MK Barlow
A few years back, MK Barlow was with her cousin and best friend, Emma, getting dressed, when the topic turned to Emma’s somewhat surprising struggle: having asymmetrical breasts.
“She shared her experience about having a pretty significant difference, and how she can’t find a bra that’s cute, comfortable and affordable,” said Barlow, a media studies major who is minoring in marketing and entrepreneurship. “And I thought, ‘I wonder how many women this problem affects.’”
Turns out, it’s a lot. A survey Barlow conducted found that roughly 60% of women have asymmetrical breasts. A more formal study, cited by the National Institutes of Health, reported 88% of women had some degree of asymmetry.
Yet, bras have historically failed to cater to women facing the discrepancy, often resulting in uncomfortable wear. Even worse, Barlow said, there has been a lack of education, awareness and assurance to women that it’s normal to have different sized breasts.
It gave Barlow an idea—to launch a bra company specifically tailored to women with asymmetrical breasts. “Glasses have a different prescription for each eye. Why can’t bras be the same?” she said.
Barlow got the assist she needed in starting the business when she joined the Entrepreneurship@DU program. She was particularly inspired and encouraged when she met with Professor Neil Pollard and told him about her idea.
“He said, ‘MK, this idea is a big deal. You’re on to something, you have the passion for it, and anything is possible,’” Barlow recalled. “He basically told me to not doubt myself, and that E@DU would be there to support me and help me figure it out.”
Helped by that “life-changing” moment at DU, FlauntaBra was officially born in January 2024.
“Entrepreneurship@DU has changed my life and my perspective on how I see the world,” Barlow said. “A lot of the support is, ‘[Starting a business] is going to be difficult, but we’re here to help you through difficult things. Nobody does this alone.’”
DU’s supportive entrepreneurial ecosystem
Barlow has been able to bounce ideas off professors and peers in the entrepreneurship program. Plus, she has received funding through Entrepreneurship@DU Microgrant Program.
The program is open to all full-time DU students, who could receive up to $2,500 through three phases: validation, creation and activation. To be accepted to each phase, students need to submit a video pitch and outline their goals. To date, more than 30 students have been awarded microgrants of various sizes.
Joshua Ross, director of Entrepreneurship@DU, said the microgrants help students “in terms of giving them a little bit of money to go out and test their idea or collect information, either customer validation or client validation, and decide whether to go ahead and potentially build some type of [method] to get feedback.”
Students also don’t have to have a business background to be eligible, he added, they just have to be “very clear on what their idea is, what they want to test, and how they’re going to use the money.”
The microgrants are also a useful bridge to E@DU’s other resources for budding entrepreneurs, such as the BASE Camp summer accelerator. Barlow was part of the program’s third cohort, leveraging five weeks of mentoring, one-to-one advising with industry experts, curated workshops and a $5,000 stipend.
Boosting confidence
FlauntaBra is still in its pre-launch phase, after going through various prototypes and testing. (Barlow said she created the first bra by buying two cheap bras, “cutting them in the middle, and sewing a back extender onto the front, so that way it would have the right function.” Another prototype was created by someone at the DU Sewing Club.)
In the meantime, Barlow has been busy spreading the word about FlauntaBra, hosting pop-up shops on campus, participating in pitch competitions and Denver Startup Week, networking, and launching a website and social media pages.
After Barlow graduates this spring, she plans to dedicate herself to FlauntaBra full time and officially launch. She hopes Flauntabra will stand out for its focus on younger women—different from competitors on the market that target a much older demographic and do not necessarily offer what “me or younger people want to wear,” she explained.
“We’re taking an initial focus on these younger women who are entering the corporate world for the first time, who aren’t comfortable in their bodies, and need something that is going to support them like their best friend would,” she said. “I’m also taking a focus on teens who may not be having the development that they want or need, aren’t finding the support that they need and who might be more insecure.”
For Barlow, the larger message of FlauntaBra is simple: It’s about giving women confidence.
“Our goal and our mission is to encourage women to be unapologetically confident living their ‘breast life,’” she said. “I’ve always been a very confident person. I’ve always been an extrovert. I’ve always been so out there. And I think everyone deserves to feel that and to feel good in their bodies.”