Meet Sohary Ouk
We were lucky to catch up with Sohary Ouk recently and have shared our conversation below.
Sohary, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?
First I had the vision, then drew it on paper. I am not an artist, I did the best I could, which wasn’t too great. Second I needed to find a manufacture that can bring my vision to life. It was very challenging to find a manufacture that could grasp my idea because most was owned by men. It wasn’t till we found a women owned manufacture, to finally start making a prototype. We mixed and match many different fabrics and material, which took a long time and many prototypes to find the perfect combination. Once we finally agreed on a good prototype we asked friends to try it and let us know what they thought. Nipples come in all different size, shape, and firmness. We needed to create another layer of distracting the nipples to cover a wider range of women’s chest. We added positive quote designs to distract and to spread positivity. Next we looked for a web designer and a photographer. We asked friends to help model for pictures to be on the website. It took a lot patients and a good team to bring it all together. I have many people to thank for helping me along the way.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
I am a Mother and step Mom to 4 boys. After working long hours constricted in my bra, I was eager to get home to unhook my bra. Having a household full of boys and their friends being over, I felt it was inappropriate to go braless. There’s tank tops and shirts with built in bras on the market, but it has some sort of elastic that constricted the body. I wanted something that gave me total freedom with no elastic, wires, or straps. There was nothing out there that allowed me to go braless and hide my nipples without any constrictions. I would express my frustrations of wearing a bra at home to my girlfriends, and they were feeling the same way. Now knowing I wasn’t the only one, I decided to create my own shirt that would give me total freedom and confidence to go braless. We are a humble brand, giving women braless options for when she wants to take a break from her bra while feeling comfortable around people. Our line is sewn, and assembled in my hometown of Colorado. We don’t outsource anything, 100% made with love in the US. 80% of our customers purchased 2 or more shirts. It’s become their go to shirt, so easily to fall in love with. Now women can be braless and modest.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
I knew I had to get on social media to market our product. I was very shy and didn’t understand how to use the platforms. I was on youtube a lot learning. It was overwhelming and still is at times. I had to learn how to photo and video edit, which was very hard for me. The marketing part is my least favorite task. I found that comedy videos did the best. After time I did learn to enjoy it more and started to build more confidence.
