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Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab.
I'm Guy Rhoz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges.
Each week I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show who will attempt with me to help you.
But if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show.
Our number is 1-800-433-1298.
Send us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with.
You can also send us a voice memo at hibt.id.wondery.com and make sure to tell us how to reach you.
And also don't forget to sign up for my newsletter.
It's full of insights and ideas from the world's greatest entrepreneurs.
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And we'll put all this info in the podcast description.
All right, let's get to it.
Joining me on today's episode is the one and only Randy Goldberg.
He's one of the founders and the chief branding officer of Bombas.
Randy, it's great to have you back on the show.
Welcome. So great to be here.
So, Randy, most people know Bombas because of course of their socks.
You guys took on a boring and largely ignored category in 2013 and you built it into a massive brand.
And we had you and your co-founder, David Heath, on how I built this.
I think this was back in September of 2022.
And if anyone listening has not heard it, please scroll back and listen to the episode of Bombas.
We'll put the link in the podcast description as well.
You should really check out its great episode.
Just to kind of paraphrase the story, you guys actually, you and David actually met at a previous job, you were working at a startup called Urban Daddy.
And then eventually you start talking about building your own business.
And then basically you came up with this idea because you guys read a report that socks were the single most requested item in homeless shelters and you wanted to figure out how can we address this.
And that was Bombas because you give a pair to people in need when you sell them.
You guys are still running the company today.
Absolutely. You've been there since the very beginning.
Tell me a little bit, Randy, about how it's a different environment, right?
There's more competitors.
A lot of people have seen the success of Bombas and have come into this space and you guys have expanded out way beyond socks to t-shirts and all kinds of things.
Tell me how you guys stay out ahead in a much more competitive environment.
Staying ahead, maybe counterintuitively, is not about trying to run as fast as you can.
It's about staying focused on the things that you do best, the things that you're most confident in as a business.
Sure, trying to see around the corner a little bit, but not at the expense of really understanding who you are as a business.
I think as you grow as a business, you have a better and truer sense of the things that really set you apart in the marketplace and that you feel that you do well enough that you could teach other people.
I think you have to press your advantages and explore and stay curious, but stay focused and stay curious.
That's the balance. Yeah.
Randy, what do you say we take a call?
Let's do it. All right, let's do it.
Caller number one, first caller, are you online?
Hi, I'm here. Hello, hello.
Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just briefly about your business.
My name is Rivky at Skowitz.
I am an Orthodox Jewish fashion designer and body positive advocate from Queens, New York, and I am the founder of Impact Fashion, a size inclusive, modest clothing line available in sizes two through 28.
Amazing. Okay, so Rivky, please tell us the question that you brought for us today.
So Impact Fashion is very well known in the Orthodox Jewish community.
I was able to use Word of Mouth, social media, personal networking to grow the brand, and it was a lot of work, but it wasn't particularly difficult because it was easy to speak to my community about the kind of nuances and issues that we encounter because they're the issues that I encounter as well.
And I also had immediate credibility speaking as a member of the community.
There are lots of other modest dressing communities, whether that's for religious reasons or just women who choose to dress this way.
And particularly with the religious communities, those tend to be somewhat insular with their own lingo and their own concerns and their own nuances.
And I don't really know how to talk to them.
So do you have any advice on strategies or methods to break into those communities?
All right, we're going to get to your question in a moment, but first, a couple of questions for you, Rivky.
So let's start with, okay, so you are an Orthodox Jewish woman.
You are a fashion designer and you've got this company called Impact Fashion where you make size-inclusive dresses for women who dress modestly.
So just to kind of, because we're obviously the Zodio, modestly means like arms covered, legs covered, not jeans or pants, but like dresses kind of thing.
So not specifically dresses.
What modesty means changes depending on who you're talking to.
But in the Orthodox Jewish tradition, you're talking about covered elbows, covered knees, and covered collar bones.
That's that two bumps right at the base of your neck.
And the women generally don't wear pants.
So I'll wear like a skirt and a top.
Most of what I design is dresses.
I just like to wear dresses, but I do have occasionally some separates on the line as well.
Very cool. Cool. I'm looking at your website now.
These are beautiful designs and cuts.
And I mean, just the really, you're super talented.
I agree, guy. I looked at the site.
Everything looks so cool.
By the way, just generally women in general, you see that long dresses are back.
They've been back in style for a while.
Yeah. They're usually part of like a reaction to COVID because we all went a little bit more comfortable and longer is easier to wear.
But even to speak to that point, even the long dresses that you would see in, let's say, a regular department store, a lot of them will have really high slits or they'll be made from a sheer fabric.
So those are not things that women from my community would wear without altering them, which was a lot of what I was kind of running up against when I was working as a seamstress, when I was finishing up college.
