Exploring Life & Business with Kayla Alexander and Nicole Murphy of Tall Size

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kayla Alexander and Nicole Murphy.

Hi Kayla and Nicole, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Nicole and I first discussed the idea of what would soon become Tall Size back in 2020. She was out for a walk with her dog and called me because she was freezing. Her sleeves were too short on her jacket and she was frustrated. She is 6 feet and I’m 6’4, so she wanted to know if I shared these same frustrations, which I assured her I did.

From there we wanted to figure out how to best solve this clothing problem that all tall women face – a lack of accessible, discoverable, and fashionable clothes. We started doing research and thought about starting our clothing label, but then we realized that there were a decent amount of tall brands out there, they’re just small businesses and hard to find.

From there we shifted to creating a database that complied all the tall brands in one location, and the user could filter the brands based on their shipping location. This was a good start, but we wanted to go a step further, so we created our marketplace. We partnered with brands that ship to the USA and Canada – when we first started we only had 6 brands – that hosted their items on our site, which allowed shoppers to shop multiple brands from one location, in one shopping cart. From there we grew into what we are now which is an online shopping platform and lifestyle brand for tall women.

Today our marketplace has over 25 different brands, we have a blog, host IG lives, and will be hosting our first ever (of hopefully 3 this year) in-person pop-up shops. The first to take place in LA, California from April 1-2nd. These pop-up stores are crucial because tall women do not have the luxury of walking into any store to buy clothes and shoes that fit. When polled, 87% of all women said that they found shopping difficult or very difficult. This is why what we’re doing at Tall Size is so important. We carry inseams that go up to 41 in, extra long sleeve lengths, and carry shoes that go from a size 10-15.

Aside from being able to finally give tall women easy access to clothes and shoes that fit, we are also helping their confidence. So many tall teens and women suffer from self-esteem and confidence issues because: they can’t find clothes that fit, they don’t have access to fashionable, trendy clothes and they often have to resort to the men’s section. When you constantly feel ignored and invisible by the fashion industry, that can have detrimental effects. We at Tall Size aim to build up the self-esteem and confidence of Tall teens and women everywhere!

Tall Size also recently just introduced: The Community LED Collaboration in partnership with Alloy Apparel which gives our customers a voice. They get to tell us exactly what they want us to design for them by voting on what they want. First, they get to vote on silhouettes and categories: ie. Dresses, Jeans, Pajamas, etc. The next phase will include telling us what cuts and styles they want, and in the final stage, they get to decide on the colors and prints. You can learn more here: https://www.tallsize.com/pages/community-led-collection.

Lastly, a bit of background on the founders. Kayla and Nicole’s first met in the seventh grade at age 12 when Kayla’s family first moved to Barrie. Nicole would go on to invite Kayla to a basketball try out and they would play basketball together for two years. This would also be the beginning of their lifelong friendship.

Life would take them in different directions, Kayla would go on to pursue basketball, earning a scholarship while studying with the intent to become a teacher. After being drafted into the WNBA in 2013, she would pursue basketball full time playing 7 years in the WNBA as well as professionally overseas (she is still playing). She would also become an Olympian and co-author of a children’s book.

Nicole would go on to study biology with the intent of becoming a doctor, before making the switch to marketing.

She would go on to have a stellar 10-year career in the startup and marketing world working for the likes of FreshBooks, InVision, and Chopra Global, before co-founding Tall Size with Kayla in 2021.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
To be more specific, the biggest challenge/obstacle has been funding. By funding we mean navigating it all, all the different types of funding, knowing which route to take, how to prepare for it, what you need to do, and so on. For any business, funding is important for growth. So this has been a learning experience for us.

With everything worth doing, there are always challenges that you face along the way. This journey that we have been on with Tall Size has been a lot of learning and growing for us.

For most of our partnership Nicole and I like to joke that we have an international partnership. Due to my playing career, we are often in different countries and time zones. But we find a way to make it work because we are passionate about what we are building.

A lot of our early struggles were around not knowing how to start, or how to get from point A to point B. Thankfully we had people in our network we could lean on for advice or insight, and we joined a lot of accelerator programs so that we could gain access to different advisors and experts in different fields so that we could learn and gain advice from them.

A lot of trial and error, that sometimes didn’t play out how we wanted it to, but we like to think of them as valuable lessons learned, not failures.

Even today we have struggles and problems we’re trying to solve, but we take it all in stride because it’s only going to make us smarter and stronger going forward. Maybe that’s the athlete mindset in us, we see every setback or “failure” not as a failure but as a learning opportunity to do better moving forward.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Nicole and I are two tall women who are passionate about what they are doing, making fashion truly inclusive, building up and empowering women because we have loved it. We are our customers.

We specialize in helping tall teens and women discover clothing and shoes that fit and are designed for their bodies.

What sets us apart? We are our customers, we understand their frustration and struggles because we lived it first hand. We are passionate about what we are building because we believe it’s deeper than the clothes, it’s about helping tall women and teens feel confident and beautiful in the bodies they’re in. We have the expertise, experience, and network to take Tall Size all the way.

There have been quite a few moments we have been proud of:

1. Realizing the impact we are having to help fellow tall women and their small businesses. A lot of tall brands are started by fellow tall women who were also trying to solve a problem – frustrations/ lack of access while shopping. Because a lot of these brands are small businesses, they don’t have the marketing budget of large brand names to help them be easily discovered. That’s why we love what we’re doing at Tall Size. Not only are we helping tall women find clothes, but we are also helping women who own small businesses to grow as well! Women empowerment!

2. Dms, emails, and comments from our customers who are finally able to find a pair of pants that fit them properly and are long enough! When a woman discovers us for the first time and thanks us for all the hard work we are doing to help them feel confident and beautiful in the clothes they are wearing.

3. Launching our first pop-up store, tall women are dying for the opportunity to be able to touch, try on and see how they look in clothes before they buy. Since most tall brands are online, if the clothes don’t fit, they have to do annoying returns and exchanges. This will allow women to go directly to the source. Learn more about our pop-up here: https://www.tallsize.com/pages/los-angeles-pop-up-shop.

4. Launching The Community LED Collaboration because it’s giving tall women a voice and putting them in the driver’s seat.

5. Our TV debut on Breakfast Television in Canada, being able to spread the word about Tall Size.

As far as offerings:
– over 25 different brands to shop from, all in one shopping cart
– inseams as long as 41 in
– shoes size 10-15
– long sleeve lengths
– maxi dresses and skirts
– 1000 items to choose from
– excellent customer service
– the list goes on…

Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
Podcast:
– Female Startup Club
– The Revisionaries

Books:
– Atomic Habits
– The Lean Startup

Contact Info:

• Website: Tallsize.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/tallsize?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tallsizedotcom?mibextid=LQQJ4d
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tall-size/
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@tallsizecom?_t=8agnMdsA0aT&_r=1

Image Credits
Tall Size