[00:00:00] Most founders, especially in the early days, try to win by doing what already exists, just better or a little more uniquely. But this conversation with Rebecca Matchett will challenge you to ask a bigger question. It certainly has challenged me, what's the thing that's missing in your industry and why aren't you building that?

Priscilla: Welcome to The Entrepreneur's Kitchen. Today I've got a very exciting guest for you. I've got Rebecca Matchett, and Rebecca is a seasoned entrepreneur, having founded and led several fashion companies, including Alice + Olivia, Rebecca & Drew, Sophie Hudson for InStyle Magazine and TrioFit brand [00:01:00] Rebecca has demonstrated her ability to identify and address market needs.

Culminating on her patent in women's sizing marketed through the TrioFit brand. Rebecca, we're so excited to have you here because I think you exemplify, one excellence. Two something that women entrepreneurs and. Founders can look up to and you've done a lot of things. I think if I was to read all of it would be here for the next 10 minutes.

Still me trying to summarize what you've done and I still couldn't capture it all. So thank you so much for being with us. Rebecca, please tell us, who is Rebecca and what's the mission?

Rebecca Matchett: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. Yes, I'm Rebecca Matchett. Originally from Boston, Massachusetts. I've now been in New York for. More than a couple of decades. And, my professional career has been here. From the beginning, from when I graduated college, and as you mentioned it began with Alice and Olivia.

So women's fashion company very trend based, trend focused. [00:02:00] And the mission there was really just, I was young. I wanted to grow a company. I was interested in fashion and wanted to make my mark trying to bring something new to the market visually. And from there , my business sense kicked in a little bit more and I was more interested in impacting the market bringing change to the market, filling a gap in the market.

And that is where Trio Fit came in. As you mentioned trio Fit is actually a patented. Sizing system for women, and we sized clothing by bra size and height, so our aim there was to fit. The problem area of a woman, which was the bust because clearly women come in all shapes and sizes and we tend to have to fit, the largest part of our body, right?

So imagine a woman, very small frame, big bust. They're forced to size up and up in order to have a garment that sort of didn't pull at [00:03:00] the buttons. Create embarrassing gaps. A partner and I created Trio Fit, and we applied that technology to several brands. Rebecca and Drew Sophie Hudson and InStyle Essentials, all of which you mentioned.

So we were showcasing that patent in different price points, different markets, different distribution channels to really try and fill a void that we felt existed in the marketplace, that existed for men with neck size and arm length. But for women, we the equivalent. To us was the bus size that we were trying to accommodate.

So from there my current foray and my, the one I'm absolutely most excited about, because I think the mission and the impact is far beyond anything I've attempted so far. Is Synchrony. And Synchrony is a social app for Neurodivergent adult. And it's the first of its kind app that uses ai chat assist.

It has [00:04:00] a referral based system to keep our community authentic and it is used to close the gap of social isolation and loneliness for the neurodivergent adult community. So the mission there is far greater. Far more impactful than anything I could ever hope to accomplish in fashion. And though we haven't launched yet, we are close and I can already tell that the impact is going to be incredible.

Priscilla: I wonder what has been like the through line, what has remained the why through everything that you've done. Rebecca.

Rebecca Matchett: Absolutely. So I am someone who, I don't like to get into businesses that already exist. I am not trying to find that tiny space between the wall and the wallpaper and see if I can make a living there. I really want to make an impact in a market. And with Allison, Olivia, as I mentioned , I was very young.

But I did try to. Bring something [00:05:00] new to the fashion scene , variations in colors, patterns, textures, and we actually used upholstery materials for our pants in order to create that. So we did try to definitely differentiate ourselves from anything else that was out there with Trio fit, clearly the ability to obtain the patent shows that we were filling a void that didn't exist there. Now with Synchrony, this void, as I mentioned, . Is much greater and the impact is going to be much more substantial. But I do try to go into businesses where I feel like there's something lacking or the market just doesn't even exist, and that is really the case with what we're doing right now.

