A True Shopping Experience - An Interview With the Founder of Mada
Interview by Emma Borrow, Cover Photo by Ellie Bavier
Madison Semarjian was only a Freshman at Boston College when she first had the idea of a styling platform like the Mada app. Just like most college students, she dealt with everyday stress choosing what to wear and struggled to find clothes that fit her personal style while allowing her to balance the realities of being a college student. Ultimately, her indecisive freshman year inspired the platform for her entire business when she couldn’t decide what to wear on a date. Semarjian clarified, “having enough clothes was definitely not the problem,” but for some reason she could not figure out what to wear. She told me after trying on countless outfits with friends, her friend suggested to just “wear what makes her feel herself.” Seemingly minute, universal college experiences created the foundation for her app, where the focus is to cultivate a shopping experience that encourages finding a personal style, one in which the shopper feels like their best self.
Throughout college, Semarjian continued to pursue her idea of a Tinder-like shopping experience despite having no experience with entrepreneurship. She started by working with mentors at Boston College and taking advantage of all her resources through family and friends. Semarjian utilized and held onto any contacts she made as she graduated from college and went on to re-design and develop her app into something attractive to not only consumers, but also brands she wanted to work with. As liberal arts students at Middlebury, Sermajian’s story and advice is timeless - make use of your resources and push for an idea you are excited about, persist but continually adapt. And, don’t be afraid of the cold email.
Only recently launched in January 2020, Mada has done incredibly well for a start-up during a pandemic, but that is not to say that it has been an easy ride for the app. Semarjian specifically mentioned that as an ambitious self-starter, she initially wanted to contact huge labels. She first went after big-name designers and companies, telling me how Net-a-Porter “turned her down immediately.” This experience of being rejected only motivated Semarjian, as she decided to instead start small and cold email designers. While her perseverance paid off, as Net-a-Porter ultimately wanted to join the app, starting small and working towards larger labels is what actually allowed Mada to become a versatile platform with designers of all price ranges. It is because of this that Semarjian is “able to put the twenty-dollar t-shirts next to gucci handbags.” By keeping prices accessible and styles relevant to a college student, Semarjian encourages women to cultivate a personal style that can be sustainable for multiple seasons and over many trends. The app also takes into account things like your age and budget too, so it feels particularly personalized to your environment and situation. She also mentioned that a platform for men is in the works, too.
In cultivating those relationships with smaller brands, Semarjian even managed to turn the problems that the pandemic caused the fashion industry into an advantage for her app; as in-person retail demands plummeted, her app became more appealing and useful to designers. Maintaining and increasing designer representation became not just necessary for her success, but theirs as well. As the pandemic continues, Semarjian mentioned that “certain trends, including shopping online, have boomed,” but that she is hopeful her app can help to merge this with the “true shopping experience, where associates are helping customers decide what pieces work best for them.” As an avid shopper myself, I know that I am really excited to be able to go shopping with friends, but since downloading the app, I have found myself getting carried away swiping right and left on my recommended outfits. Knowing myself (and my friends’) shopping tendencies, I think that Mada may become extremely successful at a school like Middlebury, where most of us are not just trying to sort out out own style, but struggling with the acute lack of proximity to mainstream shopping.