Emma Hintz was tired of endlessly searching for ethical fashion, so she built the shortcut she wished already existed.

Hintz, a fourth-year sociology student, launched Foster, a curated online marketplace featuring 13 small, sustainable, women-owned fashion businesses, May 4. She said her goal with the marketplace, which she built over seven months, is to make conscious, ethical shopping accessible.

“When you purchase something, your money is going toward that, and you’re supporting a bigger agenda,” Hintz said. “We don’t know who’s making our products anymore, and when we do, we feel better about supporting that story instead of a narrative that we will never see.”

Hintz said the idea for Foster came when she was trying to find small businesses as a summer intern in New York City. She researched up-and-coming brands, many of which were starting out with just 90 followers on Instagram, Hintz said. After sending the accounts to friends, she added, she thought there had to be an easier way to promote them. She said she originally envisioned Foster as an Amazon for small businesses.

Hintz said the name “Foster” comes from her own family story. Adopted from China at 10-months-old and raised in the Bay Area by a white family, she said she often felt different from her parents and brother – but deeply supported and fostered by their love.

“They (Hintz’s parents) just really wanted me to do what I wanted to do,” Hintz said. “I wanted to give back to people who were also passionate about the environment – that’s where the name comes from. My goal is to foster small businesses and hope that they get the platform and spotlight that they deserve.”

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Hintz said Foster runs on three pillars: sustainability, transparency and empowerment. To be featured on the platform, brands must use deadstock materials, produce in small batches or make their products by hand, she added. Deadstock fabrics, Hintz said, are leftover materials from large manufacturers – remnants of massive production runs that would otherwise be burned or sent to landfill.

“When you can support something that fosters creativity within someone, if someone’s making your necklace by hand from start to finish, molding it and polishing it, you’re giving them the ability to continue doing what they love,” Hintz said.

Hintz has been entrepreneurial her entire life, she said. As a child, her grandmother taught and encouraged her to sew with materials they already had, she added. In high school, Hintz said she launched a swimsuit business using recycled fabrics and donated 20% of profits to a nonprofit that focused on distributing clean water. Hintz added that she ran a custom embroidery business at the start of college, embroidering onto thrifted hoodies and building her first Shopify store from scratch.

As she was creating Foster, Hintz said she reached out to over 200 small businesses, joined Startup Labs at Bruin Entrepreneurs and cold emailed people on LinkedIn. She added that she also leaned on her previous internship experience at Pistola Denim and Tarte Cosmetics, which showed her the back end of running a capitalized storefront.

Audrey Dathe, a fourth-year economics student and Hintz’s roommate for three years, said Hintz stands out because of her willingness to connect with others.

“She was reaching out to anyone she could find on LinkedIn that had any sort of ideas with business and creating a website,” Dathe said. “Even if it was someone really high up, she wasn’t intimidated. She was just like, ‘I know that they can help me.’”

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Dathe said Hintz hit many roadblocks as she was figuring out business licensing and building the technical interface to connect vendor websites to her own platform. Yet, she added that Hintz found her way through each challenge.

One of the 13 brands featured on Foster is Kimi, a sustainable, Los Angeles-based clothing line run by recent USC graduate Mina Truong. Truong said Hintz reached out to her over TikTok with a short pitch of Foster and added that she was very happy to accept.

“(She) told me that it was a really introductory thing and was super low commitment, so I was super open to it,” Truong said. “She told me that I would have the opportunity to engage with other brands and other founders. … I haven’t really connected with many people in that space prior to this, but I thought it was really cool.”

Truong said she loved Hintz’s organization and dedication. She added that she respects how Hintz’s structure makes everything seamless and easy. Truong said Foster’s founder had months of content and photo shoots planned out and is incredibly involved with outreach.

Truong added that working with Foster has pushed her to think differently about her own brand, especially around its work with models and photographers, something she had assumed was financially out of reach.

Hintz said Foster is self-funded with a goal to build a platform that people can learn from.

“I just want to be heard,” she said. “If one person learns about sustainable fashion, that will be enough for me.”

Hintz said after graduation she hopes to add more brands to Foster and continue educating viewers through sustainability-centered blog posts. Her blog, she added, is aimed at people who may be familiar with fast fashion – brands like Edikted, Princess Polly or Amazon – and have never considered alternatives.

“It’s not just for me,” Hintz said. “I’m impacting these 13 businesses, their families, their friends. They’re sharing it, … business is not just on my own website, it’s being shared to this person, and that visibility gives me a lot of hope.”