So those kinds of alterations are the kinds of things that I mean, Orthodox Jewish women make those alterations all the time.
Like they would sew up a slit.
Exactly. So we would sew up a slit or fill in the space or add a lining or build up a neckline or I mean, any of two dozen alterations that you would need to make to something.
So when impact fashion first started in 2016 as a wholesale line, it was actually part of a whole movement of Orthodox Jewish brands that were designed with this modesty first approach.
Is it just you working on this business right now?
I'm the only full-time person.
I do have a graphic designer that I bring in as needed and like some freelancers here and there.
I also operate out of my parents' house.
So as needed, my younger brother and my mom and occasionally my dad pack orders.
So where are you manufacturing the dresses now?
New York City, baby. In New York City.
Wow. Because your prices are not outrageous.
I mean, they're $200, $300 and these are high quality made in New York City.
That's amazing. Yeah. So I have a fantastic factory that I work with here in the Garment Center.
And I've kept it in New York City for a couple of reasons.
Most of them around like the ethical work experiences and sustainability factors.
I just like the idea of something not having to sit on a boat for a month.
But aside from that, it's also about being able to do these really small batches on pre-orders.
All right. You obviously have a captive audience in the Orthodox Jewish community.
Some of the community and people know about this and it serves a real need.
The question is how can you find other communities, religious communities, communities of women who dress modestly?
There are plenty of them in the United States and even overseas.
How do you find those communities and increase the market size?
Randy, do you have, before we answer his question, do you have any questions for her about the business?
Yeah, absolutely. I do have a couple related questions.
In terms of the Orthodox Jewish community, the from community, do you feel like you've plateaued in terms of your growth?
So I would say that in the Orthodox community as a whole, if you would pick 10 women at random, probably six have heard of me.
But I'm also starting to see the end of the growth opportunity there.
I'm starting to see the ceiling.
Got it. So obviously you want to expand that out.
So tell me about some potential communities that this could appeal to.
So a huge one that's not tied to a specific group is just working women in general.
A lot of women who don't dress this way all the time have to do so for work.
So that's a huge opportunity and probably the biggest market.
In terms of other groups, you have the Mormon community, you have lots of different Christian communities, and then there's also the Muslim community as well.
And each of those are small, but important and very different.
And I'm not even sure how to go about starting to talk to them.
It's an amazing idea. Randy, what do you think?
How do you market this to them?
So today's world, I think we are heading to a place where you want to be borrowing community versus buying it.
And the concept there when I say that is you want to be finding people that really resonate with a specific community that you're trying to find your way into, people that already have a head start there, influencers and creators are establishing themselves and micro communities are popping up everywhere.
And the work of getting into those communities cannot come from a place of, I am a brand, I have dollars, I'm putting money to get in front of you.
That just doesn't read as authentic in today's world.
So finding the people who you think best represent that community and have built a following, making authentically to them, and then figuring out the connective tissue between you and that person is the work of sort of hand-to-hand combat marketing in today's world.
And I think starting from that place, you mentioned working women, you mentioned Christian communities, you mentioned Muslim communities, start by trying to find a list of the people who are having the biggest impact in those places.
And then look at the people that those people are following and look at who's following them.
And then you start to build out an idea of the type of person you can partner with.
I've run up against that actually.
So I actually, I host a podcast called Be Impactful.
It's tied in with this whole idea of women's empowerment and impact fashion.
And it's about the women making a difference in their own corners of the world.
And the reason why I started that podcast was so that I could talk to women in other communities.
The problem that I ran into is that the people who were willing to talk to me, or the people who I could find at first, let me put it that way, turned out to not have been very accepted by their communities.
Like I am not a good judge of who is a good ambassador in an insular religious community because someone who seems perfectly lovely to me, you know, someone who seems, and who I can have a great conversation with and who I did have great conversations with.
This has happened on a few different occasions.
Might be an outcast. Yeah.
So I seem to be attracting the outcast.
Right. I think we all are.
Right. Exactly. We love the underdog.
I'm not even wrong with the outcast, but they may not be the best influencers.
Right. So like I know in my community, there are certain influencers that are kind of like the outcast.
And once the company works with that person, even if they go and they try to work with somebody else, they're already kind of tainted.
So I've been kind of nervous to tie it to a specific person because I don't really know if the person that I'm working with is the right kind of person.
I think that there, well, there are two things going on here, right, Randy?
One is it's a brand about modesty, which could potentially have wide appeal and then size inclusive, which is also, and I wonder whether those are two separate categories, right?
Can you, first of all, Randy, do you think you would market to each of those categories separately or do you think it's better to focus on one of those two things?
I think the magic is in the center part of that Venn diagram and starting smaller.
