Every Connection Matters: How Wake Forest Opened Doors for Leah
Leah Wyrick (‘22), Founder & CEO, Three Strands Recovery Wear
Every Connection Matters: How Wake Forest Opened Doors for Leah
You are the CEO of Three Strands Recovery Wear. What inspired you to start your own business?
My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 16 years old; in 2016 she had a mastectomy and three subsequent surgeries due to complications. At that time, I was young, but old enough to understand that something was not right – I knew I had to be there for my family. So, I was with my mom every step of the way, through every doctor’s appointment and every surgery. I found myself learning about the disease and even interacting with her plastic surgeon out of curiosity. At that time, the surgeon told me, “Leah, I think that with a better post surgical bra, some of your mother’s complications could have been prevented.” Fast forward two years later: my mom was going through final treatments while I was working on my high school senior project. Having had the conversation with the plastic surgeon, I decided to develop the first version of what is now The Resilience Bra. Once I came to WFU, I honed my entrepreneurial skills in customer discovery, building a product that people were willing to buy. I’ve spent the last five years doing just that – developing a product that was truly deserved by the breast cancer and breast cosmetic industry.
What is the significance of the name “Three Strands”?
I love telling this story! One of the very first challenges I had was to come up with a name for my business – this was “homework” while I was developing my business in the Center for Entrepreneurship’s Startup Lab. I didn’t know what to name it, but I knew it needed to be meaningful. I went home for a weekend and bugged my parents left and right. I even jumped on Google name generator for ideas (which was not helpful and I would not recommend it!). The bottom line was that I knew the company name needed to represent strength, power and resilience, because that’s what the women who will use my product embody. On a recent shopping trip with my mom, I saw a sign that read “a chord with three strands is not easily broken”. Since it’s just the three of us – my mom, dad and I – as soon as I saw the three strands, I knew that was it.
How difficult was it to start a business from scratch?
It was really important for me to build a great product. Over the five years of development, I had continuous reassurance from the breast cancer community. I heard, “I wish I would have had this” and “This would have been so impactful for my recovery.” Ultimately, I had the motivation to keep moving forward – I knew we were onto something! Once we had been in development long enough, it was time. I approached the Chair of Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, Dr. Lisa David, and said, “I need you to take this bra and test it on your patients. Use it as a free trial. I don’t want to violate HIPAA. I don’t want your patient information. I just want you to test these bras, and I want you to tell me if your department will buy them!” We tested about 20 bras at Wake Forest Baptist and Novant Health and within two months, my business went from 0 to 100. We saw how much the physicians loved the product, which gave me the motivation to place our first order of 3,000 bras. I worked closely with surgeons in the Triad area and then started to branch out. Now a year later, I have partnered with over 20 cancer centers in the country. And in addition, we’re now working with Wake Forest Baptist to do a study to prove that The Resilience Bra helps reduce postoperative complications in mastectomy patients. So we’re not only looking from a testimonial standpoint,we are now gathering clinical data to prove the product is truly helping patients.
It sounds like your connections have been extremely helpful. Explain more.
Yes, especially in the Winston-Salem area! It first started at Wake Forest with the Center for Entrepreneurship, having Dan Cohen and Greg Pool (JD ‘08, MBA ‘08) believe in me more than I believed in myself. Then, as I entered the real world, I partnered with surgeons in the field who believed in my product and gave me the encouragement to keep going. Now, I’ve talked to surgeons at Sloan Kettering, Mount Sinai, Stanford and Cleveland Clinic, all because of the connections that I made at Wake Forest.
The one thing I always say when people ask how they can help is to offer a connection. The most important thing that I could ask for is a warm connection. Any and every connection matters! I’ve found that the WFU network is strong and Deacs want to help. When I was a student, nobody told me no. I am grateful to have that foundation, and I truly believe that if it weren’t for Wake Forest and the connections I made, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing today.
Have you encountered any setbacks or “no’s” that you have had to overcome?
Absolutely. I learn something new every single day. There’s always a challenge to overcome. There have been hospitals that have been my dream to get into that say no. Since then, I have figured out there is always a backdoor; just because one person says no, does not mean there’s not another person to ask, another door or a window cracked open to leverage.
Did having an undergraduate degree in business benefit you as you started your business?
Yes, definitely. I went into Wake Forest as an intended biology major on the pre-med track. I wanted absolutely nothing to do with business. Walking across campus one day, I saw this “Pitch Over Pizza” sign for an event sponsored by the Center for Entrepreneurship, where you can pitch your idea for a product or service. I had created this product when I was a senior in high school, and I thought maybe this is a way for me to make friends and get involved. So I ended up making a pitch, and the first person I pitched to was Greg Pool. Greg told me I should apply for the Startup Lab. So I quite literally left there, applied for Startup Lab, and was the only freshman accepted that year. By taking the entrepreneurship classes my freshman year, I quickly realized I wanted to build the business and I needed to go to business school. To have a general understanding of all things business is so important;as an entrepreneur, I’m doing accounting, legal work like patent and trademarks, and working with overseas manufacturers. Everything that I am doing in my business today was covered at some point in my coursework at Wake Forest.
It is women’s history month. Reflecting on women’s achievements, especially in business and knowing that you are a woman in business who is achieving success, what does that mean for you?
It makes me so proud to see a problem and recognize that this doesn’t just happen to one person, it happens to millions of other women around the world. I’m inspired by the Nori team [Annabel Love (‘18) and Courtney Toll (‘18)] and Sarah Blakely [founder of Spanx] and seeing their success has kept me motivated. These two groups of women, in very different fields, are so good at what they do, confident in themselves and in their business. And that’s what I’ve always aspired to be – confident in myself, in my business and in my product.
