Meet the Entrepreneur #28: Bahareh Banisadr, Be Bahar
Keeping the American Dream Alive
Welcome to the 113th edition of Start-up Society! This blog highlights some of the most exciting start-ups in the country striving to keep the American Dream alive.
Make sure you check out the previous issue, if you have not already, here!
Be Bahar
Meet Bahareh Banisadr, Founder of Be Bahar. This start-up is tackling the sustainability issues plaguing the multi-trillion-dollar retail clothing industry.
This article provides a summary of the conversation. For the full details, tap into the podcast here!
What is your career background?
Bahareh started her career in retail as a buyer for 52 Macy’s stores across Florida and Puerto Rico. As she progressed in her career, she opened several outlets and luxury goods stores in Florida working with luxury brands like Prada and Gucci. After ten years of building her expertise in retail and purchasing, she decided to get her MBA at Babson College, the #1 ranked school for entrepreneurship, because she was looking to launch her own company.
Whilst in the one-year MBA program at Babson, she learned if you are a person with two very unique skills then you are a very capable and interesting entrepreneur. With a background in retail, Bahareh knew that focusing on technology as a secondary skill set would help her launch and grow her business. After her MBA she decided to join Object Edge, a technology consulting firm, as an Enterprise Account Executive.
In November 2022, she launched her business while still daylighting at Object Edge. Although she is thankful that her day job helps to fund her new venture, it is also undeniable that not fully dedicating herself is also limiting at the same time.
Tell us about your start-up, Be Bahar.
The initial vision was a digital-first, retail-focused company. She first took the angle of helping the consumer be more sustainable by interacting with her brand. The other angle is a more B2B angle and how she can help solve something like online returns. The biggest driver of online retail returns is failure of fit. She pondered, what are some easy clothing fixes consumers can take to modify clothing? However, she learned altering fit is actually too technical for the everyday consumer.
Since returns were not a successful approach to solving the problem, she circled back to focusing on the sustainability item. Here are some eye-opening facts on sustainability in retail:
- 3 out 5 clothing items purchased by the average retail consumer are thrown out within 12 months
- In the last 20 years, Americans have doubled the volume of clothes they are throwing away from 7 million to 14 million
The problem is people are tossing their clothes once they lose their feeling of newness.
Be Bahar Products
The best 2-in-1 fabric shaver and lint roller! Be Unfuzzed is the ultimate double-sided product with two key functions. On one side, you’ll find a rechargeable fabric shaver. Simply glide over damaged areas, without excess pressure. Great on sweaters, leggings, couches, and all kinds of fabrics. On the other side a refillable miniature sticky lint roller to easily remove unwanted debris.
Together safely remove animal fur, loose thread, lint, pilling, fuzz, and signs of fabric aging.
Benefits
- Two products in one
- Great size for travel
- No battery required
- Keep your fabrics looking new
Annoying rips, holes, and undone hems ruining an otherwise perfect outfit? Be Mended is a patented solution that offers a quick, convenient, and innovative way to fix common clothing flaws.
Nestled inside the Be Mended needle is a unique invisible thread. Made of a semi-permanent bonding technology, the thread anchors itself within the fibers of the garment once woven through. The more pressure or pull on the seam, the stronger the bond between the garment and thread becomes — making it perfect for sweaters and other fibrous materials.
With Be Mended you can easily repair your favorite clothes and extend the life of your wardrobe.
What are some of the biggest technology trends you are seeing corporations embrace?
Enterprise B2B technology trends are typically one generation behind in technology adoption. Currently, subscription and CPQ are being heavily adopted by large enterprise B2B companies. Purchasing patterns of enterprise B2B companies are extremely different from B2C or small businesses. The trends that B2B adopts are mature versions of trends that B2C adopted a few years before.
You were recently on MSNBC and The Armstrong Williams Show to discuss the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in Iran. Can you tell us about that?
Protests have broken out in Iran sparked by the tragic murder of a woman, 22-year-old Mahsa Jina Amini, for not wearing her Hijab in public. Women’s rights are at the forefront, but there is a mountain of issues that this is sitting at the top of. The brain trust that is the Iranian youth is being forced out of their country by their own government. The youth have relentlessly tried fighting back but continue to get silenced.
These protests are the largest in the last several decades, however, there is no one stepping up as the next leader. Without an alternative leader, taking down the existing regime will not yield or result in anything.
Many are unaware of how talented the women of Iran are. The majority of college students in Iran are women, and the majority of these women are in STEM. The first woman to win the Fields Medal, the most prestigious award in mathematics, was an Iranian — Maryam Mirzakhani. Also, the first Iranian to win a Nobel Peace Prize was a woman — Shirin Ebadi.
To take back the country, the first step is for the people to revolt and take down the dictatorship. Then the second step is for a new individual to rise that the people can galvanize behind. If that person exists, Bahareh has not seen or heard of them. That is the missing piece of the puzzle!
Your uncle, Abolhassan Banisadr, was the 1st President of Iran after the 1979 Iranian Revolution. He was quickly impeached and exiled. What happened?
Bahareh’s family left Iran in 1992 a few years after her uncle was exiled. Abolhassan was elected by the people based on his platform. No one expected what was going to happen after.
He ran with Ruhollah Khomeini, who was supposed to be the religious leader (similar to the Pope) while Abolhassan was voted to be the President. Unfortunately, Khomeini virtually launched a coup and destroyed the concept of separation of church and state. Khomeini became the “Supreme Leader” and Abolhassan was just as bamboozled as everyone else!
Abolhassan did not agree with the new direction the country was going in, so he was faced with the choice of getting killed or getting out. After multiple assassination attempts, he was fortunately able to flee Iran and found political asylum in France.
What is your ultimate goal?
Becoming a full-time entrepreneur is the ultimate goal. The struggle is getting to the point of being comfortable to take the leap of faith into running her start-up full-time.
Many entrepreneurs face this challenge. A famous example is Jeff Bezos, who had a nice corporate job with a nice salary. However, he made the decision to leave his lucrative career and pursue Amazon, something that had no visible path to success at the time.
Bahareh ponders what the trigger event will be to make the jump. Raising the first round of outside capital? Building up her own capital to a certain level? Whatever that decision may be, she hopes to get there within the next 24 months.
Has anything surprised you since launch?
Avoid analysis paralysis! Bahareh expected one of the Be Bahar products would do much better than the other when she was doing her focus groups and analyzing the Go-to-Market strategy. This ended up being the exact opposite of what the market told her once she launched!
Doing a soft launch pre-order would have been a much more tangible way to gauge demand and interest from the market. Take action!
Final words?
Bahar means the season of Spring in Farsi (also in Turkish, Urdu, and other languages). Spring is the time of year the world refreshes and revives itself. The vision of Be Bahar is to refresh, renew, repair, and rebloom all apparel retail products!
Stay Knowledgeable and Keep Learning!
Check out the site at www.bebahar.com
Contact Bahareh at chat@bebahar.com
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Authored by Arteen Zahiri, Rumeer Keshwani, & Elham Chowdhury
