Eshita Kabra CEO & Founder @ By Rotation

Welcome back to the Graduate Guide. Today I have Ashita Kaur here with me. She's the founder of By Rotation. App for fashion rentals. Ishita has also won Forbes 30 Under 30, and she fights for women and underrepresented founders. Thank you so much for coming. How are you doing today?

Thank you for having me, Marleen.

Yeah, you're welcome. Great. So maybe we can start like going back to your time at university. You went to Cass— well, now it's Bayes Business School. When you were a student there, what did you think your career was going to be like? And you were an international student as well, so how did that change your outlook on careers?

Do do you think? So I, um, went to university in 2010, as you said, at Bays— well, it's now called Bays, but it was called Cass back then. And, um, I studied management, so BSc Honours Management. And I thought it'd be really cool to get into marketing, you know, end up working for like, you know, an ad agency or like some cool consumer brand, because I, I thought that marketing is interesting because you can really influence and manipulate people and, you know, get them to buy things that are actually great for the planet. I always was very environmentally conscious, even at a younger age growing up in Singapore. And we actually had one of our high school topics, subjects called environmental education. So it was always something that I was quite mindful about. But when I started university, it became very clear to me that, you know, I should maybe kind of experiment and figure out if marketing was really what I wanted to get into. So I spent my first year summer doing a couple of internships, one at a small creative consulting ad agency, basically in London. And then after that worked at McCann over summer in Singapore, which is like a bigger ad agency. And I was like, this is cool. This is fun. But it's not like, you know, the kind of, um, what's that show? Mad Men. It's not like the Mad Men sort of situation that I was expecting and imagining. And so I thought, um, this is fun. This is great. And it brings my interest and my skillset of graphic design, um, you know, mixed with a bit of management, but it's not enough. I think I can be challenged a little more. And that's when I started thinking about what I wanted to do for my second year internship. And for my second year, I decided to do an internship in banking in Singapore. And then right after that, I actually got accepted into a placement year program, which Cass Business School allowed, at least back then, and worked in asset management. And I enjoyed that year in the industry so much that I was like, this is it, this is my calling. I want to work in investments. I want to be trading some sort of, you know, financial instrument. I want to become a portfolio manager because there's not many women who are doing that. So I was like, I want to work in finance after uni. And it was also clear to me that it would be very hard to get a visa sponsored by a small company or like a startup. And therefore I should really you know, if I wanted to do the smart thing, the pragmatic thing, the pragmatic thing, it would be, you know, to work for a large company who could sponsor my visa.

I think that's like the case when you're an international student, you know, that you have that pressure to get a visa and you maybe can't like work for a smaller company. But I'm very curious because when you think back, you were like first focused on marketing and maybe doing something a bit more creative and then went to investment, which is maybe quite the opposite to that. So what was it about investment that you found exciting? And did you— did that also happen during your career, like what you initially envisioned it to be?

Yeah, I, I never kind of thought that I would want to work on the trading floor and, you know, find things like bonds and equity sexy. But actually, there's a way that you can be creative about it as well in that role. And I thought what was very, you know, exciting about it was that humans had created this other world where they were essentially trading things that weren't real. They were intangible. Well, I mean, you know, you can get a share certificate and hold it in your hand, but you know, it was crazy that there was this entire marketplace where people were buying and selling and, you know, trading and all of that. And, um, and I kind of realized through that experience, uh, and I worked in investments for 6 and a half years, that actually I picked up a skill set that I wouldn't have done so if I ended up working in an industry such as marketing at like a big consumer brand. You know, I picked up the skills of being, you know, highly professional, highly analytical, you know, things like building a financial model, which is key into running your own business and actually helping scale it up, is something that I probably wouldn't have learned in, you know, say marketing or an advertising agency. So I think there's a lot of like these hard skills that I picked up, and then there were also softer skills such as, you know, becoming much more confident in myself. You know, I was interviewing and sitting with CEOs of large Scandinavian banks asking them, "Why should I invest in your bonds?" Like, "Why is your performance so good?" or "Why is it so bad?" And those are the things that I was doing as a 24-year-old. And I think that built this sort of confidence in myself and, you know, helped me have this self-esteem where I thought I could— I do actually deserve a seat at the table. I could actually start my own business. I can actually believe in myself. I should believe in myself. And yeah, I think that sort of courage is something that you kind of get only when you're given so much responsibility and being, you know, given so much autonomy at a young age. It made me a very responsible person and it also put me in a position position where, you know, sometimes in a matter of minutes you would need to decide if you are participating in a button deal or not. So I had to think on my feet and I had to make, you know, analytical decisions and stick with my decision, or, you know, if I was changing it, have a good reason as to why I was changing it. So it made me a very decisive person, which is really, really important when you're running your own business.

