FRANCESCA SALIH: Founder of StyleGrid

When someone builds a styling business serving world-class athletes, Silicon Valley executives and private families in the Middle East while raising a daughter alone, you know they've got stories worth hearing. But what makes Francesca Salih's journey from NET-A-PORTER intern to tech founder particularly compelling is what she's willing to share about the process – the challenging parts most founders carefully edit out.

Now she's channeling two decades of hard-won experience into StyleGrid, a platform designed to solve the very challenges she faced as a young stylist starting out. But the path here required learning the difference between fight mode and alignment, between lucrative work and fulfilling work, and recognising when your body is forcing a conversation you've been avoiding.

From London Loft to Silicon Valley Elite

Francesca's fashion education began as an intern at NET-A-PORTER in the styling team, but her entrepreneurial instincts kicked in almost immediately. While still interning, she launched Wardrobe Mistress from her parents' loft - one of the first platforms selling second-hand luxury pieces online.

“I didn’t go to business school. I learned in real time, inventory, operations, the unglamorous mechanics of building something from nothing. No one was investing in me, so I invested in myself.”

The press attention from her beautiful launch party brought clients directly to her, and through a partnership with Quintessentially's new wardrobe division, she began building a proper client base. One of those clients - a Quintessentially member based in San Francisco - would completely change the trajectory of her business.

After working with this client in London for about two years, Francesca was invited to San Francisco to spend five days wardrobe editing and styling. But here's the thing about being well-connected in San Francisco - word travels fast.

"This client was super connected to the Golden State Warriors. Once I went for five days, people heard that this person's in town, and I started getting, 'Can you come see my house? Can you come to my wardrobe?'"

The opportunity was impossible to ignore. Francesca’s offer was received like "honey to a bee" in the US’ service-based industry, whereas in the UK, the concept was still quite new. In San Francisco, among Silicon Valley's elite and NBA players, it was exactly what they'd been looking for.

Survival Mode

Just as her business was gaining real traction, Francesca fell pregnant with Isabella. And then, when her daughter was just 18 months old, her marriage ended. Suddenly she was a single mother facing a choice: retreat or fight.

" All I thought was, “I’ve got another human being to look after now” so failure wasn’t an option.’

What followed was a decade in what Francesca describes as pure fight mode. Shuttling between London and San Francisco every two weeks, building her business while her parents and an excellent nanny provided the support system that made it all possible. But the drive came from something deeper than ambition.

"For me purpose has to come from substance. If you’re building something without a real reason, the grit never shows up. A strong why is what holds everything together."

The reality was simple and hard. Francesca did what was required moving between motherhood and work with little room for pause.

"I was effectively living two lives. I had a life in San Francisco, and then I had a life in London. I was playing between two places, and I was never fully in my authentic self. I was being torn all the time."

Eventually, the US chapter had to close. The constant travel with a young daughter, living between two worlds and never feeling fully present anywhere became completely unsustainable. But as one door closed, another opened in the Middle East.

When Success Doesn't Equal Happiness

Over the next eight to nine years, Francesca built and led a team of ten stylists, working with private clients in a high-pressure environment. It was, by conventional standards, the most successful period of her career.

But something fundamental was wrong. Despite achieving what she’d worked toward, Francesca was deeply unhappy. She wasn’t seeing Isabella as much as she wanted to, wasn’t present in her own life, and couldn’t appreciate what she was building because she was constantly running.

"Externally it looked successful, but internally it wasn’t working. I wasn’t present - with my daughter or in the life I was building.”

The issue was that she'd never really left survival mode. Even though the circumstances had changed - the financial pressure had eased, Isabella was older, the business was established - Francesca was still operating from that place of pure fight.

Then her body forced the conversation. She developed shingles.

The Body Keeps the Score

When Francesca's new micro immune therapy doctor asked, "What in your life gets on your nerves?" she thought it was a ridiculous question at first. But the doctor explained that shingles comes from the nervous system - the issue wasn't just physical, it was complete misalignment.

The realisation was profound. She'd spent a decade running, achieving, building - and somewhere along the way, she'd forgotten to check in with whether any of it was actually serving her anymore in the way she now wanted.

Two and a half years ago, Francesca made a bold decision. She stepped down from most of her client work, keeping only a select few relationships she genuinely treasured. It was time to focus on something she'd been developing in the background - Style Grid, a platform that would solve the challenges she'd experienced firsthand as a stylist.

Style Grid and the Community She Wished She'd Had

The gap Francesca had identified was painfully clear: stylists needed a sleek way to present products to clients without drowning in PDFs, screenshots, and missed messages. But more than that, she recognised how isolating the work could be.

"I was that young stylist on my own starting out with no one to bounce ideas off of, no one I could go to and say, 'Hey, I've got a client that wants this but I can't get it' without feeling like it was a competition."

StyleGrid is an app that lets stylists upload inventory from any retailer with a website, connect their Stripe payment system, and white-label the entire platform to their own branding. The client never needs to download anything - they just see beautifully branded styling recommendations.

There's also a developing marketplace where brands can make their inventory available to stylists who use the platform, complete with live stock levels. But what matters most to Francesca isn't the technology - it's the community she's building alongside it.

