Episode #337 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Gloria Hwang, Founder & CEO of Thousand.
Gloria’s career has centered around mission oriented initiatives and companies. Starting at Habitat for Humanity… then to TOMS, which is the gold standard in terms of businesses with a social mission based on their One for One model. She joined the company in its early years and played several key roles while there.
As the Founder of Thousand, a Public Benefit Corporation, Gloria named the company after an initial goal of saving 1,000 lives (which they have passed) by making a bike helmet that consumers will actually enjoy wearing. The inspiration for the company came from a tragic story of a coworker who passed away from a bike accident in NYC.
When you think of it, it is a category that hasn’t really evolved in terms of style and functionality.
What started out as a Kickstarter project… then fast forward to today, Thousand has brought a new level of style and innovation to a category that has been stagnant forever. And, it is working. The company continues to grow aggressively and has been expanding into other categories like the launch of its Thousand Jr. collection.
In this episode of our podcast, we cover:
- A deep discussion around building a company that is mission and community focused.
- Gloria’s background story and her mentality as a builder that started as a child which was influenced by her father who started the robotics program for NASA.
- Her experience at TOMS including playing a key role in building out their non-profit and giving programs and what it was like working closely with Blake Mycoskie.
- The full lifecycle story of Thousand, including how she got started from designing the product to manufacturing to building a brand.
- How they decided to expand their product line based on feedback from existing customers versus trying to build out new markets.
- Starting the company with a bootstrapped mentality and how that helped the company over the long run.
- And so much more.