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Hello and welcome to the Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.
I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges.
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All right. Let's get to it.
Joining me this week is fashion designer, legendary fashion designer, Norma Kamali.
Norma, welcome back to the show.
I'm happy to be back.
It's so great to have you back on the show.
So you were first on How I Built This in 2021.
And of course, you told the story of how you built your hugely influential fashion business.
And of course, if those of you listening have not yet heard that story, please check out our feed.
We've just posted the original episode, and we'll also put a link in the description.
It is such an amazing story.
But basically, in the 60s, Norma was working as an airline clerk and then using her employee discount to fly to London and then buy up clothes, sort of secondhand clothes there, and then open a store in New York to sell them, eventually start designing your own clothing.
And you created all these iconic pieces, Farrah Fawcett's red swimsuit, the sleeping bag jacket, and really built one of the first great American brands.
And let me just say it again, Norma, You are a legend.
Eight decades of life, and you are still actively running your brand out of New York City today.
Yeah. Yes, very actively and enjoying every minute of it.
I feel privileged to have a creative life.
I'm very lucky. And total inspiration, Norma.
You really are. We have a bunch of early stage founders here ready to jump on.
But before they do, if you'll indulge me, I've got a couple of questions for you before we bring them on. So, you know, you really built your brand on designs that stood out in part because they were so different.
They were kind of weird at the time.
But just because customers love a product, right, and they love and loved yours, it doesn't always mean that the business is profitable.
There was a point in your journey where you were really hot in the New York fashion world, but you guys were having trouble paying the rent.
I remember you telling us this story.
How do you turn customer love and satisfaction and buzz around your brand into growth, into profitability?
Well, I think a lot of creative people believe they're not good at business, and I believe that that's not true.
I think it's something we've been fed to believe.
And I think the more you can learn about business, and maybe it's by having really good mentors.
I was very fortunate to have incredible advice throughout my career and learning as much as I could about how to look at where I needed help in the business, how I needed to evaluate sales versus productivity, and also how to maximize the opportunity of the attention you're getting from the press.
And that's as important as the creative concept storytelling.
Norma, your brand was and is your vision, right?
And I think a lot of entrepreneurs can identify with that, right, that feeling.
But at a certain point, certainly in your industry, to become a global brand, you often have to partner with bigger companies, right?
Right. You worked with with Walmart.
You worked with you did a lot of interesting things.
So how do you protect your vision when you start to do things like, you know, work with with partners, with bigger partners?
That's that's the big challenge.
And I still am the sole owner of my company, which tells you I really like to control the fit and the quality of the product.
but I was copied a lot and I wasn't making money because other people were making money for my designs.
And when I knew I did a collection that I felt was strong, I partnered with Jones Apparel and it was a huge success because I had the ability to use their manufacturing and distribution and in sales with my designs and sort of storytelling.
And the combination was incredibly profitable for everyone.
By doing that, it gave me exposure and the ability to do many other things and also go to sleep at night knowing I could pay the rent finally.
Yeah. I love it. All right, Norma, why don't we bring in our first caller?
Great. And let's bring caller number one on to the show.
Welcome to The Advice Line.
You are on with me and Norma Kamali.
Please introduce yourself.
Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business.
And we'll take it from there.
Well, hello, lovely to meet you both.
My name is Ahmed Ejaz.
I am calling from England in the United Kingdom, and I am the founder of Cambridge Spectacle Company.
We make beautiful glasses, and we've started to do eye examinations as well now.
Amazing. Okay, welcome to the show, Ahmed, and thank you for calling in.
So you have a, is it like, are you an optometrist?
Do you do like eye exams and sell glasses?
Yeah, exactly. So I am actually an optometrist by training.
But when I started this brand, I actually quit my job as an optometrist and started focusing on designing glasses, designing prescription eyewear.
Yeah. So we initially started with a sort of a distribution deal with a big company in the UK who were part of Walmart at the time, Asda Opticians.
And that was great.
But we've moved into opening our own optometry practices now.
So, you know, sort of similar to Warby Parker in the United States, that kind of brand.
I see. Okay. Now I'm starting to make sense.
You're basically trying to model your business off of Warby Parker in the US, like basically high designs, high end quality designs, but at a lower price point.
