Nadia answered a call for inclusivity in 2014 when she launched Dia & Co for women wearing sizes 10-32, a category that was incredibly underserved at the time. Now, Nadia is at the helm of a plus size fashion renaissance with Dia & Co paving the way. When she initially launched Dia & Co with Co-Founder Lydia Gilbert, Nadia had one goal in mind: to build community around inclusive fashion; but that also meant embarking on the winding journey of being a Founder.
Join Nadia and Edith as they talk about the twists and turns that come with being a Founder in a new category and Nadia’s approach to leading, especially as a female founder creating products for other women, and role-modeling inclusivity as a mindset.
A: Founding Dia has been a labor of love and a very personal journey. We're approaching ten years of building this business, and that’s significant — startups don't happen overnight. The bulk of my career has been dedicated to Dia, which has been unique for me because it’s incredibly personal. It started with my own experience: wanting to be a fashionable investment banker but not having clothes in my size, even though I was willing to spend the money.
The plus-size industry is complex and challenging. It has kept us on our toes for ten years. I’m grateful every day to be able to work at the intersection of my intellectual curiosity and the personal mission that drives the brand.
A: We approached it by starting with the customer’s problem, which in this case was our own. We built solutions for that problem rather than trying to find a problem to fit a solution we already had. Our business has evolved over the past ten years — from a direct-to-consumer brand to a clothing manufacturer to a marketplace. The industry has changed alongside us, and we've had to continuously refine our role to make sure we’re delivering on our promise to our customers.
Initially, we helped customers access what we thought was a decent supply of clothing in the market. As we grew, we realized the supply wasn’t as deep as we had thought, so we started building our own brands and manufacturing clothing. That was successful, but in recent years, the industry has caught up, and now most brands are thinking about an inclusive fashion strategy. We’ve evolved into a marketplace that connects these brands with the community we’ve built, and this feels like the best version of our business so far.
A: We’ve been very fortunate to have wonderful investors who have been true partners. Balancing customer feedback and investor expectations is an art. For example, we used to take customer feedback about pricing very literally, but we’ve learned that while price is important, value is a broader concept. Customers may say they want lower prices, but they’re really asking for more value, and we’ve learned to approach that feedback in more nuanced ways.
When it comes to balancing investor relationships, it’s important to have investors who believe in the long-term vision and are willing to give you the time to figure things out in a big market. We’ve been lucky in that regard.
A: Like many difficult things in life, you know intellectually that founding a company will be hard, but you don’t really understand what "hard" feels like until you’re in it.
Building Dia has been the hardest, most growth-inducing experience of my life. Starting from scratch and building a business of any scale is exceptionally challenging, and raising venture capital added another layer of speed, growth, and ambition.
I founded Dia when I was 27, with no idea what I was doing. I had gone from building models in Excel to managing teams, boards, and everything else that comes with being a founder. It’s been a prolonged challenge, but it has also taught me a lot about myself and what’s important. I value the partnerships we have and feel lucky to have a co-founder who has been by my side from the beginning. But starting a company is an irrational choice in many ways — it’s incredibly difficult.
A: It can be all-consuming. One thing I didn’t realize when I became a founder was that I was making a lifestyle choice. The level of responsibility far surpasses what you might experience in a corporate role, and that responsibility doesn’t disappear when life happens. Over the past 10 years, I’ve gone through significant personal challenges, including caring for my mother during her illness and after she passed away. During that time, I had to balance my personal priorities with the demands of running a company with hundreds of employees and investors.
As a founder, you don’t have the luxury of taking time off the way you might in another job. You have to negotiate constantly between your personal and professional responsibilities, and that negotiation never gets easier. It’s about making sure you can look back on your life and feel confident that you made the right choices about how to spend your time.
A: We’re in an energized moment at Dia, especially as we emerge from the challenges of COVID. We’re now operating as a thriving marketplace, which has been a new business model for us and has kept us engaged intellectually. We chose a very large problem to solve, and the plus-size market is a massive, untapped opportunity.
There are around 100 million adult women in the U.S. who wear plus sizes, and these women spend about 20 cents on the dollar compared to women in smaller sizes. We believe this is a supply problem, not a demand problem, and our mission is to close that spending gap by giving plus-size women the options they deserve.
A: Weight bias is one of the most pervasive and least spoken-about forms of bias in our society. It’s well-documented in medicine, employment, education, and personal life. As a fashion company, one of the most important dimensions of inclusivity we need to address is size inclusivity. Our mission is to make sure that we’re creating fashion for everyone, and to drive awareness around weight bias. It’s an issue that needs more attention because it affects a vast number of people.
A: It’s impacted me in so many ways. My relationship with my body has probably changed the most since founding Dia. Before Dia, I was ashamed of my size and my weight. Building this company has helped me reframe that relationship with myself. I live in a completely different place inside my body today than I did 10 years ago. Hopefully, we can help our customers experience that same transformation.
