 For these five entrepreneur teams it started with a dream to launch a business After a year of research presentation development and mentorship their dream may become a reality Today they'll have five minutes to pitch their business plan to a panel of experts ready to invest in their futures From the Fairfield University Charles F. Dolan School of Business. This is Fairfield startup My name is Diana my company is diverse and it stands for Diana and the universe and it's kind of a combination of both and where that merges We make unique handmade jewelry and through this jewelry you want people to wear their voice. I love clothes I love accessories because I think that they Manifest your story like they kind of speak for you when you enter a room and before you speak Diverse started about two years ago and became official as of last year Today we are a studio space in Bridgeport one of diverse's shoots Being from here and building what I'm building is of course It's ingrained in my purpose because I think people of Bridgeport are people that Not necessarily are heard all the time and what they need or their wanton needs, you know, I want you to express yourself I want your identity and your purpose to be heard because you have a story to tell I build the concept first the meaning and then I kind of create the pieces with this concept and meaning in mind So it's very intentional and purposeful as I develop these collections and prep for them. I am photographing the models. I'm styling sometimes doing makeup. I am crafting the website I'm making the jewelry so it's an array of things that I'm doing My career cannot be something that is one thing like if I want to keep myself happy If I want to keep myself going and excited It has to be some where a place that I can wear many hats and diverse allows me to do that and express myself to the fullest For Diana Mazzo helping women express themselves through jewelry is a passion today She will present her business diverse to the startup investor panel. Hello everyone. My name is Diana And I am the founder of diverse diverse for Diana and the universe. I'm here to tell you what I mean by connection There's a purpose here and a reason why art is so important to me I started diverse in hopes to share my own creations with the world as I began to sell out I realized I could share this passion with other artists. I'm unpacking the connection between artists and customers My role is to promote this art to customers who are looking for a way to make a statement about their purpose Our customers are women who appreciate handmade products women who want to reaffirm their identity and women who want to feel beautiful and evidently love posting about it We take pride in what our customers have to say about us similar sentiments follow the themes of confidence and every Transaction feeling personal and every product feeling as if it was made just for you The next few sides are examples of my own creations in 2019 My family was impacted by immigration laws leaving me to find my light own my boldness and essentially rebirth and transform Fibrincy is a stepping stone and the next step in the evolution of our company. It's the beginning of a virtual co-op if you will This collection was made by a new artist whose name Coincidentally is also Diana and is a Colombian jewelry artist She just opened up her own jewelry store in hopes that this partnership can help her expand her customers as the week Our second artist is Nicole. She will be making jewelry trays that are customizable and individualized to our customers favorite color and favorite shape Unlike our competitors we focus on our customers passion The world is changing and for online platforms like ours. These are very special times Amanda found us because we make Unique jewelry that connects to the soul This is our website and platform and our website and platform is on track to doubling this year We have surpassed our Q3 numbers of 2019 and just quarter one of 2020 Along with our website traction growing. So are our financials in 2018. We launched diverse in 2019 we really perfected directing creating marketing and selling our own creations bringing our gross margins to 60 percent In 2020 as we step into the role of curator We are able to bring our margins to 80 percent Our method is to continue to find artists from all over the world and different economies that are favorable to the US dollar We will launch vibrancy in may 20 20 and hope that our margins are going to continue to grow This is a scalable business model to go from creator to curator and continue to bring artists from all over the world on our platform This is about the people and connecting them to their passion and providing artists access to our market in the US Our growth strategy is not only to attract artists but to attract artists that align with our core values Who are experienced manufacturers and making this a highly selective distribution channel We hope to collaborate with organizations who support artists and introduce introduce a monthly subscription based plan Marketing channels are our website social media Local news like new haven and Connecticut live, which we have been featured on and live events The market size for jewelry revenue is huge not only in the u.s But worldwide 79 of all jewelry revenue sold in 2019 was non luxurious jewelry The other 20 was luxury jewelry. We fall under non luxurious This is our team myself Andrea and our three wonderful mentors and we need you to take this to the next level We want different ways to attract more artists world-class artists We want to expand our team. We want to establish influencers endorsement sponsors and create live events for our community We thank you very much for listening. We now open the floor for questions With the presentation complete it's time for the startup investor panel discussion Diana has had a chance to convince the panelists that diverse has what it takes to succeed as a startup Thanks for joining us. I'm michael. This is joe and this is mary an and uh, we're very We're very pleased to see the presentation you just gave Um, I know we all have a couple of questions and we have just