I love how you reflect back on like the skills and that you really found that empowerment in that role, which is, you're right, as a woman, like you usually don't maybe have, you know, the opportunity to go in such a company and make all of these decisions.

I was the only woman in my team and everyone on average was a white male who was in his late 30s. And I was like, this is crazy. But they were so respectful towards me. They really built me up. They, you know, I almost felt like my first ever boss was like a fatherly figure to me. And I actually think that you can have a lot of allies in the workplace and you need that. You need people who support you and sometimes they might be a different gender. They might be someone who grew up completely different to you. And I found a lot of male figures in, you know, throughout my career, you know, not just when I was working as an intern or during my placement year, or, um, you know, when I was working in investments. But also now that I'm running my startup, I've seen a lot of, you know, male figures, allies, to actually help me and help other women.

Yeah, that's— I think that's nice that you say that, because I don't think that's the norm, or at least of what I've heard. I think most women tend to like have— maybe they think, oh, it's best to get like a female angel investor to back me up, or—

yeah, I mean, you should do that as well, and I have a lot of incredible female angel investors, but I think there been this narrative that I've been seeing quite a lot through social media of the girl boss, which is guys are terrible, men are terrible. They never give us an opportunity. They don't let us sit at the table. You know, screw them. You know, we don't need them. We'll do our own thing. And I don't think that actually helps the solution at all because we should get these guys to back us and then make room for us at the table because they're putting their own name by backing us, that will make them much more involved and want us to win because their name is on the line.

And we need them, right? They're the majority in the startup world.

Exactly. So I think like, you know, my approach to a lot of the issues that we see in, you know, in the world, whether it's gender inequality or even the climate crisis, it's very solutions-oriented. It's less about complaining and whining or creating content that gets a lot of viral attention because you're saying everything's terrible. My way of dealing with these problems is actually coming up with a solution and executing it and actually walking the walk.

Yeah, great. So let's maybe take a step back to, okay, you're working in investment, you feel like you're empowered and you're like firing in your job. How did By Rotation come into your life? As an idea? Was it always something you dreamed of? And like, why fashion? Can you explain that?

Yeah. So I grew up in a very entrepreneurial family. Both my parents are entrepreneurs. My dad in particular is completely self-made. He, you know, has sort of like a rags-to-riches story, which to me is very inspiring. You know, when people ask me, who's your role model? I always say my parents, because oftentimes when you meet all these celebrity role models, they tend to disappoint you and you kind of see people who are close to you as being very inspiring because you know them in the good and the bad times and you know exactly who they are for what they are. So I kind of grew up in a very entrepreneurial family where we talked a lot about street smart skills, beyond just what you learn day to day at school. Like, what are the kind of other things that you should think about when you need to be smart? When it comes to things like negotiating, when it comes to kind of analyzing a business and an industry, you know, is there, a big enough market for certain ideas that I might have had. So that really, I think, kind of subconsciously when I was young was in there, that drive to want to build something of my own, along with wanting to go and play with my friends and go rollerblading and, you know, kiss boys and all of that. And then I, you know, when I went to uni, I realized I don't think I can find, like, I don't think I can found my own business because I need a visa to be here, or I need someone to give me lots of money, uh, to sponsor my visa to start that business. So I kind of realized that actually being an entrepreneur right now is not the path that I can take. Um, however, it would be really cool to go and learn, um, lots of great skills at a large company where I can afford to make mistakes there, because it's not my own money, it's not my investor's money. Um, and then from there, hopefully I'll be inspired to come up with my own idea. And yeah, I— and that's basically what happened. You know, I founded By Rotation as a side hustle while working at a hedge fund. That's the last thing I did. And that was 6 and a half years into my career in investments. And it was really from like, I would say, you know, like a very first world problem, which is I wanted to wear nice clothes on my honeymoon. And, you know, Brits in particular spend over £50 million per year on summer outfits. And about, I think, 90% of these will end up going to charity shops. And all of these clothing then— no, and 90% of those end up in landfills in African and Asian countries such as India, where I'm from. And I was going on honeymoon back to India, where I was born, to Rajasthan, the desert state. And during my honeymoon, I actually witnessed a lot of textile waste in my own suburban hometown. And I hadn't been back for 14 years because home for me now is Singapore where my parents live and where I grew up. And I just couldn't help but feel I was a part of this problem. You know, I bought new clothes to wear to my honeymoon. I wasn't sure if I loved every single thing that I bought, that I would keep it forever. And there's certainly some stuff I would end up donating to charities because I thought that would be the good thing to do. But I had no idea that this problem of waste actually goes back to my country. And that's when I thought, I could be a part of the solution, you know, I could create a community, I could create like a sharing economy, as we've seen with the likes of Airbnb and Uber, and bring that to fashion, which should be fun, it shouldn't make us feel guilty. But right now, no one has any idea that actually the fashion industry is the fourth most polluting industry in the world.

