How did you start?
“The lightbulb went off when designing my own dress. I flew to China and saw styles that sell for thousands in boutiques being created for hundreds. So, I decided to make my dress  by working directly with those factories…  Within a week, after telling my friends what I’d done, 10 strangers had contacted me wanting to place orders. Those strangers referred other strangers and then we had 1,000 customers—and that’s with almost no paid marketing. Fortunately for us, brides aren’t quiet—they want to share their experiences.”

Do you ever worry about manufacturing in China?
“I think Chinese manufacturing gets kind of a bad rep, but you can’t deny the country’s incredible silk heritage (the most common material in wedding dresses). For the same reason that I’m uniquely suited to Anomalie because of my background say, managing Indonesian factories for Nike, they’re suited to make wedding dresses.”

How can you maintain the quality and pricing of dresses as the company scales, especially when you can’t personally work on every dress?
Honestly, that’s my biggest worry—probably is for most startups. And it’s something we plan to solve using technology and data science. One quick example: After analyzing our initial orders, we determined about 95% of dresses are made using five core materials. So, we negotiated bulk buying of those top materials to get our production costs even lower. By offering brides unlimited options on the front end, we’re able to collect hundreds of data points around what brides want. That information can inform our bulk buying, our sourcing, our entire supply chain—scaling while maintaining price and quality.”

As you know, this is an All Female issue of Disruption. What advice would you offer to women hoping to start their own business?
“Study engineering and create different skill-sets for yourself… I’m a mechanical engineer, not a fashion designer—and I believe that background has helped me standout… I’ve been the only woman on so many teams I’ve worked for, which can be incredibly empowering.”

Any final thoughts?
“If you have an idea, start the company as fast as possible and charge people money right away… Particularly in business school circles, entrepreneurs spend six months polishing a business plan before presenting to actual customers. I say: Find a way to launch the company immediately and test with real people. If customers aren’t willing to pay for a product, what’s the point of starting a company around it?”