:

Melinda Wittstock:

Coming up on Wings of Inspired Business:

Rajia Abdelaziz:

She says she’d rather fall and not be able to get up than to be seen wearing an ugly panic button. I feel like if either of us was a hundred, we’d still refuse to wear this hideous devices. So that’s what sparked the concept of why not innovate the personal safety space and bring it to the 21st century. Embed safety technology inside everyday items like necklaces, bracelets, keychains, fitness bands, and hair scrunchies. And with just two clicks, you can quickly and discreetly alert your friends, family, or police that you’re requesting help. But not only that, we go above and beyond and provide this free 24-7 virtual bodyguard system so the next woman doesn’t have to worry about what people will think if she asks them to walk her to her car. And instead, she can have a safety agent on standby 24-7 who can stay on the phone with her until she gets to her destination.

Melinda Wittstock:

What woman hasn’t felt spooked, even terrified, walking home or to her car late at night? Rajia Abdelaziz dismissed her fears as being paranoid one night after considering whether to ask someone to walk with her as she left a college event. What happened next sparked an idea that led her to reject a 6-figure job offer from Google and turn her college project into a fast-growing smart jewelry business that helps keep women safe.  

Melinda Wittstock:

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m all about paying it forward as a five-time serial entrepreneur, so I started this podcast to catalyze an ecosystem where women entrepreneurs mentor, promote, buy from, and invest in each other. Because together we’re stronger, and we all soar higher when we fly together and lift as we climb.

Melinda Wittstock:

Today we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who is on a mission to empower women with stylish personal safety and security—and a path to entrepreneurship. Rajia Abdelaziz is the CEO and Founder of invisaWear, a fast-growing company at the forefront of smart jewelry and life-saving technology. Rajia has scaled invisaWear to reach over 100,000 customers, successfully raised millions of dollars, and just last week included in Oprah Winfrey’s coveted Back-to-School List. Rajia is going to share what inspired her innovation, the challenges she’s overcome to successfully build her business, and how important it is for women entrepreneurs to mentor the next generation of female founders.

Melinda Wittstock:

Rajia will be here in a moment, and first:

If you’re enjoying this podcast and what you learn from all the inspiring women I interview every week, please go ahead, hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and share it with your friends. We really appreciate ratings and reviews on Apple and Spotify – it helps more entrepreneurs like you find the wisdom, tips, and epiphanies they need to grow their business. It makes a difference. Thank you. 

Melinda Wittstock:

As women, we all want to feel confident and safe as we go about our lives, so what could be better than smart jewelry that works as a 24/7 alert system connecting you to friends, family, and first responders? 

Melinda Wittstock:

Rajia Abdelaziz believes personal security should be stylish, empowering and always accessible, and her entrepreneurial journey began when walking to her car alone one night, feeling that inner nudge that something wasn’t safe, but brushing it off as “paranoid.” When a truly frightening encounter followed, Rajia realized just how limited (and unappealing!) personal safety devices were—and how much the world needed change. So, she started a college class project that evolved into the fast-growing invisaWear, and proof that persistence in the face of all the people who told her she was crazy for rejecting a 6-figure job at Google, and all the ‘no’s’ and challenges along the way, is crucial to entrepreneurial success. Rajia is a true force of nature—recognized in Forbes’ 30 Under 30 North America, Boston Globe’s Tech Power Players, BostInno’s 25 Under 25, and winner of the New England Innovations Award—so I’m excited to share our inspiring conversation.

Melinda Wittstock:

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Rajia Abdelaziz and be sure be sure to give us a 5-star rating and review on Apple and Spotify so more inspiring women can learn from the best in business.

[INTERVIEW]

Melinda Wittstock:

Rajia, welcome to Wings.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

Hi, Melinda. Thank you so much for having me today.

Melinda Wittstock:

You’ve had so much success with invisaWear. Let’s go back to the moment that you had the idea. What made you want to do this?

