Transparency, Being a Female Founder, and Creating the Movement to Shop Women-Owned with Vanessa Bruce
Going behind the spotlight to meet Vanessa Bruce, co-founder + CEO of Dough. Vanessa is an award-winning, patent holding, founder, operator, and designer passionate about transparent commerce, driving change with our purchase power, and financial independence. Dough was founded when Vanessa and co-founder Anna caught up over coffee and chatted about the struggles of being a female-founder. The conversation quickly led to late-night texts sharing articles on the capital gap (can you believe women receive only 2.7% of investment dollars?), the pink tax (did you hear women get charged on average 7% more products like razors?), and spending power (wait, we as women control 80% of consumer-driven purchases?). The duo thought, "What if we could direct spending dollars back to women-owned companies to create economic equity?"
Beth and Vanessa discuss:
- How her family inspired her to create her own path
- Conscious consumerism
- Creating Dough
- Transparency and some of Dough’s other company values
- How Vanessa balances family and business
- How Dough really embodies collaboration and community over competition
- What’s to come for the brand
- And more!
Vanessa’s work has been featured in Fortune, Bustle, and the New York Times as well as recognized by the Stevie Awards, Adobe Creative Jams and W3 – just to name a few. She believes in building a more inclusive, compassionate, and equitable community and volunteers as a mentor at Hack.Diversity as well as advises early stage DTC founders. She is a first generation college graduate, an alumni of Simmons University, a women's college in the heart of Boston, where she studied Design and Public Relations.
Connect with Vanessa: