How This Founder Raised Venture Capital -- Before She Built Her Debut Product
Interior designer Nicole Gibbons knew she could create a better interior paint brand. She also knew she couldn't bootstrap the process.
As an interior designer, Nicole Gibbons was used to friends asking for decorating advice. And in 2016, one needed help selecting paint, so Gibbons consulted a well-regarded website -- and found it impossible to navigate. The lightbulb went off: She could create a direct-to-consumer paint brand that offered a curated range of colors, an algorithm to point business was already a full-time job, so Gibbons didn’t move forward until, she says, “I woke up on New Year’s Day 2017 and was like, .” Here’s how she went on to build , before she ever had a product to sell.