Rajia Abdelaziz:

It’s crazy, Melinda. We actually turned nine years old next week, and it’s just been such an incredible journey. I never meant to start a company. It all happened by complete accident, actually. I was studying engineering at the University of Massachusetts, and one night I was out at an event with some friends, and I decided to leave a little bit early. I thought to myself, maybe I should ask someone to walk with me. And then next thing, I immediately thought to myself, you know what? If I ask someone, I’m literally parked less than a block away. They’re probably going to laugh and they’re going to think I’m being paranoid.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

And then I was like, wait, am I being paranoid? Maybe I’m listening to too many true crime news stories. Or listening to too much news. Maybe I am being paranoid. I ignored my gut and I started walking back to my car. As I was halfway between where the car is and where the event was, an SUV full of guys drove by. They rolled down the window. Melinda. And they started yelling inappropriate comments.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

At first, I kind of rolled my eyes, because sadly, things like this happen to people all the time, especially in college and especially in big cities, so it was nothing out of the ordinary. This time, though, Melinda was different. The car stopped, and one of the four men started to get out. It was, by far, one of the scariest moments of my life. I had my phone on me, but what can you do in a situation like that? You can’t really look at them and be like, hey, don’t hurt me. I’m just going to call the police. Oh, and also, please don’t move us for seven to eight minutes while the police arrive. Obviously, that’s unrealistic.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

They grab your phone and smash it to the ground. I ended up running as quickly as I could, Melinda. And thankfully, I got to my car safely, and those guys left me alone. But for the next hour and a half, I was quite literally shaking uncontrollably. Because all I could think about is how I could have been that next morning’s news story, or I could have been that true crime podcast that we all listen to so nonchalantly. I immediately went online, and I started looking for safety devices to protect myself and my loved ones. And all I could find were big, ugly panic buttons that not even my 80-year-old grandmother wanted to wear.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

You know what she says? She says she’d rather fall and not be able to get up than to be seen wearing an ugly panic button. And can you blame her, Melinda? I feel like if either of us was a hundred, we’d still refuse to wear this hideous devices. So that’s what sparked the concept of why not innovate the personal safety space and bring it to the 21st century. Embed safety technology inside everyday items like necklaces, bracelets, keychains, fitness bands, and hair scrunchies. And with just two clicks, you can quickly and discreetly alert your friends, family, or police that you’re requesting help. But not only that, go above and beyond and provide this free 24-7 virtual bodyguard system so the next woman doesn’t have to worry about what people will think if she asks them to walk her to her car. And instead, she can have a safety agent on standby 24-7 who can stay on the phone with her until she gets to her destination.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

Safety with no judgment. Our safety agents are also highly trained to intervene in case a situation like what happened to me happens

Melinda Wittstock:

What a horrible thing that you went through. And yet this is the definition of an entrepreneur experiencing something that’s an obvious problem and then having this creative solution to it, Rajia. It makes so much sense. It’s sort of one of these things where I think, God, why didn’t a whole bunch of people think to do that?

Rajia Abdelaziz:

You know, Melinda, I’ve had like a hundred different people tell me they’ve thought of the same idea. I think the real question is, why doesn’t anyone actually go through with the idea to start a company? And it’s very challenging is what I’ve learned. It’s not for the week, for sure.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, no, that’s true. So, take me through those early days. So, you have this idea, and you’re still in college. And so how did you get going?

Rajia Abdelaziz:

Yeah, great question. So, I originally started working on Invisible as a class project in college. I told my best friend about what happened, and I was like, I’m shocked. Nobody else is doing this. And he has. He was raised by a single mom and has two sisters. He immediately resonated. He said, my sister’s constantly worry about their safety.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

My mom constantly worries about her safety. This is definitely a massive need. So, the original thought was, let’s develop this technology for ourselves and for the people we care about and love. But before we knew it, Melissa, so many women kept coming up to us sharing similar stories to what happened to me. But unfortunately, the majority of them didn’t have happy endings to say, oh, I was perfectly fine. And they got away unhurt. What we were hearing was real life stories from classmates and people we cared about saying they were roofied and drugged and assaulted. And immediately we realized, this is a massive need.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

The world needs this product. So, when we graduated college, we both decided to work on invisaWear full time. And it wasn’t an easy decision. We made so many sacrifices. At the time. I was fresh out of college. I barely could afford a $20 pizza. We were both eating ramen noodles, not paying ourselves.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

I had declined a six-figure job opportunity with Google, which is one of the top tech companies. And my mom and dad literally had an intervention. Melinda. They’re like, are you crazy? Have you lost your mind? Nobody turns down Google. You need to take this opportunity. How are you going to raise enough funding to develop this technology and bring it to market? Because it’s not cheap, Melinda. We needed over $100,000 to develop the technology and bring it to market. And at the time, we were only 21 years old.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