Yeah, exactly. So, you know, for me, Warby, when those guys, you know, did what they did, I was just sort of qualifying from university and I thought it was game changing.
And I didn't quite understand why we didn't have something similar in the UK.
And, you know, we weren't celebrating British eyewear.
We know we've got Oakley and Ray -Ban as American companies and there's a lot of Scandinavian companies out there.
But I felt that there really needed to be a, you know, hopefully one day a global British eyewear brand that dominates.
And presumably Warby Parker doesn't operate.
I think they only operate in the U .S., right?
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah. So, I did send them an email in 2015 and I said to them, to the customer service, I'd love to start this in the U .K. But I didn't hear back.
So, I thought, well, I better start this myself.
Nice. Well, I'm sure you heard our episode with Warby Parker, with Neil Blumenthal.
Both of them. Yeah.
And amazing story. Okay.
So, what's the vision here?
The vision, presumably, is to try and scale this thing?
Yeah. So, look, we're opening a second store in London in the next week or so.
So, we've just acquired a store there, and we've acquired that customer database, and all the frames are going to be changed to Cambridge Spectacle co -frames.
And then we're in negotiations right now to open a third store in Birmingham.
Birmingham. So the goal is three sites by the end of this year.
Wow. How are you financing all this?
Well, it's part of my question, but we're sort of angel investor backed.
So a friend of mine, he sort of said, how much do you need to get going?
And I had no money, but I had a deal on the table with Asda opticians.
I didn't tell them I had no money.
And my friend, you know, I told him I needed £150 ,000 to get going.
And he fortunately said, I'll I'll do you the full amount, Ahmed, because I know you and I trust you.
So he kicked us off.
And then we did a little bit of crowdfunding as well via a European crowd equity platform.
All right. I got a bunch of questions for you.
But before I do that, I want to hear what your question is for us today.
Yeah. So, look, I think, you know, that customer proposition is strong and, you know, customers seem to love our brand.
But the question really is, how do we get that same kind of excitement around the brand across to investors?
Because it's very difficult when you're in a pitch and you've got, you know, five, ten minutes and they're seeing pitch after pitch as angels or VC for them to fall in love with your brand.
So, you know, how are we really going to be able to translate that love and show them not just the financials, but hey, this is going to be big.
You know, customers love this.
How do you generate the buzz to attract investors?
Just out of curiosity, what's your revenue right now, annual revenue?
So we're doing in the store about $20 ,000 to $25 ,000, about $30 ,000 to $35 ,000 a month.
That's in the first year.
That's great. Okay.
So you're looking at $3 ,000 to $350 ,000, maybe $400 ,000 revenue this year.
Yeah. Let me bring in Norma Kamali.
Norma, I have a lot of questions.
You may have questions for Ahmed.
Go. Let's hear your thoughts.
Well, I think the first question I have is, what makes you different other than your ambition to use your reputation and your history and value?
But it really takes a lot more to sell someone and it has to be done maybe in a sentence or two and no more.
So what is different about your product or your approach to marketing your product that would make me want to invest in your potential success?
Yeah. So, I mean, I think from a from a customer point of view, we always tell them how our designs are inspired by Cambridge and made by us rather than any design label.
When you say Cambridge, like the town of Cambridge?
The city, yeah. The university, the sort of aura of that town?
Yeah, exactly. So I lived there for a while and my brother who helped out is an MBA from the university.
and so we will always you know discuss with the patients the fact that we we all the glasses are inspired by that city named after roads places in that city and that's what customers seem to be responding well to and then also we we give a portion of our profits to iResearch as well but i think norma this is where i i struggle that if i gave that across to an investor it's probably Probably not the thing that excites them.
Or maybe it is. Maybe I'm just not explaining it and they would be excited by that.
Well, I must say, I now think, oh, this is interesting.
It's a very authentic British brand that has the character of history and quality just by that reference and the idea of your contributing to the health and well -being of eye care.
It was very nice and very a sign of goodwill on top of this classic British history that you're basing the brand on.
So those two points definitely have more of my interest than the idea of the name and your opening different, you know, brick -and -mortar locations.
