ALUMNI
The Business of Making Life Easier
Entrepreneur Emily Evert ’05 is changing the way women shop. “I’ve always wanted to work for myself,” Emily Evert ’05 says matter-of-factly. “Both of my parents started their own businesses. It just seemed natural to follow suit.” Evert, at 26 and CEO of “Live Your Life” Box (LYLBox), hasn’t wasted any time. She graduated first in her class from the University of Georgia, was named Terry College of Business’s Senior of the Year and accepted a position right out of school as a consultant at Alvarez & Marsal Business Consulting’s Atlanta office. The professional services firm is known for its restructuring work, and Evert was soon assigned to the Lehman Brothers account. “I learned a lot about working in high-pressure environments,” she says with a laugh. “Every move was being watched by regulatory agencies and the world. It wasn’t always fun. I put in long hours, but it taught me a lot about what I could handle. It was the best job I could have taken out of college.” With three years of business experience under her belt, Evert moved to Cambridge, Mass., and enrolled in Harvard Business School in 2012. She had already begun formulating plans for a startup company, and a class inspired her to take the risk. “Harvard had just implemented a new course called Field,” Evert says. “During the third phase of the class, you learn about starting a company. I realized then that I wanted to take a chance.” Evert had long purchased personal products from online giant Amazon.com, but recent changes to Amazon Prime’s policies had her frustrated. She saw the need for an affordable, online, subscriptionbased service to provide those products that so many women—not to mention boyfriends and husbands—dread buying in the store month after month. “I thought, ‘If anything can be subscription-based, this is it!’” she says. Evert’s concept, she believed, was good. A customer would visit a website and select the types of products and brands she wanted to receive. For a $10 monthly fee, a box filled with the customer’s selection of tampons and pads would arrive in discrete packaging at a specified time every month. She called the product LYLBox. Evert, with the backing of an investor, filed for LLC status, began wading through paperwork and hired a web developer. As part of her role at Alvarez & Marsal, she had negotiated countless contracts with logistics providers, so identifying a provider and establishing a supply chain came easy. She then had to receive licensing from the Food and Drug Administration, a process Evert calls “a nightmare.” Despite several challenges, LYLBox launched to friends and family in the summer of 2013 and to the general public on Oct. 1 of this year. Thus far, response has been good, Evert says. “We’re in a unique place in the market. We have a few competitors, but they aren’t licensed by the FDA. We’re also cheaper and offer more products. Why pay
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KnightTimes | Fall 2013
$16 for something you can get at the store for $9?” she asks. “I feel confident in our price point.” Evert plans to grow the company quickly by spreading the word via social media and clever, playful marketing strategies. She’s reaching out to colleges and universities and has already recruited a team of interns from UGA. “It’s hard to market something no one wants to talk about,” she says. “You have to have a sense of humor about it.” As far as future plans go, Evert would be thrilled if LYLBox became her bread and butter when she graduates from business school next year. “It’s a hefty plan,” she says. “I’d need tens of thousands of subscriptions in less than a year, but I think it’s doable.” But LYLBox may not be the be all and end all for Evert. “Eventually, I want to launch more businesses,” she says. “I’d be happy if this [company] was bought in three or four years. My goal is to get my feet wet, launch a business and learn. I hope I can make this a career, but we’ll see. It’s always just nice to learn.” Evert says the confidence required to launch a business comes in large part as a result of her time at Pace. “I had a couple great teachers like Tim Hornor who made me believe I could do anything I wanted,” she recalls. “And I’ve realized that Pace is a unique environment. Kids are mean people, but Pace didn’t allow that to happen. You were free to be yourself and have a creative idea or a heated conversation without the fear of backlash or of being uncool. It’s unusual to find a school environment in which you feel free to brainstorm with friends, think critically and truly share ideas.” Learn more about LYLBox at www.lylbox.com.