This story is part of our 1,000+ Stories campaign. What’s your story?

Name: April Rose Gedney & Barbara Corea

Business: Hebe Rose New York

Location: New York, New York, U.S. 

Industry: Apparel & Accessories

Reason for starting? When we started our journey together in January 2016, we had a few common goals. One was that we saw so much wastage in our factories and, secondly, global pollution is taking a toll on all breathing beings. One of our strategies was to look into saving some of this waste, but, at the same time, create a product by recycling what we could.

Related: Read about another entrepreneur doing good. 

Each year, at least 8 million tons of plastics leak into the ocean, which is equivalent to dumping one garbage truck into the ocean every minute. We are the last generation that has a chance to make a change. So we started a fashion handbag brand that uses elements of natural or recycled materials. Some of our recycled materials come from PET plastic bottles from all over this world. We also are always trying to find new ways to recreate other elements, such as recycled and regenerated leather, in future collections.

How do you define success? Success to us is feeling a sense of being complete and happy within ourselves. To acknowledge what our goals are and find a passionate way to attain them, all while giving back to our community.

Biggest success: The biggest success for us is making the final decision to leave our stable careers to branch off and open our own business. No matter what others would say, we both strongly believed in our ethical vision and pushed forward.

What is your top challenge and how you have addressed it? Business know-how would have been our biggest challenge. We started this business not knowing all the aspects and what we needed to know to move forward. Luckily, we were fortunate to have some contacts with people who believed in our vision and have helped us get to where we are today.

Related: The Steady Climb of Female Entrepreneurs 

Who is your most important role model? We both were brought up by strong women in our lives, who not only supported us but taught us to be self-sufficient and never give up. That with hard work, determination and passion we could accomplish anything we put our minds to.

[box_light]Website   www.heberosenewyork.com
Twitter   @heberose_ny
Facebook   www.facebook.com/heberosenewyork/
Instagram   @heberosenewyork[/box_light]

Tell us your story!
Read about another entrepreneur here.

Edited by The Story Exchange