We think that the Neurodivergent adult community is completely underserved or not served at all appropriately in this social space. And I am not trying to put down any efforts whatsoever that address housing or address [00:06:00]employment concerns. There's always more that can be done, but there are many resources in those areas.

This social piece has been very neglected.

Priscilla: I'm interested to know, Rebecca, you have a way of finding the gaps. . Do you have a process? What are you saying to yourself all the time? So you identify these things? I'm thinking for founders that are listening that I'll just find my little space, like you said in the wall and are not able to see that there are many gaps.

Yeah, if you could speak to that, Rebecca.

Rebecca Matchett: I think it's a matter of. Needing to be a little bit fearless because, there are many opportunities out there where it's a little bit safer. Maybe you've seen the data that supports opening a little boutique or there's an interest in opening a restaurant or creating a line of clothing.

Is a little bit different. You might have a different mill out of a different country or you might be able to lower the price point, but to me, the ability to take that risk [00:07:00] and say, you know what, no one's really gone into this space the way I'm doing it yet, but , I can see where it fits. I can see there's a place for it.

I can see there's a void for it, and it's a little bit of a leap of faith. You really need to trust that the market's there, that you have the ability to create a business that doesn't exist yet, and you have to be willing to fail a little bit, or, take things slowly enough that the failures aren't catastrophic.

So maybe there's a little misstep or maybe there's an investment that's made somewhere that maybe it shouldn't have been as great an investment or maybe. You should have taken one step before , that next step of the investment. , So you need a bit of a appetite for risk.

But I think it's really keeping your mind open and trusting yourself and trusting your instincts that if you think there is a gap in the market, other people most likely do as well. And clearly you want to ask around, you wanna do your research, but, if [00:08:00] there's not gonna be a lot of it if the market doesn't exist yet.

. 

Priscilla: A lot of founders have that thing, where they really excel. And I listen to Alice + Olivia and the story the names of your mothers and, is it brand story, is it marketing?

. 

Rebecca Matchett: The, yeah, I think that everyone brings something different to the situation. Certainly for me, when I started Alice and Olivia, it was more the excitement. I wanted to do something on my own. I had worked for a large ad agency, which was wonderful, but I was ready to start something else, and it was just the excitement of.

What should we do? We love fashion. We have this idea, but as time went on and I had more adult commitments, I had my children to raise and my husband my, you know, aging father and different things going on, I personally felt like there needed to be something else. Not just the excitement of starting something, but something I really deeply felt inside that I was willing to take.

Time away from my other [00:09:00] responsibilities, the rest of my life to pursue. And that is this mission driven idea of helping a community that's very underserved. And so I really would be hesitant to say that there is. A right or a wrong reason to get into a certain business. For me personally, at this stage in my life it had to be something that I felt was going to make a very big impact to justify, as I said, my time away from family.

But. That's certainly not the case for everyone. And some people go to school and are trained as a doctor or trained as a lawyer, or trained as a consultant, and , that's their comfort zone. And therefore, I believe that they probably are most skilled in that area for me.

Having a lot of entrepreneurial experience, I've had to wear many different hats. So , I have a comfort level going from maybe being able to let's say quality control, a garment to being able to , financially [00:10:00] plan projections. And that's just because of the experience I've had.

I did not go into this with all that experience. In fact, I came in pretty ignorant before Alice and Olivia. I had zero entrepreneurial experience at all. But I'm someone who learns on the go. I learn through working trial and error. Going back to school wasn't for me.

My school is my everyday work in the office. But again, that's my comfort zone.

Priscilla: Yeah it's so good that you speak to that. 'cause a lot of women, I think that juggling family, other responsibilities, aging parents, small children, and then trying to build a business, it's a lot. It's a lot 

Rebecca Matchett: Exactly. Which is why I really do believe that for me at least personally, the mission driven aspect of what I'm doing made it worthwhile. Yeah.

Priscilla: Let's get into Synchrony for people who are not familiar with those terms, you said neurodivergent explain it more. So whether it is [00:11:00] for you or it's not for you, get what it's about. .

Rebecca Matchett: Absolutely. So it's a very broad term to your point. And , it can range from anything from autism to A DHD to , high anxiety disorders. And the tricky part about it. Is that many people are self-diagnosed right now and we certainly do not require , an official medical diagnosis.

