Ellyette Gheno is the founder of BootyBag company, which provides an online subscription-based innerwear and lingerie store. The online platform offers lingerie, underwear, swimwear, and nightwear on a monthly subscription basis. This enables women to access comfortable and well-designed lingerie at an affordable price range.
Ellyette Gheno came up with the BootyBag idea from the desire of making snail mail sexy. She always felt good for herself when she had a cute matching set or new underwear. This made her think if other women will like the feeling when they are on new or matching underwear. At that time, she was just making some designs for the family, friends, and neighbors.
Entrepreneurship runs in my family. My mom owns her hair salon which when I turned 18 years, I thought it was right for me to inherit the salon. However, I ended up creating my own business instead. While I was shopping for underwear, I had a terrible experience that inspired me to start BootyBag as an online subscription underwear service.
I started making innerwears as a side hustle only to raise a few bucks for myself. Luckily, it became a service that women were craving. Shopping for underwear is sometimes inconvenient, and it is not fun. Most women aren’t comfortable buying innerwaers for themselves. After making some sales, some people told me that they wanted a connection with a brand that could understand their desires.
In 2016, I got a $300 loan to expand my business. I built a website within two days. A few days later, I started getting large traffic, more orders were being made. I aimed at enhancing the buying experience of customers and offer affordable underwear to them.
I took my business plan to the “Shark Tank” investors and asked for a $500,000 investment in exchange for 5% equity. The sharks liked my story, and they got much interested when I revealed my sales numbers. At that moment, my company had already generated $3 million in sales for one year. Currently, I make have earned a revenue of about $15 million since the company started.
I didn’t have any debt, which is something I encourage many entrepreneurs to do. I had to get creative to fill the orders at first. Furthermore, I went to the store and bought clearance underwear and packed them on my own. After some time, I started purchasing the underwear online in bulk before I eventually find my own manufacturer. Due to high demand, I was forced to try and figure out how to produce my own line.
BootyBag went viral on social media, which made the sales rate increase. The company has many followers on Instagram, where we post our content. There was a time I had problems with a certain manufacturer, and I lost a lot of money.
I had to use a broker because I didn’t have a direct connection to a manufacturer, which frequently complicated the process. For example, when I ordered a new design, I had to wait for almost nine months for the product to be delivered. To me, that was an abnormally long lead time for people who own businesses.
Regardless of the manufacturers’ problem, the Sharks gave me an offer. They saw BootyBags’ potential, and they felt they could solve the manufacturing issue. Two of the sharks, Scott and Corcoran offered me %500,000 for 20% equity, and O’Leary offered $500,000 for 15% equity. Corcoran again decided to offer $500,000 for 10% equity, and I accepted the deal.
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