![]() When wool fibers are subjected to the heat and agitation of the washer and dryer, the fibers curl up into a ball, effectively shrinking the piece of clothing they make up. Stolar’s co-founder, Nate Barbera, reached out to Cornell University’s Department of Fiber Science and Apparel Design for every textbook they had on wool and the reactions of wool fibers to different treatments. When she pulled up YouTube and Google and showed them how many millions of views there were for supposed do-it-yourself fixes to sweater shrinking, they couldn’t argue that there was a demand for a new product. “A lot of people work on new apps or services, but I convinced my teammates we should make a consumer good.” “ splits each class into groups of six and gives them $5,000 to start a microbusiness,” she said. I had to borrow someone else’s jacket to hide it!” she said.įaced with the prospect of many more cold winters in Boston and the likelihood that more sweaters would make it into the dryer by accident, Stolar decided it was time to find a fix for this common problem. “I proceeded to go to Harvard Business School class with a sweater that shrunk three inches and turned into a crop top over the course of the day. After following a YouTube tutorial that suggested soaking the sweater in hair conditioner and water, Stolar was delighted when she was able to stretch it back to its original size. ![]() Determined to fix it, she turned to the Internet. She accidentally shrunk an expensive cashmere sweater that was a gift from her sister. “My family gave me lots of wool sweaters to help me stay warm, but I didn’t pay close enough attention to the washing instructions.” “When you move to Boston, you are woefully unprepared for their winters,” Stolar said. Stolar’s journey to entrepreneurship and reality television all started with an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction while she was attending Harvard Business School. The 2007 graduate of the College of Arts & Sciences is pitching her successful new clothing care start-up, Unshrinkit, to the wealthy and cunning investors of ABC’s “Shark Tank.” ![]() This Friday, University of Virginia alumna Desirée Davis Stolar is feeding herself to the sharks – the kind with investment dollars, not multiple rows of teeth. Cuban agreed to pay them $150,000 for a 15 percent stake in Unshrinkit. Update: On the Nov. 13 episode of “Shark Tank,” Stolar and Barbera struck a deal with billionaire investor Mark Cuban.
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