Contrapreneur

Creating Handyma'am, A Women's Workwear Company, with Founder Bella Weinstein — EP 7

Episode Summary

Handyma’am was born in 2014 when Bella found herself underwhelmed with the selection of well-made, durable clothing for women in the marketplace. Working as a hairstylist, with a ton of hands-on hobbies—woodworking, riding motorcycles, tearing down walls and building new ones—Bella needed workwear that could fit with her can’t-sit-still lifestyle. So she got hands-on and made her own! Bella had no background in design or fashion, but she found the resources she needed to create a technical, super-durable women’s workwear piece. Bella’s story is something else. We talk in detail about using kickstarter to launch a business, then & now. Bella shares her vision for slow, quality product-focused growth, talks about the challenges of producing clothing in America and shares what she’s learned about business and herself through her work with Handyma’am.

Episode Notes

In This Episode We Talk About:

• The workwear Handyma’am creates
• Function comes first for Handyma’am goods but form is very important too
• Bella’s background has nothing to do with clothing business
• Handyma’am came from Bella’s need for clothing that could keep up with her active hands-on lifestyle
• Learning new things with grit and drive
• Didn’t want to go through the effort of making just one jumpsuit, so a business was born
• The spark for Handyma’am came from a passion for collecting jumpsuits
• Bella was already called Handyma’am by her roommates and this is where her name came from
• Starting a business with Kickstarter
• Designing the Kickstarter to enrich rather than just raise money for her coverall production
• The financial reality of expanding sizing and perfecting fit
• Word spread rapidly through friends and family because she already had a small run of coveralls in circulation for about 1.5 years before her kickstarter
• Products designed for longevity and working on a repair aspect of the business
• Learning that delegating is a weakness and overcoming it
• Collaborations with other handyma’am business owners to lift everybody up - finds collaborations more interesting than always focusing on releasing new products
• Mental health, success & business
• Being okay with slow growth
• Using instagram to sell in the changing time of instagram
• Elevating women who support Handyma’am as what they want to be seen as
• Exercise as a form of self care

Resources:
Contrapreneur Secret Facebook Group

Handymaamgoods.com use code contrapreneur for 10% off

Support the creation of Contrapreneur through our Patreon.

Contrapreneur Newsletter

Follow Contrapreneur on Instagram!

SarahDanu.com](https://sarahdanu.com/)