674: From $800 to $250M Selling Women's Fashion | Demi Marchese

**Nathan Chan** (0:01)
Hey Foundr fam, before we jump in, I want to take a quick moment to talk about our sponsor Omnisend, the email marketing and SMS platform built specifically for e-commerce founders. We've been recommending Omnisend to Foundr students and members of our platform for a while now, because it just works. So whether you're launching your first store or you're scaling it to seven figures, it really helps you automate your marketing and get results. And did you know, on average, Omnisend customers make $79 for every $1 they spend, which is an insanely good return on investment. And if you're already on another platform, here's the thing. In just five days, you could actually be paying 35% less without doing an absolute thing. Omnisend will move every flow across, list and template. You just show up when it's done. And finally, because you're part of the Foundr community, you get 50% off your first three months with the code Foundr50. Just head to omnisend.com/foundr and that's Foundr without the E to get started. All right, now let's jump in the show.
She started with $800, no investors, no fashion background, just a clothing rack in the back of her car. And today that business has done over $250 million in sales. Today's guest, Demi Marchese, founder of 12th Tribe, the bootstrap fashion brand that's scaled to $50 million a year while staying 100% Foundr owned and profitable. And in this conversation, you're going to learn that Demi made $40,000 in her first 30 days dressing girls for Coachella out of her car and living room and the contrarian strategy she calls living in the group chat that lets her predict what customers want before they know themselves and the micro gifting playbook she used to turn free product into serious revenue at scale. This is an absolute masterclass in building a brand with soul with no money whatsoever.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:52)
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Welcome to The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan.

**Nathan Chan** (2:06)
Hey, I have a quick ask. If you're loving these episodes, leaving a quick review is honestly the best way to support us. It helps the show grow and means we can keep bringing you the Foundr stories and insights you tune in for. Please share it with a friend. Thank you so much. Now let's get into it. Demi, welcome to the show.
You launched 12th Tribe in 2015 with just $800, no outside funding, no prior fashion background. You've grown it to almost $50 million annually, multi eight figures, $250 million in lifetime revenue without taking a single dollar from investors. So what was the specific gap in the market that you saw back then and how did you validate it so cheaply?

**Demi Marchese** (2:48)
Well, I was 23 years old, just graduated from San Diego State and during college I studied abroad. I went to 11 different places and I fell in love with travel. I was like, I need other people to see the world. I just, I love travel. At the time Instagram was not what it was. People, especially our age, were not going outside the country.
At the same time, fashion was something I was so inspired by. So when I was studying abroad, me and my journal were brainstorming ideas about how to bring inspiration of travel and fashion together. So my original mission was to create a globally inspired marketplace where I could be sourcing all of these one of a kind items from around the world and curating looks to inspire a woman to dress and feel amazing, but also want to get on a plane and go see a destination. Fast forward eight months after I had started the brand, which did start from me traveling to different places and sourcing one of a kind items. So I'm going to move down to Los Angeles and I'm going to dress every girl for Coachella. I had seen that the globally inspired trend, aka a Bohemian trend, was something that woman my age loved. They were in the boho era. And so I moved down to Los Angeles. I told my mom, March 1st, I'm going to dress every girl for Coachella. She's like, I'm sorry, what? I've never been to Coachella, but I just think this style is going to be a big hit. And I just want to dress every girl for it. So I was really inspired to style a woman from head to toe and make them just feel like, feel the best version of themselves, to be able to provide really a service for them to have an outfit from head to toe that was going to take them through this very exciting weekend they had planned, aka Coachella. And I would dress them for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It wasn't just here's the top, here's the shirt. It was here's the entire outfit. And I'm going to dress you for every day of this festival. I had no money, no money, like $800, really no money. And my rent was $1,200. So we had to get scrappy. I went to 30 sororities in a matter of 30 days when I moved down to Los Angeles. I dressed hundreds of girls for this festival. And with a clothing rack that I had sourced from markets in Los Angeles. I, me and my girlfriend threw the clothes in the back of my car, drove up and down California, popped inside the sororities, popped up the rack and said, all right, I'm going to dress you for this.