First knowing that history and the reference definitely raises interest. You know, it's interesting because I'm looking at your website here, and your question is how do we generate more buzz around the story?
And the story is, if the story is Cambridge, like the university, the aura of that place, I'm not seeing enough of that.
that. What Warby Parker did really well was, first of all, it's an invented name, right?
And they took two names from Jack Kerouac books and put them together, but then they named their glasses.
They gave each pair of glasses, each design, like an interesting name.
Like, is there a world where, could you, just looking at like the list of graduates of the University of Cambridge, I mean, could you call one like George V, you know, a pair of glasses called the Cornwall?
Yeah. Here you go, Pitt the Younger.
I love it. There's all these these people who are like, Nehru, Nehru went to Cambridge.
Could you call a pair of the Nehru's?
I mean, it just seems like there's a way to connect it more closely.
Because for most people, Cambridge is the university, right?
Maybe even make like a pair called like the Philbys, right?
Those spies went there.
To me, if the story is about Britain, Cambridge, you got to lean into that more before you're going to really be able to get people excited about it.
Yeah, no, I think Guy, that's an incredible approach and idea.
You know, Prince, I think, was named when we designed that after Prince Charles at the time, who's now King Charles, because he went to the University of Cambridge.
But you wouldn't really know that looking at it, right?
Right. So I think, yeah, we must do better at that.
And if that's what generates the buzz, as Norma says, if, you know, you are excited by the fact that it's linked so heavily to Cambridge, then that's a great idea.
Yeah. Norma, the other thing I'm wondering about is like in fashion, right?
The trick is to get the cool kids to wear your stuff.
Like the other thing Warby Parker did is they found the cool kids who are frugal, who didn't have money, but could wear their glasses.
Those are the people they got those glasses on, right?
I mean, it's the same in fashion, right?
I've been thinking from the beginning of the conversation, well, what's the demographic?
We know if you have a great price, you can have a younger demographic.
And I think having some sort of an interaction with the clients to take pictures of themselves, put it on social media, wearing your glasses, and also how many things can you do with those glasses?
is they can obviously be prescription.
I use mine for my computer where I have a soft tint, but I also have sunglass versions of my prescription.
So I think really rolling out all the possibilities and looking at marketing it through actual evolution of your client base.
Yeah, I think that's a good idea.
I mean, when we when we started the brand, we had to think about the audience and, you know, older, young.
And whilst we knew older people would buy vary focals and buy focals and they would be ultimately more expensive and more profitable.
We decided that, well, if you build a brand for younger people, the older people will come.
But if you build a brand for older people, the younger people won't get to it.
Right. So. So. So, yeah, I think I think we do need to go back to to making sure that we get the younger people in to promote the brand.
As you say, Warby did.
Yeah. Which would which would be a great idea.
You know, there's an episode of the show we did maybe a year or two ago on Mod Pizza.
And actually, the founders were on the advice line a couple months ago.
And what's cool, you should listen to that episode because their first business that they started was called Seattle Coffee Company.
And they started it in a kiosk at Covent Garden.
And they saw what was happening with Starbucks in the U .S. at the time.
And this was in the 90s.
They saw Starbucks was growing so fast. They decided to replicate that model in the U .K. They were two Americans.
Allie and Scott Svensson.
And they very quickly found investors to scale Seattle Coffee Company and just build like 50 locations across the UK in just a matter of a few years.
And then, of course, Starbucks came in and bought it and converted them all to Starbucks, which was a great outcome for everybody.
To me, there's a world where something like that could happen, you know where a world where warby parker decides to go to the uk you know but but to get that kind of money and to build that scale quickly back to your your question you've got to just get your story down because because you have all the the fundamentals the foundation there it's just now um really chiseling away and getting it right yeah i mean look getting to 50 stores is is you you know, my ambition is to get to a hundred stores.
And if Warby Parker, if someone comes along, we'd be, we'd be happy to talk at that point.
We have actually spoken to a big British VC here in the UK, and they have said that get to five stores and we will look at backing you to get to 20 with, you know, a few million pounds.
So, but we had a connection to that investor at that VC firm.
So, he's been great and he's been monitoring our progress, but it's just making Making sure that the other VCs do follow on in that round as well and having that kind of growth story, that war we had in America.
