebook group at the time too. So I posted in that group and asked if we all hated our bras because I think I might have an idea and 300 women commented on that post! And I was like, ‘Okay, well now it's a responsibility to bring this to the world for everyone else.’”

On her journey through creating prototypes and finding a manufacturer during COVID:

“I would say the first three years was me just going in blind, like, turning over rocks, trying to figure out how to do anything with this. I did a little bit of research and there's something called Makers Row. That's basically like a matching site for people with ideas and manufacturers and product developers and things like that. So I connected with someone in New York City who helped get my first couple prototypes off the ground, but it was still nowhere near where it is now.

So then after that I looked for people in Miami and LA and joined a lot of the incubators and accelerators here in Tampa locally. And through that network, one of our advisors actually introduced us to my now chief product officer. So she had been in the industry for 20 plus years and through her network, we found a technical designer. But before that we were at 15+ different prototypes, probably.

Then we fundraised just enough right before COVID to hire a consultant, I think in February of 2020. And then the world shut down right after we hired our technical designer.

And I mean, building a business in a pandemic is so hard. But one silver lining of it all was so many big brands were pulling out of these manufacturers because nobody knew what was going to happen. So all these manufacturers who wouldn't have given us time of day prior, now suddenly had some availability to allow us to really re-engineer the [bra] sizing system.”

How Wherewithal’s adjustable band design helps them offer more inclusive sizing AND reduce waste:

“Bra sizing from brand to brand is very inconsistent, even within the same brand. But they all have that formula of a hook and eye closure and a cup. So we had to literally break all of those rules for these people who've been doing it that way a hundred plus years. Since [we have] that adjustability, one of our bras is equivalent to three traditional sizes.

We have 31 Wherewithal sizes, which is equivalent to 93 traditional bra sizes. So we offer a huge range. And we can be more size inclusive while being more sustainable. And sustainable is a tricky word depending on who you ask, but to me, sustainable means longer lasting and something that produces less waste.

So, just by design, we reduce waste by 66 percent and we can still be more size inclusive. And this adjusts with you and with your body. So it should last you longer.”

Danielle’s advice when pitching your product to investors:

“You just have to keep talking to people until you find the right people who it resonates with. There's no magic way to get the people who understand. It's by going through a lot of people who don't and you just have to keep going.

There were two quotes that got me through earlier on: ‘If you hear no, you're talking to the wrong person’ and ‘The walls are there to keep out the people who don't want it bad enough.’

And so that always kind of resonated with me as a founder building something against this huge industry. Time is of the essence and I think, you know, all these people might get to it before me. But if you're building a product and you have a provisional patent, you've like protected the product itself… Luckily, there was a sense of discernment from somewhere that I knew the right steps to take to build the barriers around me while I was trying to find those people.

It took a long time for the people to build the bridge between [the initial prototype and the final product] and this also definitely scared a lot of like potential investors. Even with the prototypes in between, they would be like, ‘Okay… good luck.’

It's always a bummer when that happens, but if you have the burning passion inside of yourself, and then you also have done enough market research and talking to people… I used Instagram polls all the time back in 2018 to make sure that people liked this [idea]. I got over 200 votes on pretty much everything, and so leverage the tools that can help you with the research and the proof that this is needed. Because as long as you have the customer market research and proof there, and then you are refining your skills of whatever you're trying to build so you can get it to a place where a technical person can actually take it and build it, um, you're doing all the right things and you will find the people as soon as you're meant to.

Sometimes I feel like I'm still looking for the right people because we're still so small. But it's like the little wins along the way always, always keep you like moving forward.”

Follow Wherewithal on ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Tiktok⁠⁠

Shop their bras: ⁠⁠shopwherewithal.com/⁠