If you believe that you fall within this category and you believe that the other social apps out there are not for you, that you don't fit in, that you feel uncomfortable, that you don't think your people are there, synchrony is there for you now. So we are purposely creating a very broad category called Neurodivergence.

If you feel that the other opportunities and the other applications out there are not for you, that's really who we're looking for. People that feel that maybe they need a little more support. And this is where our AI chat assist named [00:12:00]Jesse comes in. Jesse is AI chat assist that will help you with any communication difficulties.

It will help you decode conversations. If you're having difficulty on our chat feature. It'll give advice on maybe topics to raise with the person you're chatting with on Synchrony. It'll help you, as I said, decode social situations that you might be a little unsure about. Synchrony will provide not only the platform , that you need, but also the support in order for you to form friendships and relationships that are comfortable for you and long lasting.

Priscilla: Immediately I thought of so many people that I've known through life, and when I think of neurodivergent, I think of really smart people that have a really hard time connecting with other people and that becomes the thing that isolates them because they can't quite, I don't know how to explain it.

You probably know how to explain it [00:13:00] better than me. They can't quite. Get those social norms, but really bright, really amazing people that can't get into society for some reason because they're like a mismatch. Is that sort of the problem that you're solving? I.

Rebecca Matchett: Absolutely it is. And there were many resources for this community when they were younger, let's say in high school, still living at home. And, once you become an adult, those supports really disappear. And I think I mentioned earlier, most of those supports go into housing and employment.

Those are critical areas. However, this social piece is missing, and you're absolutely right that when there are no supports around this community, it becomes incredibly difficult to maintain relationships, let alone form new ones. Where are you going to meet someone that has a shared interest or a shared communication style that feels [00:14:00] comfortable in that same social space as you?

So we are trying to create. An environment that not only everyone knows about, so it, the community is very large, but also to your point, helps in the communication piece that they might struggle with without that support. And so in part what we're trying to do is alleviate the support network.

Around this community. So it could be a parent or a sibling, or a coach or a therapist who currently is trying to support the social side, the social part of their life. And that's a very big time commitment. So it's incredibly time consuming as a parent to try to help your adult, your grown.

Form these friendships and maintain them. And so we're trying to take some of the pressure also off of the loved ones in the surrounding community [00:15:00] for the benefit of these ND adults.

Priscilla: That's amazing because I really could see that , even with a child, if you try to, be the everything social of a child, that's very burdensome.

Rebecca Matchett: Exactly, and it's also as an adult you can imagine, you want your independence. You want to feel that you are creating these relationships and that you are in full control of that, that you are managing how they progress or if you have an issue, you're working through it. And we are hoping that Jesse, AI Jesse, serves that role.

So instead of having your mom, your best friend next to you, you have Jessie on call , that you can say, you know what, someone just sent me a message. I'm not exactly sure. Were they being funny? Because I'm feeling a little offended, like, how should I respond to this and

so it's a learning experience, it's a growing experience, and all the while it's helping form relationships.

Priscilla: Rebecca, how did you land on [00:16:00] this problem to solve? I'm interested in the story behind this because now that you're talking about it, I can see so many situations where, oh yeah, there was so and so and they were brilliant and somehow they were always isolated.

But I would've never landed on that as, the chief problem.

Rebecca Matchett: I cannot take credit at all for this. My business partner, Jamie, approached me and I had known Jamie for a few years. Jamie's actually the mother of one of my children's very close friends. So we got to know each other because of our daughters and, jamie also has a son, Jesse who we named, AI Jesse after.

, We were out to dinner one night and then out to lunch the next day and she said, I have this idea, and I know you've started several companies. do you think there's something here? How would you go about it? the more I thought about it, the more we talked about it, I just.

I said how I would be thrilled to be part of it. I'm happy to help, I'm [00:17:00] happy to give you my ideas, but if you need someone in that COO role or , any role really, I would be interested. She said yes. She already had a partner named Brit. And Brit is an autism specialist.