People kept saying, you’re out of your mind. Nine out of ten startups never make it to market. You’re only 21 years old. You’re a woman. Only 2% of venture capital goes to women. How are you going to raise this money? And not only did we raise that initial $150,000 that we needed, we ended up raising millions of dollars to develop the technology and bring it to market. And thankfully, we’ve been extremely successful. We’ve been featured on every major news channel from ABC, CBS, NBC, Good Morning America, Today.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

The Today Show named us as one of the best gifts to get your kid, which was such an honor. I was recently on the COVID of Forbes 30 under 30 for the social impact category, which was such a dream come true. We exploded on social media with over 3 million followers. And it’s truly thanks to our amazing community and happy customers that we’ve experienced so much growth. We ended up reaching out to ADT, which is one of the most respected names in home security. And we signed a massive strategic partnership with them where now they handle all of the emergency alerts. And it’s the same state of the art technology that is utilized in your ADT home system. So, it will go to the same ADT trained safety professionals who are handling the same alerts for your house.

Melinda Wittstock:

What an amazing story. So, tell me a little bit about what it was like to raise money, because women really struggle with raising money. Like you mentioned that statistic, it’s actually less than 2% now. It’s actually gone down. I mean, it was a tail that 2% for like two and a half decades. And I know this personally as a five-time serial entrepreneur, raising money for tech companies, how hard it is for women. And so, what did you do that allowed you to be successful in raising money? Where did the first money come from?

Rajia Abdelaziz:

I would be lying to Melinda if I said it was easy. I think I pitched 100 investors before I ever got a single. Yes. And, and truly, I think it was just the fact that we didn’t give up and we put ourselves in a position where we were meeting the right investors who actually believed in the mission of the company. I also learned that a lot of it comes down to storytelling. When I was first pitching investors, Melinda, I would say no. I experienced this horrible situation. One out of every six women will experience an attempted or completed rape at some point in their lifetime, which is unacceptable and needs to.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

To change. And this is why you need to invest in this company. And so many of the older white male investors that we were pitching just didn’t understand it. They had never personally experienced worrying about their safety. So, we kept getting so many no’s. And one of the biggest things I always tell people is it’s so important to take time to understand the feedback and see if there’s anything you can learn from it. I had one investor, Melinda, told me he’s not investing because he’s never heard of women worrying about their personal safety. And I was like, that is crazy.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

I just told you one out of every six women are being. One out of every six women are experiencing an attempted or completed rape. And you’re telling me you’re not going to invest because you’ve never heard of a woman worrying about her safety. But you know what I slowly learned? How can I resonate with those investors and how can I turn the story around, make them really understand what’s going on? And. And I started changing the pitch. I started going into those same rooms, and instead of sharing what happened to me, I said, I want you to take a moment to think about your daughter, your wife, your sister, and your mom. Statistically speaking, one out of those four women will be sexually assaulted at some point in her lifetime. And today, I’m giving you an opportunity to potentially, potentially save her life.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

And Immediately, Melinda. That made it personal to them. Although they hadn’t experienced the situation or fear for their safety themselves. They all have people they love that they want to protect, and that’s what allowed us to raise the funding. Yeah, but you know what?

Melinda Wittstock:

There’s a real emotional connection there, which is what you’re talking about with storytelling, like how to trigger that empathy. And particularly in the case of men, and, you know, it triggers their kind of protector kind of vibe. You know what I mean?

Rajia Abdelaziz:

Yes. No, exactly. And you know what, Melinda? What I tell people is those initial investors, 100 that said no. It could have been really easy for me to go home and say, you know what? This is impossible. We’ll never raise funding. I always tell people you have to get comfortable with rejection. It’s almost like dating to an extended extent. I joke with people, I’m like, you gotta kiss a lot of frogs to figure out which one’s a prince or a princess.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

And when you get that first investor that truly believes in you, that’s the right fit. Who’s gonna add value. It unlocks so much potential. After we got our first investor, I don’t think we got a single no after that. And it was because they were able to help us open up a whole new network. And the credibility it added when they decided to come in as a lead opened up so many doors for follow on investors. So, the point where around became oversubscribed, and we quite literally had to tell investors that they cannot invest their money because we had already raised more money than we needed.

Melinda Wittstock:

And so, you mentioned a moment ago that part of it is finding the right investor. So how did you actually qualify the investors? I mean, they’re qualifying the entrepreneurs, but entrepreneurs need to be mindful that you’re also qualifying investors. You’re effectively getting married to them. 

