This week's feature interview is with Brian Spaly, Founder and CEO, at Trunk Club. Brian talks about fundraising and ground-up growth of both Trunk Club, and Bonobos, his new men's clothing line and online retail shop. Other bits include Brian's take on staffing 130 employees in-house, managing a 35,000 subscriber base and the resurrection of Hammer Pants.
“If you don’t have a track record it is REALLY HARD to raise money. I think the single best way to raise money is save your own and bootstrap the first 50K, first 100K, because then you have the luxury of shutting it down and saying that this was a really expensive experiment but it isn’t working, figure out if you have a market fit. Beyond that fundraising is a lot like dating...”
— Brian Spaly, Trunk Club's CEO/Founder.
Below are the semi-finalists in the Chicago Tech Startup Madness bracket! We will announce the finalists today. Listen next week as our two finalists pitch their startup in their own words and then join in on one last round of voting. The winner will receive a sweet prize pack and an interview on the show.
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