And so we sort of bring these. this dream team of different experiences Brit with her autism specialty, Jamie with living every day with her adult son Jessie. And then I have that sort of startup COO experience. So I didn't know exactly what my next move was gonna be. I knew I wanted to do something.

, I love chasing my kids around, but I also knew that there was this side of me that was missing and I was waiting to see what it was going to be, and it was incredibly clear immediately to me that it was this once Synchrony crossed my desk. That's all . It could be, 

Priscilla: yeah I like , how the team came together and it's a powerful mission, the everyday person suffers a lot from isolation for other reasons. [00:18:00] But I think there are certain communities that really stuff in a deep way. Due to isolation and I, yeah, I think that's one of them.

So it's a great mission, Rebecca. Now I wanted to ask you this because, founders are always so interested in this. You get into the tech space and you have this product that doesn't seem like a tech product. And it's completely you're patenting. What? Okay, so I'm wondering like how that process unfolded.

What it, was it like, did you look for investors? What was it like sharing what you were creating

Rebecca Matchett: is this for Synchrony specifically

Priscilla: For Triofit 

Rebecca Matchett: For okay. It absolutely was, yes. Not what you would think of when you think of technology or a patent. Certainly but we. Okay, so why did we go down that route? We felt that we had a very unique idea. One of the big growth opportunities with TrioFit was to license the technology to other [00:19:00] companies.

And so we needed legal protection on the concept. And it's also why we did the proof of concept at different price points and through different distribution channels. So for instance, Rebecca and Drew was a higher end. We sold through the big department stores like Neiman Marcus and Sachs.

Sophie Hudson, as you mentioned, was on home shopping network. So that was the lower price point. Much larger quantities. And then for InStyle Magazine, it was yet another distribution channel through their publication and aligning ourselves with a name that was already very well known with InStyle.

But it was certainly not a normal technology company. And it's funny because now with Synchrony, I'm in a real tech. Companies creating this app. I still am not. A expert by any means in technology or app development. And it was actually one of [00:20:00] the big challenges was to find a partner in our app developer that we really trusted because everything relies on the development of this app, of course.

And we had to trust our third party that they understood the mission and that they understood what we were trying to accomplish. And we have been phenomenally lucky. In that regard. But really with all of these companies, I try not to go to outside investors. My partners and I are able to. At least at the beginning, put in the capital that's needed to prove the concept.

And that's always what my goal is to self-finance until I can prove the concept. And then if it gets to a point where outside, capital is needed, at least we have something to sell and value to show as we're marketing it.

Priscilla: As you are looking for the partner, like you said, in this case with Synchrony, the app part is hugely important. What are you looking at? How are you thinking through who the right partner is? I think a lot [00:21:00] of founders get stuck on that point of okay, so how am I gonna find this person and what am I thinking when I'm looking for them?

Rebecca Matchett: Absolutely. We are talking about the actual creation of the product. An idea is an idea. It needs to be executed. So the selection of that partner was everything very, very critical. , as I said, we're phenomenally lucky because not only were we looking for someone who was capable in terms of skillset, but who had that.

That empathy piece, that piece, that this is not just a business transaction for them. , They recognize what we are trying to accomplish and the importance of what we are trying to do. And so a lot of the sort of interview and vetting process is about. , We give them a presentation. This is what we are trying to accomplish.

Now tell us back, what would you do? How do you interpret what we just told you? There are some people who will get it and some people that won't. However, we [00:22:00] have struck upon, I, I just cannot imagine partnering with anyone else right now. And everyone is actually touched in some way. One degree of separation.

By someone who's neurodivergent and that really helps in the care that they're putting into this product, because we have third party partners who are married to autism specialists or married to someone who's on the spectrum. Or is a parent to someone who's on the spectrum. So this is really a team of not only, as I said, we didn't just sign a contract and it's not just a business agreement.

Everyone is very personally invested because everyone has been very personally touched on a daily basis by the community that this is going to serve.

