Allison Lee’s first company, Hemster, was a tailoring company, and in the early days of fundraising, she received a lot of blank stares from guys in hoodies and jeans. Nevertheless, Hemster grew into a successful company, with clients similar to Reformation and Outdoor Voices, who were capable of offer in-store tailoring to their customers while collecting data in the process.
Lee had previously worked in data segmentation and monetization in Silicon Valley, so Hemster was the product of her skilled experience and her commentary that Americans customized goods much lower than people in South Korea, where she grew up before moving to America as a teenager.
But after founding Hemster, a series of twists and turns — especially during COVID lockdowns, when in-store shopping was temporarily halted — led Lee to the realization that tailoring could provide the most value to retailers seeking to restore returns and other damaged merchandise.
In 2023, Hemster began repairing and redirecting returned or damaged brand inventory, and in 2024, the company modified its name to (Re)alive this is the company’s most important offer. Since the change, the company’s revenue and units processed have increased greater than 10-fold, and the company has achieved B Corp certification. All of this made Lee a finalist on our list of 20 revolutionary leaders, “Entrepreneur of the Year 2024.”
At the starting of your profession, you mentioned that you just were considered an underdog. What role did this play for you in your founding journey?
I moved to the United States when I used to be 13, so I used to be all the time an outsider. I didn’t really understand the cultural norms, I didn’t know the language. I think it actually lets you set your personal rules because you have a fresh perspective and you say, (*1*)
Since I wasn’t from here, I think a lot of investors – especially when I went out and raised against Hemster – were like, “are you trying to get into tailoring?” which is not the sexiest situation in Silicon Valley. I’d often throw suggestions to very old skool tech guys and they might say, “I only wear hoodies and jeans and I’ve never had anything tailored in my life.” How do you persuade someone like that that there is a world outside their bubble? I think I encountered this in this round, but it was much easier when I recently did this round for (Re)vive. I’m glad I went through that boot camp where I got here in as an outsider and needed to persuade people to see it the way I see it.
You’ve seen a lot of changes from the starting of Hemster to now, with the transition to (Re)vive. How did you deal with these changes?
It’s been quite a rollercoaster for almost eight years. My profession began in Silicon Valley, on the data monetization side. I knew nothing about retail or fashion, but I all the time desired to be a little closer to the consumer side. Our first hypothesis with Hemster was to implement technology in their physical and fitting rooms so that they may offer free alterations and customizations and use them to capture customer data, but at the same time maximize sales and minimize returns because when you modify all the pieces, it mainly becomes the final sales. It’s actually been a very interesting journey because we actually didn’t start out pondering about sustainability as a company. I actually just desired to help consumers solve their problems, but I think that sort of led us to a different area where brands looked as if it would need a lot more help, so we modified course.
(Re)vive was born out of the knowledge that your customers had a lot of damaged inventory. How are you able to stay open to customer concerns, even if they don’t seem to be yet addressed in your business plan?
I saw that damaged products were a more universal problem for every brand we worked on. When we proposed Hemster solutions tailored to brands, we felt it was “nice to have.” They said, “maybe I’ll include it if we have a place in our action plan.” But when I talked to brands about the inventory problem, it felt like they said, “I have to fix this like it was yesterday.” When you’re feeling this urgent change, you are forced to almost re-examine the hypotheses you were married to.
Last year, (Re)vive’s revenues increased 10 times. How are you able to make sure that this growth is maintained inside your organization?
We mainly discovered this market in 2021 and 2022, with many brands running their first pilots last year and signing evergreen deals last year, but all of them launched on January 1 this year. We had a lot of deals starting at the same time, so we made every effort to scale operationally as quickly as possible, but until we saw the volume come in, it truthfully didn’t feel real for me or my team.
The only reason I think we were capable of scale up this fashion was because we began operating more of a 4PL model, which implies we do not own and operate our warehouses, but relatively outsource it to our suppliers. Therefore, we were capable of find established suppliers who could accept roughly 100,000 units per thirty days from us and train them to make use of our technology much faster than it was to rent more people and arrange our own warehouses. I think we processed about 2,000 units by the end of last year, and by June of this year we were around 65,000 units, so it’s just been crazy growth. Now we are preparing for next year, when we’ll achieve one other fivefold growth.
One of (Re)vive’s most significant milestones in 2024 was achieving B Corp certification. What was the process like?
Before we decided on it [pursue B Corp certification,] I saw that we were making a real impact on brands. If things were to go to landfill and we put them back into circulation, how would we measure the impact? When we began talking to brands, we found that that they had no other option to make estimates aside from financial ones. So we showed a lot in terms of ROI, but I felt that was only a part of the equation. What about emissions and water saved that brands themselves had no option to track?
When we met with the B Lab team, [they asked about tracking] how many emissions our 3PL partners have [and internal teams used]. We didn’t have that information, so all the pieces was made from scratch [after that.] We learned a lot, including that one of the 3PL providers we used previously wasn’t the most humane in dealing with their employees, so we had to fireside him. It also forced us to be more accountable because if we wish to deliver positive results, but do it in a humane and socially responsible way, I think it just must be audited by another person who is not your internal team.