Aman Advani: How this MIT Grad Launched an 8 Figure Brand (#34)
We've set two Guinness World Records for the fastest top mix on a suit with men and women. And neither were a studs there. My partner Gihan and his now wife, Kara, neither they both did it for fun just because we had a a fun Saturday plan, and both of them set to get us world record, which was just fantastic and a great way to show that if our product can handle a half marathon at record speed, it can probably handle your commute to work.
Speaker 2:I'm Jim Hoffman, 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 3:Alright. In today's episode, I get to talk with the CEO of Ministry of Supply, Aman Advani. He's got a fascinating story because he started his career in management consulting. He went to MIT to get his MBA and you think he would go down an engineering path. Instead, he had a problem that he hated wearing suits to work.
Speaker 3:So he actually started a men's fashion brand and him and his co founder who's an MIT engineer, engineered essentially the most comfortable clothes you can wear. He's got a fascinating story. They launched on the back of Kickstarter where they did half a million in sales in the first month.
Speaker 1:They've gone
Speaker 3:on to become an 8 figure business and he talks about lessons he's learned along the way, how they've been able to use product innovation to drive growth. They've even broken two Guinness records by people wearing their clothes, their work clothes to actually run marathons. And at the end, he gives some really good advice on choosing a co founder, lessons any founder should have or should be thinking through if they're about to start something and even give some half baked startup ideas. But really hope you enjoyed this episode, it was a fun one. And let me know what you think.
Speaker 3:I'm on Twitter at jim w huffman. Awesome. Well, I'm really pumped to have Aman here. I've been a fan of Ministry of Supply for quite a while now, and we actually got to work together for a little bit, which was a blast. But Aman, would you mind introducing yourself?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Absolutely. So my name is Aman Adani. I'm the cofounder and CEO of Ministry of Supply. We are a Boston based clothing brand using science to make the most comfortable clothing on and for the planet.
Speaker 1:Available at Ministry.com and our Boston flagship store is my quick plug.
Speaker 3:Very cool. And I'm excited to get into even how I heard about you from your Kickstarter launch and really being innovative in the the men's fashion space. But one thing that's super interesting is if you look at your background before Ministry of Supply, it does not look like you were gonna get into men's fashion. You worked at Deloitte. You went to MIT.
Speaker 3:And then my guess is the natural progression for most people that go down that route is not into fashion. Fashion. Like, what was life like before you got into this, and what were you gonna do with your career before you took this kind of right turn?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So it's such a great question. I always enjoy starting here. Yeah. It certainly wouldn't have expected myself.
Speaker 1:I mean, even if you'd asked me 15 ago that men's fashion, even women's fashion, maybe even less likely for someone with my profile. But I've had an absolute blast kind of letting that side of me and my that passion really come to life through through this brand that we've poured so much into. I'd add on kind of a child of of Indian immigrants who could have cared, so little about fashion. You might not have known they even never shopped. So it was all the factors adding up to a bit of a surprise career path that my parents are still kind of a jaw dropped on, but have have thoroughly enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:But for me, I think it was I joke that everyone's got experience in clothing just by wearing it. Right? So if that passion comes out, if you can build that link in your own head between how I look and how I feel in both on the inside and the outside, once that link is built and you see the kind of linearity between your comfort and aesthetic and that correlation to your your confidence and your happiness and your joy. Once that link is built, it can't be unbuilt. And you grow this, you know, and a lot of of your listeners surely are in front of the obsession with knowing how clothing can impact their psyche and happiness.
Speaker 1:So for me, that's what it all came down to. And I engineered my background, dressing up for consulting every Monday morning and every Thursday night, getting on planes and off planes, despise putting on this kind of dry clean only, stiff, wrinkly, sweat stain prone, half on top of the uniform, pulled out of plastic dry cleaning bags and packing local hotel irons, and wanted so badly to use that engineering background to create something that was soft, stretchy, machine washable, stuff that actually looks forward to putting on. And and that was really the impetus for starting to hand hack prototypes and eventually start the company.
Speaker 3:Gotcha. So you're an engineer. You're traveling for work. You're doing consulting. And the weekends, you're probably wearing comfortable stuff, but the weekdays, you're putting on the dreaded dry clean only shirts, which I empathize with.