Priscilla: I'm excited for this. Super excited for this. I know you're launching in January and when we talk about, taking in that diversity and inclusivity [00:23:00] and, all these things at this time, and I think especially since post COVID,

Rebecca Matchett: yeah. No, absolutely. And you said it earlier that. We are dealing with a isolation, loneliness crisis right now just as a whole society, but this community in particular has really been neglected. And so you think of all of the resources and all of the attention on a national scale that has been put into mental health and combating loneliness, and the importance of seeking help.

Not for this microcosm of the population, not specifically for the Neurodivergent community, who I would argue needs it more than anybody.

Priscilla: I agree with you. I'm so excited for this to look at the impact that this is gonna have for so many people. I know we're almost out of time. Rebecca, if I can just have, a rapid fire, just a few questions. You let me know what comes to mind quickly .

Firstly, the first word that comes to [00:24:00] mind when I say fashion industry,

Rebecca Matchett: Fickle.

Priscilla: The most important quality when you're building a tech company.

Rebecca Matchett: Patience,

Priscilla: The most underrated skill of a founder,

Rebecca Matchett: being flexible, keeping an open mind.

Priscilla: A book or a resource that you would hand to a founder that is building in a sensitive or vulnerable market, or any market that you'd say, this is the book.

Rebecca Matchett: Oh goodness. I don't know if I have an answer for this one. , And it's a book I'm reading right now and, I talk about this with my friends all the time. I read on a Kindle and I never know, I don't look at the titles the whole time I'm reading them. The Flexible Entrepreneur, I'm forgetting the name of it. It's the book though that I would recommend to anyone. Oh, I wish I could think of it. Think it's, ugh, I'm sorry, I'm blanking on it.

Priscilla: That's okay.

One thing that you would say as a founder, you continually try to figure out or [00:25:00] try to develop. It's never stopped.

Rebecca Matchett: Oh

the one thing that will never stop, I think the way I try to operate is through best practices. Being flexible with everything and never being concerned to change something, even if you're partway down the road or mostly down the road, you pivot when you need to pivot.

Priscilla: Yeah. And if you had to say something to Rebecca starting out knowing that this is where this journey's gonna take you, what would you say to her what do you wish someone would've said to you? .

Rebecca Matchett: I would say what I actually just said before, which is I wish I would have believed that I could pivot at the very beginning. Once I made certain decisions early on in my career and I thought I was too far down a certain path I wish I realized it's okay.

I can cut my loss and pivot to a different aspect of a business. I think that. One of my biggest issues early on was I was trying to do too much for too many people [00:26:00] and I should have narrowed my scope and I should have been more focused on who my consumer was and my specific customer versus trying to please everybody.

Priscilla: Yeah that's 

good advice. Now when Synchrony launches, and if it does what you and your partners and your team hope that it will do, what will make you say, wow, this was worth it.

Rebecca Matchett: I mean if we can help bridge the gap that exists currently in this social. Loneliness Cliff. That would be everything to me. I think that , it's not only the number of people that we're going to have as members on our app, but how often they're on there and how engaged they are.

So while I don't like necessarily putting hard numbers to things to gauge success, I think in this case, if we. See how many people this is reaching, and not only how many it's reaching, but how engaged they're meaning, how much time they are spending on the [00:27:00] app, and how many people they've connected with.

Whether or not they then take those relationships off the app or whatever. That's great, but being able to make those introductions to as many people as possible and make them feel that they are capable of this independent social connection, that's victory.

Priscilla: That's amazing. It's almost like the anti-social media, and then it's like also for a marginalized group, and then it's for a mission. It's clean. I like it. It's nice. Thank you so much. Rebecca people please. If you'd like to know more about Rebecca, where can people follow the journey and support Synchrony when it launches?

Yeah, tell us more about that.

Rebecca Matchett: Yes. So we will be launching late January, early February. But in the meantime you can sign up for the waiting list on join synchrony.com and definitely follow us on our social media synchrony app.

Priscilla: Please, to the audience do share this, it's a big mission and I think it's a good thing. It's a good thing. So I'm excited for it [00:28:00] and I'm excited to see where this goes. Rebecca, thank you so much for your time.

Rebecca Matchett: Thank you for having me.