Working in a hospital is tough work. But it’s safer and easier with the right personal protective equipment—including uniforms.
FIGS is a company that manufacturers stylish, durable, comfortable scrubs for people working in the healthcare field. It was co-founded by Trina Spear and Heather Hasson, who now serve as co-CEOs.
Led by their personal drive, entrepreneurial vision, and a determination to provide quality products and disrupt an industry, FIGS has grown its business in sustainable ways that both give back and pay forward within the healthcare industry.
Spear and Hasson capture the heart of what entrepreneura, a strategy which focuses on female entrepreneurs and is available through an SMA, is all about.
FIGS Grows Through Hard Work and Dedication
FIGS was founded on the belief that uniforms should be made with “technical comfort,” or the “conviction that design, comfort and function are non-negotiable – on and off shift,” according to the FIGS website.
The company was born when Hasson recognized the disparity between the quality of uniforms that were offered to professional athletes and what was offered to professionals working in the life-saving field of healthcare.
With her background in fashion, she wanted to revolutionize the industry and provide quality scrubs for healthcare. She partnered with Spear, who worked on Wall Street at the time, to bring the vision to life.
To give their start-up its initial influx of capital, Spear cashed in her 401k.
Fast-forward to this May, when FIGS held a successful IPO for a valuation of $4.57 billion, according to Reuters. The company partnered with Robinhood on the venture.
“We were very focused on going public the traditional way… and we even partnered with Robinhood because we wanted to give healthcare professionals access to invest in the IPO,” co-founder Trina Spear said in an interview with Reuters.
Led by Spear and Hasson’s entrepreneurial vision, FIGS navigated the Covid-19 pandemic with great success, pivoting to also supply masks and face shields in addition to their highly-demanded scrubs.
The Fundamentals Are What Matter
When discussing the challenges of being a female entrepreneur in an interview with Entrepreneur, Spears candidly admits that she believes entrepreneurship is still easier for men, but “as a female entrepreneur, you can’t think about that.”
“You can’t use that in any way as a reason for why you may or may not be successful — at fund-raising or at anything in life. So my advice is to put that aside because you can always learn something from a meeting, whether someone is biased against you or not,” she explained.
Hasson, in an interview with Women in Retail, explains the fundamental belief in the importance of diverse perspectives within FIGS in the Tuesday Talks that the company practices: “Every Tuesday we have inspiring talks about what’s going on in the month or the week. The entire company speaks. We have different topics and different speakers come. We do these talks because it’s so important to always get different perspectives.”
FIGS remains focused on its core business values of giving back to the healthcare community. The firm has a Threads for Threads initiative that donates scrubs to healthcare professionals working in countries with fewer healthcare worker resources.
In addition to donating scrubs, Spear and Hasson also travel globally, working with organizations such as Awesome Humans to provide free medical care in countries such as India and Peru.
Investing in Women with entrepreneura
It is with this focus on building a company from the ground up with sustainable, diverse practices, by creating disruptions within industries, and by focusing on raising up communities that female entrepreneur-led companies, such as FIGS, are increasingly succeeding in a historically male-dominated space.
entrepreneura is a strategy available through an SMA that allows investors to follow a strategy that aligns with their own values. It recognizes that female-led companies often behave differently and are more successful than their male counterparts, particularly when guided by female leadership since inception, because they tend to follow holistic, sustainable approaches to leadership.
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