Speaker 3:I remember when I used to work in investment banking, I I had, like, two suits that I would rotate in and out of. And I was in Dallas at the time. I remember putting on a wool suit in the summer, and within seven minutes, I'd be drenched. And I was like, well, this is really not a good way to go through life. So I think the pain
Speaker 1:point very clear. If I had to guess, you probably owned five or 10 suits. You only picked those two because they were the best of the evils. And I feel like that's exactly what behavior we saw customers saying they opted, but there was 50% of the reward that they opted to or 90% of the time. And that's exactly where we wanna sit.
Speaker 1:We don't do anything of wild colors, anything crazy. It's very close to home. And and our goal is to be one of the two suits, but one that you actually didn't dread but actually afford wearing a suit, which is kind of a wild goal.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah. I went with the black one because it could hide the sweat stains, and the other one was actually kind of comfortable, but comfortable with the asterisk for a suit. So so you're doing engineering. You're like, okay. You would maybe go down a traditional path.
Speaker 3:This pain point hits really hard. I love looking at ideas or just companies in general from the framework of coming up with an idea. Second, how do you get a little bit of traction? And then third, growth. So can you talk about how you identify the pain point, but then when you decide to really flush out this idea?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I as a consultant with a stable job, I was this 02/2010, '2 thousand '11, I, you know, was going to grad school. I knew in 02/2011, I'd be heading to grad school. And so your mind starts to wander a little bit in in those last days before you kind of check out and kind of go back to to the academic environment. So I started hand hacking prototypes before I built any sort of business plan or wider vision.
Speaker 1:I would just take the soles of Nike running socks, super cushy soles, cut them out with a literal pair of scissors, cut out the soles of a pair of gold toed six for a dollar Costco dress socks and swap them in. So I'd have this dress socks that looked on the outside like a normal dress sock with you, you know, if you saw me from other angles. But for me, I was walking around this cushy, a moisture wicking super soft Nike footbed, and, it felt like I was getting a tiny little leg up. Pun intended. I was getting this little, boots.
Speaker 1:So I think it was just such a small, but powerful signal to me that clothing they packed could actually do this. And we were a generation that grew up on Under Armour reminding us that, you know, performance fabrics could impact performance. And and so with that in mind, decided to to build a business plan and was lucky enough to meet my partner my first week back at business school.
Speaker 3:Got you. So you're kind of you're going after the market of one yourself. I didn't I actually didn't know you started with socks, but that is genius because I hate those super thin dress socks. So with a question
Speaker 1:Of course.
Speaker 3:Oh, I hate it. And so you're going to MIT to get your MBA. Did you go there with the intention of, hey. I I have an entrepreneurial streak. I'd love to start something, or was it more open minded?
Speaker 3:Just let me see what opportunities come my way.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It may may have been a a lack of confidence in myself, but I was pretty sure I was gonna head back to Deloitte. I I had four wonderful years at the firm. There was no reason to to not go back after business school. But I decided to let myself kind of dream and play while in school and, including the the summer in between, you know, my two years in business school.
Speaker 1:I've ended up not doing my second year in business school. So, really, just that summer, I devoted myself to saying, let's see this through. If if other people have the same issue or opportunity as I do, maybe there's a real business here. I was, yeah, honestly, just incredibly lucky to meet my my now partner, Gihan, who was doing the exact same thing at MIT, which is for the odds that that an engineer was doing the exact same thing with running shirts and sewing panels of running shirts into panels of dress shirts underneath the arms in the center back so that underneath the blazer, he felt great and no one else knew it.
Speaker 3:Man, that's quite serendipitous. Can you give advice to anyone that's looking to partner with someone? What are some things you saw early on or even looking back as a Monday morning quarterback where you're like, wow, we did some things really well to make sure this partnership was set up for success or even things to watch out for when you're looking to find a cofounder.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I guess there's so much advice out there, and it's hard to sift through all of it. You know, do partner with friends. Don't partner with friends. Find someone with a complimentary skill set.
Speaker 1:You can find someone who sees things your way, and there's so much out there. I I think the biggest the biggest reasons that Gihan and I work so well, I know that I'm closer to anybody outside of my immediate family than I am to my partner Gihan. I think the reason it works so well is because our values are perfectly aligned, but our skill sets are almost perfectly different. And and he is maker. He's product visionary.