But just because it seems smaller doesn't mean there aren't thousands of people who could be interesting ambassadors for you.
And the idea that someone might be a great guest for your podcast, but a bad influencer or ambassador for your brand is okay, right?
So I think your approach to who you want to talk to and who you want to help carve away in are two different things.
I do think there's an uphill challenge in that communities that tend to be insular, this might not be the easiest nut to crack, right?
But this feels like the kind of thing where when it works, it's going to really work.
So having kind of a test and learn attitude and be willing to try a lot of things and fail in small ways, nothing that's going to sink you, but taking a lot of shots with a strategy is going to be the way forward here.
Ruth, here's what I want to see on your site.
I want to see different kinds of models on the site, right?
I'm assuming a lot of the people on the site are people you know, but I mean there's a world where you work with, you find an inexpensive agency and you work with different models who look differently, starting with people who might be looking at plus-sized dresses and then people who are just looking at long summer dresses.
Like, for example, this ribbed maxi drawstring dress looks like a Coachella dress.
You could imagine somebody going to Coachella in that dress, right?
And not even caring or knowing that it was designed for an Orthodox Jewish woman who wanted to dress modestly.
It's a lot of potential here to kind of reach different types of consumers.
Yeah, I hear that. In the past, when I've done kind of like played around with paid digital ads and stuff like that on Google, what I generally found was that if I started from the modesty place, it worked better than starting from the plus-size place because there are a lot of plus-size options if like modesty is not your top concern, but there aren't as many mainstream
modesty options. And yeah, it's an interesting idea to think of them.
I've only ever thought about these pieces in a religious context because the communities that I always envisioned kind of going to next were also religious communities just because I'm from a religious community.
I think there's an opportunity to put some of these ideas together.
I was talking about having different looking people showing up on your site, right?
Different skin tones, different versions of what plus looks like.
I mean, 70 plus percent of American women are over a size 14.
Something in that range is the statistic.
So there are a lot of businesses catering there.
Your uniqueness is the modesty plus the plus-size and you're looking to speak to other communities.
So, if you want to show up in these other communities and they come to your site, it has to feel like a welcoming place.
So I think your story probably needs to be a little bit clearer on your site.
And then some of the people who are on there need to start to look a little differently.
Maybe some of the people who've been guests on your podcast or you're going out and finding somebody who's interesting and you say to them, listen, I'm going to send you a dress.
Will you shoot this? Maybe they keep the dress and you're making two of them.
This isn't going to be completely free, but there could be some interesting ways to start to get some new photography in, show a little bit more diversity, tell your story in a different way and start to solve some of your marketing problems as well.
Even if you have a successful campaign and you're starting to reach a different community, if they show up on your site and all they see are someone from somebody else's community, it's not necessarily going to feel like it's for them.
That makes a lot of sense.
You're having success making your community feel seen in your clothing.
Would you say that's a...
Yeah, that's right on the head, sure.
That's the heart of it, right?
And you want to expand into other communities.
You cannot do that without that same intention of making those people feel seen.
And that's going to take a little bit of work and it's going to take you maybe stepping a little outside of your comfort zone and meeting people where they are, but that's what great brands do in today's world.
You don't wait for people to come into your world and ask them to change their ways for you.
You go figure out ways that your brand attaches into their life and fits in seamlessly for them and people will really appreciate it.
So it's how can I be helpful to you in whatever way you would be using these clothes?
Absolutely, right? Yes.
That makes a lot of sense.
But the heart of what you do won't change.
That's the thing. You don't have to change who you are.
You don't have to give up who you are or what you believe in.
You just have to show people that how it applies to their life rather than expect them to do that work and come to you.
I love this. Riv Kietzkiewicz, the brand is called Impact Fashion.
So cool. It's so cool to see.
Thank you so much for calling in.
Thank you for bringing your question to us.
We'll be following you.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm really looking forward to implementing all of this.
All right. Thanks. Randy, I love that.
That was great. Agreed.
I'm going to be chair. I'm going to follow this.
This is a cool story. Very cool.
I love it. Because to come out of any community, any sort of more insular tightly knit community and to try and bring something to the world is hard.
It's really hard to do. It's cool.
Wouldn't it be great if some of these dividing lines that seem really intense could be cracked through in something like this where, and this is where clothes start to matter in a way that maybe you would never think about, you know, like, can people share something through clothing that they might not share in any other way?
And could that create an opportunity for more than one person to connect with someone who they never would connect with without abandoning who they are or giving up on it, you know, finding that connective tissue?
So interesting. Yeah, totally.
Okay, Randy, we're going to take a quick break.
But when we come back, an entrepreneur who's asking, how do you get people excited about a game that they've never heard of?
More on that in a moment.
Stay with us. I'm Guy Rhoz and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab.
