From the Marines to Launching a Brand, Validating an Idea with Brick & Mortar, and More with Robert Nelson | Just Mystic CEO (#171)
The dirty little secret of these, like, iconic or famous DDC brands is that a lot of them did start offline. Like, even Warby Park in the early days in New York, people were running up to their offices to try on glasses before they did the whole home try on program and everything.
Speaker 2:I'm Jim Huffman and this is If I Was Starting Today, a collection of conversations about half baked startup ideas, growth tactics, and stories from founders, including my own journey as a business owner. All of the content is centered around one question. What would you do if you were starting today?
Speaker 1:In today's episode, I speak with Robert Nelson, the CEO of Just Mystic. Robert's super impressive. His background includes being in the marines, working at Nike, going to business school, working in AI. But now he started his own company called Just Mystic, which is a really impressive d to c apparel brand. And what I like about this conversation is he's doing things with his own perspective.
Speaker 1:He talks about with starting a brand, how most people go to ecommerce, but really the opportunity is offline. And how he started offline, which by the way, that's what most d to c startups do. And how he got really good success by riding the wave of going offline, but also aligning his brand with actual town and city that's blowing up and getting a lot of traction. We also talk about things he learned from being in the military, what he learned, from business school and management consulting and how that's applied to being a leader. And he comes up with a couple really interesting tactics or frameworks around being brilliant with the basics.
Speaker 1:Also talking about being a professional even as a small company and how things like that allow you to kind of be noticed and stand out. We also talked about how he's bridged the offline experience with his brand to online with a really smart activation within his flagship store. He also talks about how he got started by leveraging a high traffic area in his town and doing a pop up tent around it to validate a concept and to validate products. That's a really fun episode for anyone that's looking to get started with their own brand. I think you'll really enjoy this episode with Robert.
Speaker 1:Alright. Robert, can you tell me what is just Mystic and can you give me any color on, like, how old the company is or the size of the company? Yeah.
Speaker 3:For sure. So Just Mystic, we're an apparel brand. We fit into kind of the coastal lifestyle niche. We also pull influencers from really three fashion categories. The first category being prep wear, the second category being sportswear, and the third category being streetwear.
Speaker 3:So that's kind of the we try to find a sweet spot in those categories, and we're essentially bringing what we you know, an aesthetic in that sweet spot to the market that we think is different that the market doesn't really have yet. And so, yeah, we're an apparel apparel brands in that space. We are based in Mystic, Connecticut. I wish I can give a little color on on Mystic, Connecticut. But that's where we're based.
Speaker 3:We have a brick and mortar store. We have a brand new one that I think we'll talk about, a new flagship store. We're also online, of course, are doing a little bit of wholesale. But yeah. So based in Mystic, Connecticut.
Speaker 3:Mystic, Connecticut is kind of a small town on the coast. It's about three hours from New York City, about two hours from Austin. Really awesome kinda intersection there because we're getting traffic from both both locations. And we're also pretty close to where a lot of people do get in their summers, like Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, that area, but we're, like, actually on land, not an island. And, yeah, we get it just in that summer alone.
Speaker 3:Medsick is now getting over a million visitors a year. So small plates, massive foot traffic driven by the boutiques and the this two you've seen, it's actually kind a big culinary destination now. But also, you have Mystic Aquarium, which is one of top aquariums in the world, and you have Mystic Seaport Museum, which is the largest maritime museums in the world. So those draw a ton of visitors. So great foot traffic in the you know, which is the best price in given just the size of the actual location.
Speaker 3:And so, really, the brands, kinda getting back to, like, you know, why and how we started, you know, really have been watching Mystic grow as this destination for many years now and to really a booming destination that's very, very desirable for people to live even year round. And it felt like, you know, this Adventist is a place of history, with culture, with a great community. So let's build our brand around that. Not too different from, you know, the idea, the concept of the Hollister brand or even Vineyard Vines and some other brands that are, you know, kind of location based, like Santa Cruz as well. You know?
Speaker 3:But it felt like, yeah, it was the right time to build a brand around around this community. And, you know, that's really the identity that we're shaping. And so that started in 2021. So we're a little over two and a half years old, and really, yeah, kind of getting into our third full year now It's super exciting. That's cool.
Speaker 3:And what a smart idea.
Speaker 1:I'm a big fan of a startup idea or a brand or something where you can you ride the wave that's only gonna get bigger or, like, you've heard like the barnacle phrase of like, be the barnacle on a big whale. It's like launching a Shopify app in the early days and just writing that. And we're being an app right as the iPhone launches. And you're kind of doing that in a d to c way. It's like, here's this town that has always been special, but now it's becoming more and more popular and there's more and more people coming to it.
Speaker 1:Let me come in and be the brand that helps kind of, you know, really capitalize on it, but also represent it the right way. I don't think I've seen that too much. You you mentioned like Vineyard Vines and other brands like that that really have their identity attached to a town, but that that's super thoughtful. I mean, how much of this was like you being a business school guy, looking at the numbers, looking at traffic and population verse, you know, this kind of more creative side of you that's like, actually, this should just exist. Definitely both.