I think like when I first saw your app and I friended on your app, by the way.

Oh, I love being a customer.

Around a year ago, I did that because I felt like, okay, I need a dress for, you know, an event. And yeah, you can buy like a new dress or you can go to charity and buy it. But then I was like, I'm probably never going to wear it again. And maybe like once or twice a year. So when you were thinking about ideas for Buy Rotation, like, did you feel that there was a big market need for it or that something that you were building didn't really exist?

Yeah, so I should mention while I was planning my honeymoon, I was, you know, already kind of looking at the fashion rental landscape and it became evident to me that all of the existing players, the incumbents, well, there was no one in the UK, right? And the ones in the UK were more like high street stores. There was no one digitally doing it. And the ones that were global well, not global, but the ones in other countries, they all had inventory and they were subscription business models, essentially. And they were running the world's largest dry cleaning facility, right? Rather than actually being like, you know, this service where you can rent the coolest, latest fashion, which is more appropriate for a nice holiday in the desert. You know, a lot of them had things like ball gowns or they had like work clothes. And I was like, "No, I wanna create something where I can tell this woman that I've seen on Instagram whose outfit I love, 'Can I borrow your clothes and pay you money and I'll give it back to you?'" And that's when I was like, "There's nothing out there like that. So there's a clear gap in the market." And yeah, and I started, you know, for the first 6 months when I founded Buy Rotation, it was a side hustle. You know, I was testing it out with my friends. I was, you know, creating like a social media account on Instagram. To kind of see who else I could attract in a cost-effective manner. We soon got picked up by press, so we had fashion magazines writing about it. We also had The Guardian, which is like a big broadsheet newspaper, write about it. That's when I was like, this could be something bigger than just me and my friends. And actually, very interestingly, because, you know, most of my friends have very corporate backgrounds, it actually became evident to me when I asked them, about this, you know, idea for buy rotation, I said, "What do you think of this?" They thought, "This is weird. Like, it could work, but I'm not sure I'm your customer right away." And they're right, because they're not early adopters. And I realized my early adopters are going to be people who are either very interested in sustainability or very much into trying the latest cool thing in fashion. And those would be fashion editors and influencers, because These are the people who always want to talk about the new things that are happening. And so that's when I realized that I'm going to talk to my friends later, right? I need to go and find my early adopters and convince them so that they write about it, they post about it, they try it out, they put their stuff on the app. And yeah, 4 and a half years later, we've got bankers, lawyers, professors, teachers, students. You know, we've got a variety of people, including Ellie Goulding, Dame Helen Mirren, Lady Amelia Windsor, and very well-known fashion influencers. It's been so exciting seeing like such a vibrant community who, you know, is using Buy Rotation because they're conscious of their environmental footprint, but also still want to enjoy fashion.

Yeah, I think it's like incredibly powerful to find that niche first when you don't really have a product and then you expand it like much later when it's more developed. I'm very— I think I read a previous interview of you where you said that you felt like an anomaly in your industry or in the fashion industry, like you don't— didn't have a background in it. And, you know, you were also a female founder, which typically is much harder to raise investment for. And I was wondering, like, when you made that transition, transition from investment into fashion, what was some of the main challenges that you encountered? And like, how do you reflect back on them? How did you think you won against them?

