Claude Aldridge Talks about Trellie -- a Women's Wearable Tech Lifestyle Brand
How did you start the company?
The company was formed when
longtime friends, and now cofounders, realized their families shared a common
problem…important missed calls. After realizing they weren’t the only ones,
they set out to do something about it. When they came across some Nokia
research that said women miss 50% of their calls because there phone is buried
in their purse, the light bulb went off.
What was the most challenging
aspect of starting up?
That point where your heart and
mind are 100% focused on building a company and successful solution but you
haven’t fully transitioned out of your other obligations.
What is your company’s mission?
Trellie is a Women's
Wearable Tech Lifestyle Brand that enables women to simplify and
prioritize their busy lives. Through wearable technology and elegant design,
Trellie seamlessly empowers women to filter out the noise and focus on what
is important in their lives.
What need does it fulfill?
Trellie solves two main needs. Wearable
technology was invented because the mobile phone is not a very practical user
interface. We want to be connected to people and things that are important to
us but it is simply not realistic to carry our mobile phone around in our hand
in order to stay alert. Wearable tech bridges this gap of our reliance on the
power of the mobile phone with the stylish, practicality of technology that
subtly fits into your active lifestyle. Secondarily, in this day and age, we
are inundated with emails, texts, social, calls, etc. to the point where we
need a way to filter out the noise and refocus on what’s important.
What is the next step for your
company?
We are deep in R&D on our
second product which is taking all of the learnings of our first product and
baking them into a complete redesign that is sleeker, smaller and not just for
the handbag.
What are your core three values:
- Women’s wants
in technology (very different than men) have historically been overlooked
in product design.
- Wearable
technology is the first true opportunity to marry fashion with tech in a
practical, feasible way.
- Staying true
to our female target market will help us differentiate and allow us to
build “the” lifestyle brand for womens’ wearable technology.
What advice do you have for
entrepreneurs today?
Just keep pushing forward. By
doing this, opportunities that you never could have imagined will magically
present themselves. Capitalizing on the right ones is what will separate the
successes from the failures.
What resource have you found to be
the most helpful and why?
Our advisory group and investors have been immensely
helpful. Besides the early capital support, the opportunities that they have
helped create for Trellie are amazing. The knowledge and experience is
invaluable but pales in comparison to the strong encouragement they consistently
provide.
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