Speaker 1:Being a business school guy, I did a
Speaker 3:lot of financial modeling on it. I said, kinda do the classic modeling of, like, what's 1% of what we think that foot traffic is? And is that viable in some kind of way? And, you know, ultimately, the answer is yes. Doing that, you know, that that kind of simple math.
Speaker 3:But, you know, also, part of me was just yearning to build my own business. And I was I worked in corporate. I worked in big organizations, House of the Greens right out of college, and I was in management consulting. And then I joined Nike after business school, and that's kind of where I learned the apparel the apparel game. And there was just kind of a point where, you know, I said, I am going to start out of business here.
Speaker 3:You know, I have a number of ideas that I think I can prototype. And, you know, being from Connecticut, being from domestic area, and having to watch this growth, kinda just see how this video is the right timing for me to, you know, watch my own venture and to particularly do that in the apparel space.
Speaker 1:And and you you have a we'll we'll call it a hot take. But, like, a lot of people are launching a brand. It's like, alright. D to c, Shopify, throw up your online store and and that's where you start and where you grow. However, because it's like, especially the pandemic, it's like online shopping's only going up and up and up.
Speaker 1:You kinda have an opposite view of d two c versus brick and mortar. Can can you talk about that?
Speaker 3:Yeah. For sure. So the the stat that I like to put out there is 85% US commerce. It's still happening in person. So, obviously, that leaves 15% happening online.
Speaker 3:Of course, you know, the online biz ads, you're connecting to the whole world, you know, brick and mortar, you know, it's it's, you know, a a more confined geography. But nonetheless, I think that's a very those are some very powerful numbers. And it points to the fact that people still love to shop in person. They love you know, especially if you're doing something like apparel or footwear, where hand feel is really important. Hand feel is kind of an industry term where but, like, literally, I see people come in our brick and mortar all the time, the first thing that they're doing, they're just like, I don't even know if they realize they're doing it, but they're just walking through kind of like touching the shirt, touching the hat, they're touching it.
Speaker 3:And that hand feel, you can't get live, of course. You know, you order things, you if you like it, you know, you keep it, if you got what you said at the back, which ends up being a huge cost to DTC businesses, you know, which is a whole different part of the equation. So I think, personally, it's very, very powerful if you can start in a brick and mortar. You build a community from that base. And, yes, you can also add more stores down the line as well.
Speaker 3:But I think, you know, you build that foundation, a literal, tangible, physical foundation, brick and mortar. You build the community, build the identity around it, something that is like a HQ for your customer to, know, you know, wanna travel to as well and kinda be there. So, yeah, I think it is a little bit contrarian, but I think also a lot of people, because we live in this digital world, we're
Speaker 1:on our phones all the time, We just say, like, oh, everything's digital now. But in reality, so much so much shopping and so much of the customer experience happens in a physical space. The dirty little secret of these, like, iconic or famous D2C brands is that a lot of them did start offline. Like, even Warby Park in the early days in New York, people were running up to their offices to try on glasses before they did the whole home try on program and everything. Even a lot of the early stage brands that we work with at our agency, I mean, their pop up shops are what put them on the map as far as getting customers and more importantly, customer feedback.
Speaker 1:Because when you're Totally. With them in person, you get that feedback. Whereas when you they buy online, you're like, please fill out this survey so we know, like, what you think. Whereas if they're in the store, they're just like, oh, the neck fit's weird. You know, like, oh, okay.
Speaker 1:Thank you. We'll we'll tweak that. I mean, I I'd be interested, like, when you launched this, did you start with the brick and mortar or did you start with pop up shops? Did you start, like, selling merch out of your trunk to get that feedback or was it taking a big risk of signing a lease? We've kind of
Speaker 3:it was twofold. I mean, yes, again, you you do have to have ecommerce. Right? So, like, yeah, went to Shopify and built out a very basic website, but we also launched a pop up. So we gotta have both in tandem just because, like, if you're talking to someone on the street, you know, if you are able to point them to a website as well, there's gotta be this element of credibility that they're like, oh, yeah.
Speaker 3:You're not just, like, selling something on a truck. But, really, the strategy was, okay. Wash the wash the little pop up, and that's what we did. So we had a little pop up in the tent with some of our core branding, a few of our first,
Speaker 1:like, tent? Are you on the side of the road or, like, a farmer's market?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So and, I mean, it's so ridiculous when we walk by the space that we are in and kinda look at where we started. There's a famous increasingly famous restaurant called Oyster Club in Mystic, Connecticut. The chef that her name is Renee DuPont. She's actually a finalist that's here for the James Beer top chef award.
Speaker 3:So it's a fantastic restaurant. And right next to them, it's this, like, plot of grass with, like, a little rocky backdrop, some big grab boulders. And so, yeah, we put up a tent and had a couple of fold up tables, you know, that we you know, my my sister, our creative director and cofounder, you know, she's a, you know, a designer. She's all of interior design. So, you know, she she made our tent, like, really, really nice.
Speaker 3:But Nice. It was a tent, and we had two folding tables and we had crew necks, hoodies, t shirts, stickers, you know, the very basic things. And, you know, basically, we went out for, I think it was five weekends or so in early fall of twenty twenty one. And, you know, we just and that was direct feedback they were getting from customer. We had customers running up to us, being like, I can't believe this concept doesn't exist already at Mystic.
