Heavy on Fashion Talks to Vale Siegrist - founder of Circular Mom Club
Heavy on Fashion Talks to Vale Siegrist, founder of Circular Mom Club
Hard question! I was born and raised in Argentina; I moved to Miami when I was 18. So I’m in a little bit of here and a little bit of there. Now I live in Austin. And I am very close to the point where I lived half of my life in Argentina and half of my life here in the states.
What did you want to be when you grew up?
I went through phases, like everyone does. When I was 5 years old, I wanted to be a teacher in the morning and a vet in the afternoon. I guess you can say multitasking and multidisciplinary work were always in me.
How has your hometown/childhood shaped you today?
Growing up in Argentina gave me a particular kind of resourcefulness. There's a cultural mindset there around making things work with what you have, not waiting for perfect conditions, not assuming anything is guaranteed. I think it's why I'm comfortable bootstrapping, why I don't feel like I need a huge team or outside funding to create something real. It also shaped how I feel about waste. Growing up, you didn't just throw things away. You found another use for them, or you passed them along. That's basically the whole philosophy behind Circular.
If you had to describe yourself in three words, what would they be?
Resourceful. Stubborn. Optimistic. And I say stubborn in the best way possible. I think you have to be a little unreasonable to build something from scratch while working full time and raising a baby. Stubborn is what keeps you going when the logical thing would be to stop.
ABOUT THE BUSINESS
How did the Circular Mom Club come to be?
Honestly, it came out of frustration. After my daughter was born, I started really feeling the weight of how much we were spending on clothes she'd wear twice before outgrowing them. I tried a kids' clothing rental service and loved the concept, but I couldn't choose what showed up. I'd open the box, and it would be the basics that someone else picked for me. And I just kept thinking: I know what I want. Why won't you let me pick it?
That question didn't leave me alone. I have a background in scaling startups and customer operations, so I'm wired to look at a frustrating experience and ask how it could be better. And what I kept coming back to was choice. The whole thing works so much better when parents actually get to browse and pick the pieces they love. So I built it. In the margins of my regular job, during nap times, after my daughter went to sleep. That's where Circular came from.
How is Circular Mom Club different from other subscription retail businesses?
The biggest difference is choice. Most services in this space send you a curated box that they put together based on your size or some style survey. You get what they decided to send you. That's convenient in theory, but it means you might open your box and feel completely underwhelmed. And then you're less likely to actually use the pieces, which defeats the whole point.
With Circular, you go on the site, browse the inventory, and you pick what you actually want. You're in control of what arrives at your door. That's not a small difference. It's the entire model. And it shows up in real ways: you actually use the pieces, you feel good about what you're paying for, you're excited to open the box instead of vaguely disappointed.
We're also pretty unapologetically focused on elevated, stylish pieces. Not just basics. Parents who care about their kids' aesthetic deserve options, not just functional essentials.
What plan would you suggest for a first-time member? What is the difference between the 3 plans?
I'd suggest starting with the membership and just seeing how you actually use it before overthinking it. The way it works is simple: you have 5 items at a time, and you can swap as many or as few as you want throughout the month. So if you love everything and want to hold onto all 5, you keep them. If you're ready for something new after two weeks, you send some back, and we send you fresh picks. If you want a completely new rotation next month, you return everything and start fresh. Same monthly rate either way.
I get why the question assumes there are separate tiers, and honestly that might be something we add as we grow. Right now the flexibility is baked into one membership so you're not locked into a rigid structure. Most people are surprised by how much that freedom changes how they actually use it.
How important is sustainability to the Circular Mom Club?
It's foundational, but we try not to lead with guilt. That's really important to me. Motherhood already comes with so much pressure and second-guessing. I didn't want to build something that added to that by making parents feel bad about their past choices. The angle I always come back to is, what if sustainability were actually more fun and more affordable than what you're doing now? Because with kids' clothes specifically, it really is. Babies cycle through so many sizes so fast. The environmental case for keeping clothes circulating across multiple families is obvious. But so is the financial case. So the sustainability piece is real, and it matters deeply to us. It's just not delivered as a lecture.
What brands are most popular in the Circular Mom Club?
We curate elevated pieces across a range of brands that hold up in terms of quality and style. The ones members gravitate toward tend to be pieces that photograph beautifully, are made to last beyond one child, and have some personality to them. We're not trying to be a basic service, so we lean toward pieces that feel special: something you'd actually be excited to put your kid in, not just something functional to get through the week. I'd say the specific answer to this evolves as we grow our inventory, but the constant is always elevated, expressive, and built to be worn by more than one kid.
What have been some of your biggest learning experiences in running Circular Mom Club?
So many. The biggest one is probably that done is better than perfect. I'm a planner by nature. I want everything to be right before I put it out there. But building in public, the way I've tried to do with Circular, means you release things before they're fully formed and you let the community tell you what needs to change. That's uncomfortable. But it's also so much faster than waiting until everything is polished.
The other big one: operations are everything. The creative side of a business, the brand, the messaging, that stuff is fun to think about. The logistics of getting items cleaned, tracked, shipped, returned, and cleaned again, that's where the real work is. And if you don't have that running well, nothing else matters.
ABOUT ENTREPRENEURSHIP
What advice would you give to someone just starting their own business?
Start before you feel ready, because you will never feel ready. Seriously. There's always one more thing you could figure out, one more detail you could refine. At some point you just have to put something real in front of real people and see what happens. The feedback you get from actual customers in month one is worth more than six more months of planning in isolation.
Also: don't underestimate operations. Everyone wants to talk about the product and the marketing. The stuff that will actually make or break you is the unsexy backend. Inventory. Fulfillment. Customer communication. Get obsessed with that early.
How do you deal with fear and doubt?