Speaker 1:I am manager at fifteen minute chunks of my life, and we operate so differently, but we've, I think, grown respect for each other that's led to this beautiful world where we often disagree, but we do so in a healthy productive way that somehow just makes us closer. So I I think the the only advice I'd give somebody considering a cofounder is probably there's an irrational piece of aligned values and misaligned skill sets or separate skill sets. But then there's the emotional piece, is probably more important, which is trusting everybody, and listening to that little feeling. So I think this is probably something I could really get along with versus I can see us not exactly clicking to listen to that little guy.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's a good call out on having the same values because that way when tough when times get tough, you always kind of come back to that core that you, for the most part, have the same vision, the same end goal you're going after. But, yeah, you're right. There's a lot of advice out there on it, but that was a pretty good summary. So you have the idea.
Speaker 3:You find this amazing partner that complements your skill sets. Talk about how you validate this idea and try and prove traction that you could actually make stuff and get people to buy it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Early on, it wasn't even necessarily about scaling. In the first nine months, we just we're engineers. Right? We're product people.
Speaker 1:So I think for us, it was just about perfecting the product. We spent months just prototyping over and over before we even thought about launch strategies or scale. And we look back and we say that we launched the company in, you know, late two thousand twelve, '2 thousand '13 on Kickstarter, which publicly looked like the launch. But really before that, we'd spent a year just tweaking on product. And and that was so important for us to to get right from the get go.
Speaker 1:Now in hindsight, there was so much we didn't get right. But at the time, it was just an obsession with the perfect product that you just said, okay. If we can build the perfect product, people will come. And and sure enough, that happened a few months later when we launched on Kickstarter.
Speaker 3:Can you talk about what that means to tweak the product? Because I I think that gets glossed over sometimes. Like, oh, we we came with this idea. We did all these iterations, and boom. We created Spanx or whatever.
Speaker 3:But I think that's the really hard stuff. How many iterations did you go through? What does that process look like? Are you testing the closeout yourself? I'd I'd love any more color on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think one of the things that we well, I'll say conceptually, I think we had it right. In practice, it did not execute. Again, in hindsight, all of this is clear. And I think you what we did right, I think, was iterative design.
Speaker 1:Right? Every single iteration, we would bring the real potential customer and say, do you think? And and they would give us brutal, honest feedback on what they thought. Where I think we got it wrong was that we asked the wrong questions. It wasn't we didn't just say more broadly.
Speaker 1:I in fact, I I misspoke earlier. We didn't say, what do you think? We said does this perform? We asked a very specific question on, you know, wear this for a day. Did you get sweatpants?
Speaker 1:No. Did you get wrinkles? No. Was it soft? Yes.
Speaker 1:Was it stretchy? Yes. We achieved all of our functionables. We did not ask questions more broadly speaking. Did you like it?
Speaker 1:Did you wear this over your other dress shirts? Right? And it turns out we'd missed one huge thing in that first iteration with the aesthetic. And forgetting that fashion is first and foremost driven by the aesthetic, and and these things had, in hindsight, these kind of ugly limp collars that would have prevented anyone from wearing it in a serious situation. So in hindsight, we approached it correctly with inter design customer driven feedback.
Speaker 1:We were able to listen to brutal honest feedback, but we missed one piece of it, was asking the right question in the first place and making sure that your your overall goal is aligned. Now we quickly corrected that world class design director who who did not hold back and and and and in fact, is still very much part of the team. Our design director came in and said, no. There's a lot to fix here. You guys have the engineering is good, if not great.
Speaker 1:The aesthetic, let me take a side of that. And so we took this world class designer and and our engineering skills and put them all in a bucket together and and created a graceful marriage.
Speaker 3:Gotcha. So really, you were right about the idea, but asking the right questions to customers if they would use it, if they'd use it over their existing product, and maybe even some use cases could could be helpful.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think that's exactly right. I think letting that customer really ultimately pick assuming you were not creating something kinda categorically new, right, people know what dress shirts are. The simplest question is would you wear this over an existing one and and really opening up an honest dialogue about that. Because the answer is anything less than an an overwhelming, absolutely, I would wear this 10 times out of 10 over my existing options.
Speaker 1:Then I'd say go back to the drawing board until you get that enthusiasm because it's it's gonna be an uphill battle with anything less.
Speaker 3:That's a really good point. It needs to be a hell yes or to know and something that they're very passionate about because anytime you're starting something new, has to it can't be two x better. It needs to be 10 x better to really make some make a dent. So I'm interested in when people have ideas, but when they go all in, how they do that, whether it's funding it themselves, raising money, or do it like for you all. I know there's the Kickstarter launch component.