Speaker 3:Like, you know, that that was, like, what we commonly heard or just, you know, just, like, excitement around just wearing something branded with Mystic. And, you know, and we also got some feedback like, oh, could you do this? Could you do this? And, you know, of course, like, you can only take so much feedback. But, nonetheless, as you were just talking about a minute ago, I mean, like, yeah, that that feedback that you're getting in person is so critical.
Speaker 3:And that's what we got in the pop up over these, like, five weeks. And, ultimately, we've said, okay. We have something here. Now we really need to, you know, focus on finding that brick and mortar space.
Speaker 1:How okay. So you validate hey. People want this. You're selling products out of out of the nice tent. And I was just checking out Oyster Club because my sister's moving to Providence.
Speaker 1:I was like, hey. This is an hour from Providence. She needs to go. This is a cool spot. You you get validation and the product.
Speaker 1:You get feedback. Walk me through that next step because that's a big move to be like, alright. Let me sign a lease or or get this space. Like, how did you because you're you're very analytical. How are you thinking through that, like, financial move and that business move?
Speaker 3:Yeah. For sure. I mean, to this day, I mean, I manage a pretty tight spreadsheet. I'd have a great a great fractional fee that we brought on board who helps to come with that, but I still, you know, have a pretty tight hold on those things. And, yeah, I mean, I think it was it was a lot of modeling and kinda figuring out, okay, and and making some educated guesses based on the feedback we had in the pop up, which was, okay.
Speaker 3:Like, what are we what's what what are gonna be our core pieces? What are our core styles? What are the core colors? And, you know, and, obviously, you know, I had we had a certain budget in mind. And, you know, ultimately, it said, okay.
Speaker 3:Like, let's be a little bit conservative here. We're not gonna go crazy with the color waves. We're not gonna go crazy with the number of styles, but, like, let's stick to what we know works. And, yeah, let's start there within our budget and order, you know, x number of pieces per style, per color. And, you know, that's how we're gonna like to initially, you know, populate our assortment and our sword.
Speaker 3:So it was it was wildly you know, just frankly, lot of number crunching, some educated guesses, but also being conservative. And, you know, I think this is kind of also, like, in some of those principles I've seen you outline. What is it? Like, your 40 principles or your 21 principles? What is it?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. The 22 principles. Yeah. The 22 principles.
Speaker 3:And I think it's like, one of those principles is like, you know, you don't wanna have you wanna have a very disciplined product portfolio. You don't wanna have too much, especially at the start. And that was very, very key to, you know, our thinking early on, which is like, okay. Let's keep the product portfolio super tight to what we know and within our budget. And then aside from that, you know, I think there's a huge conversation around what is that customer experience going to be like Because we want people to have a great experience and so we spent a lot of time thinking about how are we going to do to design the actual space and, you know, ultimately kind of, you know, merge, you know, the the customer experience with the with the product assortment and, you know, that's kinda how it all how it all initially came together.
Speaker 1:Nice. Yeah. So validate the idea. You get the brick and mortar, try and be very cost conscious on this because, like, I assume you're kind of like self funding menace or maybe like Yeah. Friends and family as opposed to like raising VC money, right, to to get to this phase?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 3:this is all bootstrapped, you know. I think the apparel industry is a tough one for VFC, it's just because the multiples are low. But, you know, knew that going into it and, you know, ultimately had had planned to bootstrap it for as long as possible until our cash flow, you know, we had, you know, cash coming from our operations. Yeah. So had to be very cautious there, but we were also pretty optimistic, know, again, based on the validation that we had and based on just, you know, I think, the conservative take that we're we're taking.
Speaker 3:We weren't gonna be, like, crazy on what we're ordering. We were starting pretty simple. I think simplicity, you know, is a bit of a virtue when you're starting a business. And if you get too complex too fast, that can hinder your growth a little bit. So, you know, start simple, move to complex one of the principles that we talk about all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You're you're able to start monetizing this brick and mortar location from people who live there, people that are probably visiting and want something that kinda like reflects the the brand of the of the town. Right? Which is exciting. But you've done something well where, like, we've seen other brands try and do this where you, like, merge the offline in the online.
Speaker 1:Right? Because you don't want their experience with the brand to be done after they leave the store. And you've you've talked about an activation in the store to, you know, one, get people engaged with the brand, but two, to get them in their database. Like, talk talk about what you've been trying to do there to activate people offline online.
Speaker 3:For sure. Yeah. This has been super exciting. So, also, one clarification. So we, you know, we moved in our first brick and mortar, which was which was an excellent starting point, but then we actually got an offer for a a larger space, almost 3,000 square feet, which we moved into in January.
Speaker 3:So that's our really our new flagship store, which we just opened super excitedly at the February. And so as part of that build out and, again, thinking, you know, how to kinda rethink what's our product strategy, what's the customer experience strategy, and, you know, how does it all come together. And, you know, as part of that, we opened a program photo booth, which is kind of which is what you're getting at. And so I think, you know, photo booths have been on the rise for at least a decade. They've been around for many decades, but they've really been on the rise for the last decade.
