Her Story
About Caroline
I spent a decade working in fashion buying and merchandising, witnessing firsthand how the industry changed tremendously as e-commerce evolved from barely being a thing to transforming the entire landscape. I knew that getting involved in consumer apps around fashion search was an opportunity for the taking, and I've always known I was born to be an entrepreneur. I've worked at organizations of all types, from startups to super corporate environments, but working for myself makes me most happy. Three years ago, I founded Cloud Closet, a social commerce platform for outfits where users upload their looks, organize them, and get product recommendations based on their existing wardrobe. We launched in the App Store about 4 or 5 months ago and already have 2,000 users, growing really quickly and very popular amongst college students. I've been traveling around the country over the past couple months, visiting colleges, sororities, business clubs, and Women in Entrepreneur Clubs, sharing my story and serving as a resource for students who message me constantly for help. I love my team so much, and I find it incredibly rewarding to connect with these young women, learning from them even though I'm only 10 or 15 years older. My dream is that within the next 3 to 6 months we're net positive on the revenue side so I can pay myself and my team, and long-term, I want to start a fund for women, invest in women for the rest of my life, do programs, speak at schools, start scholarship funds, and help change the life for women moving forward.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Caroline
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to putting myself out there and just trying. For me, it's more of a failure if I don't try, versus trying and failing. That's kind of the quote of my life: if I don't try, I'm worse off. Everything you want is on the other side of fear, and I'm still working through that. I haven't aced the case on that yet. But you have to get up, keep trying, and just ask. No one's gonna give you anything, no one can read your mind, no one knows what you want. You have to create your own trajectory and destiny, in many cases. And in general, I'm most proud of my resilience. I just always pick myself up. That's the thorough line. And my relationships, my ability to network and connect with super quality people that helps to bring me closer to who I want to be.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
My advice to young women would be: believe. Believe that you can and you will. And point two, probably what you thought was gonna happen won't. That's everything in life, I find. I just got married a few weeks ago, and it's nothing of what I thought in terms of where I would be living, who my partner exactly would be, but all of those things fell together. I couldn't even be doing my business without my husband, he's my immense support. So many young women just don't even get started because they think they can't. And because startups are just so different from corporate, some will just get out and start, and part of me wants to be like, just get a little bit more experience actually on the earth and working in environments around people. It doesn't matter how smart you are or whatever school you went to, just work and enjoy that. There's nothing wrong with that. You don't have to start something to prove you're worthy. There's other ways you can do that for long-term wealth. But I think, try, get as much experience or research as you can, and network, network, network.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
It's crowded out there. We raised a little bit of money for the business, but we didn't have these flashy raises, and Bill Gates' daughter is in my field spending all this money on PR. The culture's gonna change, and my product, our product, is very cultural. It's all based on what's happening in this moment and what people want right now. We're building in a world that is de-influencing, where we have influencer fatigue, so we built a product with AI everywhere that's about real people instead.
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