Creating Equity and Access for Young Female Entrepreneurs

As Jennifer Andrews’ two teenage sons were busy with high school activities, the Denver, Colorado Speech Language Pathologist was beginning to yearn for what she calls “some girl time.” Searching for a way to support and advocate for young women, a serendipitous moment occurred when one of her 5^th grade female speech pathology students gifted Jennifer with a meticulously handmade bag. “I love being a boy mom,” says Jennifer, “but I felt this calling to help young girls and young women in a creative way.” Receiving this handmade gift from her student sparked an idea. Jennifer was inspired to create a marketplace where talented young female artisans could have an outlet for monetizing their unique products in a supportive community-driven environment.

Starting locally in Denver, Jennifer began recruiting other young artisans with handcrafted products to sell and holding live markets to help these girls showcase and sell their products. “When we held these craft markets, the line of shoppers was out the door and around the corner, so the demand for these kinds of products was definitely there, but then Covid hit,” she explains.

Jennifer quickly mobilized, building and launching Treppie.com, an online marketplace where crafty young women could set up their storefronts, upload their products and sell their wares beyond the confines of a local marketplace. She was fortunate, she says, to find people who believed in her vision of empowering young female entrepreneurs, which enabled her to raise some initial pre-seed funding to breathe life into this bold new business model.

We sat down with Jennifer Andrews to discuss what makes Treppie so unique, how products are sold through its marketplace, and why this platform is necessary to progressing the forward movement of financial equity for young female entrepreneurs.

Treppie has a compelling and unique business model. What sets it apart from other online marketplaces like Etsy, for example?

What makes Treppie unique is threefold. First, we are community based. All of our merchants whom we affectionately call “Treppies,” are encouraged and asked to promote one another’s products. For example, Treppies will send each other product samples, and they will post unboxing videos promoting each other’s products on social media. We also use those videos to promote the Treppie platform on our social platforms and in our marketing. Whenever a Treppie produces content, we ask them to send it to us, and we then brand it with our logo and we use our resources to promote it. Together, we work to drive awareness and traffic at no expense to our young merchants.

Second, we don’t charge the Treppies any fees to launch their storefronts or to upload products onto our platform as some other platforms do. There is no fee to join and no monthly charge to have a storefront on Treppie. All costs to our Treppies are purely success-based, enabling Treppies to get started easily on our platform.

Lastly, and this is my favorite part, we work hand in hand with every Treppie storefront owner to enhance their business and marketing on our site. We guide them about keywords and SEO, image quality, visual branding, product description, product pricing and shipping and how to calculate their costs and profits. Thus, they are learning how to build a business as they make sales.

The Treppie marketplace is for young female entrepreneurs, particularly those who create unique and handcrafted products. Why have you chosen to focus on this demographic?

According to our research, 88% of artisans who sell on platforms similar to ours are female, with a median age of 39. It is the younger population, however, that needs the support and education surrounding entrepreneurship. If this population isn’t given a leg up and basic foundational business skills early on, it would be that much more of an uphill battle to get growth capital for their businesses later on.

What is the five-year plan for Treppie?

We were fortunate to raise some early capital through a friends and family round of funding We are currently seeking seed investment to further enhance our platform, sales and our reach. Five years from now, I envision additional revenue coming from membership levels and advertising opportunities. We also plan to provide marketing and business workshops for our Treppies, and we plan to provide an app our sellers can use to manage their storefronts from their mobile devices.

Your background is in education, and your platform is a hybrid of artisan e-commerce storefronts and business mentorship. Was this a natural extension of your profession?

Yes, it was! Working as a speech language pathologist is all about teaching communication, how to use language to support and engage others, and instilling confidence in communication with others. In working with our Treppies, I am teaching them how to express themselves through the products they make and guiding them in learning basic business skills they can use, both, now and later in life to financially support themselves.

As you mentioned above, there are continued inequities for women in business, particularly with access to capital. Care to share your thoughts on closing this gender gap for girls and women in business?

The inequities are vast. Only 4% of total small business loan dollars go to women-led startups. Companies with female-only founders received just 2.1% of the total capital invested in venture-backed startups in 2022, according to Pitch Book. I feel those statistics every day. When we are talking about women raising investment funds for entrepreneurial endeavors, there are two levers we need to pull.

First, the number of women at bat, meaning the sheer volume of women raising capital for their startups needs to increase. Secondly, the batting average needs to grow dramatically. We need to improve the success rate of women when they are attempting to raise funding. With Treppie, I am working on moving both levers. One, through awareness and inclusion, making sure more girls jump on the entrepreneurial track, and two, when they do so, they are educated, confident, and purposeful in asking for funding down the line.

You are very hands on when onboarding young women onto the Treppie platform. Can you walk us through that process?

I love working with the girls; it’s where I feel the most joy. When a Treppie signs up, she completes our quick, three step process which includes having a parent consent form signed (if she is under 18), collecting basic information such as name and date of birth, as well as selecting a time to meet with me on a short Zoom call. On the Zoom call, we go over the products the Treppie would like to sell. I am very frank with them about the market demand for their products, how to bundle or package them if needed so the shipping cost justifies the cost of goods, how to price their products, how to write a product description so their SEO is strong, best ways to take pictures and more.

Some Treppies need more support than others, and we may email or DM on Instagram to get questions answered as they upload their products independently. We also offer videos the Treppies can independently watch to help them with these decisions. As the company grows, I am having to route some of this Q&A through our video tutorials, and I am looking to increase the number of Treppie mentors available, so there continues to be a person to teach and answer questions.

How does Treppie’s fee structure work with each merchant?

There is no fee to sign up for Treppie and there are no listing fees per product uploaded as many sites do. There are also no fees currently to market the products on social media, for our email blasts, or for our Meta or Google ads. Treppies retain 80% of their revenue.

For any young women reading this, what are the requirements to sell products on Treppie.com?

Our requirements are pretty simple. Make sure you have a handcrafted product you love to make, and a desire to learn about the financial, marketing, and sales components about your business. Also, be willing to learn from mistakes and grow as an entrepreneur. Our Treppies sell their handcrafted goods from a diverse list of categories: home goods, bath and body, pet products, hair accessories, holiday items, jewelry, party items, beauty, seasonal items, art, clothing… the list goes on.

Is there anything we haven’t ask that you would love to bring to our attention and answer 😊?

We have something called “Treppie Good,” which is our community’s way of giving back. Each year our Treppies suggest charities they’d like to see us donate to, and they get to vote on it as a community. Treppie donates a portion of its earnings each year to that selected charity. This year, the Treppies chose Days For Girls, an organization whose mission is to increase access to menstrual care and education by developing global partnerships, cultivating social enterprises, mobilizing volunteers, and innovating sustainable solutions that shatter stigma and limitations for women and girls. To donate, please visit treppie.com, and click on “Treppie Good” at the footer of the website.

Jennifer Andrews is the founder and CEO of online marketplace, Treppie.com.