Meet Our Head of Growth, Devon Rule
Devon Rule, Indyx’s Head of Growth has followed everything but the rule when it comes to her path to fashion. She has had a non-linear path from growing up in Houston & Hong Kong, to her degree in Chemical Engineering, to Head of Growth of a fashion tech startup in the Bay Area. But it is her very multifaceted experiences in different niche cultures that makes her the ideal candidate to understand how to nurture our own Indyx community.
One of Devon’s earliest experiences with fashion will feel familiar to current or former expats: returning home to The States for a major summer shopping haul. She recalls proudly returning to her middle school years in Hong Kong in the early 2000s decked out in the coolest mall brands of the era: Abercrombie, Hollister, and American Eagle were de rigueur. But at the time, a career in the fashion industry felt out of reach, unrealistic or frivolous compared to the STEM-driven track she was already on. It was only after her engineering degree and a stint in management consulting at McKinsey, that Devon decided to pursue a career in fashion. Unlike the healthcare industry, which she initially thought would spark her interest while working in consulting, she felt there was more concrete hope for fast-paced change in retail, a legacy industry ripe for disruption.
When it came to joining her former Gap Inc., colleague, Yidi Campbell at Indyx, Devon found the leap was better characterized as a skip. She didn’t have any doubts because she herself was an early adopter of the vision Indyx is creating: tracking what she was wearing, thinking about cost per wear, and actively working to reduce her impact on the planet.
Indyx was the opportunity to build something from the beginning. She had previously worked in a startup environment at Cuyana, a sustainable leather goods company focused on timeless design. There, she joined as Chief of Staff to be able to touch every point of the business, a learning opportunity unique to working with startups. However, she felt a conflict with advocating for a sustainable, “fewer, better” approach to fashion while still working within a business model that fundamentally depended on selling more products. Devon was tapping into one of the greatest dilemmas of the 21st century, how can companies grow while still being sustainable? Her answer is Indyx. As a service-based company Indyx does not depend on its users to buy more, but rather it teaches them how to buy less. It finally clicked, and being able to authentically market a mission was an unlock to her creativity.
Since starting at Indyx, Devon has been most surprised by how niche fashion has become - many people can relate to the overwhelming amount of new aesthetics and the ‘-core’s’ that have taken over social media. But it is her very own “detours” in her life and career that set her up to be able to tap into all these different subcultures in fashion. In her own words, her curiosity for “how societies and cultures work” is what has ultimately led her to working in marketing . Her ultimate goal is to create a true community around Indyx, the power of which she learned in one of her “detours” at LeanIn.Org, where building community around a common mission was core to the organization.
Now a few months into her role, Devon is excited to move fast in her mission to learn from customers and bring more users into the Indyx community. Understanding who they are, what their motivations are, why they are using Indyx and, in what feels like a play on Kennedy's inaugural address, what Indyx can do for them? Devon isn’t shy about using guerilla marketing tactics either, getting out on the streets of San Francisco and distributing flyers to find Indyx’s earliest clients. This is just yet another way to understand her customer base, not only through quantitative data, but through first-hand qualitative interactions. One thing she can say with certainty about her role is that she is never bored in her mission to make Indyx into a community of helpful, trusted advisors who add value to their users' lives.
Devon is never bored, nor is she ever free, but when she can she enjoys her fair share of TV. Reality TV to be specific, the bad kind to be even more specific. We may all be a few days behind on our work but we are never behind on an episode of Survivor or Love Island, pick your poison. But she truly enjoys the time she spends with her French Bulldog, Reggie, as well as scouring through Facebook Marketplace to find cool vintage pieces to add to her home, a hobby coincidentally shared by pretty much everyone at Indyx, to the point where it may become a job requirement.
Devon is currently hard at work building the Indyx community. Download Indyx on the App store to join her.
Rebecca is a fashion stylist and writer, recently graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, and currently living in London. She enjoys reading, skiing and having people cook for her.