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Hey, welcome back to the Device Line on How I Built This Lab.
I'm Guy Ross and I'm here with Randy Goldberg, co-founder of Bombus and we're taking your calls.
Randy, let's bring in another caller.
Yeah. All right. Hello, caller.
Hello. Hello. Tell us your name, tell us where you're calling from and just very briefly about your business.
Hey, guy. Hey, Randy. I'm Shyam.
I'm calling in from Seattle, Washington and I'm one of the co-founders of Play Caram, a company dedicated to popularizing and selling the very popular South Asian tabletop game Caram.
Caram? Yeah. And what's your question?
So we feel like our product can be enjoyed by almost anybody from young kids, older adults, anybody in between and we're really trying to target with the recent success of outdoor games like Spike Ball and Pickle Ball.
We see Caram as uniquely satisfying, similar to man, but for indoor play.
So our question is how do we hone in our marketing strategy and our brand identity when our potential user base is so diverse and so big?
Do we start with targeting specific demographics or is there a way to broaden our scope to build our brand to scale more broadly?
All right. Let's tell us about Caram first.
I've seen Caram boards.
I was a foreign correspondent.
I've won around the world.
It's basically a wooden, generally a wooden board, like square tabletop board with checkers pieces, type pieces on the board, right?
Exactly. Yeah. It comes in a lot of different sizes for sure.
And some of the basic rules of the game.
Yeah. So it's really similar to pool.
If you've never played Caram, I like to say it's a combination of pool and shuffle board, but for tabletop, you play with your fingers and it's similar to pool where your goal is to really just pocket all of your pieces into the corners.
And do you flick it? Do you flick the Carams?
Yeah. Yeah. You just flick it with your hands.
There's a bunch of different versions, but the popular one is you just use your hands and you just flick kind of like a striker, kind of like a cue, a pool cue, but it's called a striker.
Yeah. What are the little round things called?
The checkerboard pieces are really called?
Those are called coins.
Yeah. Caram coins. Okay.
So they can be made out of wood, they can be made out of acrylic, there's a bunch of different materials that can be made out of.
So one of the things that we're focusing on as a brand and company is really making a product that's a little bit unique.
I'm an engineer and I mean, we play the game almost every day.
So there was, there were a lot of things that us as people who play it wanted to see in a product for a wider audience.
Tom, where are you an engineer, by the way?
I'm an engineer at SpaceX.
What? Heard of that? No.
Wow. Oh my God. So we're like, what do you do there?
Yeah, I work on the satellite factory.
So I'm on the team that automates the production of all of our Starlink satellites.
Wow. I have Starlink. You were literally a rocket engineer.
You're a rocket engineer.
We're talking about a wooden board game.
Amazing. So this is like your side hustle.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, you know, one of the things like people, everybody is on their screen all day.
And when you work long hours and you know, you're staring at a laptop all day, you don't want to get home and just watch TV with your partner or your family or your friends.
So I rediscovered the game recently actually when my partner got it for me for Christmas.
And that was where, you know, the inspiration really came like, wow, this is like a great way to connect with family and friends offline because it's not like chess or any like card games where you really have to like think and try to do stuff.
It really is a really social game.
And so you haven't launched your company yet, right?
This is just, you want to figure out how to do it?
So we're in our late stages of our manufacturing, running through our samples.
I designed the board and the tooling and everything myself.
Wow. But while we're feeling more confident about that side of the business, we're really trying to figure out how we can, you know, lock down the other side of it, which is how do we actually sell the thing?
This is so interesting.
So is this typically a family game?
Yeah. I would say a lot of South Asian families have a Karen board at home.
It's a very popular family oriented game.
I played it growing up with my family actually, but, you know, it gets pretty heated at home.
So it's definitely one of those games you got to play with the right people.
Well, I guess that goes for any game, right?
Is this a game of people bet on when they're playing?
Oh, yeah, that's a good point.
We have a couple ideas in terms of like how we would want to spin it like into a different audience.
Like one of them is a drinking game and one of them is, yeah.
You don't typically bet on the game itself.
I think Karen's a little bit faster, a little bit more family oriented, a little more wholesome, I think.
Okay. And that kind of sense of the term.
How much are you going to sell each of these boards for?
Yeah. So the boards are going to range from 99 to 120 for the size that it is, which is two feet by two feet.
Yeah. So you have an interesting task ahead of you and reminds me a little bit of this episode of you've done Guayaki Yerba Mate, which is now a huge brand, right?
They're all over the United States, but for like 15 years, these guys, this group of guys had to explain to American audiences what Yerba Mate was because people would try it and it was a bitter tea that is consumed mainly in Argentina and Uruguay.
But they had to explain to people the health benefits of it and like it's medicinal properties and how it's like, it's a stimulant, but in a safe and healthy way.
