Young entrepreneurs are burning a blazing trail when it comes to business innovation. Generation Y otherwise known as the Millenials have been making their own income in innovative ways. For many of them, this means entrepreneurship. These successful entrepreneurs have added value to the growth of our future world. For one such ambitious young woman, Chandler Helms, there is no glass ceiling.
I met 24-year-old Chandler Helms at this year’s February 2018 COTERIE in NYC. I sat down with Helms outside one of her three booths where we discussed her ambitious story:
Chandler Helms showed entrepreneurial instincts from a very early age. All signs pointed towards her making it big. In high school, this OK City native started a nonprofit knitting company. “I had a team of about 20 knitters. We would knit scarves with this amazing yarn I shipped in bulk from Rhode Island. I would have a movie night with knitting circles at my house. We would knit these scarves. Then we would sell them at local stores. With every scarf you purchased, we would send a care package to a soldier.”
Helms started her next project as a student at SMU in Dallas. ”When I moved to Dallas, I could no longer work with the local stores and had to end the knitting company. After that, I sold stadium bags for SMU. They made a regulation my senior year. You can’t bring purses into the stadium. They were worried about gun control. They had to be clear tote bags, but where do you find clear tote bags?” In 3 days Helms found a vendor online, had a license to use the SMU logo and 500 bags printed and shipped to her sorority house where she was living at the time. “I would hire my friends to stand outside the stadium to sell the bags. They sold for about $20 and they cost me about $2/$3 a bag. That was my first for-profit business. It was a fun quick money maker that helped me fund the development for Buyers Marque.” She closed shop when she moved to NY to focus on her job here. She was the first to tap into the market with Barnes & Noble soon to follow.
Helms worked on the brand side for a few years where she realized there was no process for buyers to take notes. It was a gap in the industry. In college, in addition to her tote bag company, she interned in showrooms. It was her first job in the fast pace of market to follow behind the buyers and help them circle all the line sheets. “It’s such a manual process and it takes so much time. I thought if this were digital, these buyers would have such an easier time. I took six months interviewing buyers in Dallas and Oklahoma. I asked buyers what their dream features would be? What would make their lives easier? They said, ‘If I could calculate my budget without having to go home each day aftermarket and spend three hours calculating, that would save a lot of time. If it could be in excel and uploaded to my register at my store, then I wouldn’t have to punch in each item.’ In addition, they wanted to be able to take pictures and notes.”
Helms took this wish list and made it into something. The Buyer’s Marque app is a syncing system designed for buyers. There is quite a bit of technology on the brand side, yet it is difficult to find something as a buyer that really fits their needs. “It’s been in development for about three years. I started working on it in school, then I graduated and moved to NY.”
Helms’ competitor, Joor has been on the brand side for 10 years. “Theirs is $7500 a year. Ours is $200 a year. It’s free to download and then you just pay to export it. A lot of these smaller stores cannot afford to pay $7500 a year so this is really accessible. We have free features as well, but the exporting is really what saves you so much time. Save the money, save the time. It really does everything for you.”
Helms is apprehensive about the idea of selling her app. “It would have to be the right buyer and I knew they would keep the integrity of the app. I don’t want someone to buy it and take it off the market. I love this. COTERIE is my first market and it is very exciting to be helping people and seeing them use the app. If we can continue improving the experience, I’d like to continue.”
Buyer’s Marque is revolutionizing the buyer’s experience. Chandler Helms is hitting all the marks: Tech, finance, fashion, and retail. This app promises to put Helms on the map and well on her way to success.