a few minutes. So joe, why don't you kick us off? great, uh Terrific presentation It's a really nice looking business Couple of things we'd like you to address a little bit as to how You intend to scale the business And how you're going to put an organization together. It looks pretty exciting You know in terms of the potential for the business and you've actually done Pretty well so far I had to look at the website and it's pretty uh pretty attractive Thank you. So if you could comment on that a little bit be great Yeah, so the way that we plan on expanding this business is to continue to attract artists from favorable economies And basically make this a repeatable process. So we want to leverage these low costs of labor and Provide artists with assistance and manufacturing to be able to produce X amount of pieces and collaborate collaborate with them on these collections that are unique and Purposeful to our marketing customers However, in the mark and the manufacturing how I handle the for vibrancy was that I work with the artists and we found other laborers who are jewelry artists as well To be able to bring this collection to life This is definitely an area in our business that will need expertise and coaching more With people who have more resources But as of now And the way that we handle vibrancy it worked and we hope to be able to provide or develop a repeatable process Tell us a little bit about the manufacturing because you know I could envision if you Got this stuff on qvc or something like that. You'd be swamp yes, so As far as manufacturing when I what I could speak on is this collection vibrancy with diana I found her she's an artist in columbia and I told her I wanted x amount of pieces for each You know jewelry piece And realistically as a jewelry artist myself one person can't handle The level that I was asking for so what we did is that we found other jewelry artists local That are we are able to support So there's the social venture aspect there and also You know be able to Make these pieces and this was done in a week with about Five women working and I like the idea how you've kind of pivoted from you use the words In your presentation from curator, excuse me from creator to curator and you also talked about the term I think you said virtual co-op virtual co-op So how do you intend to compete with like the etsy's of the world and are you trying to A miniature etsy for an acquisition by etsy or I need to I need to understand that a little bit Yeah, so the the mark I think from going to creator to curator was a moment that was very special to us because That is where we can scale so We are similar to etsy in the sense that we are a web platform that connects artists and customers However, we are different because we focus on artists and customers their passions And not necessarily on the arts and crafts so we connect people to purpose And that is why our people our customers are repeated customers and are always Keeping up with our collection is because we you know connect to them in the essence And a virtual co-op because it's it's a community-based And we share the stories of our artists our customers And um everyone necessarily is like in this co-op, which is why we call it a virtual co-op Okay I I really love your passion for what you're doing here and and really trying to bring a lot of this great art from Wonderful artists around the world specifically south america. I love your earrings. Oh, thank you. Thank you Do you have any clip earrings? I wear a clip So um wanted um wanted to congratulate you because you've had revenues this past year And that's fantastic. So with that traction, um, give us a sense about what you've learned Not only about, you know, how to operate the business And what you need to do as the CEO going forward, but also what have you learned from your customers? Yeah, so I launched diverse in 2018 and um I Really initially just wanted to share my own creations It has been a journey. My prices have increased over time because I was able to figure out that my customers love what I was saying and no matter What I wouldn't say no matter what my price is because there's always a range, but um, they were connected to that And in any way and I think that what I have learned through coaching with my mentors and through startup is that I can Take this to the next level here when we continue to stick to our Values, which is exclusivity uniqueness and remain in authentic and what we can provide and finding Artists that really connect to that mission. Our customers will continue to come in. Um, I also found that We can whenever I Launch, um that the man is so high that I'm basically selling out in the one one or two days The first two days are where our sales come from most Because we're able to you know, increase our marketing in that way I think startup for this opportunity because since 2018 I've been doing this on my own and so Coming into now with people who are experts in these in these areas I'm able to really take this to the next level Well, good. I'm gonna I'm gonna ask us all to to pause there. I I think um, we all I know We've spoken before this call and we was speaking again. I want to thank you for participating this We're all very impressed what you've done. I look forward to seeing you again in the award round I know that uh, I will um tip my hand joe for you me for still a little thunder here I think already my wife and daughter have been looking your website Joe indicated wife has already purchased some so based on that delivery and joe's opinion of it I think we should all talk again Yeah I would love to speak with you all again Great. Thanks so much Fairfield startup would like to thank our sponsors for continuing to make the annual startup showcase possible. Thank you Diverse has presented and it's on to the final round Visit fairfield.edu slash startup to watch all of the 2020 fairfield startup team episodes Vote for your favorite and tune in next week to see the winner of the ct next Connecticut innovations audience favorite award. Thanks for watching fairfield startup This has been a presentation of fairfield university and the dole in school of business