This fall, in just over a month, ADAY (opens in new tab) co-founders Meg He and Nina Forhaber moved their New York office, opened the brand's first permanent retail store in San Francisco, and launched a new collection.

For an apparel brand characterized in part by steady and thoughtful growth, this was a turning point that the founders worked hard to navigate while managing the day-to-day operations of the company. But even during this phase of continued expansion, they say, ADAY's mantra of "doing more with less" was their guiding principle, influencing everything from marketing strategies to forays into new categories.

In November, the brand debuted its first outerwear line, the Carry On Coat. According to Forhaber, customers had been requesting outerwear from Aday for years, but the team wanted to be cautious about their approach.

"We don't jump into coats or make or design ten coats," he said. We really think carefully about what people want and need, and where we can find that unique edge and design perspective that will make a woman's wardrobe better."

The question of how to sustainably grow the company is a question the co-founders are asking themselves, as Natalia, founder and CEO of Pipeline Angels, an organization dedicated to "changing the face of angel investing and creating capital for women and non-binary femme social entrepreneurs" [9 . was brought up in a conversation with Olberti Noguera.

The mentorship, arranged through a partnership between The Wing and Land Rover, gave him and Forhaber valuable perspective on how to strengthen the corporate culture and get used to delegating as Aidai continued to scale. Likewise, over the ensuing years, they have taken on new challenges, including rethinking where investments within the company could yield valuable returns.

"We are very focused on being a brand that exists for the long term. We want to be here 20, 30, 40 years from now and make an impact, not only on our customers, but on the world." And that has changed a lot of our financial focus from the beginning"

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This mindset meant that at the beginning, when its peers were pouring venture capital (VC) money into customer acquisition, Eidai focused on word-of-mouth and press efforts and avoided paid marketing until the business had a stronger foothold.

The company also always takes customer feedback into account, and through surveys and conversations with the brand's biggest fans, it is able to guide them in the right direction regarding new product launches. This way, the company can reduce the risk of unnecessary inventory because the new style was off the mark.

Thanks to a recent round of funding, the company has been able to devote more resources to hiring new team members-ADAY is now expanding its physical presence with 13 full-time employees, along with 15 part-timers, freelancers, and interns

ADAY has also been able to expand its presence in the office.

With more people in the office, Forhaber and he are now able to focus on what they need to focus on, such as big picture strategy and business decisions. He is also able to delegate more employees as cultural carriers to represent the brand at panel events, stores, and new hire interviews, which he and Oberti Noguera identified as an area of focus during the growth phase.

It was made easier, they say, by the decision to hire people who were genuine fans of the brand. For example, ADAY's Head of Customer Experience met the co-founder at the brand's pop-up store in Nolita in 2017 and then joined the team part time and then full time. As part of the onboarding process, new hires are asked to sit in on meetings with each part of the team to understand how everyone on the team interacts with each other.

"All of the different parts of the company overlap, and what each of us does affects everyone else. So it's very difficult to do your job well if you don't understand how each part is connected to one another."

Oberti Noguera told the founders during a mentorship session made possible by Range Rover Evoque (open in new tab). Since then, they have taken this advice to heart and are equally committed to hiring employees who are passionate about Aidai and developing their existing teams.

The company is now split between New York, San Francisco, and London (where the second headquarters is located), and one challenge has been managing the culture remotely. She says they have accomplished this so far by having everyone from store managers to part-time employees congregate on the company Slack.

The instant messaging platform, she says, has "become a virtual office" for office jokes and casual banter as well as daily workflow. 'We all work in different parts of the world, sometimes remotely, so ...... I think it's easy to relate to," he added.

The founders say they are still getting used to scaling. "What we both have learned recently is that, 'Okay, if you actually spend more money on things that you didn't necessarily spend money on as an [early-stage] startup, it actually gets better,'" Forhaber said, using the brand's San Francisco store as an example.

The capital outlay required to open the location was "horrendous" compared to what the company has spent on pop-up stores in the past, but the response so far has been "incredible," she says.

In New York, the company moved into a new 3,000-square-foot office, which, like the last one, includes a showroom area where customers can shop in person. Even in this office, when I saw the contract, I thought, "Whoa, are these real numbers?" I thought.

Nevertheless, the increased space means that the team no longer has to play a game of musical chairs every morning to find a place to work, and the showroom can accommodate ADAY's growing collection. This is important not only for customers who come in to try on the items, but also for those who make appointments via FaceTime.

The next goal for 2020 is new marketing channels. Says Folhaber, "We're absolutely at the point now where talking about subway ads and things like that won't be a weird conversation." When that time comes, it will be another way for ADAY to get moving."