Yeah. It's an awesome, awesome idea.
I'm Eddie Jazz. Thanks so much. The brand is called Cambridge Spectacle.
Good luck. Good luck.
Good luck. Nice to meet you both.
Thank you. Thanks so much for the advice.
That's great. I mean, he's got a lot.
Cromwells. I'm looking at this list. He's got the Nehru's.
So much fun. Walpole's.
Yeah. He just has to name after people who have been long dead.
I think he has to focus on the story and creating a buzz before he opens more stores.
I think getting really grounding that message, true British character and fun.
Yeah. And I mean, the thing about the UK is that it's the total addressable market there is still significant, right?
Population of 65 million.
Yeah. I mean, you can build a huge brand just in the U .K. You can't do that in every European country.
It's not easy to do that in, like, you know, Liechtenstein.
But you can do that in the U .K. Yeah.
Stay with us because after the break, we'll talk to another founder working to take their business to the next level.
That's after the break.
I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to The Advice Line right here on How I Built This Lab.
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Welcome back to The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.
I'm Guy Raz, and my guest today is fashion designer Norma Kamali.
Norma, what do you say?
Should we take another call?
I think so. Lots of fun.
Hello, caller. Please join us.
Welcome to The Advice Line.
You are on with me.
Norma Kamali, tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just very briefly about your business.
this. I'm Bob Wolkoff from Chicago, big fan of the show.
Sunny Bowls, which I'm the founder of, is a new category in the fast casual restaurant industry, where soup is the star of the menu.
Our goal is to become the sweet green of soup.
I love it. Bob, welcome to the show.
Thank you for calling in the sweet green of soup.
That's very clear. I can already imagine exactly what you're trying to do.
So you've got one shop in Chicago right now?
We have two, one at the Merchandise Mart and one at Northwestern Hospital.
And when did you start this?
When did you launch this brand?
Well, I started it when COVID was still a thing toward the end of it.
And I'm a contrarian and just believe that if I started when all the restaurants were closing and I could build brand and start to learn a business that I didn't know, that's what I did.
I love it. Were you in food at the time?
I mean, was that your background?
My whole career was in real estate, and I had this idea when I was in my 20s, and I finally decided to open it when I was 58.
I love it. So really, starting from scratch at 58, we just did a great episode about Lily's Chocolates, and Cynthia Tice was 57 when she started that brand.
So you open the first location, you've got two now, and you – and it's soup basically.
That's what you sell?
So soup is the star.
Okay. So if you picture an ice cream store, but instead of ice cream, we have 10 soups that were actually designed by a James Beard Award -winning chef.
Nice. And you pair it or you can pair it with a sandwich or one of our salads.
salads. And in lieu of cold soup, we've designed a unique line of smoothie bowls, which actually have an ice cream -like texture, but are healthy.
It's like eating a healthy ice cream, and that's designed for the summer months.
Got it. Okay. And what's your question for us?
So my question is that, so people love, they crave our soup after they try us, and we have have a 4 .9 star rating on Google, but there is a resistance to getting, not the first adopters, but people that when they think of going to lunch, they think of Mexican, they think of hamburgers, they think of a salad.
They don't think of soup.
And the other thing is when you're competing against brands that are already well known, that we are not top of mind.
And so my question is, how do we continue to acquire new customers?
How do you break through?
Right. Oh, yeah. All right.
Norma. Thoughts for for Bob.
Questions for Bob. The first thing I'm thinking is, what is the value added?
Is there nutritional value?
Do you have information about the ingredients?
Is it something that's efficient for, especially for women or men who are working out and they want to keep their high protein and really low carbs?
I love soup, but I always, I want to know the value of the calories I'm eating.
What will the takeaway be?
be? So just to give you an idea, we had one customer who went to their dietitian and said, you can eat everything in the store.
We actually have one soup that's a wellness soup.
But all of our soups are gluten free, dairy free with a lot of vegan options.
We have 10 soups, five of them are meat, four chicken and one delicious chili, and then five that are vegetarian.
So I mean, The reason I said sweet green is because I do look at us as in the healthy fast casual sector.
The nutrition, I think, is everything.
And I think really promoting – so many people take supplements for good health.
