Confident, Ballsy or Impulsive?
“Are you confident or just impulsive?”
That’s one of the questions I asked Jacquelyne De Jesu, Founder, CEO, and Inventor of SHHHOWERCAP, as she was describing how her search for a shower cap disrupted the entire shower cap industry.
Because sometimes it seems to me that creative people can override a certain lack of confidence simply by following the dictum to “just do it.”
Most designers I know are constantly coming up with ideas for new brands and new products, or better versions of existing products and brands.
But very few actually “just do it.”
Well Jackie did. When she went searching for a shower cap and couldn’t find one she liked, she reinvented it – because, she says, “it needed reinventing.”
Not willing to settle for what she found and knowing that most women she knew weren’t washing their hair every day, Jackie set out to create a chic waterproof head covering optimized for the modern woman in both form and function.
In 2015, Jacquelyn De Jesu first introduced her invention and SHHHOWERCAP brand to the world. She did so without investors, crowdfunding, a PR team or media buy.
Fast forward 4 years and her company has shaken up a multimillion dollar industry. Her patented innovation can now be found in retailers across the world, from Sephora and Neiman Marcus to The MoMA Design Store.
SHHHOWERCAP’s meteoric success can be credited to three things — the power of design, a
clear insight, and hustle. At HOW Design Live, she will share her journey from initial concept, through the product development process, to today. Above all, Jacquelyn will focus on how design and creative thinking has played a pivotal role at each junction of her building this disruptive multi-million dollar company.
Jackie will tell the whole story in her session, Never Settle: The Power of Design to Build Big Business, at HOW Design Live in Boston this year. But she gave me a taste of it in this week’s podcast interview. (Listen to our podcast interview here.)
One aspect that stands out is that the success and growth has been self funded to this point, drawing parallels to other redesigns and inventions like that of Spanx and S’well Bottle.
Since the thread running through the HOW Design Live podcast is “the business of creativity and creativity in business,” I asked Jackie how she brings her creativity to her business. Here’s what she said:
“In every way, from how I think about the brand’s position as a whole to our aesthetic on Instagram. We’re always thinking out of the box and doing things differently. At launch, this translated to calling our photography a “lookbook” and envisioning a world where shower caps could be as chic as everything else in our wardrobe. To the prints being edgy and intentionally not “girly.”
“A perfect example of this out of the box thinking is for the launch of SHHHOWERCAP Season II, we had a full on runway fashion show at a prominent New York Fashion Week venue. This was unexpected, but totally on brand for us — elevating the space in a way that is unexpected.
“I also translate this type of thinking to the way I view my team and their skill sets. Being trained to design always with people in mind allows my creative thinking to translate to how I delegate roles and responsibilities.”
Her advice for creatives: “Know that the value you bring, creativity, can’t be bought and is most difficult to translate and therefore hire out. The strategic, creative mind is one of the most valuable in business so don’t be afraid to start something because you don’t have an MBA yourself or one around you.”