Jodie Dolan: Building a Profitable Fashion Enterprise Requires Blending Creative Passion with Unyielding Social Responsibility

As part of our interview series called “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became A Founder”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jodie Dolan.

Jodie Dolan founded LA-based fashion brand DOLAN in 2004. In 2020, the business transformed into a scrubs brand. With Jodie at its helm, DOLAN is disrupting the billion-dollar scrubs market by combining 15 years of experience in fashion with the latest textile innovations to offer flattering, functional scrubs embedded with science to provide advancements like antimicrobial, temperature regulation, and environmental protections.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I started DOLAN in 2004 in my garage right out of college, interested in being an entrepreneur and secretly looking for a way to express my creativity. I spent a lot of years in the fashion space loving all the different creative elements of the industry and understanding and learning how to weave all of them together. By 2018, our team had grown into a super smart, wildly talented, agile, and dedicated team with a huge heart. We founded our non-profit The Laundry Truck LA, a mobile laundry service for people experiencing homelessness, to address a crisis we saw building up around us in downtown Los Angeles. This is when, in addition to our fashion brand, we found out we could take care of our community in such a meaningful and fundamental way through clean clothing. This has helped reshape how we approach everything we do. In 2020, we pivoted into the scrubs space, and we see ourselves as creating joyful and creative uniform solutions for every body type.

Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey?

In answering this question two things come to mind. One is that it’s like having a child, you think you forget the pain of it as the years pass. On the other hand, I do remember a lot of tears! I remember EVERYTHING being hard. I majored in art history at The University of California, Santa Barbara, so I had literally learned nothing at school that would prepare me for this industry. Not knowing how to design a fashion collection, or run and finance a business, and not being a native Spanish speaker (when only Spanish was being spoken by my contractors) were equally and consistently challenging at the beginning.

Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?

I grew up with parents and grandparents who imbued a strong work ethic, so in a way, once I chose my path, I had no choice but to see it through! I also think I really wanted to prove to everyone and myself that I could make my company a success. Deep down, I always felt like I knew I wanted to help people, and this felt like my path to make that happen.

So, how are things going today? How did grit and resilience lead to your eventual success?

I am proud to say, DOLAN is a brand that is thriving in our new category of scrubs, through what has been a really tumultuous couple of years of COVID. We have an incredible team which is the sole reason for this success in challenging times. I am also so very proud of The Laundry Truck LA, the mobile laundry service that DOLAN founded, offering clean laundry to those in need.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

We are a company with a lot of talent and heart. We always hear how our customers love the fact that we give back with our one-to-one model with The Laundry Truck LA. Every purchase from DOLAN equals one pound of laundry for people experiencing homelessness. This year alone we were able to wash over 50,000 lbs of clean laundry.

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

Make sure you live and create a whole life. It can be really easy to get caught up in the building and running of a business, (especially in fashion when it’s 24/7!) but making time and space for family, friends, and other things that feed your soul only add to your business in the end.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

My team consistently inspires me and helps me to move forward daily!

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

I love knowing that we help women and men feel great every day. It’s a constant reminder to hear daily from our customers that we are helping them to feel more comfortable than they thought possible and more confident about themselves.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me before I started leading my company” and why. Please share a story or example for each.

• This is a marathon, not a sprint! When I started, I would work 24/7 never taking even a day off for a break to do something fun. Eventually, I realized that just because an industry operates non-stop doesn’t mean I had to as well! If you want to have a meaningful long career, you have to make sure you carve out time for fun so you have the stamina to keep going.
• The company is named after you — you don’t need to ask for anybody’s permission. For a while, during my earlier years as a founder, I would literally defer to anybody who was nearby because I was so nervous to make a mistake. Now, I make mistakes all the time! But I am great with making decisions, knowing that every time a decision is made, it’s my own, and whatever the outcome, I always learn from it.
• You really only get what you ask for, so start asking for more! This is simple and true. Money, business, support, education, and whatever else you need, you need to ask for it in order for it to show up.
• You can have a business AND do good in the world, they are not exclusive. This is the motto we live by throughout the entire DOLAN brand including our scrubs, our one-for-one give-back model, the PPE and masks we made for COVID, and The Laundry Truck LA. As long as you are looking to solve problems for people, a business can be a great tool to get the resources to do it.
• Build a diverse team of people around you that you trust and you can go to for advice. This took me a while to figure out. Early on, I was nervous to go to anyone for advice because I didn’t want to show what I didn’t know. This is possibly the biggest mistake I could have made. Creating a diverse group of people to give input, especially in the areas that are not my strengths has been a lifesaver.

Can you share a few ideas or stories from your experience about how to successfully ride the emotional highs & lows of being a founder”?

Garden! It will help you understand there are seasons. Nothing lasts forever, good or bad. So, take some deep breaths and really invest in understanding that all things are in motion.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I want to revolutionize how we size clothing, how we fit them, and what we do with them once they have served us.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

www.shopdolan.com

@shopdolan

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!