And if they know that in the soup they're going to get that nutrition and have a tasty kind of lunch at the same time, that's just a bonus.
Bob, I'm curious. Your question is, how do I get people to think of soup as a meal?
And I imagine that really it's a lunch, the lunchtime crowd that you want to focus on.
And I'm looking at your website.
Very nice. I love the graphics and the drawings and designs.
lines. But there's two things I don't see here.
I don't see ingredients, which I think would be really great to put on there just, you know, because I'm assuming they're clean, simple ingredients.
You're using vegetables and broths.
The second thing is, is there a world and these are these and you know, this is a guy who's been around in business for a long time.
Sometimes a slogan or a mantra or a mission statement can be transformational when everyone can gather around a shared common definition of what you're doing.
And I wonder if there's a world where you put something under Sunny Bowls instead of superfood that says, you know, a new way to lunch or a new way to think about, yeah, your meal.
One of the things we're trying to do also like on our Instagram is have three kind of pillars.
One, healthy. Two, delicious.
And three, we're trying to create kind of a humorous brand to get people to connect.
So, you know, I think of Geico and doing things that get people to want to view us and so forth.
To me, it seems like the opportunity is in a breakthrough product, like or a breakthrough delivery mechanism where people start to talk about one thing that you're doing that then brings other people in.
So here's my idea. Norma, I want to get your sense.
Give me real feedback.
Don't just say I love the idea because if it's a stupid idea, tell me it's a stupid idea.
But you know how people consume coffee today, right?
They get a cup of coffee at Starbucks and they walk down the street with it.
They're drinking the Starbucks coffee.
coffee what if there was like a pureed soup like a sip and soup that you serve in like a to -go coffee cup with your logo on it and you kind of market it as a grab -and -go well it's funny because one of the ideas I've had for the store is you know when Panera you have the push for the coffee but instead of coffee we have different bone broth oh yeah so you drink that as your are you doing that?
Yeah. My operations person is fighting me on it.
But you haven't started doing that yet?
No, we have not started doing that.
Bone broth, Norma, bone broth.
Bone broth is no collagen.
It's a hot thing. People love bone broth.
Yeah. Yeah. There's a brand in the US, in New York that did a very successful bone broth, um, presentation.
However, in the summer months, they fell apart, um, and they, they couldn't carry it as busy as they were in the winter.
But I think the idea of having a cup that really says I am drinking soup, um, And it's from this place and that it's bold and beautiful.
I love that idea. Yeah, I mean, you know, I think about the thing that Norma talked about with protein.
To me, we hear it time and again, protein is where this is going.
Everybody is building protein, not everybody, but lots of people are building protein brands.
And Norma, you've written about this.
By the way, Bob, Norma is one of the foremost experts, really, truly experts on aging nutrition in America.
And Norma, you're on this protein thing, right?
This is a big part of how you, and it's not like you're eating steaks and chops every night, but it's a quality protein.
Right. Protein, I think, is really looked at now very carefully in building strength, muscle muscle mass.
And for me, it's very hard to get that protein in because I don't eat meat.
But if I can get protein in any way, I'll have soup and vegetables and anything else, protein powders that can even be added to the soups.
I think there's so much opportunity there.
I think that there's one other idea I have for you, one other slogan.
again. Your grandmother was right.
Something like that.
I love it. I love it.
We have a Bubby's chicken soup.
Perfect. Or maybe under there you see your grandmother was right.
I love it. Yes. Because soup, nourishing, nutritious, filled with vitamins.
You know, it's some some way to get across the idea that you're in one quick, efficient delivery mechanism.
You're you're getting pretty much everything you need for that meal.
Yeah. Bob, I'm going to come to Chicago once your new slogan is out.
This is a new way to eat lunch. I'm going to say, it's me, Bob, and I want my bowl of chili.
You're more than welcome.
Love to have you. All right.
Bob Volkoff, Sunny Bowls, good luck.
Congrats. Thanks for calling in.
Lots of luck, Bob. Thank you.
Good luck. Yeah. That's it.