Rajia Abdelaziz:

Absolutely.

Melinda Wittstock:

You can take the wrong kind of money easily. Right? How did you, man? How did you manage that? How did you qualify them?

Rajia Abdelaziz:

I love this question. You know, it’s a two-way street. Everyone’s dying to get an investor’s money and dying to get them to say yes. But there’s so many different sources of capital and it’s equally important to make sure that you’re bringing on the right people for invisible. It’s a very mission driven business. Yes, we are a for profit business, and we hope to make a lot of money one day. But at the core, what we’re trying to do is save lives and help as many people as possible. So, we really wanted to bring on the right investors who truly believed in our mission at its core, who understood this problem and how important it is to solve rather than be focused on how much are you selling it for? How much money am I getting back? Am I making my money back within the next six months, 12 months and so on? Like you said, Melinda, getting an investment is like getting married.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

In fact, I would argue that it’s probably easier to get a divorce and leave your significant other than it is to get rid of an investor. So, it’s so important to take the time to build personal relationships with them to see what type of person is this? Are they just giving you money to give you money and they’re never going to talk to you again? Are they going to give you money and make introductions to other people that can help you? What are their morals and what are their beliefs? Do they believe in you as an entrepreneur? They going to come yelling at you and screaming at you the second things don’t go right? Because in startups things never go right. There’s always delays, there’s always problems, there’s always growth pains. You want those people that are going to be your cheerleaders. Our first investor who was the lead for our initial round was actually the president of our manufacturing facility. And he is one of the kindest, most incredible human beings I’ve ever met. He started off as a mentor.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

We had never thought about him investing in the company. We knew he was a very successful entrepreneur and that he does invest. But the thought process was how can he add value and help us grow and learn and, and as we built that relationship, to be honest with you, Melinda, now that individual is like family to me. He’s like a father-like figure and has been such an incredible coach for both myself and my business partner, Ray. And we knew this is someone who believes in the company wholeheartedly and is going to help us open up so many doors. He has a twin sister, two nieces, so he felt personally compelled to do something to help create a safer world.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s really interesting that your first money came from someone that you were doing business with, right. And that you created that relationship. So, so much about fundraising and business, at the end of the day, it’s all about people. It comes down to relationship. There’s a great book called Who Not How, right?

Rajia Abdelaziz:

Yeah, I love it. Really is.

Melinda Wittstock:

And I think a lot of women in particular fall into this trap of, ah, just proving their competence, you know, like doubling down, working really hard. If I’m really good, and if this product is really good, and if this and that, you know, and, like, just showing how great they are. And they are. But at the cost of not investing enough time in the relationship.

Melinda Wittstock:

Like, actually really investing time in that. Because that’s actually how business works. Like, landing that big (client)… you got, right. ADT or whatever.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

Right.

Melinda Wittstock:

Like, all of these things come down to that relationship. 

Rajia Abdelaziz:

Yeah. No. What I’ve truly learned is it’s all about relationships, businesses, about keeping your customers happy. If you put your customer service at the forefront of what you do, and then your happy customers are going to tell 10 other people, that’s been our biggest way of growth. People keep telling me all the time, Melinda, that I got so lucky that we were able to raise money and I was at the right place at the right time to meet those angel investors. And it’s like, no, none of this was luck. I took the time out of my day to put myself in the place where I would have the opportunity to meet these angel investors. None of it was luck.

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Melinda Wittstock:

And we’re back with Rajia Abdelaziz, the CEO and co-founder of invisaWear.

[INTERVIEW CONTINUES]

Rajia Abdelaziz:

You got to talk to as many people as possible and just be a kind, good human being. Like, I would meet other entrepreneurs. I’d be like, how can I help you? How can you help me? What can we do to help each other? Someone in my network able to add value to you, and that’s how you get connected and you meet these angels. That’s how you get the right connections to the venture partners. You also have to be very bold, Melinda, and you can’t be afraid. Afraid of taking risks. I can’t tell you the number of people who are like, oh, you shouldn’t try to raise money because only 2% goes to women.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

