Woman wearing polka dot dress holding red bag standing on a street in New York City.
Ash Sharma and her husband James were en route to New York from their home in Oakland, CA for their first date anniversary. “I’m an over-packer,” Ash admitted. As they rushed to catch their connecting flight, Ash’s carry-on bag kept tipping off her roller, eventually spilling its contents all over the jetway. "Ash, we have to get you another solution for this,” James responded.
For a seasoned marketer, that experience set off Ash on a quest: to find a travel solution the market hadn’t yet dreamed up. James, ever the practical one, initially gifted her a trolley slip, but Ash was determined to stick with her favorite travel bag. His next idea? A bungee cord. “I had to Google what a bungee cord was!” Ash laughed.
“We both had this lightbulb moment. What if you can attach your personal bag to your luggage in a stylish but functional way,” recalled Ash. After late nights sipping Mezcal and brainstorming, Cincha was born in 2019. “I like to think of Cincha as everything but the luggage,” said Ash.
Startup girl at heart
Today, the brand has grown beyond direct-to-consumer on the brand’s website to major marketplaces and soon wholesale in major retailers.
“I like to call myself a startup girl at heart,” said Ash. Having spent more than a decade launching successful beauty and wellness brands, Ash never expected to follow in the footsteps of her dad, who worked the graveyard shift as a mechanic for a major airline while Ash and her sister were growing up. “That was definitely not on my bingo card, but it feels pretty special. We both love airplanes, we love to fly, and we send each other news about travel all the time,” she said. “It's a really fun way to bond over something we both love.”
Ash’s mom, who emigrated from El Salvador, didn’t initially embrace the possibility of their new endeavor until Ash and James received an exciting call. “I think getting a call from the Shark Tank producers was finally the moment it clicked for my mom.”
Here, Ash shares her learnings from building a startup to establishing a successful global business.
Create an authentic story.
As a marketer, Ash understood that a founder story needs to be authentic to resonate with customers. “We really made sure that people saw the behind the scenes of us shipping products every weekend, going to the post office, the highs and lows of business that I think really helped people connect to us and feel that intimacy,” she said. Family and friends have been the face of the scrappy two-person brand. “My dad likes to model for us,” Ash said with pride.
Get third-party validation.
James and Ash brought on a small agency to help position the brand in front of writers and journalists. “We got press, used it in ads and email, and we posted it on social media. It all works really nicely together,” she added. They caught the attention of a celebrity’s favorite things list, and while they didn’t make the final cut, it was the validation they needed to weather through the 2020 travel slump. “We really hyped up our Facebook advertising and we were finally getting all these sales that weren't coming from my mom's friends,” said Ash.
— Ash Sharma, Founder, Cincha
Do a lot of social listening.
Ash says everyone from grandparents to people with disabilities to cool Gen Z girls buy their travel belts. “To this day, I'm the one posting every day on Instagram. I'm looking at all the DMs. We have somebody who helps us with customer service, so we meet with her regularly.” Listening to what people are saying led them to their next launch.
“I can't tell you how many messages a week people were asking, ‘Where is that tote bag that you're using in your ads?’” Rather than continue to send them to other tote brands, they decided to design one for Cincha. “We had huge success with our Canvas Go-Tote. We've seen a lot of people coming into our brand through the totes, and then getting a travel belt as well,” Ash said.
Share a purpose beyond revenue.
For Ash and James, it was important to bring a social impact component to their brand. They found the perfect partner in Miles4Migrants, an organization that uses donated miles to help vulnerable migrants get to safety. With every travel belt or any purchase, Cincha donates 100 miles to the nonprofit, which helps reconnect migrant families who are separated due to war, natural disasters and persecution. “We have donated more than 2 million miles at this point, which is so exciting for us because we wanted to partner with an organization that aligned with our brand. This felt like the most amazing, no-brainer partner for us,” said Ash.
Prepare for that big moment.
After being featured in a major magazine, a TV producer called to ask the couple to try out for the pitch competition show. "We got to put our feelings and shyness and scared-talking-in-public vibes away, and take this opportunity, and we gave it our all. We prepared so much,” Ash said. They dedicated a wall in their home with sticky notes filled with questions the judges might ask. “If you're on Shark Tank, you're always a Shark Tank brand. As a marketer, you can't buy that opportunity. I could say, ‘Cincha, as seen on Shark Tank,’ on every piece of marketing collateral that I ever want to, forever.”
Finally, make it easy for customers to pay.
“We try to make it as easy for people to check out as possible,” said Ash. Cincha offers the option to pay via installments, mobile payments, and stored credentials. “As a consumer myself, having options that have all my information stored, just makes it super easy for me to pay. We want it to be a really seamless experience.”
Generations of pride
Ash recently spotted a woman deboarding the San Francisco ferry using a Cincha travel belt, sparking a vision of what success would look like. “It was such a cool moment. I thought, ‘I want to see this every day. I want to see this every time I go to an airport.’"
Growing up as a first-gen kid, Ash learned that nothing would be handed to her without hard work. “My parents really instilled that work ethic, the perseverance, and just the drive to do what I can and build the life that I dream of. I want to make them proud, but I also want to build something that my future family can be proud of too.”