Anna and Caitlin from Australia’s top entrepreneurship podcast lady-brains have finalised their first angel investment in a female founded business from their community – The OneTwo.
The OneTwo is a bra tech start-up with ambition to solve the discomfort that many women feel when it comes to their underwear. Co-founded by Margot Balch, who launched The Iconic in Australia, and Maria Golushko, who comes from building luxury fashion brands in New York, The OneTwo aims to disrupt an entire industry that has traditionally been managed by men.
What is the mission behind The OneTwo?
“The idea for The OneTwo sprung from my own frustration with trying to find a bra to fit my body shape. I wanted a beautiful, comfortable bra to work under clothes but often felt like I could not find a bra that fit perfectly. Then I started mentioning it to friends.” Ms Balch said.
“And one-by-one, they responded that they shared my problem. Like me, they’d go into a store and try on 10+ bras only to buy the least-bad one. I thought I had a strange body that didn’t fit bras but turns out most of us leave the changeroom feeling that way,” she said.
lady-brains first met The OneTwo at the end of 2020 when Maria participated in their founder mentor program The Brains Trust. They were long-time listeners of the lady-brains podcast. “We were working with Maria when their idea was just starting to shape up, and it’s been so amazing to see everything they’ve been working so hard on finally come to life,” Anna said.
After the program wrapped up Margot, Maria, Caitlin and Anna further built on their friendship, but it wasn’t until April 2021 when Maria and Caitlin met to discuss the idea of a creating a podcast that Caitlin saw an opportunity to take it a step further and invest in the brand.
What inspired Anna and Caitlin to invest?
Off the back of raising their pre-seed round, last year The OneTwo ran a Kickstarter campaign that saw them pre-sell over $100k of bras in just 30 days to women all around the world. “When that happened, we knew we were onto something significant,” Margot said.
“We couldn’t believe that even though Margot and Maria were building a business specifically to solve a problem faced by women, at that stage there were only men on their cap table. We knew we wanted to get involved and so we made the decision to invest,” Anna said.
“When Margot and Maria told us that the industry standard is to test only a 12B (34B) size before going into production even though most women average somewhere between a C-D cup, we were shocked. When they (Margot and Maria) described their innovative approach to fitting bras – by testing hundreds of women across a range of sizes – we knew there was a huge opportunity to revolutionise the entire category,” Caitlin Judd further commented.
During this time Anna and Caitlin, who typically interview successful founders many years into their business journey, realised they had a unique opportunity to play an important role in The OneTwo’s incredible story in real time. “We decided to create a documentary style podcast series, peeling back the curtain to reveal what it has actually taken to get The OneTwo off the ground – the blood, the sweat, the tears – all of it,” Anna Mackenzie further commented.
“Across five episodes, listeners will hear how Margot and Maria met during an accelerator program, their experience of co-founder ‘dating’, how they navigated losing their factory during COVID, to their challenges fundraising and the adrenaline rush of their Kickstarter…all while Margot was pregnant and had her second baby. It’s a captivating listen,” Caitlin adds.
lady-brains’ five episode series featuring The OneTwo will be dropping every Tuesday in April. Listen to Episode 1 – How Margot Met Maria on Apple, Spotify, and other podcast platforms.