And eventually they succeeded, you know, and they built a really great brand out of it, but it took a long time.
Similarly, you've got to show people how, how this is played and how it's fun.
And so to me, it seems like one of your approaches really has to be video.
It has to be people playing this game and ways that people are interacting and connecting.
Totally. Yeah. What we really have going for us is on TikTok and Instagram and I think even the ESPN TikTok, they post videos sometimes of like people playing the game like in the traditional format.
So it's really popular online and in social media, but there's not really a product like ours on the market anywhere and definitely not in the United States.
Yeah. What makes yours different?
Cause I'm looking at Amazon.
You can buy a Karen board on Amazon, but how is yours going to be different?
Yours is a little bit more simple in terms of the design aesthetic.
Like it's a, it's a balance between keeping the roots of the game and, and the cultural significance of the game itself and trying to design it in a way that feels more appealing, like something you can leave out on a coffee table and not feel like you need to put it away.
Um, the really nice boards are like that, but again, they cost so much money.
Um, so we're really trying to, to bring that barrier of entry down.
You know, you mentioned this was a family game traditionally, but do you feel like this is a game that people will play mostly in their homes or also out at bars or with groups of friends in different settings?
I'm curious where you want to start.
Cause I think that'll help hone in on the strategy of how you might market it.
Cause you have a lot of opportunity.
Definitely. I think because the game is so visually impactful, like you see the game, you see people playing it.
And I think because the rules are so similar to like pool, you kind of understand it when you watch it.
So for us, we're thinking more along the lines of like a coffee shop, a cafe or somewhere where you can really see other people playing it or even at a park.
Um, I could see this in like New York at, you know, people like playing chess outside, people maybe playing, Karen outside.
So it's definitely a game that in my mind, I envisioned being more portable and on the go, but he living here in the Pacific Northwest, one of the best parts about the game is you can play it indoors.
You know, it seems like a natural like first entry point, right?
Would be with, um, like second, third generation South Asian communities in the United States.
Right. That would be an obvious play because those kids or the grandkids of immigrants would have might have been exposed to the game.
But the other thing you mentioned, the drinking game aspect of it seems to me like there's a, there is a lot, there's some potential there.
Like you can imagine like a bar, right?
A bar that has games or tabletops where there's some kind of integrated thing that you do.
Right. Right. I think one of the things that we're also thinking about, and we love the idea of, you know, drinking in ourselves, but I think in terms of our brand, like how do we, I don't want to become like a trend.
I see so many of these games that come and trend and go and trend and go.
And it's so hard, I think, to navigate when you're trying to sell a product that's more of an experience that can last a long time, but I don't want to turn it into like a commodity that only happens in certain events.
And it's a hard to find a balance.
And that's really what I've been struggling with mentally.
It seems like if you got to the point where this was well known enough to be a commodity, that would be a great problem to address then.
You know, for now, you have both the challenge of something that's relatively unknown, you know, and the opportunity that it's relatively unknown and you can be the one to make it known.
Right. And again, I think it's, you're going to have to focus in a few different places and see what sticks and see who's posting about it.
Right. If you can get people posting videos of themselves playing this and people are like, what is this game?
How do I get it? And you're the first resource when they go to look it up.
That's where I think you start to get traction and worrying about becoming a fad.
I think there would be something great about getting that type of exposure if you're smart about how to capitalize on it.
And if you have, if your intentions are right once you get to that point.
I would also suggest you listen to our episode about Spike Ball, if you haven't heard it that we did on the show a couple, a couple months ago or maybe a year ago, because it took them a while, but then it took off.
And it started with smaller groups of people that they didn't anticipate.
They thought it was like a beach volleyball kind of crowd that would go for it.
And they were going to beach volleyball tournaments and they were trying to really, but they didn't penetrate those communities.
They ended up having a lot of success initially with church youth groups.
Just they had no idea. Like church youth groups started to buy and Amish communities randomly were just buying Spike Ball because it turns out that it's a game that was safe to be played.
It was like a safe co-ed game.
And it turns out they really built the brand on these communities, these sort of niche communities, and then eventually became a mass marketed product.
And that's the thing to me.
It seems like there's an opportunity to find a group.
And it may be that you would start with second, third generation South Asian kids or young people, but you might also find that it could be like church youth groups.
There are organized church youth groups in the United States.
And really it seems like this is the kind of product that you've got to go to a trade show.
You've got to go to trade shows and talk about what you're doing.
But you could also think about non-traditional trade shows that may not be about games at all, but that might be about travel and leisure or something totally unrelated, but where you can start to think about ways and places where you could put these boards.
You also want to think about places where you can just give them away for free, where you can have them in a hotel lobby, for example, like a cool hotel lobby.
