Phoebe Gates, co-founder of AI-powered shopping assistant Phia, is building a fashion-tech platform designed to change how people shop online by using smart data and a clean browser interface. Created with Sophia Kianni while they were roommates at Stanford, Phia compares prices, tracks resale value, and makes personalized product suggestions based on user behavior.
During an interview with Josh Felgoise on the "Guyset" podcast, Gates explained how she and Kianni made early mistakes, like designing only for desktop. “We first developed it, we frankly developed it only for desktop. And we spent months and months building this. Perfecting it, making the pixels perfect, making it look pretty, which now looking back, was a complete waste of time,” she said.
