A tale of three retailers, and a former actress who built a personality-based meditation tool
Hi friends 👋,
First things first: Introducing - human parking spots.
In this newsletter, I cover fun, digestible retail news, spotlight innovative DTC founders, and dive into interesting consumer trends.
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At a glance
🥀 Bye bye bye. J.C. Penney filed for bankruptcy, closing more than 200 stores.
🛍️ Meanwhile, TJ Maxx drew long lines and big crowds after re-opening in some states.
🇸🇪 And IKEA is looking to build its own malls in the U.S. “It’s more a buyers’ market than a sellers’ market currently in the U.S.,” they said.
🐥 In addition to making bread and stockpiling on sweatpants, Americans panic buy baby chicks. PSA: You don’t get eggs right away.
Spotlight - Nina from Hello Iris
Our main story today is about Nina Iordanova, the founder of Hello Iris, which provides guided meditation based on personality profiles. You’ll hear:
How she pivoted from her original idea to what it is today
The biggest challenges she’s facing right now
Her tips on staying mindful in these uncertain times
Nina, take us from here.
💡 Pivots
I was an actress and did film and TV for 6 years. I originally wanted to build a dating app: I thought dating would be a way to meaningfully connect with other people, but instead, I found the process unfulfilling and frustrating.
My co-founder Niloo and I decided to build an AI matchmaker that would make matches based on personality compatibility.
That idea is what got us into the Techstars Montreal AI program last fall.
As we went through the program, though, we realized that a dating app wasn’t the best way to achieve our goal of helping people have more meaningful relationships.
We were also seeing that in the way our beta testers were responding to the personality profiles - they were just as excited about that as about the dating part!
So we started looking for other ways to approach this idea of meaningful connections.
We found that the mindfulness space is a great fit, and we are excited about going with the direct-to-consumer route.
💦 Biggest Challenges
There are so many. The biggest challenges right now are hiring and iterating based on feedback.
I've never hired before; how do I write a job description, how do you interview? As an entrepreneur, I’m always stepping into unfamiliar territory and learning on the go.
The other challenge is, how to filter feedback and keep on iterating? We are now hiring someone to help us collect and analyze usage data to iterate toward product/market fit.
🙏 How to stay mindful
I have three tips to share:
Make and keep 1 small promise to yourself every day.
Change a routine.
Pay attention to where your body is holding tension. Use your breath to release it.
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We’ll delve deeper into Nina’s story on Instagram Live this Thursday at 1pm ET. Join our conversation by visiting our Insta pages @storey.line or @helloiris!
Looking Back
💡We had a great chat with Kate, Founder of Ensembl, on Instagram Live a couple of weeks ago. Watch a replay of our conversation.
🥳 Our post on Sustainability from last week blew up and started trending on LinkedIn.
At StoreyLine, our mission is to empower mission-driven, daring brands to tell their inspiring stories and empower consumers to discover and connect with these brands both online and in real life.
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