Like I think about something like that.
Absolutely. Yeah, I'm just so excited to share the game.
It's such a big part of our lives.
And you guys will be the first dude to get the final product.
We'll love to see the videos.
I love it. Randy, we're going to drink you under the Karam table.
Bring it, guys. I'm ready.
All right. All right. Champotel, the company's called Play Karam.
Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you so much.
Yeah. Keep us posted. We'll do it.
Yeah. Interesting. I'm trying to figure out.
I'm trying to flick one in, like the other guy's got to take a shot or something.
I don't want to encourage like binge drinking.
But you can imagine. Absolutely.
There is a considerable contingent of humans who would be like, yeah, all right, let's do it.
Yeah. You're on. I think you're right.
Their initial marketing investment's going to have to be giving away products in the right places.
And some of them won't be right, but getting boards in places where people will play it and having somebody who's excited about it, posting about it, eventually the word gets out or something is great and it'll find the audience.
But you know, I like the idea.
You mentioned Amish groups and Spike Ball.
That's so interesting.
You have to be willing to be surprised and you have to be willing to test and learn.
Yeah, for sure. All right, Randy, we're going to take another quick break.
But when we come back, a hip boutique that is trying to figure out how to translate its brick and mortar vibes into digital sales.
Stay with us. I'm Guy Razz and you're listening to the Advice Line right here on How I Built This Lab.
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Hello, and welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab.
I'm Guy Ross. I'm with Randy Goldberg, co-founder of Bombas, and we're answering your business questions.
Randy, I believe we have our next caller on the line.
Hello, caller. Hi. Hello, welcome.
Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business.
Right. So my name's Anna Benchavanga.
I own Urbana Boutique in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the main mission of my business is helping people feel their best in the current iteration of their body.
And I provide this through the conduit of affordable quality, apparel, jewelry, and little chachkies.
Cool. All right. Urbana Boutique is the name there, right?
And what question have you brought for us?
So I come from the space of brick and mortar.
And so my big thing is I'm trying to figure out, I've built up such a beautiful community and rapport with the women that I directly serve, but how do I then build that same community, rapport, and appreciation in the digital space?
Because the internet's so vast, and I'm trying to find my specific people in the vastness of the internet and really serve and help them.
So tell me a little bit about the boutique.
You have a store. Yes. And you're trying to sell more direct to consumer through the internet.
Is that right? Correct.
Okay. And your boutique is in Pittsburgh, not in Pittsburgh, it's in Oakmont, near Pittsburgh.
Yes. Yeah. It's a suburb of Pittsburgh.
And tell me who your clients are.
I'm looking at your website now.
Who are your customers?
So my client, I would say, is 35 to 65-year-old women in creative fields.
Women who often put themselves last, a lot of stay-at-home moms, a lot of postpartum women, a lot of women in the workforce.
And I don't know about you, but my mother couldn't spend $5 on herself without feeling guilty.
And so I want to be able to provide the service of cool, quality pieces, but at a really affordable price point that women don't feel guilty and don't attach that guilt and are able to treat themselves well so that they can then move through the world with that same kindness.
I'm looking at through your website, and a lot of different things.
Definitely things that are different from Rivki's impact fashion.
Yes. I'm wearing some immodest clothing, but tell me about where you source your, like how do you pick what you sell?
Right. So I worked at a European boutique for a decade.
I was a buyer and a salesperson, and so I try to bring that same aesthetic, but at a super affordable price point.
So I do source from the different trade shows in the area as well as different marketplace platforms online.
And the key is, I mean, you're obviously sourcing cool-looking things.
Yes. Is that a fashion forward or is that like a tired?
No, you can say that. Can't.
Okay. But at an affordable price.
Like really for like a sweaters of 40 bucks or a basic long sleeve is 30 bucks, a satin kimono is $69.
I mean, so you're basically going for affordability too.
Correct. Cool. And when did you start this business?
So I started the business in August of 2019.
I was splitting a space with a coffee shop.
I started in 400 square feet with three clothing racks and literally a room divider screen for people to try pieces on at the store.
And then after the first holiday, I was like, this is working.
I got to go because a storefront had opened two doors down and the storefront opened and I signed the lease March 1st, 2020.
Wow. It was really fun. How did you get through that?
So COVID was horrible, but I firmly believe in finding the silver linings and things.
And one of those silver linings was starting to delve into the digital space, which I had avoided for years and years and years because it's such a huge undertaking.
And it's something that I just wasn't versed in.
So it really forced me to kind of start working on that.
So I was just grinding. I would be at the store.
I would take deliveries to people's houses, fortunately, the community, even though they weren't going anywhere, we're still buying pieces on the site.
So I just really hustled and grinded until the cows came home.
