Founder Story with Ashlyn Greer, Founder of Fashivly
What began as a small operation taking requests via Instagram evolved into a full-fledged business. Fashivly offers personalized styling services that cater to the unique needs of its clients.
A conversation with Ashlyn Greer:
Please share what Fashivly is and how it came to be.
Ashlyn: Fashivly is a shopping platform that offers personalized shopping experiences powered by a curated network of expert stylists. We're solving the endless scroll problem by helping customers find and articulate their own personal style before shopping. Instead of just showing MORE products to a customer base that's overwhelmed by recommendations, we're curating and personalizing the 1B+ apparel options online to make our customers feel SEEN.
Fashivly started in the fall of 2020, when a friend reached out and asked for a personal styling session. We were all about 6 months in wearing sweats 24/7, and I think she was looking to get her confidence back. Because of the constraints of Covid, I did a virtual styling session for her- basically just doing “pulls” online and putting together a deck for her that looked a lot like what I used to send to buyers and execs before a shoot in my corporate styling role. The byproduct was that it was very shareable on social media, and after she posted her style guide on instagram, I kept getting DM requests and Venmos from friends (and then friends of friends) asking for their own. We launched our website a year later, and we’ve been growing exponentially ever since.
What was your background prior to founding Fashivly?
Ashlyn: I spent most of my career in the fashion industry before starting Fashivly. I did my Master’s at Savannah College of Art and Design in Luxury Fashion Management and Marketing, and did internships at Saks and Neiman Marcus in Marketing and PR. I then spent nearly 5 years at Belk (a regional but large department store in the south, $3B acquisition in 2016), in everything from brand partnerships, to managing creative production, and finally leading the in house styling team.
How has Fashivly evolved over time?
Ashlyn: Oh wow, from the early days? For the first year it was just me in my studio apartment; taking orders via instagram, accepting payment via Venmo, and sending clients a pdf and unorganized google doc of links as our first product. Year 2 I hired a production assistant to help me with linking products, and then 6 months later brought on our first stylist, who’s now a co-founder and our Brand Director. Today we have a team of 4 full-time and 4 part-time folks building the business everyday, and over 20 contract stylists from all over the industry working with our clients every week.
We launched V1 of our platform in April of this year, and that’s where a lot of our focus is right now. Our thesis is that AI should augment, not completely replace, human experts in a creative space, and we’re building towards that reality. AI is great at following, and repeating, existing patterns of behavior, but you must point to the pattern you want to repeat in order to get what you want out of an AI tool. A lot of our customers come to us feeling lost in their personal style and unclear about what they’re looking for, so they don’t have the words to describe what they’re looking for.
Who has been your biggest mentor or source of inspiration in your entrepreneurial career?
Ashlyn: I have too many incredible mentors to count to name just one! Both past and present, especially with some of the programs we’re part of right now. I’m continually inspired by my own family, and specifically some of the decisions that my grandparents made decades ago in Appalachia and South Carolina to pull our family into the middle class and subsequently give me this incredible opportunity I have today to be doing what I’m doing. I feel like I’m living not just my own dream, but theirs everyday right now.
What is something you wish you would've learned earlier in your journey with Fashivly?
Ashlyn: The thing I’m learning the most right now, and wish I’d learned 6 months ago, is to build from who I am, and who we are as a company. It’s so easy to get caught up in the “game” and looking around at what everyone else is doing in the space, especially with so much heating up in fashion tech in the last 2 years. A lot of us have the same goals, and some of us are solving the same problem, but in very different ways because of our own company DNA and individual experiences. I’m focused on leading and growing from that place, specifically in this next year.
How can the ATFT (All Things Fashion Tech) community get involved with Fashivly?
Ashlyn: We’d love for you to do a style guide with us and give us your feedback! We just launched a new 2 look product, which makes it easier than ever to work with our team on personalized looks.
We’re also in active fundraising mode for our seed round now. We’d love to dive deeper on what we’re building and our incredible traction so far if you’re an investor in this space.
Inspired by Ashlyn Greer and Fashivly? Follow and stay connected with their journey.
Connect with Ashlyn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashlyn-greer-22407464/
Follow Fashivly on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fashivly/
Visit Fashivly’s website: https://fashivly.com/
Featured In: ShopBazaar, NYTimes, CharlotteMag, MarieClaire, refinery29
Love this so much!! We're a little biased but Ashlyn is the best :)
What a great concept!
I know plenty of people this would benefit