Then they end up scaring so many women away from trying. It’s, like, very discouraging. And when people used to say that to me, I used to say, well, what makes you think that I’m not going to be a part of that 2%? Two people out of 100 had to be it, and I plan to be one of them. And then, you know what? When I become extremely successful and exit my company, I’m going to make it my personal mission to change these statistics. And I’ll go out and I’ll start a fund and hopefully invest in more female entrepreneurs and help coach them and help them be equally, if not more successful than I am. But same thing, when I was reaching out to ADT, the Home Security Company, everyone. Melinda was like, are you crazy? Your company is not even a year old. You’re a startup.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

ADT is going to steal your idea; is going to do the same thing. They’re never going to respond to your email. You. And it’s like, no, I did my research. I found a dad who’s a high up executive who has a college age daughter. I hold emailed the largest name and security, Melinda. And I said, you know, I’m your daughter’s age. And I had this really scary situation happen and I launched this product, and I was wondering if there would be any opportunities for us to work together to create a safer world because you’re already protecting people in homes.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

And now we have the opportunities to work together to protect people outside the home. And not only did he respond to my email, he responded to the email within a couple of hours. And we had a massive strategic partnership signed within a few months that more than doubled the company overnight. So, I guess my biggest takeaway is don’t be afraid to take risks. Don’t be afraid of the rejections. Even if you got 100 ‘no’s’, maybe that a hundred first one will be a yes and maybe the 100 second one will be a yes and the 100 third. And maybe if you could cold email that large strategic partnership partner, they’ll respond, and you’ll have a big partnership. 

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, 100%. I, I think when you encounter all those naysayers, you know, they’re saying more about themselves than they are about you. And often times, you know, I wonder. I don’t think they’re trying to be anything other than helpful, like they think they’re protecting you or something. I don’t know what that is.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

I agree.  

Melinda Wittstock:

But it takes the female version of cojones to just sort of ignore that. Like I, I think entrepreneurship that requires just an element of delusion. You know what I mean? 

Rajia Abdelaziz:

I love that. Yeah. Oh, I love that. Melinda, I couldn’t agree with you more. And the sad aspect of it is a lot of it comes, comes from people you care about and love, like your friends and family. And they’re not doing it in a malicious way. It’s their limiting beliefs. I actually heard a really great story on a podcast recently, and it was about a scientific experiment.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

A bunch of scientists took crickets, Melinda, and they put them in a glass jar. The crickets jumped, they hit the glass ceiling. Obviously their head hurt, they jumped again. Same thing happened, hit the glass ceiling. And after several attempts of the same thing happening over and over again. The crickets stopped jumping, so the scientists took off the glass lid. But here’s the interesting part for the rest of the crickets lives, Melinda. Those same crickets never tried to jump again because they were afraid of hitting the glass ceiling.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

Now here is the even wilder part of the story, Melinda. Those same crickets went on to have babies. Babies that have been in a glass jar but have never had a lid on it. Those same baby crickets never in their entire lives tried to jump out of the jar, despite the fact that they’ve never hit a glass ceiling themselves. But they were preconditioned by their parents limiting beliefs that, hey, if you jump, you’re going to hit your head, it’s going to hurt. Don’t try and do that so, so many times. Our loved ones, they have their own limiting beliefs. They deep down think they can’t launch that company because they truly might have been in a position where they couldn’t have.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

But it conditions us to be so afraid to even try. And as a society, we’re so worried about rejection. So, what if that investor said no? You know how many investors said no to me that are now picking themselves because it would have been such an incredible, incredible investment opportunity for them? I never sit here and think about those people or wonder what they’re doing. I eventually met the right people. So, I truly hope that the listeners are inspired to keep going and to not be afraid to have someone or a hundred people say no to them.

Melinda Wittstock:

I can’t tell you how many people who refuse to invest in Google.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

Yes, I love that.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yes, this will never amount to any. This crazy idea, you know? You know what I mean? Right. Like so.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

Exactly. So, I’m gonna start using that one now. I love that.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s interesting that you mentioned like, you know, the crickets because there was another study that put fish in a glass column. So, they had to swim around this glass column and then the glass column was removed, and they stayed swimming in the same area.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

Wow. Oh my gosh. Wow.

