#047: “Manufacturers are your first investor” with Ilana Lever

“Manufacturers are your first investor” with Ilana Lever

In this episode I had the pleasure of chatting with Ilana Lever, the co-founder of Motley London. After working for many years as a Management Consultant, Ilana grew increasingly frustrated by the limited choices available for women who wanted stylish jewelry of good quality that didn’t break the bank.

With that frustration, Ilana teamed up with Cecily Motley who spent her early career working for an art jewelry dealer. The two have created a brilliant brand in Motley, where they find the best jewellery designers and makers in the world to create unique jewellery collections. Motley have since been featured in The New York Times, The Sunday Times and Vogue!

Ilana gives a great insight into building and running a product based company, and some of the pitfalls you can avoid. We also talk about ‘Female Founders’ and some of the challenges they can face in comparison with their male counterparts, particularly when it comes to raising funds.

We really enjoyed chatting with Ilana and hope you will too, give it a listen and let me know what you think!

In this episode we discuss:

Manufacturing and launching a product

Female founders and the stereotypes faced

Internationalisation

Fundraising

Personal wellbeing when running a company

And as always, plenty more…