 Today's guest created a platform that connects fashion and technology. Jordana Gimérez joins us to talk about co-founding fashion innovation, publishing her new book and her plans for the future. This is School of Hustle, the show where we find advice and inspiration from people who are making their own way. I'm Shannon, the VP of Social Hierarch Go Daddy, and I live and breathe the hustle of business. Today we're filming from the hustle of it all at the WeWork Times Square in New York City. Hey everybody, let's give Jordana a big warm welcome to the show. It's so fabulous to have you in School of Hustle. Thank you, it's such a pleasure and honor to be here. Well this year I went to fashion innovation at FIT in New York City because I love technology and I love clothes and I was so taken by what fashion innovation was all about and then I met you and I learned that you were the co-founder. I was blown away. I was there so I experienced it but those watching may not have been to fashion innovation before. Could you start by telling us what it is? What is it all about? Of course, so fashion innovation is a platform where we showcase innovations, viewways of technology that are shaping the fashion industry but not only shaping the fashion industry but also to make the world a better place. So we started putting together various thematics where we showcase these companies and brands where we talk about everything from sustainability to inclusivity to women empowerment but then we also go into entrepreneurship, manufacturing production, your textiles, so very wide array of topics and just recently because of seeing all of the trends that the industry is headed towards we slogan our company to be fashion is to love and so fashion innovation, fashion is to love showcasing technologies that are shaping the industry so that's really what it is in the next show. When I was there I was there supporting Emily Brackell of Chic Sketch who was a former school of hustle guest and she was moderating a panel where Hemp Black was on it and they were talking about how they are designing like an ink using hemp that somehow makes the production and the print better for the globe and that's like one topic is one example. I was just I was just so impressed I so much enjoyed what you are bringing together. The idea is so big and it makes so much sense and I certainly loved your event. I had a great time and I feel like I've made so many friends and connections from my network from it. So it's really overall a great thing. Now I understand that you co-founded fashion innovation with your husband how did the two of you concept the idea and bring it to life? So my husband has been in entrepreneurship and innovations via ways of technology scaling companies that are scaling internationalizing those companies and for the last his whole career basically as an entrepreneur and work sorry his whole career is like a workman and I've always been in fashion PR doing a lot of freelance marketing work for companies like Nina Ritchie, Porsche's Eye and Lawn Ball which kind of started my career and then doing it for the last 15 years and so when we got married in the last three years we had two babies we wanted to kind of put together what he does what I do and encompass it all into one amazing company and so we came up with Fashion Innovation which really is the perfect marriage between me and him and so it's really exciting to do it with him for sure. But how did you get people to to buy it right? So you had FIT it was a huge stage. What's interesting is that from day one we actually came up with the idea July of 2018 and our first event actually took place in September of 2018 so in only two months of coming up with the name the idea we were able to do an event with 39 speakers from like founder of Shopify directors of NASA but the interesting thing was that cold emailing a lot of these people within seconds we would get an email back saying yes I'm interested I'm in and we had no website nothing just the idea and the body of an email and people were really excited about it so I think because the world is kind of lacking you know connecting with people and storytelling and I feel like it's the trends that the industry is trying to go towards and they don't have a platform where they can talk about these things so I think that we kind of put like the boat I don't know if this makes sense but like the boat on the ocean at the right time is just kind of fighting us and it just happened so fast and just through putting an event together we realized because of the success of that that we didn't just have an event in our hands but rather a business and that's really how it came to fruition so it's really exciting and you have met so many fascinating people along the way who or what is your favorite story who's the most inspirational person that you've worked with through your business it's hard to say most inspirational because I think different people inspire you right different reasons I recently spoke two days ago to this girl in California she has a brand called Tom Fullery and she creates jumpsuits to wear to women when you go to the bathroom you don't have to take the full thing off you literally just unwrap the part to go to the toilet and it's made all the textile is just plastic bottles that's how the the jumpsuits are made and she just built the school in Kenya to help women in that region sew these jumpsuits so she I mean it's amazing and she's 28 or 27 years old something in that range so when you look at something like that you know it's like unbelievable well okay I'm blown away because she has clearly solved a problem that women have that that is a big pain in the neck so annoying to go to the bathroom and jump into the whole thing that's just a problem she solved but she went that extra