Sara de Zarraga and Quinn Fitzgerald who met at Harvard founded a brand called Flare. Flare is a fitting name because not only do their products add a flare to your jewelry box, but their items also send a flare to friends or family and even 911. The bracelet’s are tech-enabled, designed to discretely get you out of potentially dangerous situations.
They are composed of three features; one in which you can send a fake recorded phone call so you can get yourself out of any situation, the next you can send a text that contains your GPS location to your friends and family, and the last feature is the option to notify 911. They have eight different types of bracelets, so there is something for everyone regardless of style.
According to Flare’s website, in the United States, someone is sexually assaulted every 73 seconds.
Deesha Dyer, a former White House Social Secretary, endorsed Flare on their website by saying “until behaviors, policies and laws are changed to hold people accountable, we must stand up and do what we can. Flare takes up that charge.”
These women know first hand how much an item like this is needed as they were assaulted themselves. However, they would not let them or their lives be controlled by their assault instead they decided to help make sure no one else would have to go through what they did.
I was able to get these amazing and inspiring women to answer a few questions for me about their brand, product and any obstacles in the creation of their brand.
Q: You are a survivor and made these items to make sure people didn’t go through the same ordeal, correct? So, why did you choose bracelets?
Flare: We spoke with thousands of women before we solidified what the product was going to be. What we realized was that the product needed to be discreet and this was a key detail that personal safety products were missing. We decided to create a product that looked like a simple piece of jewelry, something that could blend in and make you feel good. The design of the bracelet is also intentional in terms of the placement of the button, we didn’t want the bracelet to be triggered every time it brushed against something, but also wanted it to be easy to activate.
Q: Did you encounter any hurdles in getting funding, if so how did you overcome them?
Flare: A very small percentage of VC (Venture Capitalist) funding goes to women-only founding teams and that number has even decreased since the pandemic. That is a huge problem and every female founder we know has experienced the impact of it during her pitches and meetings, but frankly we feel incredibly lucky to have investors who understand that we are a mission driven company. We would also be remiss to not acknowledge our privilege: an even smaller percentage of funding goes to women of color.
Q: What, if any hurdles did you come across in the fashion industry or the technology side?
Flare: We put a lot of effort into finding the right partners to work with to create our product, on both the jewelry and the technology sides. We spent four years going over every detail of the design, prototyping, testing, adjusting, and proving that we could fit technology into jewelry while still making it look good. That is a huge accomplishment that took countless trials and hurdles to go over: it took persistence. One of the typical questions people ask you is if you have experience in a certain industry before you build a startup in it. We are proof that that question should never limit you or prevent you from doing what you believe in. If we all only did what we already have experience doing then there would be no innovation!
Q: How long did it take you to decide on the patterns/designs for the bracelets?
Flare: One of the important aspects of our product is that it does not have a distinct look. It comes in many different styles so that it is not recognizable and can fit your unique style. Our process for creating new styles is driven, like most things, by our users. We get suggestions and requests for different styles all the time and that kind of feedback is so important to us. One of the reasons why we think the safety industry has been so out of touch is that they simply have assumed that they know how people experience safety. We do not make those assumptions, instead we ask people and we listen. That is a promise we make to our user and one we will always keep. We break down the falsehoods that the safety industry has perpetuated for far too long by creating something that is actually useful for people in a moment of doubt.
Q: Do you have any plans to expand to different types of jewelry or accessories?
Flare: Up until now, Flare’s styles have been more feminine leaning, but we recently launched more inclusive, gender-neutral styles featuring marble howlite beads, matte black beads, and slate metal. The long-term goal is to create a whole line of other accessories (not just jewelry) that will provide the same level of safety for different styles and tastes. Safety has no gender or age.
In honor of Women’s History Month, Flare is participating in a special campaign called “World Designed by Women.” Flare is teaming up with four other small female owned businesses, who have created limited edition merchandise like stickers and hand made pins inspired by this campaign, and with every bracelet ordered throughout the month, Flare will purchase an item and send them out to the customer!
Entrepreneurs Sara de Zarraga and Quinn Fitzgerald have showed the world and other women regardless of what you have gone through you can persevere and make a difference. These women are the epitome of taking your life into your own hands.