Melinda Wittstock:

This happens across all species and there’s a lot of work on like even epigenetics. So even if someone is act isn’t trained that way, like, you know, consciously or whatever, it’s in our DNA of what our have even experienced. And so, this is a big thing to change the game for women. And you and I share that mission. And at this point, I am actually a venture partner in a fund that supports female founders right at seed stage.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

That’s amazing because it just gets…

Melinda Wittstock:

…To the point where when we succeed and, and all the learnings and everything, I think to change the game for women, women must show up for other women in that.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:

Way. Right. Like, and that’s like the main reason why I do this podcast. This podcast is just something that I do because it’s, it started out as like, I, I just want to give back. And it’s just so important for people to hear these stories. It is possible, you know. So, thank you for doing what you’re doing, and I know you do a lot of mentorship, you know, for, for young women and it’s vital. 

Melinda Wittstock:

So, I want to get into your product.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

Thank you.

Melinda Wittstock:

I want to get into your product and like how it works. So, you have this line of like jewelry and, and, and, and, and how does in the jewelry.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

Thank you so much for the kind words, Melinda. I really appreciate it. And what you’re doing as a venture partner is truly so incredible. I hope to follow in your footsteps one day. But in regards to the technology, so we love to say it’s safety always on you in a variety of different form factors. So, you have the jewelry, but we also have this application with a bunch of bells and whistles and technology that designed to keep you safe in a variety of different ways. So, the way it works is you can purchase a piece of jewelry on our website invisible.com and they come in a variety of different form factors. When your device arrives, you download this app onto your phone, and you create a personal profile.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

You can add a photo of yourself, your first name, your last name, email, phone number. You can add additional demographic information like if you’re a college age student or you’re a senior, using this to protect yourself from falls. And then you can select five emergency contacts that you would like to be alerted in the event of an emergency. And then last step is you choose your mode, whether or not you’d like 911 to be alerted. Typically, we recommend having the 911 feature enabled because the police can really give you a ton of help in an emergency situation. But we get some people that want to use it like they’re going on a date and are uncomfortable and just want their friend to know, hey, I’ll call her with an excuse, excuse to leave or I’ll stay on alert. So, it’s up to you. If you have the 911 feature enabled, our partners at ADT Home Security will immediately notify the 911 dispatch center closest to you that you’re requesting help, and they’ll share all of that additional information that you put when you created the profile.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

Now, the app, Melinda, goes way above and beyond. Of course, we want you to use the jewelry to call for help if there is a situation. But we also want to give you a suite of different tools that you can use should an emergency before an emergency arises. So, for example, one of my favorite features is video streaming, where you can share live video footage with our trained safety professionals anytime you like. So, let’s say I was leaving that event and I didn’t want to bother my loved ones. I could have used video streaming to share footage with the ADT agents. The ADT agents are so nice and friendly. They would have been trained to say, hey, Rajia, we received your emergency alert from invisaWear.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

Are you okay? But have said, yeah, I’m perfectly fine. I’m just walking back to my car, and I feel a little bit uncomfortable. Is it okay for you to stay with me on the line? They would have said, absolutely. That’s what we’re here for, 24-7. They’re trained to make small talk and just be super nice and friendly. Then, when you get to your destination safely, they’ll say something along the lines of, so happy that you made it to your destination safely. We’re here for you, 24-7.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

Please don’t hesitate to call back if you need anything. Should the situation go differently the same way. What happened to me? They can immediately notify 911 that you’re requesting help, but someone would be stupid to attack you. Melinda, if you’re on FaceTime with a safety professional, they’re going to have live video footage, and they’re going to be caught very quickly. So that alone having someone on video could be a deterrent.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. And so are. Are there kind of lessons for women in terms of how to. Sorry, that’s my dog punctuating the conversation.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

Oh, no problem. Please feel free to have him join. I love dogs.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, strong opinions about this, so. It’s okay, buddy. I don’t know what he’s barking at.

Melinda Wittstock:

He occasionally photobombs Zoom. And, like, you know, involved in all things of my business, but, you know, he’s my protector. There we go. Right?

Rajia Abdelaziz:

Oh, I love that. He’s so cute. I’ve seen him on your Instagram. He’s a golden retriever, right?

Melinda Wittstock:

He’s a golden retriever.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

And, like, oh, I love goldens.

Melinda Wittstock:

Goldens aren’t necessarily meant to be guard dogs, but when they are attached to you, they do. You know, like we were walking along the beach the other day and he just saw this guy that he just didn’t like for whatever reason and golden and I swear to God walked up to this guy and barked at him. And I don’t know whether they have some sort of sixth sense, like stay away from my mom, you know, like whatever.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

I love it. I don’t, I agree with him. I don’t like that guy. Why was he on the beach? They can read.