So you don't do bone broth, right, because you're a vegetarian?
sharing I have started bone broth but I there are other broths uh that are vegetable broths and some I just started eating chicken I have to say it's been a struggle it's just because it's gross to you yeah as long as it's not recognizable there's sort of kebabs and things like that yeah I can deal with but I I mean I as you know I eat meat but I love tofu I think tofu is a great protein Oh, yeah, great protein source.
Yeah, absolutely. That's for me, it's probably where I get most of my protein.
Norma, I wish people listening could see you right now.
Because I'm, as you know, I'm 50.
You're my model, I want to be you.
That's what I want to be.
I mean, you're, you're physically fit, you're energetic, you're beautiful, you're just, you've got all these incredible energy ideas.
ideas. I mean, how do we get there?
What's the Fountain of Youth?
What's the secret? I think, you know, in the world we live in now, there's so much really good information on healthy lifestyle and the ability to change habits to more positive, proactive, proactive, aging with power attitudes and learning something new every day and really keep moving.
All of that is where everybody is going.
And you're an example of what that lets you are.
You are. But how do you stay?
I mean, I think a big part of it, Norma, isn't just what you eat and your exercise, but your outlook.
How do you, I mean, I think part of it's just, you're just wired that way.
You're just positive.
You're wired that way.
But it's a practice too, right?
Yeah, I think so. And one of the things that I realize is, and that was pointed out to me by Marty.
Marty's your partner.
Yes. And so he says, you know, you wake up every morning, no matter how bad the day before was as if everything is okay.
And I look at it as, well, I have a new start.
I have a new chance to try it again and not sort of hang in the dreary feeling of the day before.
And I think that that's important to really clean the slate, take another look at it and give it another shot.
not okay next up after the break another caller with another business challenge I'm guy Ross and we're answering your questions right here on the advice line on how I built this lab welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab I'm guy Ross and today I'm taking your calls with Norma Kamali.
So, Norma, let's let's get right back into it and take another call.
I'm looking forward to, yes.
Welcome to the advice line.
You are on with Norma Kamali.
Please introduce yourself.
Tell us where you're calling from and a little bit about your business.
Hi there, Norma. Hi there, Guy.
My name is Adriana Alvarez.
I'm calling from Sacramento, California.
I am the owner and the founder of lovehershop .com.
We are an athleisure brand And we are best known for our leggings.
We do bring affordable products to the market, high -quality products that women would typically want to see at a better price.
Awesome. Well, thanks for calling in.
So, Joanna, tell us a little bit more about, it's activewear apparel, like stuff you wear to work out, basically?
Yeah, definitely. It's all workout apparel, and all of our products are designed and engineered.
in -house by our all -women team.
And these leggings, they came about to the market after I had an experience with a pair of leggings that were gifted to me that were from a very well -known brand.
They were very expensive.
They were over $100 a pair.
And after I used them, I realized that they actually didn't work for me.
And I didn't know if they didn't work for me because, I mean, so many women use this particular brand.
But then I started realizing when I went back to the group of women and moms that I was working out with, a lot of them said the same thing.
So it turns out that, you know, moms or women that have curves, women that have different body types, we do need something that holds us in a little bit better, that kind of accentuates our curves.
And also, a lot of the moms that I was working out with were not willing to pay $100 for a pair of leggings.
Yeah. Wow. It's so cool.
And so it's not like, quote unquote, sort of plus size.
It's designed for all body types, essentially.
Yeah, definitely all body types.
But these definitely are leggings that you would work out in.
For example, we get a lot of the feedback from our customers stating that they love that our leggings stay in place during workouts that require a lot of jumping, jump squats.
Also, women have ran marathons in our leggings.
leggings. And one of the biggest things I think we get is the way that they feel on their body is more of a shapewear effect.
But they do look amazing.
And they kind of lift in tone and they kind of suck you in.
Wow. And I'm looking at your website now, and it's like 35 bucks for a pair of leggings, I think, you know, just to name a brand.
We've had the founder of Lululemon on the show a few years ago, Chip Wilson.
He's not involved anymore, but they're like 100 bucks for a pair of Lululemons.
And this is a very competitive space that you've gotten into, athleisure wear, really hard for one person to start it on their own.
Are you bootstrapping this thing?
Yeah, I started this business after, it actually started as a side hustle.
But during COVID, I worked for the Coca -Cola company.
