Starting a business is a challenging and rewarding experience if it is successful, but it can be even more challenging if you turn to a field that is traditionally geared towards a different gender.
One of the biggest challenges faced by the male entrepreneurs entering the female world was breaking down the stereotypes and assumptions about women as consumers.
To overcome them, they learned to rely on their unique perspectives and insights.
"A unique perspective" (Photo: Itzik Kanti)
The assumption is that men can bring a unique perspective and set of skills to the business world from the female field.
They offer value that can help drive innovation and growth and, in addition, present diverse perspectives that challenge the industry status quo.
We met a number of male business husbands, who decided to speak specifically to the female world.
"Men don't bring anything that women can't bring"
Meir Najibi (50) married+4 from Ra'anana, CEO of TO GO, manages the famous footwear chain in Israel, which for most of the years appealed to the female sex. In recent years, the chain has also appealed to the general population and combines accessories and complementary fashion. Is your main target audience still women
?
"Women are 70% percent of the consumer power, they also buy fashion items for their men, I appreciate their consumer power.
At the end of the day, my goal is to serve the desire of my client, no matter if it's a man or a woman, to serve in the best and correct way."
What made you enter an industry that is associated with women?
"I saw it as an opportunity, I loved the industry of fashion and commerce.
At the time there weren't a lot of retail businesses but more wholesale.
In the end, it's not that men bring something extra that women can't."
How do you keep up with the fast pace of social media and influencers?
"There is no doubt that today we are dealing with an abundance of channels and social networks, everything is becoming multi-channel and in such a world you have to be very precise, very sophisticated and identify the new trends and quickly connect to them in order to be relevant. We learn and develop, everything is exposed, there are technological and management tools, we check trends , talking to women, doing reviews, visiting international exhibitions."
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Identify the trends and connect with them.
TOGO chain (Photo: Yehats)
What were the challenges of the industry in recent years?
"During the Corona period, there was a feeling that the fashion industry was affected with less movement, creativity, the supply chains were affected. Do not forget that people recycled goods. There is a feeling that now we are coming back in a big way, it is changing for the better."
In the past the main target audience was women and today you appeal to everyone, what caused the change in perception?
"Our motto has always been value for money in the field of fashion and footwear. From a company that appealed almost exclusively to women, we began to appeal to everyone. Today we sell not only fashion shoes for women, but also shoes for children, for men, fashion accessories - bags, belts, wallets. Total Look Pay. If somewhere else a woman buys a pair of shoes for NIS 700, here she can buy several pairs for herself and the whole family and not once in a while or on holidays, but every day. Literally every day is a holiday! With the cost of living running rampant - with us the whole family enjoys it."
What is the next destination?
"We have a huge potential to break out abroad.
When we brought the news in the early 2000s, our concept was considered innovative, there were those who raised an eyebrow.
Little by little, this concept developed all over the world and value for money chains also began to be imported from abroad. Happily, we have always had the upper hand, even today we are the leading chain in the field of footwear in Israel, so abroad is definitely on the agenda."
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"We make a lot of effort so that the marketing messages respect women and not covet them"
Ron Shamir (36) married + 2 from Ra'anana, founded the "Lilybloom" company about 3 years ago, a brand of lingerie for women made of natural organic cotton.
"I always felt a connection to nature, even though I grew up in the city, my family had a farm and I would spend many hours in nature."
He came to the women's fashion industry from a different place of values: "Ever since I can remember I have been involved in entrepreneurship, business or social. I entered the world of e-commerce several years ago and found myself in the field of textiles and underwear. Over time, the understanding that the textile industry has a destructive effect on The environment, the problem of harsh exploitation of workers and the use of substances that can harm our health. I decided among myself that it was possible to do things differently and I started looking for sustainable alternatives and from there I came to organic cotton and fair trade and realized that things can be done differently."
Messages at eye level.
Ron Shamir (Photo: Public Relations)
According to Shamir, the very establishment of the business is actually a correction to the women's fashion industry: "The industry was run for many years by men who did not understand the needs of women and created products for them that did not see their needs.
It is precisely from this place that I make great efforts so that the company's marketing messages respect women and do not covet them.
That a woman will feel comfortable entering the site and looking at the models."
He describes the challenges that the textile market for women's underwear faces: "There are many women who are not aware of the negative effects of wearing underwear made of synthetic fabrics. I find that most women wear almost only such fabrics and our main challenge is to make the information accessible to them and explain why wearing cotton underwear is often A solution to many vaginal problems."
He says and adds: "Recently we launched period underwear that is also made of ecological fabrics and we are discovering that many women are not familiar with this product at all. So the challenges are mainly in the exposure of new products and ideas. But the customers are wonderful and we draw a lot of strength and motivation from them to continue."
How do you stay updated on trends and changes in the women's underwear industry?
"We talk to a lot of people from the industry in Israel and around the world. Many of the innovations that interest us are in the field of fabrics and their production. There is a lot of technological progress in the field and we always discover new things."