Melinda Wittstock:

They can read people very well actually. It’s really interesting. But so, getting back to this. So, you have this piece of jewelry on and say you are in a really scary situation, right? And it’s getting really bad. And like you mentioned before, it can take the authorities, the police, whatever, a little bit of time to, to get there. So, it’s working as a deterrent. But what’s happening if actually like you are being assaulted? It’s, it’s recording all of this.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

So, the biggest thing is notifying and calling for help, assault quickly as possible. A lot of times your emergency contacts are actually closer to you than the police are. So, for example, in the situation that I had my best friend and a bunch of people I knew were in that event, 30 seconds away, they would have immediately been able to get out there to help me. Sadly, the majority of emergencies that we hear about, a lot of times someone was close by and could have been out there immediately to get you help. But we also give free self-defense classes, Melinda, once a quarter to all of our customers where we teach them hands on tips and tricks on what to do if you really are in an emergency. Of course we want them to call for help, but we also want them to have simple techniques that they can use to deter the attacker. So, we teach them about awareness, boundaries, communications, how to de-escalate the situation. And then the final step is hands on.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

Okay, Someone’s actually truly on top of you trying to hurt you. Poke them in the eyeballs, elbow them in the throat, knee them in the groin. If someone’s grabbing you from behind and is putting pressure on your neck, drop your weight. And that immediately causes, potentially causes the person to move their arms in a certain way, which gives you leverage to kick them. Sadly, a lot of the attackers and cowards committing these crimes are afraid of being caught. So, the simple fact of you trying to defend yourself could potentially cause them to stop and run the other way. So, we give our customers a variety of different tools to make sure. That they’re most protected.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

So that way we can buy time in an emergency in case it takes the police a few minutes to respond.

Melinda Wittstock:

You know, I’m thinking of another use case. Not to get political or anything, but, you know, you think of all these people being rounded up, you know, by the immigration authorities, you know, across the US A lot of them actually American citizens or, like, green card holders or whatever, right? And just, like, literally abducted by people who don’t even have identification or a badge. And you don’t even know whether they’re actually authorities or they’re impersonating them. Like, you have, like, no idea.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

Right, right. 

Rajia Abdelaziz:

Yeah, I was on a podcast yesterday, and the host asked me the same question. And I was telling her, our products are designed to give people peace of mind, and they can be used however way you see fit. If you just want to use it to let your friends and family that you need backup in that exact situation, you can absolutely use it for that.

Melinda Wittstock:

Can you program it to, like, call an immigration lawyer?

Rajia Abdelaziz:

You certainly can, as long as you have their consent. Oh, wow.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s incredible. So how do you see the business growing from here? What’s next for you, Rajia, in terms of where you’re going?

Rajia Abdelaziz:

Yeah, great question, Melinda. Our hopes are to grow the company to be as big as possible. We really want this product to be in the hands of every single person in the country because we all protect our loved ones with home security, and we need to be protecting our loved ones with personal security as well. We love to sign big partnerships with some household names, like, for example, jewelry companies that you know and love. We could embed our technology and beautiful styles that they already launched and just expand their form factors. You know, we actually have been seeing a surge of men buying the product as well, because, sadly, this is not only a woman issue. Men get attacked all the time.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

I was in San Francisco not too long ago, and every single man I talked to was like, oh, I experienced a robbery, or I was drugged, or I literally was held at gunplay. And it’s just not talked about as much because, sadly, they’re not comfortable opening up with their stories. But we’ve seen so much demand for men as well that we recently launched an entire men’s collection to expand. But really just trying to raise as much awareness as possible that the products exist. We have had tremendous success, yet so many people still have never heard of invisaWear. I can’t thank you enough for having me on and for sharing my story. Maybe one of the listeners will buy it for their loved ones and it could save that loved one’s life one day.

Melinda Wittstock:

Amazing. And so, is this all just direct to consumer, you know, through your website and how you sell it, or is it in stores or what’s your distribution?

Rajia Abdelaziz:

Yeah, right now it’s all direct to consumer on our website and on Amazon. And then we are in early conversations with some big retailers. We just got into Target Online, best sellers, Buy Online, and a couple others. So, lots of exciting stuff from the retail front, hopefully coming soon.