And during COVID, Coca -Cola decided to kill off a brand that I was helping manage.
At that point, I decided to take my severance package and inject it 100 % in my own business.
First year of sales, this is when I was still running it out of my house.
I did over a million dollars in sales.
Wow. That was purely by doing social media ads and stuff like that?
Yeah, ads. I've never paid for an influencer to speak about our brand.
Our customers are our influencers.
I've kind of always been an authentic person where I don't want somebody to sell me something because they're being paid to be out there selling it.
So I think what has made us very successful is a lot of moms have power, man.
Moms will share with their social media groups, and that's kind of how we took off.
That's awesome. And what's your question for us today?
So my question is, we're currently at an expansion stage.
We've been growing and we've been so blessed with the growth.
However, we are looking.
I don't know if right now is a good time for us to look for outside investors to bring into the business so that we can say yes to a lot of the things that we have currently been saying no to just because we don't have the staff or we don't have the expertise in those areas.
Got it. Okay. Norma, wow, right up your alley.
We're talking about an apparel brand here and and Adriana is doing something different.
It's it's lower price point.
It's, you know, really designed to accentuate curves.
She's bootstrapped this thing.
You have bootstrapped your business and now you're 100 percent owner of it.
First of all, questions for Adriana.
Well, first of all, your website looks fantastic.
Fantastic. Thank you.
The mom's focus, very specialized.
Everything looks great.
I love that you have a huge marketplace to reach out to.
Nothing better than moms who have had babies.
They want to feel good.
They always want to work out.
They want to feel held in.
I commend you for really being very smart about what you decided to put your severance money in.
And that was a good idea.
I think the next step is usually the tough one, because you have to make big decisions.
Where are you going to get additional funding?
I think there are choices you have, and I think friends and family are always a good step.
People that are your customers could also be good investors.
I think before you jump into a relationship where they take a part of your business or a percentage of what you're doing, I think you're still identifying who you are and building that.
And I think you have a little ways to go as far as investment in fabric and cost of goods.
Where do you make them?
Where do you make them?
We do make it all overseas.
We have five different manufacturers, five different cut and sews, but we do actually have our own.
We source our material, and then we have our material sent to our cut and sews, just so that, because we're very specific on the material we're using.
And is the distribution other than your website?
No, not at all. We started as really just doing pop -up shops, and when we pivoted over to online sales, that's when the business and the focus really took us there.
So we couldn't pivot back just because we're doing so much online sales.
Yeah. And what about sales on TikTok or Instagram?
We do not sell on TikTok.
We have an Instagram page, but we do not sell directly on Instagram either.
I would try it. I would try it.
We do very well. I think it's a very big opportunity.
opportunity, learn a little bit more about it because it opens up another, it's like having another store.
I see. Adriana, are you specifically targeting moms or women who are mom ages?
It is women that are mom ages because we do have a lot of customers that are not moms, but are like, we get a lot of college customers.
Between like 20 and 40?
Yes, definitely. I would say it's between 25 and 45 is our demographic or sweet spot.
You know, we did an episode on 21 Seeds Tequila recently, and what differentiated that brand was basically it was tequila for moms, you know, or book club.
And people were making tequila for frat boys and, you know, men sipping tequila.
Nobody was making – I mean, very few people were focusing on moms. And I love this idea because if you look, and I just looked at this, if you look at the spending power of women in the United States between 25 and 45, it's like $5 to $15 trillion a year.
It's a massive amount of money, you know, in terms of what they spend, not obviously on athleisure wear and just everything, you know, overall, but it's a huge opportunity.
And there's a clear thesis here, which I really love.
Yeah, it's very impressive.
And I think there are a lot of mom bloggers, too, that are so good and they really have a great audience.
And you might want to invite some of them to be a part of your world.
you know I think doing collaborations now would be a good idea for you and I think the bloggers are all so good they tell their stories about being mothers and how they feel about their bodies and and what's going on in their lives and I think bringing in that conversation and making your website also a place where people go for information just to bring populate it more would be, I think, a lot of fun.
I love that idea. Adriana, in terms of raising money, obviously it would enable you to scale, but just roughly, what are you estimating your revenue to be this year?
