WoW Woman in WearableTech and FemTech | Kristen Carbone, founder of Brilliantly
Interview by Stephanie Zopf
Before founding Brilliantly, a mission driven company dedicated to improving women’s lives after an experience with breast cancer, Kristen had a successful career in the arts and small business development. Her ten years working in the curatorial departments of museums throughout New York and New England, including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Tang Museum at Skidmore College, and the Museum at the Rhode Island School of Design laid the foundation for her critical eye, and collaborative spirit. In 2011, Kristen founded an artists' advocacy business that helped artists professionalize their practice. She also served as the executive director of a public art and education collective specializing in corporate education for two years. Before founding Brilliantly, Kristen acted as the project manager for two consulting companies where she was the liaison between clients and the internal team. Kristen resides in Providence, RI with her two delightful children where they enjoy gardening, cooking, and playing board games.
What is the idea behind your project / product and how did you come up with it?
After losing my mother to metastatic breast cancer and finding a lump myself, I opted to have a preventative mastectomy and implant reconstruction in 2013. In the years following, I was surprised by many long-term, quality of life issues I was totally unprepared for. The one that I found particularly bothersome was feeling constantly cold. Really cold. An implant with no fatty, insulating tissue acts as a heatsink, and so they're not only cold to the touch, but feel as if I'm walking around with an ice back on my chest. After years of silently suffering and trying to accommodate my discomfort with DIY solutions, a friend and I made a proof of concept design for a warming wearable that would discreetly fit into any bra. My idea was to create a solution that could fit in with my daily clothing choices, be safe, and temperature regulated. Once I realized that this was an undertaking that would involve an engineer and true manufacturing, I started talking to other women who’d been through either breast cancer or a preventative mastectomy in an effort to find out if they too were experiencing this issue. Turns out, this is one of the most common problems that often gets completely unaddressed. And that was the beginning of Brilliantly, which is evolving into a platform serving women who've had an experience with breast cancer in a multitude of ways. Our core offering is our wearable, Brilliantly Warm, which we're currently testing with users.
When did all start and do you have other members in your team?
Brilliantly was founded in 2017 which I run with the help of an advisory board, industry-expert advisors, a supply chain expert, and multiple interns.. We currently partner with a product development team who is working on designing our wearable, Brilliantly Warm.
How long did it take you to be where you are now?
I’ve been building this business since the spring of 2017, and have been working full time on it since February of 2018. Each step of the process has taken longer than expected, but has been a truly valuable learning opportunity. As I continue forward and hit slow spots, I try to remember that extra time is sometimes a gift.
What was the biggest obstacle?
With only 2% of VC funding going to female founders, compounded with the additional very clear and direct gender bias we encounter while fundraising for products and services for women, access to capital has been the biggest obstacle. I’ve been asked extremely personal questions unrelated to my business, and been told women are simply too emotional to invest in at all.
What are your biggest achievements to date?
Given the hurdles to fundraising, I consider raising over $350k to be a significant achievement.
What are the challenges of being an entrepreneur in the niche you are in?
While I believe that Brilliantly has potential to be a successful business, at its core it is a social impact initiative. We ultimately want to be the goto resource for women trying to navigate the process of rediscovering themselves and how to live well through a products, services, and content. Working with the breast cancer community is profoundly bittersweet. Connecting with women facing cancer or negotiating their hereditary risks is humbling and uplifting but also frustrating and sad. Personally, I struggle with not having the ability or expertise to provide a cure, but I will continue working to listen, brainstorm, and co-create things to make small differences with quality of life issues for this community.
How about being a female founder / entrepreneur?
I have joined various online communities of female founders, so I know that my experiences are not unique. Unfortunately, the struggles of a woman raising money are only slightly different from the daily obstacles of being a woman in the workforce. However, upon reflection, I believe that through the challenges I’ve been able to grow. I can now skilfully redirect questions. I've learned to harness my innate patience, and calm. I can stand in front of an audience full of middle aged men and talk about my breasts and know that if they're uncomfortable, that is not my problem. The positive side of this I think is the overwhelming amount of support that other women provide- from cross-promotional efforts, to pitch critiques, to introductions. We help each other build a more solid foundation for success. And, for proof of our success, one just has to look at the numbers. According to this new study women led startups return $0.78 on the dollar, whereas those run by men return $0.32. We simply do more with less.
What are your projects you are currently working on?
We have a whole lot going on! Brilliantly Warm, our app-controlled wearable tech is in the user testing phase with an anticipated launch date of fall 2020. We've just released the first phase of our free corrective exercise videos, Brilliantly Strong (a collaborative project with BrBYoga) last month to help women regain strength and mobility after any breast surgery. We are also doing a portrait series that’s on going, which you can see on our Instagram. This collaborative project is meant to capture the inner radiance of women who’ve been touched by breast cancer or taken preventative action against a hereditary cancer. And, our online journal content is ever changing. We regularly feature interviews and blog posts from women in our community.
Is #WomenInTech movement important to you and if yes, why?
Of course! Without the support of the community I’ve found of talented women working in STEM my product would be completely different, as would the process for creating it. Our lead designer who has thrown herself into developing and building Brilliantly Warm has been invaluable to our process. I believe having more amazing, talented women like her in the world will markedly change things for the better in ways that I can't begin to imagine but hope to experience.
What is the most important piece of advice you can give to all female founders and female entrepreneurs out there?
Even if you’re a solo founder, you are not alone! Join communities, ask for help, get advisors, activate your mentors. There’s no such thing as a self-made man or woman. Success takes a village.
What will be the key trends in the wearable tech industry in the next 5 years and where do you see it heading?
As a non-technical person, I’ve really enjoyed learning more about the wearable industry and the innovative minds working on creative solutions to our problems. I’m hopeful about all the new developments in medical diagnosis, and treatment.
This interview was conducted by Stephanie F. Zopf, Boston Ambassador of Women of Wearables. In 2006, she received her BS degree in Chemical Engineering from Columbia University in the City of New York. She then performed research for the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center (NSRDEC) from 2007-2011, gaining a deep understanding of scaling up nanotechnologies into chemical-biological protective suits. After obtaining her MS degree in Chemical Engineering from Tufts in 2013, she continued to develop ionic liquid gel-based flexible supercapacitors at NSRDEC with a focus on textile integration for wearable energy storage. Her latest gig entailed working at HP that involved projects on projects in digital textile printing and others in printed electronics but is now moving to Boston hoping to advance the future of wearables and smart textiles manufacturing. Twitter: @StephanieFZopf, LinkedIn: Stephanie F. Zopf