Melinda Wittstock:

Amazing. So, one last question for you, Rajia. What do you think in your entrepreneurial journey, what has been the biggest heart stopping moment for you or the biggest challenge along the way? Because you’re making it sound kind of easy. I know it, but just get for a moment. I mean, give me something that, like where you thought, oh my God, how are we? Like, I don’t know, everybody has this, right? Like moments.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

Oh my gosh, I’m so happy you asked that question, Melinda. I was just telling one of my friends, I don’t think people realize how difficult entrepreneurship is because it’s so glamorized on social media. Like, you always see photos of me with awards and in the press and all this stuff, but you don’t see the 80 hour weekly that I’m putting in or all of the disasters that happen or the challenges. One of the funny disasters, for example, is we went mega viral on social media and had a video get 15 million views, which is so incredible, Melinda. But then we sold out of six months of inventory in one day and we’re out of stock for like two days and suddenly you’re getting death threats of people being like, I want to buy this for my daughter and it’s your fault it’s out of stock. And like, I didn’t know this was going to happen, otherwise I would have planned for it. I’m so sorry. We’re working around the clock to get you new product, but so many different things.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

There’s been so many challenges over the years. Raising funding was a big challenge. It was not easy. I had to remind myself consistently to not give up every single time an investor said no. But to me, it was personal. Like, all I could think about was, we can’t, we can’t stop trying to do this. Like, this product could save lives, and it has. And I was just so committed to talk to every single investor in the country if I needed to.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

So, raising funding was a Big challenge. But thankfully we overcame it. We raised the money we needed; we got the product to market. And getting the product to market was a challenge because with a safety device, there is zero room for error. Like, this device has to work a hundred out of 100 times. So, we had to source manufacturers in the United States, which is something we’re very proud of. It’s very high-quality machinery. We had to be very diligent with all of the QA testing.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

We couldn’t afford to have any bugs in the app. So, it’s literally state of the art technology. Like, you don’t get the number one name and security to sign off that they’re backing your product unless it is very, very high quality. Then we launched and we had a lot of incredible success. And then we went viral and that’s when we ran out of inventory. And then we had to quickly try and figure out how to scramble to restock as soon as possible so that customers wouldn’t be angry and we wouldn’t lose momentum. Then we got all of that figured out and everything was going amazing. Then Covid hit, and all of a sudden everyone was safely protected in their homes with their home security.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

And our sales basically took a massive decline. We didn’t know how long Covid was gonna hit. Everyone was telling us, that’s the end for you. Like, pack up your bags, you’re done. And we were like, no, we’re not taking no for an answer. Covid is eventually going to come to an end. People are going to leave their houses again. They’re going to need personal security.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

We start thinking, how can we pivot? How can we use Covid to our advantage? That’s when we came up with the idea of why not reach out to 80? Then the timing of EDT couldn’t have been better because by the time it was announced was right when everything was opening back up and we were leaving our houses. So, we experienced a massive boom, thanks to what happened. And then the economy has been challenging over the last couple of years. There’s been talks of a recession. Investors aren’t writing as many checks, so that wasn’t easy to navigate. We had to get very creative. But thankfully we’ve been able to get through every single challenge. I joke with people, I’m like, I don’t think it’s businesses that fail, it’s people that quit.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

Because it is damn hard. And you really need to focus on your mindset. And every time you get punched by something, you just gotta get back up there and be like, I’m going to fix this. I’m not giving up. People need this product. This is helping change lives. And that’s really what I attribute to all of our massive success, is just not giving up when it got hard and. And be lying to you if I said it was easy now.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

It’s still very difficult. But I’m so thankful that we’ve had a lot of success and are continuing to explode.

Melinda Wittstock:

Amazing. Rajia, thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying today. I’ll make sure that all the information of how to, you know, find out more about invisaWear is in the show notes. So, like, if you’re driving, walking, whatever, don’t worry about that. It’ll all be in the show notes. But thank you so much.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

My pleasure. Melinda, thank you so much for having me on and sharing my story. And I’ll get you a discount code in case any of the listeners want to purchase the product as well, to protect themselves or the people they love.

Melinda Wittstock:

Fantastic. That’s very generous. Thank you so much.

Rajia Abdelaziz:

You’re so welcome. Thank you so much for having me.

[INTERVIEW ENDS]

Melinda Wittstock:

Rajia Abdelaziz is the CEO and co-founder of invisaWear, a company at the forefront of smart jewelry and life-saving technology.

Melinda Wittstock:

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Melinda Wittstock:

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