Founder Life

Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photos: Asma Parvez

When Asma Parvez met Poppi co-founder Allison Ellsworth, she was styling Ellsworth for the cover of Austin Woman Magazine.

Parvez had spent about two years styling women featured in the Austin publication, putting together five or six outfits for each magazine shoot.

In working with Ellsworth, Parvez noticed something familiar: The founder had a lot of places to be.

Ellsworth was running a growing beverage company, regularly appearing on social media, television, and at events, and raising three young children. As Parvez helped her prepare for the magazine shoot, she realized Ellsworth needed more than five outfits for a photo shoot. She needed clothes for everything else on her calendar, too.

“I saw this space that wasn’t being catered to,” Parvez told Founder Brew.

After the photo shoot, Ellsworth hired Parvez directly. Parvez began pulling outfits that could work across Ellsworth’s schedule, mixing new pieces with clothes already in her closet. For TV appearances, magazine shoots, and other moments when Ellsworth represented the company, Parvez chose bright, colorful pieces that reflected Poppi’s colorful branding while keeping often overlooked functional details in mind. That meant, for instance, avoiding sleeves with ruffles that could distract from a Poppi can in Ellsworth’s hand.

“Things that just are so simple that you wouldn’t even think about it necessarily,” Parvez explained.

It’s a problem at the center of Parvez’s company Styled By Asma: Founders don’t necessarily need help figuring out what they like. They need a wardrobe that won’t compete with the demands of running a growing company.

Executive presence

For Parvez, “executive presence” isn’t just about looking polished—or even wearing a suit. It’s about closing the gap between how a founder feels and how she appears.

“One of the first questions is literally: ‘How do you want to be seen? How do you want others to see you?’” Parvez told Founder Brew.

Read more from Asma Parvez about projecting executive presence.—JH

      

Sponsored By Capital One Business

When Kirsten Dermer’s brother built skateboard ramps in a backyard, nobody planned a business. But when ESPN showed up looking for X Games courses, skate park design was suddenly a thing, an industry her family helped pioneer.

Thirty years later, Spohn Ranch has 100 employees building parks and pump tracks across the US.

Running a company that pours concrete in 40+ states means tracking a lot of spending. So when Dermer’s project manager told her about the Capital One Venture X Business card, she listened.

Listening paid off. Her team now builds expense reports, checks vendor charges, and sees exactly what’s spent on every project in real time.

And Venture X Business card’s built-in alerts tell Kirsten when an employee is about to hit their spending limit so she’s up-to-date in real time.

Your business card should work as hard as you.

Growing Your Business

It's Electric

Curbside EV charging startup It’s Electric’s efforts to win a New York City contract began in earnest late last year. But in reality, the work started years before.

It finally paid off last week, when the New York Power Authority (NYPA) announced it had selected It’s Electric to build the city’s permanent curbside EV charging network across all five boroughs.

“The contract for New York has moved us from a position where it’s no longer journalists or investors asking, ‘Well, will cities be doing curbside charging?’” Tiya Gordon, It’s Electric’s co-founder and COO, told us. “The question is now going to be, ‘Which cities are next going to be doing curbside charging?’”

In August, the NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) announced plans to expand its PlugNYC curbside EV charging initiative from 88 chargers to nearly 700. The program supports the city’s Green Rides Initiative, which requires rideshare vehicles licensed by the Taxi and Limousine Commission to be electric or accessible by 2030.

It’s Electric got its start in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, born out of a walk Gordon and fellow co-founder Nathan King took in Brooklyn that had them considering where, exactly, all the EVs were supposed to charge. It occurred to them that vehicles would have to charge up on the street—and that buildings could power them. The startup’s business model involves working with property owners to use existing electrical hookups in buildings.

Winning a contract with the most populous city in the country is a game-changer for the Brooklyn-based company. King and Gordon spoke with us about what it took to make it happen.

Read more about how It’s Electric landed a contract with New York City.—JG

      

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Sponsored By Capital One Business

A backyard business. A three-decade legacy: Spohn Ranch is a 100-person business designing skate parks across the US. What they don’t sweat anymore are expense reports, vendor charges, or spending limits. The Capital One Venture X Business card handles all of it, from flagging double charges to tracking employee spending limits. Earn double miles on every purchase.

Stat: 88%. That’s the percentage of respondents who said their business’s “growth prospects, pipeline, and revenue potential look significantly better” in the next year, according to the Southeast Startup Founder Pulse Survey from Front Porch Ventures. (GrepBeat)

Quote: “This is one of those unique businesses that is really shielded from disruption by the current wave of AI or other elements. There’s AI at the core of what they do, and it’s enabling them to disrupt the incumbents.”—Bryan Schreier, partner at Sequoia, which invests in Bay Area startup Zum, describing the Zum’s focus on school transportation and iconic yellow school busses (Forbes)

Read: A positive psychology researcher shares tips on leading—and cheering up—teams that have turned pessimistic during trying times, the subject of her forthcoming book, Resilient Optimism. (Harvard Business Review)

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