Speaker 3:I'd love to hear the mindset as far as when you're going all in and how Kickstarter plays a part in that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We didn't know what to expect with Kickstarter. I I think in general, the the all in moment and the the all in moment happening versus it needing to be some big massive launch are actually two separate questions. I I think the all in moment needs to happen when you feel like that product is truly bulletproof, when people couldn't your testers truly tell you that they couldn't live without the product, now you're ready to go hit market. We launched on Kickstarter with a bunch of kind of fanfare and a lot of hype and hurrah, and and I don't think that was necessary in hindsight.
Speaker 1:It was certainly good, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. But I I think getting the product on the market and getting real market feedback and continuing to tweak that product over the first year is probably a healthy thing to do. And starting slow, while maybe not as exciting, is actually has its perks too. We started by selling $430,000 of product in our first month, which was awesome and validating, but also created a new set of constraints that we weren't prepared for having to build new supply chain, having to scale something that was built for a scale that was 10 times smaller. So I think by kind of easing into it, you you probably build a better set of bones than we did where we had to kinda go back and correct some of our bones two or three years later by having such a big loud start.
Speaker 3:I mean, that's huge. You launch and you're already at over a $4,000,000 a year of runway off of that launch. What advice would you give to other people that are looking to make a launch that has a splash? It sounds like there's growing pains that come with that. Was it your initial value prop that got people excited, or was there a flagship product that you pushed that people were excited about?
Speaker 1:Yeah. A couple of things I know. The one is just it was presales. Right? So so Kickstarter is you're only testing a message.
Speaker 1:You're not testing a product. You haven't really made the product. So I think our message resonated. Right? It was this idea of really ditch the old dress shirt, ditch the iron, ditch the dry cleaner, just the super stiff fabrics.
Speaker 1:And that message of kind of NASA materials come to comes to dress shirts. Right? MIT students tackle work clothing was, you know, people really resonate. Crash resonated. Consumers resonated.
Speaker 1:People were really ready for that change. And and even more so, I'd say now post COVID, people are just embracing the idea of, I feel like I'm wearing sweatpants or pajamas and look like I'm wearing dress clothes. So I think the message really resonated. I think where we again missed in that first swing was saying our product, our brand and message outpaced the product itself, which is the danger of a really sticky message with a product that's not quite ready to support it.
Speaker 3:Gotcha. Yeah. Because you wanna be able to deliver on it. So people love it and they come back and buy more. But if they have a bad first experience, it could impact repeat purchase and referrals and all that good stuff.
Speaker 3:Very interesting. So you've got the idea. You've got some insane traction on the back of getting it to market, leveraging Kickstarter. As you look at growth, I'm interested to hear your thoughts on growth from two perspectives. What's kind of worked in the past that you learned a lot from?
Speaker 3:But also as you look at growth going forward, because the landscapes are changing so much, there are so many options out there. Like, how are you thinking of growth going forward?
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's such a good question. I think for us, we've learned one thing over eight or nine years of doing this, which is just to play our game. We are innovators in product. We wanna create the best in class and the first in class in every category we enter.
Speaker 1:And so if for a while, we were looking to play the innovation game across everything go related to go to market. Right? Can we have the first, you know, website features or brand, you know, assets that were the first year kind? And we realized over time to put all of our energy in into only one thing, which is this product that when you put it on, you can't imagine taking it off. And and so that's what it is.
Speaker 1:Our our expansion strategy is our product strategy there. It's anonymous. Everything else lives in support of that. And so what you'll see from us in the coming months and years is a a heavy amount of category expansion where we get to really test this idea of scientifically better product in new realms that we have not gone to before with the same iterative testing rigor that we had for every other product. So whether we enter bedding or footwear, we will continue to put everything through an absolute bear of a ringer from a testing standpoint to make sure it is truly ready for market both functionally and aesthetically.
Speaker 3:So what I'm hearing is to really grow, it's launching new innovative products that can add more money to the top line. Is that money coming from existing customers or like Love Ministry of Supply? I love the, you know, kinetic shorts or pants. They launched a new shirt. I'm in.
Speaker 3:They launched new socks. I'm in. They launched whatever that is. Or is it launching new categories like going into women or going to a different persona and trying to play the acquisition game there? I'm just kind of interested in, as you think about growth, how that plays to, like, your existing customers or going after new customers.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Our head of sales is is super start sharp that you may have met Allison before when we got the chance to work together. If I channeling her perspective, I I think what she say is it it go after the next best customer, right, which is either or both. Retaining an existing customer and continuing to get, you know, closet share or go after a new customer that would will, you know, eventually become our our next best customer. So it's kind of a marginal gains.
