Each week, Her.ie will be bringing you the personal thoughts and tips from Irish entrepreneur Sonya Lennon - fashion stylist and co-founder of frockadvisor.
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Week 1 - 'The Rollercoaster'
My name is Sonya Lennon, I’m 45 years old, I’m a mother of twins and partner to a very talented, long suffering graphic Designer called David Smith.
My life has never been particularly straightforward, I have been, and still am, a freelance stylist for over two decades. However, in the last two years, together with my business partner Brendan Courtney, I’ve launched a clothing brand, Lennon Courtney, which now sells into 28 retailers and exports to the UK.
We also launched frockadvisor, a fashion tech start-up, which has been granted high potential start-up by Enterprise Ireland. This means that they believe we can either turnover in excess of one million euro or employ in excess of 10 people, or both.
frockadvisor connects independent fashion boutiques with their customers through a mobile app, allowing them to deliver excellent customer service straight into the hands of the people that love them. It is a brilliant product with huge potential to become a global proposition and we are immersed in a world that is scary, high risk and massively demanding. I no longer have disposable income to swathe myself in beautiful things, but frankly, I have never been so excited about anything in my (business) life.
I can honestly say that my learning curve probably hasn’t been so steep since I was two. I now dream in strategy and apparently mumble about customer acquisition in my sleep. This week I have conversed with a Swiss Investor, a Hungarian growth hacker and the CEO of a tech business that has just been funded with £300m, all of whom are extremely interested in what we do.
Up until recently I expressed my creativity through fashion styling. I now know that building a business, which becomes a living thing, with many moving parts, is a wonderful form of creativity. Every day is a new day, with new opportunities and new challenges. The most common description of start-up is ‘rollercoaster’.
This is the beginning of my blog about building frockadvisor. Jump on, strap in and enjoy the ride.
Sonya Lennon
Founder, frockadvisor