Speaker 3:Anybody who's been at a wedding probably has seen a photo booth there. Corporate events have them. There's a lot of different flavors of them. Now some brands had started to install either permanent or pop up ones. Nike had a pop up a few pop ups, like, in 2017.
Speaker 3:Lululemon now has one of their flagship in London. London is whatever reason. London, United Kingdom, loves their photo booths. And, like, a lot of stores have that photo booths there. So, anyways, we kind of looked at that data.
Speaker 3:We said, you know what? Like, a photo booth is an awesome way to create an engaging experience for a customer, whether they buy something or not. You know, we have this, like, little lollipop sign on the street outside our door and it just point it says photo booth and points points inside. And so people walking down the street, whether they wanna shop at at all, they see that, like, photo booth. They pop in our they pop in our store and they jump in the photo booth and there's two parts to the photo booth, which is kind of key to, like, where we're going here, which is there's the free digital version.
Speaker 3:So you pop in the photo booth, take three photos, and then, you know, you give us your email to start an experience, and then we'll send you the photos immediately. And you can, you know, you can share them on social media. You can send them to your phone. You can do whatever you want. And later on, we're gonna add a video component as well.
Speaker 3:But that's gotta just the bay the basic free version, free, you know, with an asterisk because we get your, you know. Then there's a paid version, which is you just, know, you pay $5. You get the, you know, video classic two by four strip that you that you print out, and you can take those with you. So that's really kind of the the fidgetal the digital experience that we've, you know, brought into our store, which has been super engaging for our customers. They're having a ton of fun with it.
Speaker 3:Like, we can see the photos they're taking. People like the joy is incredible. It's palpable. And ultimately, we are now building our email database probably five to 10 times faster than through our other channels.
Speaker 1:No. I I love that. I've I've seen some brands try and do that at pop ups well and not well, but the fact that you have your flagship is amazing. And I wanna nerd out a little bit on people thinking through getting a brick and mortar location. One, the location that you chose.
Speaker 1:And then two, you mentioned having a sign to like come in for photo booth. Like, have you a b tested on the actual signage as far as like what gets people to come in to your store more than others? Because when I lived in New York, I loved to walk in by sandwich shops that would have really clever chalkboard writing on their signs Yeah. To see what they were doing. I don't know how much you nerd out on that or if it's like you'd love to do that
Speaker 3:but not enough time. I would love to. I think I would love to AB test it. I mean, I think, honestly, if there's if one of your listeners wants to follow with me, if they have any good intel on this, like, I would love to find a good, simple system for tracking foot traffic coming in the door. I know there's a few products out there, whether it's one I've been exploring.
Speaker 3:But, yeah, if any of your listeners have any intel on, like, a really good foot traffic tracker for brick and mortar, hit me up because that would because that that's essentially what we could use in AB test. Right? You know I mean? You could do it manually just, like, using a clicker if people come through the door. But so we haven't done that.
Speaker 3:I think it's a great idea. It's more anecdotal that I've just been, like, since we put the the lollipops down outside, it's like, wow. Those photo booth numbers are, like, really ticking up, which is incredible. But, yeah, going back to, you know, picking a location, I mean, the the the most obvious thing is just, you know, what's the foot traffic? You know?
Speaker 3:Is it is it is it a high density foot traffic area? And, you know, if you hear somebody who's looking to start a brick and mortar and you're feel like you're reaching a little bit to being like, oh, I hope the foot traffic is good. You know? I just wouldn't do it. You know, I think that the the number one key is foot traffic because, honestly, when people get in a store, if you have decent product, a decent customer experience, people are going to buy something.
Speaker 3:And that that is just we are consumers. We like to buy things. And so if you're in the right location, you're gonna have sales. But if you feel like you are, like, oh, maybe this, like, 5 Street, you know, is gonna be okay, I would just be patient if you can and wait for the right location because it is really about location, location, location. And then after you have that location, you know, creating a really nice software experience, having good signage, doing collaborations with your community, with the businesses around you to kinda get that word out and just be a good partner, good business partner with the community.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Sometimes it's that simple. And then, yeah, you don't wanna settle because even if you're just around the corner, man, it makes all the difference if you're missing out. Absolutely. So you see, you've expanded locations.
Speaker 1:You're like maximizing, you know, growth from the brick and mortar. Talk about going beyond Mystic or growing online. Like, where is your head at right now as you, like you got the flagship store. What's the next level of growth that you're looking to get to?
Speaker 3:Next level of growth is it's it was really it's got a it's two things. That it is ecommerce, and it's also wholesale. And so part of, you know, basically, to get to get growth in either of those channels, yeah, we're we're focusing on building out product clients that are a little bit more a little bit broader and that are more kind of representative of, like, a code still identity and some of the history that we have from where we are, which is like sailing and shipbuilding and integrating that into product lines, integrating that into design, integrating that into styles, and just credit, basically, in a little bit broader product portfolio that it more has broader reach. It resonates with, like, a broader population. You know, like, what I'm wearing today, I'm wearing a super, super high quality heavyweight hoodie that, you know, Supreme would sell for $300.
Speaker 3:You know, we're selling it for $80 today. It's the same quality, but we're but, ultimately, you know, this is, like, generic isn't the right word, but it's a it's a piece that rep resonates more broadly with a big bigger population. It's something that we can sell into wholesale channels. It's something that we can sell online as just, you know, a new apparel brand. And it doesn't matter if you're you've been in domestic or you're you've never been there.
Speaker 3:It's a piece that you're gonna look at and be like, oh, that's like a really sick piece. The quality looks amazing. Like, I'm gonna get that. So at yeah. So when we think about growth, it's it's goes back to the product portfolio and creating products that have, you know, broad resonance with a with, you know, a large population.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. That's awesome. And then I'm interested as you've kinda gone down this archfurial path, like, what because you've got an interesting winding road to getting here. Three of the things I wanna hit on is kind of around, like, leadership as you're kind of like building your own thing. From what were your main takeaways from the marines, from business school, and then from your time in management consulting?
Speaker 1:Like, what have you taken away from that to lead to this path? There's a lot to bite off there. But, yeah, I'll do my best. I kind of like summarizing a a few
Speaker 3:of those things. I mean, yeah, that yeah. There is no better place to learn leadership than the military. And, yeah, in my opinion, there's no better place specifically than the Marine Corps, because Marine Corps takes leadership so intensely serious. And, you know, I I would I would say, you know, the the first word that kinda comes to mind when I think about what I learned from from the marines, it's, you know, it's it's accountability.
Speaker 3:And it's accountability for yourself. It's, you know, also then expecting and, you know, teaching accountability to the people that you are working with, to the people that you're learning with leading. And in some cases, it's, you know, people above you holding them accountable. So I think, you know, part of that take or, you know, that takes a lot of guts, a lot of, you know, internal fortitude to to, you know, be able to call somebody out or even to hold yourself accountable. But, you know, ultimately, I think that is something that I've kind of carried with me since since my time in the marines.
Speaker 3:And, yeah, just making sure that I take responsibility. I take accountability for any failures in the business, and I owe other people accountable for any failures. And at the same time, we celebrate when people do things well, and we show recognition. So, you know, accountability is super, super important. After the marines, I I went into management consulting for six years at Booz Allen.
Speaker 3:Fantastic. Incredible org organization. I was super happy that I, you know, I could have spent a whole career there, but now I've really wanted to do a lot of different things in in my time. You know? So from from Booz Allen, you know, I think it was more of the art and science of, you know, it's actually strategy and, you know, which learned more about it in business school, but ultimately, that's been super important to how I've been thinking about our business to growing our business.
Speaker 3:And, you know, so I think I had kind of, like, a formative education that boos Allen and and and strategy, which is incredible. And then, yeah, business school, I mean, business school idea is hard to exactly point to perhaps leadership and more so just some of the tactical and, like, kind of operational skills that I picked up there, which was super incredible. I, you know, I would think I would I would tell anybody that business school is an incredible opportunity that if you can do it wherever you can go, do it. It's a great place to build a network, be incredible people, be inspired by the people around you. And, you know, so ultimately from business school, I think I just, again, kind of pulled out some of the more, like, tactical skills that have been super, super helpful.
Speaker 3:And then finally, you know, kind of the the the step after business school is Nike. And the what people often ask, you know, hey. What can you take away from Nike? And the number one thing I always say about that is it's professionalism. Nike is one of the leading organizations in the world because they can recruit the best talent in the world, an incredible roster of just, you know, professionals.
Speaker 3:And, you know, so I think working at Nike really got to see, okay, this is how professionals operate. And that is something that I've taken with me, you know, to building Justdestick. And it's, you know, it doesn't matter how big we are. It doesn't matter, you know you know, what our revenue is, how big our team is, but we can be really professional in what we do. We can be really professional in how we communicate.
Speaker 3:We can be really professional in how we work with our local partners regardless of our size. And I think, you know, that's just something that you can do at any stage of growth is just, you know, be super professional, communicate super well, you know, do these kind of be brilliant at the basics, which is something we talk about in marines a lot. You know, if you're brilliant at the basics, you know, then you can kinda do the more complex things. Be apt to do the basics super well.
Speaker 1:You have to be super professional, be really organized, etcetera. What do you think are the basics with your business or your brand? Right? Well, I I guess with the business, like, are the things where you're like, okay, these are the three to five things. If we're good at these, this is the right foundation.
Speaker 1:These are the basics. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So that goes to I mean, we are building a brand. So I think there's there's a few things that I think about when building a brand that are kind of the basics. And so number one, it's, you know, what are our what's what are our core styles? Yeah. Is it a crew neck?
Speaker 3:Is it a hoodie? You know, it doesn't matter. It it this goes for any business that you're building. It could be tech product, anything. It's like, what are kind of the core what is the core thing or the core things that we're going to set out to do initially?
Speaker 3:And let's do those super, super well. And so that's kind of, like, where we have started to say, okay, crew necks, hoodies, t shirts, those are our core styles. Those are, like, the brand basics for us. Then, you know, you think about, okay, what are our brand guidelines? And brand guidelines, you know, I honestly didn't really hear people talk about this a whole lot, you know, prior to starting my own company.
