Above: Eliana today, wearing custom clothing and gray hair 🙂

The Story of Balodana – Guided by God

by Eliana Todd

The story of how Balodana was conceived and became what it is today is not just a business story — it’s a story guided by God, full of unexpected nudges, strange instructions, and faith.

Back in 2015, I was between jobs, trying to figure out my next step. I had been a Chief Marketing Officer and an expert in digital marketing strategy, but I was burned out, unsure of where to go. At a Midwest regional Subud gathering, I received something so strong it was undeniable: I was to start a new business. The receiving was joyful, clear, and overwhelming — not just “a good idea,” but a sense of excitement and success that filled me up completely. Along with that came a name, Balodana, and even the feeling of a logo: curves and straight lines intertwined, balanced feminine and masculine energy.

I had no business model yet, but I trusted my receiving. I set up a holding company, Balodana LLC, and then waited for God to reveal the “what.” I researched dozens of ideas — franchises, start-ups, products — but none of them felt right. Nothing clicked.

Around that same time, I received a very odd guidance in latihan: I heard God’s voice, “Change your hair to its natural color”. At the time, my hair had been punk-rock dyed for decades — reds, pinks, purples, since I was nineteen. At fifty, I had no intention of finding out how gray I was. Why would God care about my hair color anyway? But the guidance was clear, so I submitted. It took a year to transition from purple to gray, and as it happened, something else shifted in me.

Without the bold hair, I suddenly disappeared into the background. In tech, looking “old” is a liability, and I realized my wardrobe needed an upgrade to bring back the edge that my hair had always given me. But when I went looking for cool new clothes, I hit a wall: nothing fit my post-menopause body. Store after store, I left empty-handed.

Finally, I found designers in Eastern Europe on Etsy who would make clothing for my body measurements. After a few different experiences, the light bulb went on. This was the vision: fix the fit of women’s clothing, by building a new kind of supply chain.

In 2017, I started researching how to make clothing to body measurements. God’s hand kept moving things forward in mysterious ways. I was flown to Romania for an entirely unrelated reason, and while I was there, I met a designer who had been making clothes for me. I sketched the platform idea on a napkin: a marketplace like Etsy, but dedicated to made-to-measure women’s clothing, featuring talented designers from around the world who understood tailoring. She loved it. By the time I went home, I had handshake agreements with four designers in Romania and Moldova.

By 2018, my cofounder Nisha and I were working on it full time. We pitched at the Global Congress SES startup contest and won a $3,500 USD grant, our very first funding, followed by several angel investments. In 2019, Balodana officially launched with 15 makers across 10 countries. We made dresses, pants, suits, shirts — beautiful, one-of-a-kind clothes. Our “first fit” accuracy was 72%, far better than retail averages. We felt unstoppable.

Then came COVID. Women’s shopping habits changed drastically, and our marketplace struggled. By God’s grace, we kept the lights on, but we had to pivot. We shifted from consumer sales to a B2B (business to business) model, supporting designers and retail boutique owners who needed very small batch manufacturing — sustainable, low-risk, and less wasteful. We realized we could still achieve our vision this way: fixing fit one batch at a time instead of one garment at a time.

That pivot opened new doors, and a renewed excitement. We discovered opportunities to help with uniforms too, offering micro-batches or even made-to-measure options for employees as they were hired. We partnered with one of our marketplace participants, Samshek in India, who became instrumental in shaping this new model. Together, we pushed forward an on-demand manufacturing system that lets designers grow without sinking tens of thousands of dollars into inventory. We even started making men’s clothing!

At the beginning of 2025, we made the hard decision to shut down the consumer marketplace entirely, which felt almost like losing a child – I had put absolutely everything into its care and feeding over 8 years, but we couldn’t support both business models.

Shutting down the consumer marketplace was painful, but our new path has been blessed. We received a $12k USD grant to remake our website and reflect our new identity. Our manufacturing business is growing steadily, and now we’re developing AI technology to improve size matching and virtual try-on — carrying forward that original vision of fixing fit for people everywhere.

Today, we support the creative visions of clients around the world. Many of them aren’t fashion professionals at all, but dreamers with original fabric designs, unique style ideas, and a need for someone to bring those visions into reality. And that’s what Balodana does.

From purple hair to gray, from empty-handed shopping trips to global partnerships, from a napkin sketch in Romania to AI-powered factories in India, the path has been anything but straight. But every turn has been guided, and every step has confirmed my receiving: this work is meant to be.

See below for some recent styles we’ve produced and manufactured:

Designs by Ooshie

Custom print mesh tunic top for ModaMichelle

Custom uniforms for Playtech online gaming company.