How do men know how to mediate the messages to the female audience in a proper way?
"It is very important to us that our messages are at eye level. It is important that our customers see themselves through us. Not as something unattainable but as something containing, embracing and real. The women who take pictures with us are mostly our customers who we met along the way and it felt very natural to us to invite them to take pictures for the catalog or just to share in their experiences. We bring something different and new to the world of traditional fashion. Something that so many women have been talking about in recent years. Our desire to show that it is possible to do things differently and maybe this is our fix."
"A woman can run my business even better than me"
Matan Adamov (30), a young entrepreneur from Be'er Sheva, founded the "Bianca" website about three years ago.
This is an innovative startup that brings together designers of wedding and evening dresses from all over the country under one place.
"The platform is unique in its kind and a pioneer in the field of fashion. You can find wedding dresses and evening dresses from a multitude of fashion designers in one centralized place, with categories and advanced filtering options. We currently work with over 60 fashion designers and in fact "Bianca" is the platform with the largest selection in Israel of evening dresses and wedding dresses".
He talks about what led him to enter the field: "I recognized a very great need for both women from the general population and designers for a platform that brings all dress design together. A centralized place where women can choose the design they like and connect with. I have two older sisters and following a family event , I saw that they were really frustrated and had a hard time finding an evening dress for the event. I started researching the market, learning how it works, what are the options offered to women today for looking for a dress, and as a result I realized that there was no proper answer to this need, which is why I founded Bianca."
Identified a need (photo: PR)
What added value do male businessmen bring to this world compared to women?
"I don't think there is any added value in the fact that I am a man and not a woman, in my opinion a woman could manage this business just as well if not better. Sometimes I feel that if I were a woman it would be easier for me because I could also bring the female insights as part of the marketing of the business".
What major challenge has the market faced in recent years?
"The fashion designer market is experiencing new challenges all the time. Our main difficulty stood out during the Corona period, because on the Bianca website we offer dresses for events, during the Corona period there were almost no events except private and limited events. It was a very difficult situation because the fashion designers who work with us were actually financially harmed in a way Very significant in this period."
Our decision was that the designers on the site would not pay for exposure on the Bianca site throughout the crisis period.
Today our challenge is to identify the fashion designers who are currently breaking through and join them with us."
As a man, how do you know how to target marketing and advertising messages to women?
"I understand the difficulty that women have in finding wedding or evening dresses, the dilemma they are in in light of the wide range. Therefore, I know how to focus the messages according to the same need as finding everything under "one roof" without complications and without headaches. In fact, I I emphasize my advantage over competitors in the market and this is how I formulate and focus the marketing messages. I stay up to date with the fashion edict by continuously contacting the fashion designers I work with and advertising according to what women like to wear."
"The added value of men is the intuition to understand both the male and the female world"
Zayed Zayed, 40+3 years old, from Shefaram, has been involved in women's fashion since 2002. During 2019, Zayed launched the T&E fashion complex - the largest women's fashion complex in Israel with an area of approximately 2,000 square meters, and approximately NIS 12 million were invested in its establishment. This is a specialized
complex in evening dresses, clothing for events, elegant clothing, and wedding dresses. The design of the complex is similar to Escalo fashion complexes in Las Vegas, on Fifth Avenue in New York, in Milan, and in Paris. The complex includes a huge selection of over 10,000 evening dresses and elegant clothing and about 1,000 wedding dresses of Dozens of leading designers from all over the world.
He studied economics and management at the Technion with the intention of turning to the industrial field, but after a year in the field he retired and went to Houston, Texas to be exposed to the world of fashion in the USA: "For weeks I walked around malls and met with fashion store managers and fashion designers and I just fell in love with the field of fashion Women".
Connects to customer advice.
Zayed Zayed (Photo: Yachats)
What values as a man do you know how to bring to the world of female fashion?
"The added value of men in the world of women's fashion is the ability to think outside the box, exercise a broad intuition and understand both the world of women and the world of men, who are often partners in women's shopping and have an influence on women's decisions while shopping."
The same unique male perspective he talks about is translated into practice: "We opened an espresso bar designed for men who accompany the women while shopping. Instead of pressuring the partners to finish shopping, they can drink espresso or other drinks and watch sports games, news or series on top of TV screens Tension.
"The world of fashion is a universal world, women are exposed to fashion trends all over the world online and the challenge is to reach fashion houses and designers from all over the world to present a large variety of fashion trends that are suitable for every woman of every age and for every type of event. I am a man of faith and am nourished by advice and sayings from the sources of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and is also very connected to the advice of customers and street wisdom. Every day I watch fashion shows that are held all over the world, I am exposed to information about trends and trends and almost every day I add something new and refresh the display in the complex. I adapt the marketing messages to the clientele and I am happy that the T&E complex is the author's place All the extremes in the country of Israel are women of all ages from all ethnic groups from all sectors whose common camp is fashion, fashion, fashion."
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