Umaimah Mendhro (oo-my-ma mend-ro) is one of the few entrepreneurs who can say she won funding on her first pitch. It sounds like a lucky break, but she’s been piecing together an ambitious plan since childhood.
Mendhro’s earliest memory is wanting to build and lead a large, multi-national company. Harvard also figured prominently in her childhood aspirations, even in the face of geographic disadvantages.
“Coming from part of the world, and specifically part of Pakistan, where I didn’t have schools around, I grew up with the idea of building my own path… Because of that, education became something I was truly passionate about,” she explains.
Mendhro eventually made it to Harvard, earning an MBA in 2009. Five years later, connections she met there, and during a career stop at Microsoft MSFT -2.00%, helped her win that first funding pitch. Those contacts, who had become general partners at Google GOOGL -0.40% Ventures (now GV), agreed to lead a $1.3 million seed round to fund VIDA, Mendhro’s apparel startup.
VIDA is a site where select artists can upload designs for custom shirts, scarves and other merchandise. The platform is built to accommodate all types of creatives: photographers, painters, sculptors, calligraphers and more. (Cher is using the site to design a scarf; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is using it to print artwork from its collection on apparel.) Customers buy pieces online, and the creators get a 10% revenue share. VIDA is for-profit, but also has a social mission: It offers literacy training to the factory workers who make the products.
NOTE CREDIT: http://www.forbes.com/sites/katherynthayer/2016/05/16/how-this-online-design-company-got-google-ventures-funding-on-the-first-pitch/?linkId=24554284#11bc78592e87