"There's enough business for everyone. Stylists' clientele might be so different, so vast. Why does it have to be a competition? Build each other up and support one another."

Learning to Work in Alignment

Perhaps the most transformative shift for Francesca has been learning to work in alignment rather than fight mode. She's now working with an EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) therapist and a spiritual coach, practices she credits with completely changing her approach to both business and life.

"When you're totally in alignment with 'this is what I'm doing, I'm at peace with where I'm at' - even if it's not perfect - the right people become magnetised to you to help you get to that next phase."

This philosophy extends to everything: client relationships, business partnerships, which projects she takes on. If something doesn't align, she cuts it quickly now. It's a skill she's honed over years of ignoring her gut and getting burnt.

"If my gut says something's not right or off, I don't touch it.”

She's also learned to ask for help without shame - whether that means therapy sessions, bringing in team members to take responsibilities off her plate, or leaning on her support network. The evolution in how she approaches delegation is telling.

"With Wardrobe Mistress, I was so scared to let areas of the business go. Now what I'm building, I'm so not scared. The more amazing people I've got in my team, the more I get to offload. I can go and do what I'm good at, because I can't do it all."

On Having It All

Francesca is refreshingly honest about the often impossible standards placed on working mothers and her thoughts on whether it’s possible to have it all.

"Yes, you absolutely can have it all, but not all at once. You can have the amazing relationship, be a mum, have the business - but you can't have it all together."

With her parents stepping in during travel periods, an excellent nanny for school runs, and making difficult choices daily about which events she'd attend and which she'd miss - she made it work. But the mum guilt was constant, regardless of the support system.

"You are always, and I mean always, going to have mum guilt being an entrepreneur, being a female, being a woman in business. It doesn't matter how it looks, it's coming. So you've got to make a choice."

Now Isabella is at boarding school by her own choice, demonstrating a courage and clarity that astounds and inspires Francesca. The little notes Isabella writes - "Thanks mum, you inspire me so much" - make the sacrifices feel worth it.

When I asked who inspires her, Francesca reveals that mum is one of her biggest inspirations and sources of strength - not as a businesswoman, but as a true homemaker and anchor.

Francesca’s mum lost her own mum when she was just seven years old and has spent her life caring for others, including Francesca's severely autistic brother. She's a "powerhouse," "super stylish," a "very colourful lady." Without her support during the years of constant travel, none of Francesca's success would have been possible.

The Thread of Consistency

One thread runs through Francesca's entire journey, from dressing basketball players to working with private families: she remained entirely herself.

" I never changed who I was depending on the client. Everyone got the same version of me.”

This consistency in values, in approach, in how she shows up is what's made her successful. And it's what makes her confident that Style Grid will work.

For Stylists Starting Out

When I asked Francesca what advice she'd give stylists just beginning their journey, her answer was immediate:

"If you fear it, do it anyway. If it's a niggling voice in you to do it, just do it. Even if it doesn't work, you've done it. You might start it and it leads you to something else."

She certainly didn't start out planning to build a tech company. At 23, working from her parents' loft, she just had "a vision, a dream, determination, grit" and went for it. The path took her places she never imagined.

"Enjoy the ride. Enjoy the good days, enjoy the bad days. It might be two or three or four bad days, it might be a month or two months. Just accept it, own it, weather through it."

And the best advice she ever received? From a venture capitalist client in San Francisco:

"If you really believe in something, do it. Just do it, because it will work if you believe in it. But you've got to embody it. You've got to live, eat, breathe, sleep it. You can't just romanticize the idea and fall in love with it. You've got to be committed to it and work."

My Take

Francesca's name was almost legendary at MATCHES and NET-A-PORTER when she was one of our external stylist partners. The sales coming through from her clients were incredible, but it was the breadth and scope of her projects that really set her apart - the kind of complex, high-touch styling work that required deep relationships and trust. Hearing how she experienced this period is fascinating and goes to show things aren’t always as they seem.

What strikes me most about our conversation is how much it mirrors themes I'm exploring in my own life right now. I've been on a spiritual path recently, learning tarot to bring more intuition into my work and decisions. Hearing Francesca talk about alignment, trusting her gut after years of ignoring it, working with an EFT therapist - it reinforces my own view that the inner work we do on ourselves and our beliefs aren't separate from our professional success. They’re the foundation of it all.

So many of the women I work with in my coaching practice have achieved incredible external success in the fashion industry but feel completely disconnected from it, like I did. They're checking all the boxes - the impressive title, the salary, the recognition, the glossy surface - but something feels fundamentally off. Francesca's willingness to walk away from her most lucrative period because it wasn't serving her anymore, despite how it looked from the outside, is the kind of courage I find incredibly inspiring.

The isolation of freelance work in fashion is something I've witnessed across countless conversations with stylists over the years too. I love that alongside the technical solution StyleGrid brings, Francesca's building a community infrastructure that allows people to support rather than compete.

That "there's enough for everyone" mentality is exactly what the industry needs more of.

You can follow Francesca and StyleGrid on Instagram @stylegridoffical and at www.stylegrid.com

About the author: Pippa Mellor is a qualified Executive Coach and Personal Shopping Consultant whose services include 1:1 fashion career coaching and helping luxury and premium brands to increase revenue and VIP client loyalty by building strategic personal shopping programmes.