Speaker 1:Right? And saying, what is the next dollar of of marketing or acquisition spend? Is it reacquiring or is it acquiring someone new? And and and then, of course, it ends up being a balance is the is the only answer there, but I think that's where we kind of look at the incremental benefit of the next dollar and where we should spend our focus. From a product standpoint, we're agnostic.
Speaker 1:Right? We think that we don't have a huge, you know, products funnel and saying this is your first purchase. This is your so we advertise pretty much the entire catalog to both new and existing customers.
Speaker 3:Gotcha. Yeah. And what's interesting is I read this article, it totally sucked me in because the headline was very clickbaity, but I was like, I'll click. It was CAC is dead. Why retention is the new acquisition?
Speaker 3:I'm like, okay, I'm into it. And it just talked about the best thing you can do is build the brand awareness, get them to fall in love with the brand and a flagship product, and then constantly across sell, upsell, build up that brand loyalty. And it's kind of doing a hybrid of that is is what you're saying. Now that makes a lot of sense. And I'd be interested.
Speaker 3:Are there any things, like, looking back or even going forward, any one off, like, tactics or hacks not to make you go down that path, but just from a a growth standpoint that worked really well, whether they were one time or repeatable? Anything that comes to mind.
Speaker 1:In terms of of customer acquisition or in terms of overall business strategy?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Overall growth in general.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think the biggest thing we've continued to learn and it's the lesson I was gonna have hammered in my head is expectations in reality. And and the intersection of those two is where you have happy customers, low return rates, high return on ad spend. If you can set honest and beautiful expectations of how great the product is that are are truly matching up what the product delivers when it arrives at your door, everybody's thrilled. Your return rate is low.
Speaker 1:Your return on ad spend is high because you're you're promoting a message that's honest and and accurate. Your repeat customer rate is extremely high. Right? So the the closer you can build expectations in reality in fact, if reality can just barely exceed expectations. And that's the sweet spot.
Speaker 1:Now if reality exceeds expectations too much, you're probably underselling the product, which is inefficient. And if expectations exceed reality, you're getting a massive return rate, and that's inefficient. And so really thinking about the two, how how does kind of brand and marketing that beautiful perfect expectations and then your product team deliver on it.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's a really good call out. And a lot of times I think people overlook that. One thing I'm just curious to hear your opinion on, it's gone from people working in office, a lot of people are working remote. You're probably seeing firsthand how that impacts people's buying behavior and their fashion trends as it's more maybe casual attire.
Speaker 3:What are things you're seeing? And if you're trying to look into an eight ball, like the future of fashion and things you're trying to be proactive on. But what are you all thinking through?
Speaker 1:Yeah. There's a few different movements we're seeing that we're just thrilled about right now. Mean, I think overall, we're just seeing this hybrid dress code emerge. And hybrid really, maybe not to overcomplicate it, really just means singular dress code. Right?
Speaker 1:It means I'm wearing the same thing on a Saturday afternoon that I might be wearing on a Monday morning, and that's never before been the case. Right? Right now, I'm wearing we're launching on Friday. It's a pair of fusion carry shorts. It's right.
Speaker 1:It's a proprietary version of French carry that we developed. It's effectively sweatshorts, but to have dressed up. And I'm wearing it with a nice polo, and that's something that I would absolutely be wearing on a Sunday afternoon. And to see this kind of closet unification where you don't have summer wardrobe, winter wardrobe, formal wardrobe, casual work wardrobe, work versus, you know, social, to see all that being united into a single wardrobe that's focused on, presentation means comfort is to us is thrilling. It means that you're you're not owning more than you need.
Speaker 1:You're not owning, you know, two garments per day. You're only and it means you're focusing most on quality rather than volume. And for us, we're just really excited about this kind of shift of dress code that's no less exciting and presentable, but far more comfortable and versatile.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I totally agree with that. And I'm even seeing people rather than going the fast fashion route, go with more staple pieces that they're gonna wear more. They cost more, but it's worth it because they last longer and that definitely plays to your favor. But maybe that's because I'm getting older and I'm more narrow minded in what I'm seeing.
Speaker 3:No. Very cool. So you've obviously, like, done some amazing stuff. I'm sure you talked to a lot of other founders. If someone's starting a a consumer brand today, what is some advice you would give them as they're about to go down that track if if they were starting today?
