It was around this time that Eckstein discovered the black hole in the merchandise universe. Appalled by the lack of offerings for fangirls, she dug deeper into the matter and learned that at the time, 45% of all Star Wars devotees were female and that 80% of all consumer purchases in the United States were made by women. When she reached out to LucasFilm (the keeper of the Star Wars kingdom), the company revealed that it considers the core fan base to be an even 50-50 split between male and female. “I’m not a mathematician, but I was like, ‘These numbers aren’t adding up,’” she says. That was enough to convince Eckstein that there was an opportunity here. “If you make the stuff to wear, we’ll buy it.”But getting a licensing agreement from LucasFilm was not as easy as she thought. “They told me no twice and said they only work with reputable companies,” she says. “I realized I wasn’t going about it the right way. So I went away for a while."Eckstein, who has the drive and confidence of the most successful business leaders and none of their arrogance, lives her life by what she calls an "alphabet plan." “If I believe in something and I want to accomplish it, I say, ‘Okay, well here’s plan A. If plan A fails, I go to plan B," she says. "I was probably on plan G by the time I got HerUniverse up off the ground.”Just before Christmas 2009, Eckstein partnered with the Araca Group , an entertainment and merchandising organization, and went back to LucasFilm with a more polished pitch. This time, she says, the company was supportive of her vision. “LucasFilm is really the first major franchise to step up and say, ‘Yes, we recognize we have female fans and we want to cater to them.’”There was a catch, though. LucasFilm first gave Eckstein and her partners a license to sell only online. “At first I viewed it as very restricting, but it was the best thing they ever could have done for us,” she says. “They said, ‘Look, female merchandise hasn’t worked for us in the past. We believe in it, but you need to prove this fan base is there so that by the time you go to retail, you’ll be successful.' It forced us to go directly to the fans, go grassroots with it, and build a community.”