 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. In the danceware industry right now, there's this one image of a dancer, and what that person looks like is they're very tall, they're fairly thin. If you don't fit into that model, it's really hard for you to find something that fits. And personally, for me, I am 4'11", and so I am not 5'4", which is kind of the standard size for a dancer. For me, it's been very very hard to find something that fits me. I realized I went to an audition. There was like 500 people there. It's really hard to to stand out amongst 500 other people. So I was just kind of looking at my clothing and I said, wow, I just wish that I had something that would make me stand out. How do I combine, you know, trying to find something that I can wear that fits me, that looks good on me, that showcases, but also with this philanthropy of dance, and then I came up with the idea of sharing the bar. So sharing the bar is a dancewear social venture, and dad empowering women to love their bodies through offering dancers a collection of dancewear that is customized to them. So it's a product that is uniquely your own. Startup veteran Abigail Sockety is bringing her custom apparel to the dancewear industry. Today she'll present her business sharing the bar to the startup investor panel. Hi, I'm Abigail Sockety. I'm a senior marketing major at Fairfield University, and I'm the founder of sharing the bar, dancewear that fits and inspires. The problem with dancewear is that it simply doesn't fit. The industry designs for a one size body that is five foot four long and lean. However, many dancers come in all different shapes and sizes. I struggled finding dancewear that fit me being four foot eleven and muscularly built. I would either have to buy something that was too big and then tie the straps back with hair elastics or buy something that was too small and just deal with the discomfort. On top of this issue, dancers strive for perfection. But being surrounded by mirrors, receiving critiques and wearing something that doesn't fit, starts to take a toll on the mental psyche, leading to confidence and self-esteem issues. It wasn't until after I was hired by an entertainment company that I actually felt confident in who I was as a dancer. There is a disconnect between the perfection dancers seek and their dancewear that just doesn't fit. Therefore, I created sharing the bar. It is my mission to finally give dancers dancewear that fits and that empowers them to love their bodies and embrace their dance abilities as there's no one type of dancer. So why would someone want to purchase sharing the bar? We offer more sizing variation in both long and short. We offer premium quality product that is both affordable and world class. We place an emphasis on empowering dancers through our content and we offer sharing the bar program, which gives back to organizations that make the bar more inclusive, positive and inviting for all. The dancewear market is valued at $550 million per year. Of that, premium dance brands make up 200 million per year. Sharing the bar's objective is to generate revenues of $10 million in five years, capturing 5% market share of that premium dance market. Our solution offers 12 different sizes in both long and short. That's of premium quality that's comfortable and flattering for all body types. And one of the special parts about our product is that sizing is not printed on our materials, but rather attached with a removable tag. So once that tag is gone, there's no sizing to compare. Now, the dancewear market is a highly saturated market, but we will differentiate ourselves based on having more sizing variations at an affordable price compared to our competitors. We will be targeting both dancers and their parents as the dancers are the influencers, but the parents ultimately have the buying power. Now, our go to market strategy is to roll out a limited quantity of inventory to dance studios. That will provide credibility and trust among our targeted consumers, but then those dance studios will push consumers interested in buying more product onto our e-commerce site, where they'll find the whole line and get to know our brand. Now, in order to boost awareness about our brand, we will be focusing on website optimization, targeting our consumers on social media and listing brand ambassadors and partaking in engagement initiatives to generate, continue to build our customer base. Now, sharing the bar is a marketing and design company, not a manufacturer. Therefore, we will be partnering with an existing manufacturer of dancewear or athleticwear. We will also be partnering with credible organizations such as Alvin Alley or another dance company to wear our product and also provide credibility among our customer base. We will also be tapping into influential groups such as dance teacher network and dancers with high following to generate a buzz around our product. Now, as I said, we have a sharing the bar program that gives back to organizations. We give 5% of our sales to organizations such as Ignited Dancers Light and Alvin Alley Foundation. Now, we cannot ignore what's going on in our environment right now, and that is why we want to give back to dance studio relief funds so that studios don't have to close their doors during this pandemic and that dancers can continue to dance at their love studios long after the pandemic is over. So my team is composed of myself, Abigail Sockety. I'm the founder, Chips DePatcher, who is my mentor, Ali Faniff, who is our artist and Dirk Dunlap is my manufacturing advisor. Now, we are asking for connections to the fashion industry to produce our product, legal counsel, assistance in developing our samples and finally launching our product. Thank you so much for listening to my pitch and I welcome any feedback and questions you may have. With the presentation complete, it's time for the startup investor panel discussion. Abigail must impress the panelists to prove that she can lead a startup. Abigail, hi. Hi, how are you? This is Michael. This is Joe and Mary Ann. We, the three of us very much enjoyed your video. We've watched it multiple times. You're just watching again just now. Presentation was fantastic. We all have a couple of questions, but I want to kick it off with Mary Ann. Mary Ann, why don't you start us off? Great. Hi, Abby. So nice to see you again and you had an excellent presentation. So