Speaker 1:Yeah. A couple of things coming to mind. One is find areas where there are tailwinds, find things that people want to buy. Right? I think we find it much easier to sell a t shirt than it is to sell a dress shirt, for instance.
Speaker 1:Right? So people are just more excited about buying a t shirt. And so for us, we found a good blend of of the must haves and the want to haves. Right? And and, of of course, our goal is to merge the two.
Speaker 1:But finding industries and movements where there are tailwinds will only make your job, you know, easier. And the second thing I would say is, even in doing so, your product has to be just absolutely stunning, breathtaking, can't live without it quality. And I think so often you have folks starting businesses that are much more focused on the brand, the marketing, the channel strategy, the team, the fundraising, and all of that will be your greatest asset or your greatest distraction depending on the product itself. So just really focusing on building products that people genuinely want in the email would be my second and maybe most important advice is I can give some of this really nailing the product.
Speaker 3:It's funny because it sounds so obvious, but as a company that works with a lot of startups, it really will make or break you. Are you truly solving a problem and do you know your customer and your persona? Because that's what I love about Ministry of Supply. Even I was working in New York at Urban Daddy and we would write to a lot of consultants and investment bankers. And anytime we would mention Ministry of Supply, the engagement was through the roof just because you knew the persona, and it was truly unique.
Speaker 3:Like, your angle of imagine if an MIT engineer made your suit, and that's what Ministry of Supply is. Worked every single time. So appreciate the the I
Speaker 1:love that. Well, we'll have to use that line actually. It's a really great one. But I I think you're hitting on maybe a a third piece of advice I'd throw in there, is differentiation matters. Right?
Speaker 1:If you're playing the same game as everyone else, all of your marketing channels will get bit up so badly that your efficiencies will never come to to play your own game.
Speaker 3:One other thing, like, you've been a CEO from idea now. I don't know how much you can speak to scale and, like, the size or just give people an idea, but, like, how have you had to up your game as far as new skills you've had to acquire as a CEO or skills you've had to let go of as you've had to become more and more maybe of a manager or a leader?
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think one of the surprising things for me that I've learned in in doing this now for a few years, we don't generally share revenue. We're an 8 figure brand, which, you know, it's probably what anyone would guess anyway. It gives you a sense that we're not we're in the fashion world that's still a drop in bucket. It's still tiny in our world growing and and getting there.
Speaker 1:So and I think one of the things I maybe I would answer your question with is actually what I haven't given up, and that is a deep focus on the details that matter. Right? So I still spend maybe a disproportionate or maybe an improper amount of time focusing on a lot of the things that really move the needle for us and get deeply into the weeds. I mean, we just relaunched our Boston flagship store, and it took a good bit of my time, partly because I was just excited about it. It had passion, but also because it's a huge statement when we make that first store backup.
Speaker 1:So whether it was kind of doing a walk through of the bathrooms and making sure that we had aesthetic there as we rebuilt the store, but no details too small. I think there's this idea that as you grow in a leadership position, you have to let go of details. I just like kinda fundamentally disagree with that. I think you can open up an Excel sheet and do some quick math if you wanna prove something or disprove it. I think you can get involved in in details that you think are, critical to moving the needle.
Speaker 1:So I I I know that's sort of an odd answer to your question. What I haven't let go of and perhaps to a fault, but I find it so important to stay deeply involved in what we think will move the needle.
Speaker 3:And so it's those details that are maybe around customer touch points, product innovation, anything that really gets to the core of the value you're delivering. I don't know if that's a too vague of a way to put it, but I think that's a really good call out that you have.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And my partner Gihan, I've said here so many times, probably product product. My partner Gihan would say that he he never misses a product manager meeting. You know, he's in there every single time, pen and paper, ready to listen and ready to share on his feedback or suggestions and also ready to get involved, on with making things come to life when we see opportunities. So I think for both of us, it's we like being in the weeds where that is, appropriate.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. Yeah. Even I think I heard something like even Jeff Bay, even up until last year was still obsessed with the homepage of the Amazon.com website making sure the little details were there. Wanna switch to because you from doing consulting and working with a lot of businesses to Ministry of Supply, and I know you like the help and you you have a really impressive network of other founders that you just are are really open with and connect with. I'm always interested in what are half baked startup ideas you have that you either you wouldn't necessarily wanna build, but you wish existed, or it's something that, oh, man.
Speaker 3:I wish somebody would make that. But but what are things you have that could be related to fashion or they could be completely different?