step yeah to think about sustainability yeah yeah wages yep in Kenya yes she's doing a lot with that one story so exactly so when you meet someone like that I agree wow there's a lot going on do you you bring her into the fold so does she speak at fashion innovation yeah so we're gonna have her speak in February I just learned of her wow and I was so blown away that I was like oh my gosh I keep talking about her now because I think it's just she encompasses sustainability women empowerment technical innovation I mean in all in one brand so that's right it's amazing it is amazing yeah and you're at the centerpiece giving people and brands like this a platform yeah and that's what's exciting I speak to like 15 to 20 entrepreneurs every day now that are doing innovations in different kinds of way I mean every day I feel blessed because through having this platform I'm getting to meet all these amazing individuals and also one thing that I think is really cool is because we have you know the Google's and the Levi's and the Mara Hoffman's to be able to bring in these startups and put them on stage with these big companies yeah it gives them such an opportunity to create new collaborations and so there's like so many so many things that come of fashion innovation aside from us just being like a channel for fashion tech that I think it's really fun and so when you think about being that platform for everyone to join the stage and participate in what I think is is a movement really yeah right um as a business owner and an entrepreneur do you monetize that I'm very transparent yeah I think like as a startup we feel like you know losing out a little bit when it comes to monetary but we're gaming so much as far as knowledge and so I think like as it progresses we find there's a lot of things that are coming to us right now of people wanting different things within our space yeah and we're trying to figure out you know what what are the best models to really like monetize from right um and that's something that is an ongoing process yeah but I you know most for us like obviously any business you want to profit so you can live and all of that but at the same time I think you know for me creating social impact is so important also so it's nice to be able to find a happy medium between the two and I think we're on the way to doing that I think you are too um would you agree with me when I said that fashion innovation is a movement yeah yeah that's why fashion is to love is our new slogan yeah and what's been really fun with that is that fashion is something to everybody right right even if you think you're not a trendy sometimes you say oh you know I work in fashion people are like oh I have no like I don't know anything about fashion that's not true because everybody wakes up with a certain mood and you put something on that's going to make you feel that mood that you're waking up in right and so by you putting an outfit together even if to you that's not considered trendy or fashion it is right because what you wear is what persona finds you in that in a sense is fashion and so it's been really fun to like carry the slogan of fashion is to love around and ask people what is fashion to you and we've been getting those answers and viralizing that on social and it's become really like a movement and we're excited to just internationalize that and have people feel connected to something and so how would you answer that for me fashion so fashion is really feeling comfortable in your own skin fashion is understanding what your identity is and being proud of that through what you wear yeah I would say that that's yeah what fashion is to me I wanted to talk to you about a very exciting next endeavor for you which is your new book yeah oh my gosh it's called it can be you yeah um you know what is your book about and how did you come to publish it so the book is it's giving a face to homelessness using the voices of fashion influencers um through social media hashtag it can be you and now the book that I've put together and I just got a publishing deal recently so it's really really exciting um yeah I can't wait the day that I walk into a store and see my book I think I'm gonna faint so as you should that that's outrageous yeah so it's not self-published it was self-published and then it just got too hard and then I let like in the back burner and then I spoke at an event recently in Washington we seen somebody saw it they were a publisher they reached out to me and they're like we want to make this happen so now I'm in the stages of getting it published so give me an example of a scenario in the book so what I did is three years ago I was pregnant with my four years ago I should say I was pregnant with my first daughter and I really wanted to do something bigger and I feel like on social media you know you go on there and Kim Kardashian is eating a salad out of a plastic bowl everybody's like where did you buy the salad I want to eat it too and I feel that since they have that influence why not use it for the good so then I'm like I got ambassadors that are really big fashion influencers to share stories of struggles and how they overcame them and then I raised over $10,000 and go fund me and created a street team we gave out meals to the homeless and got their stories of how they want to fund a street so in the book you have side by side the story of the famous influencer of struggle and overcome and then you have the story of the homeless individual and it shows you very similar struggles but the circumstances separates the two hence it can be you and one thing that was really interesting is you know you have a lot of influencers that come to New York with a big dream of becoming an artist becoming a musician and they make it right even through struggles they end up making a