Beth Pollak, Founder of Livotte London
Name: Beth Pollak
Founder: Livotte London
Who is Beth Pollak?
Delphine and I are fashion veterans for the last twenty plus years. Having worked for Conde Nast, Barneys New York, Joes Jeans, Gucci Group and Carolina Herrara to name a few. We met in London when our daughters were born and found a need in the market for elevated t-shirts to wear with our denim and designer pieces.
In less than three sentences tell us about your company and what you do.
Livotte London is the t-shirt...elevated. We have turned the basic tee into a luxury wardrobe staple that can be paired effortlessly with a woman's favourite pieces in her wardrobe. Our tees work day to evening and workday to weekend. Our entire collection is sustainably made in England, tested to 200 machine washes and shipped worldwide through our website and through various independent retailers.
What does BEING a FoundHer mean to you?
Our company is female focused and we believe it means being a leader and constantly thinking about how we can make the lives of our customers easier and creating the best possible experience for her. We have celebrated women from day one! We truly believe in the power of networking and that her success is not your failure. Delphine and I think it's so important to lift one another and support each other in business and in life.
How do you support other female founders and women in business?
We host female led events regularly and feature women in business weekly on our Instagram in a Women We Love campaign. In addition we support numerous charities which center around women's health and wellbeing by giving a percentage of sales.
At what point did you make your company a full time gig? How did you know the time was right?
We launched our company as a full time gig after taking time to start our families. It was important for us to create a work/life balance through a meaningful project.
What lesson or skill did you take with you from a prior job to help you succeed in your role today?
So many. We both worked in fashion for twenty years. Delphine had a lot of PR and event production experience and I had a lot of editorial and wholesale experience so it was a good match. However neither of us had a lot of experience within manufacturing so we've learned a lot along the way!
Let’s talk social media—who handles it for your company (you, an internal team member, an outsourced solution?) and what is the secret to making it successful? What is the biggest challenge?
We do! We are a team of two and we do it all ourselves. In the beginning we doubted ourselves and outsourced it and quickly realised only we have our voice and brought it right back in house. The secret to making it successful is authenticity. The biggest challenge is that it's not a fair playing field when there are people out there buying followers and other hustling and building their brand organically
How did you land your first client?
We had a small launch event in London and invited everyone we knew and also sent out an email to all of our friends and family around the world. For a long time our customers were people we knew and to this day, a lot are word of mouth.
What is something you do differently from the industry standard?
Good American customer service is at our core. Our customer is everyone to us as many are repeat!
We are also community builders, we empower other women in business while also focusing on our own business/sales. We love inspire our community with the success of other women in business.
Did you raise capital? What was the process and avenue you chose to take?
We are 100% self funded.
What would you do differently if you were starting your business today?
We don't think we would do anything differently as every experience in the journey has taught us a skill to move forward. However, we think we were naive in the beginning on what it takes to market a DTC brand in the minefield of social media.
What are three strategies you use to market your business, grow brand awareness and generate bottom line growth?
1. Ensure a great customer experience on our website, we are always making tweaks to improve her journey.
2. Cross marketing with other women in business through events, charities, and collaborations.
3. Email marketing with a streamlined focus on product and promotions.
What was an obstacle you overcame to get your business where it is today? Please share the story behind it.
To start we were at a tiny factory in London which specialised in sample making. We were able to iron out any kinks in design with little risk. Once we had a core assortment, we were able to scale at a larger local factory and commit to higher volumes.
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