Speaker 1:Yeah. One of the things we talk a lot about is this idea of solving your own problems or user driven innovation. And anytime you end up in a situation where it would just be easier if I had blank. Right? It would be easier if if my life could have kind of go through that.
Speaker 1:This morning, and I I went through a situation where you have I got you got a new laptop. And what do you do with the old one? And so I have this, you know, wonderful conversation with a colleague here and say, kind of, there's a way to kinda get rid of the old laptop that wasn't that was sustainable and and oriented to privacy, I'd be thrilled. And so I think I I always encourage folks who think that entrepreneurship might be the right path for them to just be hyper vigilant to those little details in their life that say, how do I solve this little problem? And it it doesn't have to necessarily be a solution that you jump to, but better identifying the problem certainly helps quite a bit.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I I think I have two old laptops floating around here that are collecting dust. That's actually an interesting one. I like the kind of ones that are obvious but easy to overlook, but has a huge market share of people that would hit that. I'm gonna pitch one idea to you that's quite timely.
Speaker 3:So with college sports, they just made it to where they can take endorsements, right? And you've probably already thought of this in some regard. And I'm like fascinated to see all these startup opportunities that are going to come from that. From consulting days at Deloitte, like when Sarbanes actually came into play, a lot of the accounting firms or consulting firms helped big companies that had to deal with that. And that was a big money generator for consulting firms.
Speaker 3:And so with college sports, there's gonna have to be some book of record on all these endorsement deals that athletes take on and how they report that. I think they'll be like some somebody's gonna make the software that just knocks.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I I couldn't agree more, I think.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It it'll be yeah. I'll be super jealous when I see somebody IPO with that software. Another thing is who are gonna be the brands or the companies that sponsor these athletes? So here's my half baked idea for Ministry of Supply.
Speaker 3:I only there are probably a lot of holes in it, but the what I have is whether it's Ministry of Supply starts a sports agency where you actually sponsor not just athletes, but student athletes. But I think you don't go with the Zion Williamson for one year Duke. You go with the person that's at MIT or Pepperdine or Berkeley that's the javelin thrower, that's the volleyball player that's also trying to cure cancer or is also going to be an astronaut that eventually will kind of get to that lifestyle of Ministry of Supply where it's this kind of intersection of innovation, work, and play. But I'm trying to think it might be a bad idea where you're just burning money, giving money to these college athletes and nobody pays attention. Or it could be a great way to get the brand out to the right people.
Speaker 3:Or here's maybe the byproduct of it. It's a great recruiting tool for you if you find a great engineer or marketing person that you'd want from Ministry of Supply. But, anyway, I'll pause there. What do you think of this idea, the the Ministry of Supply Sports Agency?
Speaker 1:I love it. I think it's fascinating. One of the things we've always I would just struggle with is the wrong word because it's an extreme, but a hard time forming for second. Although we don't really like traditional influencer marketing kind of buy the athlete and and force them and pay them to tell everyone how much they like your product has never felt kind of real or organic to us. So we've stayed away from that, but I think there's clearly interesting there to also the actual pool of people who now meet these criteria is open up massively into how many NCAA college athletes there are is extraordinary that you can find a natural fit for someone who both stands for science like we do, but also performance like they do.
Speaker 1:And that intersection much might be much more possible in a world where you have 10 times as many athletes up for, for discussion as you did just a few weeks ago.
Speaker 3:What you can do is you just get engineering students are also athletes, and they don't even talk about liking the product, but you make them stress tested in extreme ways. Maybe that's how it
Speaker 1:I love it. Yeah. Did we did as a fun fact that I always like to share is that we've set two Guinness World Records for the fastest hot mix on a suit with men and women. And neither were my partner Gihan and his now wife, Kara, neither of them. They both did it for fun just because we had a a fun Saturday plan.
Speaker 1:And both of them said to get us world record, which was just fantastic and a great way to show that if our product can handle a half marathon at record speed, it can probably handle your commute to work.
Speaker 3:I forgot. I remember seeing that actually. That is so awesome. Yeah. You just need to give it to every sprinter and runner.
Speaker 3:Okay. Another one I had for you is I this is not a big idea. This is a small idea, but I love stories of people from idea to growing a company. But most people that are doing the cool stuff are too busy to document it. I wish you had some sort of a paid newsletter, some sort of a community where you're working in public, but you could control it, right?
