Breast cancer, NASA, curvy, how would I possibly pull all of that in to a name of a company that had an available domain that was not bigboobs.com. I had written the business plan, done the research and was far along in the product development process but still without a name for my company. My walls were filled with lists and lists of ideas some of which were frankly silly, too long, too hard to spell, some were taken. To quote one of my favorites moves Pretty Woman "ugh -the pressure of a name!!!!"
My grandmother, Frances Bloom Kaye Tarter, gave me several things in life that make up who I am including my love of food, she took me around the world from the time I was 6 months old and she passed along the genetic trait of a rather large chest. I lost her to breast cancer which made me acutely aware that it was also in my family. Bloom was on my original list but when I had checked, the domain wasn't available so after trying different variations, I moved on. Months later, on a whim, I typed it in and miraculously wwww.bloombras.com had just become available. I quickly typed in my credit card looking and Bloom Bras was born. This was one of many crazy occurrences in my journey. I was on the phone with my parents telling them about what had happened. My aunt who was visiting piped in to inform me that my great grandmother Bloom had sold corsets back at the turn of the century. Serendipity!
Frances, unfortunately, lost her battle with breast cancer years ago. This propelled me to get involved with Imerman Angels and the amazing community of cancer survivors. 1 in 8 women now are affected by breast cancer. The first half marathon I ever ran was the Livestrong race in Austin. I had not trained for this race at all. A woman got up at our pre-dinner and informed us that she was a 3-time stage 3 breast cancer survivor who was a few weeks out of her last treatment. The moral of her inspiring speech as that come hell or high water, she would be crossing the finish line at 13.1 miles the next morning. Several thoughts came rushing in. First was that I had no excuse not to run/walk the next day prepared of not. The second was that the power of the mind is beyond that of the physical body at times. This woman did finish the race arm in arm with dozens of other survivors. Third, was that I wanted this passion and perseverance as a thread and ethos while building my company.
When I was testing out prototypes, I reached out to 10 of my friends who are all survivors of breast cancer and asked a bevy of questions. From there, I contacted several oncologists and plastic surgeons who focused on mastectoy and lumpectomy operations. No underwire, compression, breathabilty were the main things to focus on which was 1000% in alignment with my issues as a curvy woman.
Each time I see the name Bloom Bras or get to tell this story, there is a sense of homage. I love to talk about company names to those who are setting out on their entrepreneurial journey. We spend hours on Google looking up latin phrases or making aliterations of our names. In may case I had an entire page of funny boob references. I know my grandmother would be so proud of the work we have accomplished in her name and in the name of all of the other well-endowed women out there.