Speaker 3:But it's it's, you know, your brand guidelines essentially spells out a few things. It's it spells out, okay. Like, what are our logos? You know, how can our logos be used or how shouldn't they be used? Because that's so important.
Speaker 3:That's how you communicate to the world who you are. You know, what are our thoughts? Again, like, you know, you don't wanna be overly complex. You don't have some unique thoughts. Have just, like, two to three maybe.
Speaker 3:Yeah. But that's, you know, that's in your brand guidelines. What is our tone of voice? Are we friendly, are we playful, inclusive, exclusive, etcetera? You know, the the the tone of voice.
Speaker 3:Again, that's in your brand guidelines. And you could include other things in your brand guidelines, you know, just like you can include, like, you know, what your identity is. Like, you could say this is where we sit in the market, which is a little bit more of, like, a strategy thing. But, ultimately, if you go through the process of building out your brand guidelines, again, regardless of the industry that you're in, that is one of the core basics that you have to have so that you can, you know, essentially say this is who we are and this is how we're different from other other companies. So, again, you know, kind of starting off with those little like, what are you what are your core products?
Speaker 3:What's your brand guidelines? And that would have been more specific to apparel, but, you know, can be applicable in other industries as well, which is, like, our tech pack. Your our tech pack, you know, essentially having a tech pack template, it's like, this is the list of requirements that we send to a manufacturer to build a hoodie, for instance. This is the the body length, the sleeve length, the hem length, all these very specific things, also about, like, the material and the color. They do the same for, like, any other physical product.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Look, you know, various requirements. And so those three things, our core styles, our brand guidelines, and our checkbacks are kinda like the core building blocks that we have to be super, super good at in order to build great products and to build great product that is differentiated from other businesses.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Because yeah. That hits so interesting like with with earlier stage companies. Because a lot of the companies, they aren't a brand, they're a product. Right?
Speaker 1:And they launch on the back of a flagship product. But then you have other companies that launch and it it really is about the brand. So I I think depending on what your go to market strategy is or your validation strategy can really dictate on like how much how much emphasis to put on brand in the early days. But there's no doubt that as you grow, brand essentially can become all that you have as a point of differentiation. So it's because I've I've seen companies like, over invest in branding agencies at an early stage and it's like, oh, man.
Speaker 1:You should have done that. But then you see brands where because they didn't invest in brand, there's no point of differentiation and they get overtaken. So I think it can be a tough balancing act when you're in those early days of like, where I put your time, money, and resources. But but I think with what you've done, I mean, brand is so core to what you guys have built that it was a no brainer.
Speaker 3:You you had to do that really well. Exactly. Exactly.
Speaker 1:Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It's something that we struggle with as we kinda think through how how deep to to to go into that.
Speaker 1:I'm also interested, like, you know, if you look back, if you if you were starting this all over today, what would you do differently or what, like, advice would you give to yourself? I would say patience is always, you know, something we could always do better. And so I think I've
Speaker 3:been a little impatient at times with some of our product decisions. You know, we've made some bad decisions on a few products that, like, haven't sold super fast. And I think, you know, that part of that was being a little bit reactionary to, like, oh, that's, like, we gotta have that piece. Like, that's super cool. That's trending.
Speaker 3:We gotta have it. And, you know, I think that would have, you know, part reactionary, part a little impatient, and could have saved our you know, saved us, you know, saved us a little bit of some on some costs, obviously, because of our expenses. But, also, you know, there's just, some headaches of trying to create those products super fast, which, you know, didn't really need to need to happen. So I think being more patient, if if I were to go back on a few things, it'd be that on but, you know, I think it's a tough question, honestly, because, like, aside from that, you know, I I think we've done a we've we've done a lot of things really well. And I think some of that is, you know, there there's some there's certainly some luck.
Speaker 3:And I think any any business requires luck to be successful as the salad goes. But there's also been a lot of planning and preparation and a lot of thoughtfulness in what we've been doing. You know? So there isn't a whole lot that I could really really change at this point because I I'm just honestly grateful that we it's it's gonna be going as well as it has, and I think it's gonna keep going super well. But, again, with also a little bit of luck and, you know, the economy continuing to do well.
Speaker 3:So it's a tough question, kind of beating around a little bit. But, I mean, I think, you know, patience would be, like, kind of the one thing because I do think that is, in some case of where, you know, we missed the mark on a couple of products, maybe a rush to get it something in the market, and they just it just hasn't sold well. And it hasn't, you know, hasn't killed us. But, you know, it just
Speaker 1:gave us some headaches that we didn't need to have. Yeah. No. That's that that that's super helpful. And, like, one thing that I think too, like, as as a business owner, I heard this quote where, like, the ceiling of the company is used your ceiling and it's like, do you have a growth mindset?