Yeah, you know, the industry, the fashion industry is notorious for being very, you know, for being very elitist, for being quite exclusive. And I'd say I really felt that, you know, as someone who didn't look like a typical person who works in the British fashion industry. And then what was shocking to me as well was the sustainable the sustainable fashion, you know, the sustainable fashion community as well within this country was also very white. And I just felt I don't look like anyone. And I'm also asking completely different questions because I'm asking questions from a normal average consumer who does still shop on the high street, who, you know, still does, you know, take flights and, you know, isn't a complete eco-activist. And for me, what was missing here was how do we engage the average consumer who doesn't think about sustainability every single day to start thinking about making small choices, little choices day by day until they become a habit. So I was approaching the solution in a completely different way, not any way that a fashion insider would think of. And that actually ended up being to my benefit because for me, I prioritized our customer, you know, not the fashion industry, which is already very insider, but actually who's going to be my customer. I gave them a lot of love. The other thing that was quite difficult now, as I mentioned, is, you know, the fashion industry is so elitist, so it's very hard to kind of, you know, make connections, network with people. But what I really found with that, and my advice to anyone who, you know, operates in like industries that are quite homogeneous is you have to find your tribe and you should go where you're loved. And once you do that, you know, love, you know, when you give love, you also receive love. And that's how you kind of have this compounding effect, essentially. And that's really how By Rotation was built. You know, it wasn't built with Ellie Goulding since day one. You know, it wasn't built with the top of the top influencers or any of that because I didn't know them. Right? It was built with people who were excited and they wanted to give it a chance. And then they told 10 other friends and then the 10 friends told 10 other friends and so on. So we really had those network effects coming from people who didn't usually get a voice within the fashion industry. And yeah, and I think that's been one of the things that has really stood out with the fashion industry. I think it kind of got better. I mean, I think it's improved since I kind of entered it, you know, in 2019 with By Rotation, but there's still a lot of room for improvement, I'd say. And then, I guess, on the second point, which you asked about funding, yeah, it's very, very tricky. It's notoriously tricky. You know, I think 1.8% of institutional funding each year in the UK goes to female founders. And I think if you look at women of color in particular, it's 1/10 of that. So about 0.2% of that goes into women of color founders. I'm also a solo founder. This is my first time founding a startup. I'm also an immigrant, so I didn't grow up here. I didn't live in the same neighborhoods as all these people. There's no sort of background information about me. And I understand that because Investors find it difficult in the early stage to invest in founders that they cannot trust, because trust is so important in the early days, right? And if you don't know my school, if you don't know how I was like when I was young, if I had those things— sorry, I'll say that again. If you knew me, if you had some background about me, like how I was when I was a student in schooling, or which neighborhood I grew up in, and therefore how my parents might have brought me up, that might make it easier for some of these investors to put in money. And I think that's a really unfortunate thing about early-stage funding. You know, a lot of warm intros are expected. So if you're an international student who just came here for uni and worked in a completely different industry, and as opposed to what you're launching your startup in, it's very, very difficult for you, male or female. Person of color or not. You've also got Europe, you've also got white immigrants who find it very difficult to fundraise here because they don't know the right people. So I'd say institutional funding is very elitist and exclusive as well. But again, the way that I went around that was I worked so hard on my product. If you build an amazing platform and product, the customers will come. If the customers will come, the media will come. They'll be like, "What is this thing that everyone's talking about? I keep hearing about it." When the media comes, the investors are like, "Oh, Forbes wrote about it. Like, maybe we should check it out." And that's, I think, what really helped, you know, focusing on the product and your customer journey and experience and making them happy. And yeah, and now we are venture-backed. You know, we've got amazing investors. But I will say, for me, Like, I am not in a position where I can, you know, again, like a lot of male founders who get to raise crazy money for random ideas that they don't even have product-market fit for yet. You know, they can raise it just from a napkin, right? An illustration on a napkin. I don't have that sort of privilege. And so for me, as someone who's here on a visa as well, it means so much for me to leave my career working in finance you know, at a higher opportunity cost to then say I'm going to be a founder within the space, you know, everything like this has to amount to something for me. It can't just be a lesson.

Yeah, it's not just something, oh, if it doesn't work then it's fine, right? It was definitely a big risk for you. Um, I think just to add on like what you said, as raising as a woman, I think I once read that typically investors ask more like risk-related questions to women while they ask opportunity-related questions to men.

So with men, the market can be as big as they want. Whereas for women, it's like, how do we make this market smaller and smaller? Have you thought about all the bad things that are going to happen to you?

Yeah, so I mean, then like turning that around is difficult. But I think you have become, you know, press-wise as well as like within your industry, someone that knows the game now. And I think that's what's gotten you kind of in front of bigger stages like at the UN. So I'm very curious how like next to your business, you also focus on like fighting for other female founders, underrepresented founders. Why is that important to you? And also, how did you get involved with like, um, the UN and what contribution that you have there?