Speaker 3:So it's just to the people that would really get something out of it. But for me, I would love to see that because I love learning through other people's experience. So maybe it's you starting a substack. Maybe it's you doing a, you could do a Twitch, right? You could just have a camera on you twenty four seven.
Speaker 3:But for me, I learned a lot through that.
Speaker 1:I love it. No. I think I think particularly providing that transparency early on as the company starts to scale is just a beautiful and wonderful thing because it lets people kind of in on your brand or on your project in a way that you could never replicate through just a normal email marketing platform.
Speaker 3:No. Very cool. Well, any other half baked ideas you have?
Speaker 1:I think those are some pretty good ones. Think people could probably run with. I I I generally decided to encourage that to listen to that little voice from your other side. This is a problem for me. Maybe it's a problem for other people too, but I'd also encourage it in in half baked ideas, not just thinking about financial growth or scale, but also impact and thinking that I have a lifelong dream, and maybe this actually is an answer to your question of opening up a coffee shop run by people underemployed or unemployed for reasons that may be outside of their control, homeless population, any sort of handicap I should think.
Speaker 1:That's gonna wouldn't it be great if we could create a true scaled operation that had just not some social impact to it. And and it may not be the most financially great business on the planet, but it certainly be one that's fulfilling and really enjoyable. So I'd encourage your listeners to think on other dimensions as well that are not just scale or profit.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Especially if you're gonna be working on something for five or ten years, think impact's extremely important.
Speaker 1:So Absolutely.
Speaker 3:One thing I like to end with is a question asked to everybody is the idea of what's the nicest thing anyone's done for you in your career?
Speaker 1:You know, well, one of our two two of our first investors at Ministry of Finance, I think we probably took on investors slightly too early, but it was such a meaningful thing for me not having any idea how kind of venture capital or angels worked or how investments work to see people take, you know, a a bet on us at a time. Later on, valuations were based on revenue multiples or EBITDA multiples, and investing became a fairly rational decision, of course, with emotional component to it. But early on, we were kind of effectively pre revenue. It's really just, I think, validating for a couple of our earliest investors who just said I believe in this. I think there's something really special here to take that shot on us.
Speaker 1:And while I know that it's investing as an equation and they expected a return, it still felt to me like they were taking a bet on us personally over our business idea. And I think that was just a a level of kind of kindness and faith that changed how I see myself. So I I've been still forever appreciative of those early investors who took a bet on us before we were even really, you know, prepared to take a bet on ourselves.
Speaker 3:Yeah. What does that do for your mindset when you think you have something special that people like it so much they're throwing their own dollars on it? Does it give you that level of confidence, but maybe also a little bit of pressure like crap. I I don't wanna let them down.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Yeah. I I think that's exactly right. Is that you now have this pressure, which I it comes with the territory, but I do think there's a natural feeling of impostor syndrome when you start a company. It's it's particularly for me in my mid twenties having what business do I have?
Speaker 1:Can I go change fashion forever? Of course, I think I can, but I also realize that's a wild suggestion. And when someone else kind of gives you that validation through their hard earned money or time, investments can come in multiple forms, that it does just kind of boost your own confidence in a way that that hopefully is really healthy and and productive.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. Well, Ma, I can't thank you enough for the time. I know you're super busy. I really appreciate it. Where would you like to point people if they wanna learn more about you or Ministry of Supply?
Speaker 1:We I do. I think we have a good bit of a transfer to the site. You can learn about anything and everything that we make or do on our website, MinistryofSupply.com, but you can poke around the about section. It actually goes in in, more depth than I think most do on exactly what happens behind the scenes. I'd also welcome people, obviously, to our Boston flagship store here in in Boston, Three Zero Three Newbury Street, or you can come to the office.
Speaker 1:We'll host you on a little tour, show you what's happening behind the scenes, and just get in touch with me, I'm always, ready and able to to help the host.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. I think a tour would be cool, especially if it's tied to product. But, Aman, thank you so much.
Speaker 3:I really appreciate the time.
Speaker 1:Likewise, Jim. Looking forward to talking again soon.
Speaker 2:Today's episode is brought to you by No One. Yep. We have zero sponsors. I haven't reached out to any companies nor would I expect a reputable brand to give me money, but I'll give a few plugs. First, I send a weekly newsletter each Thursday featuring featuring five articles or tools that have helped me.
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Speaker 2:So if you wanna work with a team that's worked with startups that have been funded by en 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 startups, 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. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and I'd love to hear feedback. I'm on Twitter at Jim w Huffman.