Speaker 1:Are you growing to the level that your company needs to grow or how do you grow with the company? Right? And then that's something that I kinda struggle with. It's like, you know, working on the business rather than in the business. Like, right now, like, where's your time going and is that where you wanted to go and how are you looking to grow as is like a a CEO?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean, I I think that's I like I like your point about, like, the the sailing of the company. It's, you know, especially, you know, my sailing. I definitely agree with that. I mean, I think I am not satisfied with where we are. You know, I I want to, you know, certainly achieve some some revenue, some big revenue numbers.
Speaker 3:I wanna achieve some big valuation numbers. And, ultimately, to get there, you know, it's it's kinda it's, you know, the brick and mortar, this flagship that we have, and I've talked a lot about, that is a foundational piece. But, yeah, there is a there is a ceiling to that. There will be a plateau. There's only so much foot traffic you can get through that.
Speaker 3:But, again, great foundation. So it's really, you know, to achieve some of these bigger targets that I that I have in mind. You know, it is growing the ecommerce. It is growing wholesale. It's also doing, you know, some b two b projects.
Speaker 3:And b two b when I talk about b two b, that's really us, like, working with local partners or not even our regional partners who want apparel. You know, a really good apparel, and we come in, and we say, okay. We'll source it. We'll design it. We'll produce it for you.
Speaker 3:And that could be a really big channel for us as well. So, yeah, it's, you know, I wanna I wanna grow the business to be, you know, many multiples of what it is today. And and so I'm spending a lot of my time thinking about, okay. What is what does that product portfolio look like to help us get into the wholesale channels, to get into the ecommerce, to build out the ecommerce further. So I've, you know, spending a lot of time thinking about the product portfolio, thinking a lot of time thinking about where to, you know, make new investments.
Speaker 3:And we just invested a lot of money in building up the flagship. So it's okay. What's the next big big investment, which is probably gonna be our website, which is good. It works. But, you know, there it it could be it could be it could be cleaner.
Speaker 3:And, yeah, that'll be a big investment. So and, again, if we're growing out the ecommerce business, you wanna have a really good website. So product portfolio, where to invest our capital, and ultimately, hiring. You know? Who are we gonna hire?
Speaker 3:You know? Which roles so that, you know, I can continue to take a role that is looking across the whole business and not being super deep in every part of a business, but, you know, more so, like, an inch deep, mile wide and, you know, kind of, like, moving chess pieces as as needed and being able to be in a position that I have people I can trust so that I I can take that bigger view and kind of see where to direct the business. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You and I even talked about, like, one key hire a lot of people don't do is a is a chief of staff. And, like, can you, like, talk through, like, when does a chief of staff, like, work out? When does it really help? Versus maybe when it doesn't work out or when it's not the right time to hire one? Yeah.
Speaker 3:I think the the chief of staff is super important to hire. I was one at Nike for for a bit of time, so I kind of understand the role in and out quite a bit. I worked with other chiefs of staff and kind of, you know, all good ones. So okay ones. You know, I think to be a good chief of staff, you need to be smart.
Speaker 3:You need to be really resourceful. You need be, like, able to lead kind of on your own with, like, you know, minimal direction. And so, you know, what that will look like in practice in the biz at at JustMessage, if we if and when we bring out a chief of staff, it's like, hey, chief of staff. You know, this is, like, a core this is, like, a core project we need to work on. We need to, like, we need to basically revamp our whole website.
Speaker 3:I need you to, like, basically take on that project. And then if you need to hire a developer, if you need to hire a designer, do it. But it's actually, like, you know, from you know, you know, here we are at point a, take it to point b, which is basically a revamped website with better functionality, a better customer experience. Right? And that's, like, something that I would expect the cheapest app could just basically hand it off to them.
Speaker 3:They run with it. I'm not expecting them to do all the technical work, but they know how to be resourceful, know how to, like, find the right people to basically make this happen, give them an objective, and let them accomplish it. And that's what a good cheapest app can do. And then when they're done with that project, you put them on to a new project. And at the same time, they might, you know, depending on what the capacity is, they might be kind of doing other work, you know, like, it could be to have a weekly stand up meeting, and they might be leading that stand up every week, you know, with your your core leadership team.
Speaker 3:That's really a large one. That was kind what I did a lot in Nike, which is, you know, I had a bunch of strategic projects, but I was also essentially the right hand to our head of digital product at Nike. And she had a large leadership team of about 12 senior readers. You know, essentially, was facilitating meetings or leading meetings and leading agendas and just kinda making sure that every everybody was on track. And, you know, that's what a really, really good chief of staff does.
Speaker 3:And, you know, ultimately, they're an all partner. They're somebody that a CEO or other senior leader can just really trust to get a job done, you know, hard jobs, strategic jobs, some type of tactical, but ultimately, they're a key resource that allows a leader to have more bandwidth, more capacity to think about the broader business. Yeah. I like
Speaker 1:what you said about being resourceful and being able to act with maybe limited information or data or context, I think, what you said. Because if if you get that right person, man, it can just open up your bandwidth to focus on the big things. Because all it takes is one tedious task you can't delegate that can suck away all your time. And the impact that can have when you're a CEO or c level can be detrimental to a business. If if you get pulled into those things.