Our revenue right now, we're ending the year at $2 million in sales.
Awesome. Amazing. Yeah, and the key points that we would need the capital for that we haven't done but we want to go into is wholesale distribution, expanding and creating a petite line and more sizes, like plus sizes.
So there's an argument to be made, right, that having outside capital will help you get there.
People are going to give you different advice, right?
Some people are going to say, hang on as long as possible, because the longer you can hold on and scale it on your own, the greater the value and the more you can retain.
That being said, you know, if you can find Find the right partner who has wholesale apparel experience.
You know, maybe it's a factory.
Maybe they become a co -investor.
That's where I think it starts to make sense to really explore it.
If it's just a money play, if it's just about finding somebody with, you know, extra cash, but without the expertise, I would say no way.
You know, focus on building the business on your own.
But if you can find a really experienced strategic investor who knows how to get in to wholesale, who's done it, then it makes sense to me.
And I mean, to me, it seems like that's really what you're what you want to look for.
And that's not easy.
It's going to take some time.
Yeah, I want to add, be very careful about entering the wholesale distribution network.
First of all, one of my questions is costing and making sure that you're meeting your margins because you are selling through your own website.
I'm sure you have a cushion there, but once you get into wholesale, there are going to be all kinds of questions wanting discounts, wanting all kinds of promotional money.
You're in their hands.
They are also buying other brands who compete with you and you lose the control you have right now.
now so i would look at more and more opportunities where you have the control you have the profit margin especially if you make a mistake especially if something happens with a fabric you bought or something goes wrong you have a cushion because of the margin but before you go into wholesale take a serious i would be happy to if you wanted to reach out to me i'd be happy to to walk you through that because it's very different and it doesn't mean you can't do it.
It's just being very sure about every expanding out in your world first to take every opportunity.
But I love it. I'm, I'm, I'm really impressed.
I really am. I know you're going to be successful.
I'm positive. Thank you.
Adriana, congrats. Adriana Alvarez, love her shop.
Good luck. Thank you so much. Congratulations.
Norma, before I let you go, one last question, which I ask everybody who's been, who's come back on as a mentor, which is if you were to like travel back in time to the Norma in the 1960s, Norma Kamali in the 1960s, and you could say, Norma, I'm coming from 2024 with a piece of advice, something I want you to know.
What's something that you would want her to know about business?
this? Well, you know, I have to say, I really benefited from my mistakes and learning and getting advice from people who really helped me along the way.
And we demonstrated that you demonstrated.
I am so impressed with your advice.
And you, of course, are an expert on entrepreneurs and every bit of advice you gave today was stunning.
It was amazing. Oh, thank you.
So you deserve the reputation you have. You earned it.
This is such a generous venture for you to take, and I just love you, and I'm so proud to know you.
You're really an extraordinary man.
Both blush and cry, Norma.
At the same time. Well, you're the best. You know, you're the best, and I hope to come see you in New York soon.
We'll see you soon.
I hope so. Thank you.
That is the iconic fashion designer, Norma Kamali.
And by the way, if you haven't heard Norma's original How I Built This, you've got to go back and check it out.
You can find a link to it in the podcast description.
And here is one of my favorite moments from that interview.
Well, I started to make some things, and I would put them in the store to see how they would do.
and they would do really well and so the majority of the stock slowly became my designs and I had a full page in Vogue and I had a good size page in Bazaar and that was beyond belief because I thought somebody is going to find me out I don't know what I'm doing and I have a full page in in vogue and bizarre.
This is nuts. I don't have a clue.
Thanks so much for listening to the show this week.
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Each week, it's packed with tons of insights from entrepreneurs and my own observations and experiences interviewing some of the greatest entrepreneurs ever.
If you're working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one minute message that tells us about your business the issues or questions you'd like help with and hopefully we can help you with them and make sure to tell us how to reach you you can send us a voice memo at h i b t at id .wondery .com or call us at 1 -800 -433 -1298 and leave a message there and we'll put all this in the podcast description as well Well, this episode was produced by Carrie Thompson with music composed by Ramtina Rablui.
It was edited by John Isabella.
Our audio engineer was Robert Rodriguez.
Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Chris Massini, Carla Estevez, Elaine Coates, J .C.
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