Valentina Shoes: Empowering Girls through Creativity
We’ve all read the statistics. Compared to men, women are less likely to consider themselves deserving of promotions, are less likely to fight for a raise and are generally more likely to underestimate their capabilities in the workplace. At MoolaHoop, we connect with successful women every day. Our aim is to help them to feel more secure in their accomplishments and ambitions. Female confidence stems from empowerment, and it starts at a young age. Appropriately, Valentina Shoes is working to achieve this very goal in a fun and creative way. We sat down with their founder, Tina Hambly, to talk about her brand and how MoolaHoop helped bring it to life.
It all began with Hambly’s daughter. From the artwork she brought home from school to the inventive outfits she pieced together, Hambly was inspired by her daughter’s moments of creative self-expression. It wasn’t long before she decided to launch a company. Her goal? To use fashion to empower young girls by fostering individual expression and creativity and building confidence.
She decided to launch a site where girls could create custom shoes. “One day, in the middle of building the company my daughter got dressed for school wearing two different color TOMS – one black, one blue,” recalls Hambly. “It was the ultimate moment of expression and confirmed what I was doing.”
Not unlike style-savvy and comfortable TOMS, Valentina Shoes offers a wide variety of espadrilles in a host of colors and patterns. Once you’ve picked a color, the next step is to personalize them. Girls can choose to use a monogram, motif, slogan, or even draw their own picture. The possibilities are boundless, just as Hambly intended. “I want to foster passion and creativity and bring happiness to all girls,” she says. “And always let it be okay to wear two different shoes.”
Of course, building a business from scratch wasn’t without its share of hard work. True to her entrepreneurial spirit, Hambly took a risk when she pulled her campaign from another crowdfunding site and started over on MoolaHoop. She saw crowdfunding in general as a positive way to raise funds for her business, but realized MoolaHoop specifically was a better fit for her because of its specific commitment to women.
The switch turned out to be the right choice and Hambly quickly surpassed her goal of $10,000. Importantly, Hambly spent a lot of time asking strangers for help in designing her business plan and understanding the financials, including making a number of cold calls and emails. She was surprised by the amount of people who were willing to help and offer useful advice. The lesson? “Don’t be afraid to ask,” she says. “Get rid of the fear of that road block.”
To learn more and to order your own pair of customizable shoes, visit www.valentinashoes.com.
View Valentina Shoes’ successfully completed MoolaHoop project here: https://www.moola-hoop.com/project/view/2370.
About MoolaHoop:
MoolaHoop is a rewards-based crowdfunding platform that enables women entrepreneurs seeking to raise funds for their small business. MoolaHoop enables women-owned, -managed and –led small businesses to easily engage their “crowd” of existing customers, potential customers, family and friends in order to raise funds for their business.
www.moola-hoop.com