Honestly, I don't think I've figured out how to get rid of it. I've just gotten more comfortable coexisting with it. There's almost always a voice in the back of my head that says this is too hard or who are you to be doing this? I've learned to notice it and keep moving anyway.
What actually helps me is keeping the vision specific. I'm not trying to build a billion-dollar company. I'm trying to build a profitable, resilient business that lets me eventually leave corporate life and serve a community of parents I genuinely care about. When I remind myself of that actual goal, the fear shrinks a little because the goal feels achievable.
What routines do you follow each day?
I'm a working mom building a business in the margins. Breakfast, getting ready, and full-time work come first. Then I do school pickup, dinner, and bath, and I either work out or work at Circular. It's not glamorous, but it’s what’s working for me.
Where do you see your business in five years? Ten?
In five years I want a real community of members, families who are genuinely changing how they think about their kids' clothing, not just renting outfits but actually shifting toward a more intentional way of consuming.
In ten years? I'd love for Circular to be part of a broader cultural conversation about how we approach kids' stuff in general. The clothing piece is the start. The bigger picture is proving that circulation and reuse can be more joyful and more beautiful than the buy-and-discard cycle we've all accepted as normal.
How does your business look different now vs. when you first started?
When I started, everything was manual and relationship-driven. I was connecting with customers directly on Instagram, answering DMs, and building trust one conversation at a time. The website didn't exist yet. It was scrappy in the most literal sense.
Now we have an actual platform. Parents can browse inventory, sign up, and manage their membership. The infrastructure is there in a way it wasn't before. But I've been deliberate about not losing the personal feel as we've built up the systems. The community-first, transparent founder approach is still the core of how I show up for this brand. That hasn't changed.
How do you set your business apart from others in your industry?
Choice. That's the clearest one. Most of our competitors curate what you receive. We don't. You pick your pieces. That's a philosophical difference as much as an operational one because it comes down to trusting parents to know what they want.
Beyond that, it's the founder's story. I'm a working mom building this in the margins of real life, with a real budget, while also managing a leadership role at a tech company and learning how to be a mom for the first time. That's not a polished startup story. It's a messy, honest one. And I think that's exactly why the parents we're trying to reach actually believe it.
How did you market your business when it was brand new?
Instagram, almost entirely. I was inspired by the founder of Extra, who built a whole community by just being transparent about the entrepreneurial journey. Showing the real stuff, not the highlight reel. I tried to do the same thing: here's what I'm building, here's what's working, and here's what isn't; come along for it.
That approach gets you something that polished marketing campaigns often don't, which is trust. People could see I was a real person solving a real problem I'd actually experienced. Early members came from that community. Some of them are still members today.
What is the hardest part of being an entrepreneur?
The mental load. You're always the one carrying the whole picture in your head. Even when you step away, you're not really stepping away. A question will hit you in the middle of dinner or right as you're falling asleep. There's no off switch.
And doing it while working full time, while being a first-time mom, means there's essentially no slack in the system. When something goes wrong, there's no buffer. That's hard. I won't pretend it isn't.
What is your favorite part of being an entrepreneur?
When a member tells me that Circular changed how they think about getting dressed for the day. Not just that they liked the clothes, but that something actually shifted for them. That's the whole reason I'm doing this. And when it happens, even once, it makes all the rest of it feel worth it.
Also, honestly? Creative problem-solving. Every week brings some new thing I haven't figured out yet. I find that genuinely interesting, even when it's stressful.
What will you never compromise on with your business?
Member experience. If someone reaches out, they hear back from a real person. If there's an issue with an order, we fix it. I'm not interested in building a business that scales by cutting corners on how members are treated. The community is the whole point.
And I'll never compromise on the tone. We will never shame parents for how they've consumed in the past or use guilt to drive sign-ups. That's a hard no; motherhood has enough of that already.
How did you raise funding or financially prepare for your business?
I bootstrapped it. No investors, no outside funding. I'm building this with what I have, which means every decision is tied to whether it actually makes financial sense. I think that constraint is actually good for the business. It forces discipline. You can't spend your way to product-market fit.
I prepared by keeping my overhead as low as possible from day one and being really intentional about where money goes. There's no team, no fancy office. There's just the product and the members.
If you could do anything different now regarding your business, what would it be?
I think I would have started building the website earlier. I spent a lot of time on the Instagram-first, relationship-driven approach, which was really valuable for learning and community building. But having a real platform earlier would have let me scale the experience to more people faster. There's a version of me that wishes I'd prioritized that infrastructure sooner.
Any advice about setting up a business in terms of legal/accounting?
Don’t get intimidated. Everything sounds like big words or big problems, but if you’re not doing anything like medical or with food, don’t let that stop you. Do your research and get started. In most states it does not even require you to get fully registered until you reach a certain threshold of revenue.
In terms of accounting, keep track of your expenses. More than for accounting, understanding your numbers, what goes in and what goes out. Spending more than needed is why most companies fail.
Finally, what does fashion mean to you?
It means expression. For me personally, it always has, but something shifted when I became a mom. Suddenly there was this whole other tiny person whose outfits were an extension of joy and play and personality. Getting my daughter dressed in something beautiful, something I actually chose because I loved it, that's a small but real pleasure in an otherwise exhausting season.
Fashion in the context of Circular means access. It means that you don't have to choose between dressing your kid in something special and being financially responsible or environmentally conscious. You can have all of it! We're proving it.
RAPID-FIRE
Morning person or night owl?
No? I do my best work between 8am and 2pm.
Movie or book?
Book. Always.
Coffee or tea?
Coffee. Non-negotiable.
Summer or winter?
Summer.
Streaming music or CDs & vinyl?
Streaming.
Comments
Post a Comment
Do not post spam. Engage and have fun! Thanks again for leaving a comment on Heavy on Fashion.