Resilience has been key to Heleana Franco’s success.
Heleana started her graphic design career in Caracas, Venezuela. She later had the opportunity to live in Colombia and the United States; and finally, she came to Australia in May 2016 as an international student.
Upon arrival, and after several obstacles, Heleana managed to get sponsored, but she never lost sight of her tru dream: to start her own business.
The idea behind the Dressium app came about in Colombia, while Heleana was travelling on public transport. She noticed people spent a lot of money on gala dresses or outfits for special occassions.
"In Bogota there are many places to rent party dresses because events are very formal."
From that moment onwards, Heleana began developing her dress-swapping app project.
Upon arriving in Australia, Heleana shared her business idea with her partner Patrick Andersson, now Dressium co-founder.
While conducting analysis and research on clothing swap apps, Heleana found that an important factor in keeping customers happy was the user experience. She realised this was a business opportunity, so she created a system where people could exchange dresses with others.
Entrepreneurship and resilience
The literature on entrepreneurship theory emphasises that entrepreneurs tend to be very optimistic about their own success. In other words, they think positively about their business ideas and underestimate the risk when starting a new venture.
Heleana explains that her partner Patrick encouraged her to be resilient, to continue fighting for her dreams and to see no obstacles in the journey to fulfilling them.
Instead of weakening me, obstacles strengthened me.
"Being in another country gave me a new perspective that I would never have been able to envision while in Venezuela. That led me to become more resilient, to realise that it was worth fighting. If those obstacles had not been there, it is possible that at this moment I would still be in Venezuela”.
Heleana financed Dressium using her own resources
Companies that are dedicated to helping entrepreneurs can be a great option to finance a business idea.
Business incubators present three attractive pluses: access to experts and mentors, access to a commmunity of like-minded entrepreneurs, and access to funds without many requirements. However, there are strings attached.
However self-financing your own business is usually preferable to having an outside investor.
In Heleana’s case, she has managed to build her business without any financial help from third parties.
“One of the main challenges we have is to do it without any [outside] investment. However, in the future, when we begin to expand to other countries, we will begin to seek that advice and explore possibilities."
The design of the business idea
Heleana highlights that she applied four all-important, but basic principles to strengthen her business idea.
“A digital idea can be predicted as successful if it meets four principles: if it changes a lifestyle, changes people's behaviour, it changes an industry, and covers a basic need. If you meet these principles, you can predict that the idea will be successful."
Before starting a business, you must decide the business structure. A frame of reference or scheme to organise a business is called a Business Model Canvas, which helps to visualise, in a simple way, how the business will be constituted.
In entrepreneurship theory, there is the Design Thinking Methodology, which consists of two large diamonds to create an idea, a solution to a problem or a new product.
The double diamond methodology begins with finding a problem worth solving. It begins by talking to potential clients with in-depth interviews to understand if they see the problem as you do and to determine how they see it.
Through this method, you can define two essential elements: the problem to be solved and your target customers.
With that, the first diamond closes, and we move on to the second: to develop a solution.
You start with many ideas, and refine them through surveys or focus groups with hundreds of potential, target customers.
Once you have your primary idea, you start to build a prototype.