And so what, 90, 95% of your sales are coming from in-store purchases right now?
Yes. But you've got a website up that you want this out in the world, right?
And so you want to, you're trying to figure out how to bring more traffic and more revenue through the website.
Right. And you know, on a beautiful day, like people come walking in, people are walking around, I'm able to make sales.
But I want the consistency that comes with the e-commerce space and the consistency of having that steady flow of income when it's raining and three degrees and gray in Pittsburgh.
Randy, when you make this, I mean, here you are.
You've got this brick and mortar store, clearly a cool boutique, and you're now, she's now trying to get this out into the world.
And of course, there's a lot of noise out there.
A lot. You know, it's not the same when you guys launched Bombas in 2013, you know, you could get some influencers and you could really grind into Instagram and Instagram was new.
So where do you start? So much noise, so hard to break in in the way that a lot of businesses did 10 years ago.
And a lot of confusion even amongst big brands on where to go in terms of marketing.
But I guess I would back up and ask a couple of questions if that's all right, Anna.
In terms of the clothes, are you making the clothes yourself?
Are you buying from other brands?
Are you? No, it's all different brands that I buy from.
And is it clear what those brands are on your website?
See, that's the other problem is that because there are so many boutiques opening in both physical brick and mortar and in the digital space, and I think the big differential factor is the fact that I actually go to the trade show.
I feel everything. It is quality even though it is really reasonably priced.
And so online, it's difficult to really provide that kind of statement and to help that people understand, hey, this is not just a $30 sweater you can get on Amazon.
This is actual quality at $30.
And is that $30 sweater?
Does it have a brand name in it when you get it?
Yes. But that's not clear on your site what that brand is.
No, I try to keep it that way just because people can source things.
Other people are able to source things from the same places.
Yeah, it seems like the advantage here, Randy, I think, is Anna's curation.
And so I feel like you need to be more front and center.
We need to know that that's happening.
We need to see you. I know you're on the website, but you've got to go to the About page.
But I kind of want to see you somehow, either you or your message up front at the beginning, right?
I kind of feel like if you're out there, I'm looking at you and I'm thinking, well, she's got a great outfit on.
She knows what she's talking about.
I'm going to trust her. It seems like you've also built some community in Oakmont.
Was that fair to say? Yes.
You have customers that come in regularly and they come in to say hi and see what's in the store.
And they don't know if something new is in, but they just stop in.
They're just shopping.
Is that right? Right. And a lot of it is very personal.
You're at the store, I'm guessing.
Every day of my life. Every day of your life.
Except today's my mother's there for the couple hours.
Yeah. Okay, that's great.
I'm not winning like Guy said, and I think this is very astute on physical curation in a world that doesn't have much of that anymore, right?
You're going to trade shows.
You're touching and feeling things.
You're making choices and you have a point of view.
And that's super valuable in today's world.
People want things that cut through, right?
They want a point of view.
But I feel like your website is not 100% a reflection of that.
Like Guy said, I want to know that perspective, that personality, that point of view in every page of your site.
I want that to be so clear on the homepage.
I want to see this story about us.
I want you to talk about how you're finding things on the product detail pages.
I want to know not just this is a chic top.
I want to know why you picked it, what it feels like, and what it's going to be like for me.
It's a great idea. I think about the J.
Peterman catalog a little bit.
Remember that? Totally.
People think that's from Seinfeld, but that was a real...
It's a real thing. It's a real thing.
It's a real thing. Actually, it's a long story.
But anyway, I just picked one thing randomly, the gold sparkle romper.
How cool would it be if you could say, there could be a funny little story about maybe how you saw this or how you found it or I discovered this piece and I feel like there is an opportunity to tell a story about every single item that you sell.
It's not easy to do, but you can do it.
It's something you can actually control.
Right. Yeah. I mean, the whole, I would say the bigger part of the mission is the people in the clothing.
So I feel like that would be a good starting point to just have stories of women that have bought it or the woman that I saw wearing it because ultimately, I believe if you put people first in whatever you're doing, you're going to be more successful understanding not just the clothing, but the people behind the clothing, I think is the bigger thing for me.
I also think that the reason that your shop exists and the reason that you're doing this, you have a lot of passion behind this and it's super clear talking to us.
It's not super clear on your site and that has got to be job one.
That is an easy thing to control.
You don't have to pay a marketing agency to get in there and fix your site.
There's some tactical things.
There's an ingredient section on your product detail page.
I feel like it was a template that just isn't filled in and there's lots of drop downs that don't have answers.
I'm missing the reason that you exist as a brand and as a shop.
And I want to see the great vibes that I'm sure at your shop come to life on the website.
And if you can translate that story and not just tell people what it is, but show them what it is, that's where you need to start before you spend a dollar on digital marketing.
