We sit down for a talk about growing a business with Atima Lui of Nudest. Nudest was founded at Harvard Business School by Atima Lui in January 2016 during her final semester as an MBA student. Atima grew up in Topeka, Kansas, and as the dark-skinned daughter of a Sudanese refugee and Black activist mother, she understood at an early age how her complexion did not meet the conventional standards of beauty. She decided to challenge these standards, beginning with fashion items labeled the color "nude," which do not match 84% of the global population.
With the help of her brother and software engineer Nyalia Lui, Nudest launched NUDEMETER™ -- proprietary computer vision technology that algorithmically matches a user's skin tone to fashion online.
By making it easy for women to find makeup, lingerie, hosiery, footwear and more that match their unique complexion, Atima and Nyalia endeavor to help everyone love the skin they're in.
What we chat about:
-How she started her journey and being an "accidental" entreprenuer (01:21)
-The journey of Nudest (03:42)
-How Nudest is creating smarter buyers (08:25)
-What lingerie piece that represents her (11:02)
-How has Atima grown personally and what keeps her going (12:18)
Links we refer to:
Atima's Bio:
Atima Lui was born to a Sudanese refugee father and Black activist mother in Topeka, Kansas where her dark skin tone never quite fit in with the standard of beauty in her community. Today as Founder and CEO of fashion and beauty tech startup NUDEST, Atima licenses patent-pending skin tone matching technology to help fashion and beauty brands produce and sell products for women of all skin tones. Named one of Shopper Marketing Magazine's "People to Watch" in 2013, Atima led the digital brand marketing initiatives at Walmart US before graduating from Harvard Business School in 2016 with her MBA . She has experience working for Google, YouTube and Apple in online ad sales, product marketing, and media roles. She earned her BSBA from Washington University in St. Louis where she started a full-service hair, nail and tanning salon targeted toward multicultural customers while triple majoring in International Business, Marketing and Spanish.