By Tomio Geron (Writer, Forbes)
The founders of Snapette are not your prototypical start-up entrepreneurs. At least in the minds of some Silicon Valley venture capitalists.
The two founders, Jinhee Anh Kim and Sarah Paiji, are not prototypical young, male engineers from Silicon Valley. They’re women with business backgrounds from the East Coast and other parts outside the Valley. But that’s a plus according to those who did invest in the company’s $1.3 million seed round. Investors include Brian Lee, founder and CEO of Shoedazzle.
The company previously went through Dave McClure’s 500 Startups incubator program. (See my previous story here.)
“I think for a lot of (VCs), they heard the words: fashion, shoes and handbags, and just didn’t hear beyond that,” says Jinhee Anh Kim, co-founder of Snapette. “They say, ‘We’ll have my wife or girlfriend check this out.’ But for the ones that did understand, they hear beyond fashion and they’re not turned off and then they understand the underlying product behind it.”
A number of Snapette’s investors turned out to be female, though there were male investors as well. At the same time, many fashion-focused tech start-ups are founded by men, which puts Snapette at an advantage, says Sarah Paiji, co-founder of Snapette.
» Read the full post at Forbes.