thank you for and we really want to commend you on what you're doing. I mean, this as a petite woman, five, two, maybe five, three, I totally understand. So I guess we had a couple of questions around your your go to market strategy and your inventory you're talking about that you're going to put a limited amount of inventory out in the stores, dance studios, et cetera. And I guess we're really looking to get a better understanding of that because with having so many different sizes, I think you said 12 different sizes that you were looking to make. That could pose a major inventory problem and expensive for a company like yours. And you said you're a design and marketing company. You're going to partner with others. Great. But tell us, you know, tell us what your thoughts are. Part of our team we were really looking at, are you going to utilize some of these apps that are on the phone that do 3D imaging and then can help a person define what size they might be. They try it on in the store and then order it from your site. You know, share share with us what your thoughts are there. Yep, absolutely. So first of all, so we're doing a lot of research on size so that we can really drill into what sizes really fit dancers well. And part of that was having 12 sizes. So looking at a small set of data, we've kind of identified that one of the points of friction with size is the torso. So usually people's torsos are longer or shorter. And so we want to develop sizing that is both long and short similar to a pant size that's long and short. So there's the sizing. So then as far as adoption goes, so we want to roll that out to dance studios and in tandem on our website. And these two platforms will work really well together because as far as dance studios go, so a dance teacher is a very credible person in a dancer's life and usually someone that you go to to seek advice. Similarly to if if you go for if you are you play tennis and at your your club, you have your tennis pro. You might go and ask them, you know, what what racket is best for me? And they'll give you your opinion and you most likely would value that opinion better or more than, say, if you just went to a random store that you find on Google. So there's that little relationship with between the studios and the dancer, which is a really great relationship, as far as finding that right size. So we understand that having something to try on is very important. So our thinking is to roll out all the sizes to those studios. So they kind of almost take on that inventory, but we won't make it a burden to them because we'll we'll provide many different incentives for them to sell that. And so we'll have all those sizes available at the studio so dancers can try them on. And then once, you know, they find the one that they like, they can go ahead and purchase that on the website. If someone were to enter through our website and not on through a dance studio, then we would use technology such as Sizer to really make sure that we get that right size so that, you know, they purchase one and they don't have to do returns or anything like that. Great. Thank you. Joe, did you have any follow ups there? Yeah, are you primarily marketing through the dance studios? Or are you trying to go after a broader market? So we're going to obviously dance. People are very serious about it. Ergo, the dance studio for others, it's, you know, more of an activity. They do it, maybe through grammar school. And that's the end of it, you know, there's a much different scenario. Right. So we wanted to start off with partnering with dance studios. We've looked into a different various different distribution channels going to dance stores, selling solely online. But when it came down to it, selling at a retail store, we would have slotting fees, minimums on inventory. So just the cost would really start to inch up. If we went solely e-commerce, that kind of creates some friction because, you know, then you're really making all your efforts to get people onto the site. And for a product that, you know, is about sizing, it's hard to try something on that's virtual. So we were starting off with the studios and through them. That that's that's our main focus just because of that relationship and being able to physically try on those outfits. We're looking at various different partners. One partner is Alvin Ailey, so partnering with dance companies and then having them submit their orders for their dancers as well. Very good. Abigail, I had I had one I have several questions, but what I wanted to say for now, and I think the three of us will tell you that we are interested in talking to you further, I want to understand the addressable market. You you you mentioned two hundred million and that you have an aggressive ten million in revenue, which is very aggressive. All right. But my understanding is there's a universe of people that wear dance clothes for the special size five foot four dancer. And you want to go after the I don't know what the percentage is, is it three percent, ten percent, fifteen percent, twenty percent that are not falling in that. And then based on that percentage, whatever it is, what's the value of that market and what kind of penetration you open for? So about a majority or fifty percent of people don't find dancewear that fits them really well. And so so we will be, you know, fifty percent of that of the available dancers within there that don't find something that fits them is going to be our initial market from there. You know, we're really penetrating like when I think of our addressable market, I kind of think of like a bull's eye. So we have that initial really niche market that we're really targeting to. But when, you know, adopting a product, you have the funnel. So you want to have, you know, a lot of people and trickle down to your direct people. That's what I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear your focus on this area. Abigail, thank you very much for joining us. Very good job on both the video and now. And we look forward to seeing you in the awards round. Awesome. Thank you very much for your time. Fairfield Startup would like to thank our sponsors for continuing to make the annual startup showcase possible. Thank you. Sharing the bar is presented and it's on to the final round. Visit fairfield.edu slash start up 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 Dolan School of Business.