Phoebe Gates on Proving Herself Beyond Her Family Name

Phoebe Gates On Building Fia: A New Take On Sustainable Shopping And Young Founders

Phoebe Gates, co-founder of the fashion tech startup Fia and co-host of the Burnouts podcast, sits down with hosts Carly Zakin and Danielle Weisberg to talk about what it really looks like to start a company in your early twenties. Raised in Seattle with a strong emphasis on kindness, responsibility and hard work, Gates describes how those values shaped her approach to entrepreneurship, product development, and the pressure of a recognizable last name. The conversation moves from quick lightning-round moments into deeper reflections on co-founder dynamics, fundraising practice, product-market fit, and how to translate a friendship into a functioning business partnership.

From Dorm Room Idea To AI Shopping Assistant Plugin

Fia began as a simple shopping plugin built in college to help people find secondhand items and better prices. Today it positions itself as a “Google Flights for shopping”: a browser plugin and app that scans listings, surfaces cheaper options, shows resale value, and helps users discover curated items. The founders focused early on search accuracy and one-click comparisons, because the product promise rests on delivering a better price or a secondhand option faster than users can find themselves.

Co-Founders, Chemistry, And Weekly Investment In The Relationship

Gates and her co-founder Sophia Chiani developed their partnership in the cramped, high-pressure context of college life. They credit clear communication, mutual lanes of responsibility, and a weekly hour intentionally devoted to strategy and relationship maintenance as the backbone of their collaboration. Both founders pitch, cold-email, and split responsibilities: one gravitates toward marketing while the other owns operations, with both collaborating on product decisions.

Practice, Pitching, And Finding Real Feedback

Early fundraising felt chaotic: the first investor pitch was a 35-minute run-on conversation. Gates emphasizes the value of relentless practice with trusted mentors who give brutal feedback—Joanne Bradford is named as a pivotal advisor who helped them rehearse and refine their investor story. After launch, the bigger challenge became separating signal from noise: prioritizing feedback from power users and bringing them into the product process to roast features and sharpen the roadmap.

Identity, Expectations, And Stress-As-Growth

Gates speaks candidly about the dual nature of a famous family name: access and scrutiny. She frames the pressure to prove herself as motivating rather than debilitating, referencing research that stress can be beneficial when reframed as growth. That reframing informs how she interprets feedback, handles public perception, and channels accountability into improvement.

• Product focus: search quality and accurate price-matching are core to Fia's value.
• Co-founder rituals: scheduled syncs and clearly defined roles prevent friction.
• Pitching strategy: repeated rehearsals with a tough mentor accelerate investor readiness.
• User research: inviting power users to critique the product yields precise development priorities.

Throughout the conversation, Gates dispels common generational and gendered stereotypes—refuting lazy Gen Z tropes and criticizing the media appetite for manufactured co-founder drama. Instead, she highlights perseverance, curiosity, and iterative practice as the practical tools that drive early-stage startup growth. The interview balances personal history, tactical business advice, and an honest look at the messy middle of product launch, making it particularly relevant to young founders, early employees, and anyone building tech-enabled commerce products.

Ultimately, the episode underlines that early entrepreneurship is less about mythic, solitary genius and more about routine, feedback loops, and mutual accountability: disciplined practice, meaningful mentorship, and targeted user testing create momentum that sustains product development and fundraising efforts.