Yeah, um, so with the first question, with the UN, um, we launched in the US 8 months ago, which is super exciting. We're the only rental platform to have been able to successfully scale abroad our home country and continent for that matter. And I'm not even British, so I hope the UK is proud of my contribution to their country and what Byrotation is doing for the economy here. And so we launched in the US and it's been such a great experience, you know, especially what I've noticed from the East Coast where we focused our launch in, you know, there has been a lot of excitement as to what we've been building. People have known about Byrotation even before we launched there. We have amazing SEO, people know us globally. And that really helped because it was less difficult than breaking into UK for the first time. And I was very lucky to be introduced to the UN by a journalist, you know, a Black female who writes for TechCrunch, which, you know, is a company that's also finally changing and being much more inclusive in the way that they report fundraising for underrepresented founders, because I think If you start having voices that are actually able to share stories of people who look like them, that helps in, you know, getting investors to actually put their money where their mouth is. So I was very lucky to kind of build that sort of organic network that I have done in the US, which, you know, then ended up with me being invited to speak at the UN for their Conscious Fashion annual forum. And yeah, and I think from that, I really strongly felt like, you know, female founders are always very encouraged to go and found their startup, you know, be a business person, be an entrepreneur, be a girl boss or whatever. But when it comes to funding, you know, or any sort of tangible help that we ask people who are successful in the industry for, people who can write the tickets, they will offer things like mentoring, coaching, female office hours. Is there such a thing as male office hours? I want to know.

No, probably not.

Exactly. And I think those are the things which made me feel like, do I have something lacking in me because of my gender that I need all this help and you can't just give me the money? And I refuse to believe that that's how we should be treated. And so for me, I had to just say it very clearly at the UN, which is, stop offering me mentoring and coaching. Just give me the money. And stop creating all these coaching programs because you're so risk-averse about investing in women that you'll create all these crazy programs. Like, stop giving these random people money, these coaches and mentors. Not that coaching and mentoring is a bad thing, but just give the money directly. To the founders. But the problem is that they don't trust us. They're risk-averse. They don't want to do the work, the hard work, and getting to know the female founder and do the due diligence on them as to why it makes sense to invest in their idea.

I believe there's like an obsession to first maybe train a female founder to such a degree that they're so investor-ready while like throwing maybe money at an unfinished idea of a man, right? I think that's kind of what that shows.

I mean, I think one of the things that very much aggravates me, having worked mostly in male-dominated industries, is I don't need people to tell me that you need help because you're a female. I refuse to believe that's true. I think anything, you know, someone of a different gender can do, I can also do it, you know, depending on what it is. But I think for the most chance, you should give me a chance and I'll show you I can probably do it. The same, if not better. And it shouldn't have to do anything with my gender. And, you know, I was born as the second daughter in, you know, in, in a culture where female feticide is very well known and still present. And, you know, when I was born, my paternal grandmother wasn't happy that I was the second daughter and I have a younger brother. So that should tell you something. And I think, you know, maybe it's a subconscious thing, but I refuse to believe that because of my gender, there are things that I can't do, whereas men can do everything.

Yeah, well, in spite of the odds of the fashion industry being very elitist and you being a woman, you've been very successful. So I wonder, like, now thinking back at your time at university or in your career, like, how do you define success now and going forward?

How do I define success? Yeah, I think, you know, back in uni it was like Well, for me, it's always like, what's the next thing? What's the next thing? Which is also very unhealthy. And I'm really trying to take a step back and think that maybe I don't need the next thing. I don't need to think about the next thing. I should really enjoy what I have right now because that's also kind of cool. But I remember when I was younger, you know, when I was in high school, it was like, the next thing is, you know, me being successful is going to like a top university. And that happened. And then when I was in uni, it was like, to get the top job and make sure I still get to stay in the UK because it was so notoriously difficult to stay, to get a visa sponsored in the UK after uni. And I was one of, I think, one of like 25 people to have done that that year and ended up with probably the most coveted job in finance when I did as an undergrad. And then when I found it, and then when I started working, it was, how do I get my CFA and become a portfolio manager? And I'll be one of the few women to have done that. And then when I was working towards that, I thought, how do I start a business and be like, have this really cool thing happening for me on the side? There must be more to life than earning a good salary and doing Pilates and brunch on the weekend, right? And then it's just like been nonstop, you know, what's the next thing? What's the next thing? And I think for me throughout this journey, I realized, I think the only way that I'll feel self-fulfilled, and self-fulfillment is a state is a sign for me of success, is when I achieve something that enables me to contribute to the wider society and actually make some money while I'm at it as well. So really, you know, build something where there's profit and purpose. And I think there's a lot of startups out there that don't think so much about purpose anymore. They just think AI is what everyone is investing in right now, let me come up with some kind of crazy AI idea, like put a few things together, like I don't know, um, AI and, you know, speedy grocery delivery. I mean, that's not cool anymore, but you know what I mean. Just put things to put themes together and make a startup. And that's not the kind of founder I want to be, and that's not the kind of business that I want to build.

Yeah, I think impact is very important, and that's the word thing. Definitely something that should come become more trendy. Great, I think that's a very lovely end. Thank you so much for coming on, and yeah, all the best with By Rotation. I'm sure it's gonna go even bigger.

Thanks for having me, Marlene.

You're welcome.