name for themselves but then you have those that come and don't and because they're embarrassed or ashamed or their family kind of told them you know you're no longer like accepted here because you're doing something we don't approve of whatever the situation may be I've heard a few of those stories in the streets so like having that side-by-side comparison you know you think something as simple as not having like the family acceptance or not having the support system is something that can already separate the two individuals so I learned a lot with this project and I'm so excited thank you so much for opening up thank you so much the work that you're doing it's brilliant I appreciate it it's meaningful and impactful thank you I love what you're doing thank you so following that we are now going to transition to our favorite game called hustle time all right so team might I please have 60 seconds on the clock oh right would you rather visit liquorish castle or peppermint forest peppermint forest which hogwarts house would you be sorted into which what hogwarts harry potter oh i don't know harry potter okay camping or glamping glamping last person you texted my mom m&m's or skittles m&m ski trip or beach vacation beach vacation favorite part of your day waking up with my kids ideal fake sick day staying in watching this is us early burger night owl uh early bird fictional place you'd like to visit alice in wonderland go to karaoke song oh elena smory said anything elena's word that finish this sentence when i dance i look like a crazy person sound that is currently stuck in your head this moment if i could turn back time share i don't know why would you rather never be able to teach or never be able to learn never be able to teach favorite disney movie um frozen first app you open in the morning instagram all right nice that was like pressure nice see it was easy okay one two fifteen sixteen nice waking up with my kids and having that morning to just kind of unwind best piece of advice you've ever gotten you can learn anything from reading a book but passion is something that comes from within worst piece of advice it's impossible how do you use your career to inspire others through making sure that there's always some type of social impact or learn something that people can walk away with rather than just something that's in it for me ever felt like walking away no one thing you still need to learn i feel like sometimes i think i can do it all myself i need to learn to delegate what do you want people to learn from you that you should always be super genuine and honest and don't take that as a weakness but rather something that will bring people closer to you what's next for you creating an impact that's my dream who inspires you my mom who challenges you my husband well the last piece of advice is for the entrepreneur our favorite pug um so noodle and now i do you want jonathan to hold noodle or do you want hold good okay hi hi noodle are you so cute noodle tries to stay up to date on the latest trends but he finds that it's pretty hard to keep up as things are always changing what advice would you give an inspiring fashion enthusiast who wants to stay in the know about the latest trends in the space you see but i think a little differently so i don't think of what's trending to be like i don't feel like you have to wear exactly what's trending i feel like you can make your own trend based on what feels and looks best on you yeah so i think that doing that you're always going to be in trend i don't know if that makes sense but i think of it that way it does so you tap your inner sort of no preferences yeah your body type your style your mood exactly anywhere you yeah because not every trend is meant to fit everybody right we always like to end school of hustle with a final thought and so i'm going to share three quotes with you okay and ask if you would let me know which one resonates the most with you and why okay so number one if you can't explain it simply you don't understand it well enough number two nothing in the world is more common than unsuccessful people with talent number three i find that the harder i work the more luck i seem to have i'd say number two number two okay i think that everybody has something that they're really good at doing everybody has a gift yes and i feel like a lot of people because of fear never get never like move forward with what that gift is to really make that happen i feel like if everybody that had a gift i'm so sorry if everybody that had a gift um you know kind of like did their most to be able to get it out to the world and their successes i think that that would improve a lot of things you know in a lot of different industries that goes for just people in general but that really resonates with me because i think fear stops a lot of people yeah from being their best and there is so much talent out there too so much so much everybody has something to offer i am truly inspired by you i'm super inspired by your work too i think you're amazing and i love your energy thank you yeah i think what you're doing is incredible and i can't wait to attend your next fashion innovation i think it's in february right February 5th i really hope you come i would love to come yes so i'm officially invited we've all heard it i have an invitation and i will be there how can everyone follow fashion innovation so instagram is our biggest social platform so fashinnovation.nyc and then the website is fashinnovation.nyc so fashinnovation.nyc yes perfect yeah thank you so much you're so welcome follow fashion innovation across social follow go daddy across social too we're posting more fabulous entrepreneurs liked or down it every weekend go daddy social so follow us across the board follow fashion innovation and we'll see y'all soon thanks bye