Speaker 1:Right? And it it's something that if people are able to do and you can find the right one, it's it's amazing. I I think I mentioned we found someone accidentally who they were really good at They had a masters in project management and they were also technical. And that ended up being a really nice sweet spot of up to two skills. But I liked your call too of, like, having a strategic mind because they need to be able to operate with you and other senior leaders.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I think I've thought a little bit about, you know, there's a there's
Speaker 3:an there's a group on LinkedIn called the chief of staff network. I don't frankly know too much about how they operate and the kind of like what their what their body is like. But, you know, I'd reach out to them just to inquire, hey. Like, would you be able to source just an intern for the summer? Because I think, yeah, that could be useful.
Speaker 3:I I I approach that with some you know, I'm a little cautious with that because I think one of the key things of a chief of staff is that they're fairly experienced, fairly seasoned. They know how to talk to other, you know, senior people. You know, they, you know, kind of have a presence. And, you know, there there's kind of like a a level which I think you might be too junior to be a chief of staff unless they're kinda just doing more, like, you know, very tactical things. And so there is kinda like that balance too of, like, what what level of like, a veteran are they.
Speaker 3:But it's, you know, it's something I'm considering. I might test out bringing out an intern at, you know, who might be a little bit more junior,
Speaker 1:but more to come on that. Yeah. That's awesome, man. Well, the the last question I like to ask is, what's the nicest thing anyone's done in your professional
Speaker 3:career? Wow. So that's a great question. I was nominated and I won it's called the Values and Practice Award. It said it's a Booz Allen Award.
Speaker 3:Only, like, point 1% of the workforce receives it annually. So it was, like, I think, 20 people or something out of, you know, 20 some thousand people. Yeah. So I was nominated by a couple of people on my team. I think this is, like, my fifth year at Booz Allen.
Speaker 3:And, yeah, ultimately won this incredible award, which came with, like, a great a great prize of, like, this all paid trip to, like, a number you know, I could kinda pick where I wanna go, which is really cool. But, you know, the award aside, the the reward aside just kinda being nominated for it, you know, was I just, like, a very validating and, you know, super thoughtful thing in my career that, you know, I I I was honored to receive it and honored to be recognized and just super grateful to the team and the individual in particular who was kinda, like, leading the nomination. Still very good friends with her. Today, she's one the best bosses, boss managers, best leaders I've ever had. And, you know, so just incredibly grateful to to have been nominated and to have won that award.
Speaker 3:Man, that's a cool company to
Speaker 1:be in. And, yeah, awards like that don't happen unless someone like champions it, I'm sure. That that one effort on their part where they're not really getting much on their end. So very cool. Where should people go if they wanna check out your brand or you and see what you guys
Speaker 3:are doing? Yeah. Always happy to connect with people on LinkedIn. So you can find me on LinkedIn, Robert Nelson. You know, there's a few few Robert Nelson's out there, but you and I are probably connected.
Speaker 3:So if you're connected to Jim, you can find me. So feel free to reach out there. The brands, you know, we have a lot of fun building out and being playful on Instagram. On Instagram, it's just mystic brands. And, yeah, that's where we can kinda keep up with a lot of our a lot of our, you know, the hype that we're putting out there, but just get a lot of fun that we're having.
Speaker 3:And then, yeah, we have our website, of course, just mystic.com. So, you know, I'd find it's there. So find me on LinkedIn and then find our brand on Instagram at justmysticbrand and justmystic.com.
Speaker 1:Yeah. The swag's pretty sweet. The I especially like the hoodies, especially with kind of like the the seagull on it. So people should definitely check it out. And I'd recommend people go to his Instagram to see pictures of the flagship store because you can also see the photo booth in there, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Just so you can get a feel on how, you know, Robert and his team pulled that off, but it it's really well done. I think it's from April 4, so go check out that photo. But Yeah. We're
Speaker 3:we're gonna post pretty soon a more detailed look at the photo booths. So standby for that because, yeah, it's been a big hit. It's a huge feature and again, awesome way to engage with your community. Yeah. But it's I mean, the
Speaker 1:store looks phenomenal. All 3,000 square feet. So congrats on that, man. But Rob, thank you so much for the time and for coming on. Congrats on what you built and excited to kinda watch from the sidelines.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Thank you so much. Been super fun. I'll be in touch. Cool.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 2:I'll give a few plugs. First, I send a weekly newsletter each Thursday featuring five articles or tools that have helped me. You can sign up for these weekly updates at jimwhuffman.com. Second, for anyone running a startup, if you need help growing your business, check out GrowthHit. GrowthHit serves as your external growth team.
Speaker 2:After working with over a hundred startups and generating a quarter billion in sales for clients, Growthit has perfected a growth process that's hell bent on driving ROI through rapid experiments. Plus, you'll get to work with yours truly. So if you wanna work with a team that's worked with startups have been funded by Andreessen Horowitz or featured on Shark Tank, then check out growthhit.com. And finally, I wrote a book called the Growth Marketer's Playbook that takes everything I've learned as a growth mentor for venture backed ups and I've distilled it down to a 40 pages. So instead of hiring a growth team, save yourself some money, get the book and you can just do it yourself.
Speaker 2:I hope you enjoyed this episode and I'd love to hear feedback. I'm on Twitter at Jim w Huffman.
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