Right. Because it's so expensive and you can just lose so much money so incredibly quickly.
That's why I haven't even thought about doing anything like that because I know my website needs some love, needs some work.
Your website, it's a reflection of who you are as a brand and as a store.
So until you feel like you can write those things down and get into the mode where you can communicate all the wonderful things that you're saying through that tool, through that place, then you can't really go anywhere else.
Start with one thing like that.
Then move on to your organic social channels.
And the stories that guys talking about, about your customers, about people who come into the shop, about you, start talking to people.
Think of it as your personal blog.
Put yourself out there and start explaining why this is great.
And I think you'll soon come to realize that instead of on your site saying affordable, unique, chic, that sounds like marketing that sounds like anywhere.
Right. Right. It could be Zara or Sheehan.
And that's certainly not what you're trying to do.
Right? Right. Find the version of what makes you unique, the why of your business, the heart of who you are, and start to just put that out there.
That's where you have to start.
Yeah. Do you still believe in email marketing, Randy?
Is that still the number one?
Because I mean, social media is kind of where I thrive.
I really enjoy that part of it.
And I really enjoy giving the behind the scenes.
But everyone I've spoken with in the industry that I look up to has said that email marketing is still number one.
Email marketing is a huge part of our business to this day.
I mean, people still check emails.
People have been talking about email dying for 15 years, and it's still a hugely valuable channel.
And I think it's got to be part of the mix.
It's not the only thing, but it's a big part of what you can do, especially in retention marketing, when you're trying to talk to your customers and your file, and keep them updated.
All of this comes back to the idea that you have a unique point of view.
People want to see what that is.
Why is it different than other things?
Who are you talking to? How are you finding them?
These are all just tools.
But getting that story down, that's the first step.
Agreed, especially when it's something that is value add for somebody.
They're learning something when they open that email, and that's the key, I think.
Yeah, I think that's the biggest problem for me as a moral issue.
I think that I don't want to feel icky about doing the online sales portion of it.
I still want it to very much be about the mission of helping women feel good in their body.
But how do I accomplish both at the same time without...
I'm not trying to be too altruistic.
I do have to make money. It is a business.
Of course. How do I add both by adding a story to an email as opposed to just...
You want to not feel icky about the online marketing?
Get your story right. You feel good about your story.
All marketing is trying to connect your story to potential customers and grinding it out person by person every day, connecting those dots, having people understand what you're doing.
That's marketing. It's not trickery.
It's getting people to pay attention to what you're doing.
So start there. You're doing great.
Great. Ana Benchavenga, Urbana Boutique in Oakmont, Pennsylvania.
Thank you so much for calling in.
Thank you so much for the opportunity.
Great having you on. All right.
I'm working through this, Randy.
I'm working through my prudishness on the show.
This is a critique that I get sometimes where people are like, you're too prude because I normally don't say bad words.
But I'm getting there and I'm looking at this stuff.
Some of it, look what she's put in.
Most of the things she's selling are skirts and dresses and tunics and things like that.
Satin kimonos. Satin kimonos.
But she does have some things that are, I guess, you wouldn't really want to scroll at work maybe for some of those things.
Maybe. But that's an opportunity.
I mean, she's got an opportunity to tell funny stories about some of these things, which could be really cool.
Absolutely. But the definition and a point of view and the fact that that's not clear in her digital world is the first opportunity.
And then she can start to think about the others.
People get distracted by everything everyone tells them.
This type of marketing and that type of marketing and influencers and it's as expensive.
Get your story straight.
What are you about? She has it down in the store.
She has a community she's built translating that.
That's where she's got to go first.
Do you get like, are you getting like either nostalgia or PTSD listening to all these early stage founders?
Like, does it take you back to your anxieties in 2013?
Are those different things?
Nostalgia and PTSD? I'm hearing, I feel some of the similarities and I also think these people are super smart.
They have interesting ideas.
There's a few things that connect the dots.
And when we were just starting, we had people who gave us advice and were really helpful along the way and those advisors and having access to someone like you guy or a founder who had been there, even if it was a different category, invaluable as you're building a business because you're so close to it and you just sometimes need someone to be like, you know, actually
that. Randy Goldberg, co-founder of Bombas and my friend, thank you so much for coming back on the show.
Thank you so much for coming on the advice line.
Thank you so much, guy. I loved it.
By the way, if you guys have not heard Randy Goldberg's episode, episode, the story of Bombas with his co-founder, David Heath, please check it out.
It's such a cool story. We will put a link to it in the show notes.
And also thank you for listening to the show this week.
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This episode was produced by Alex Chung with music composed by Ramteen Ereblewe.
It was edited by John Isabella and our audio engineer was Sina LaFredo.
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