How I Built This with Guy Raz - Advice Line with Norma Kamali of Norma Kamali

Episode Date: November 28, 2024

Iconic fashion designer Norma Kamali joins Guy on the Advice Line, where they answer questions from three early stage founders. Plus, Norma shares her take on balancing a strong creative vision with the financial realities of building a worldwide brand. First we meet Ahmed in the U.K,, who’s refining a narrative for his eyeglass store concept in hopes of attracting investors. Then Bob in Chicago, who wants to change how people view lunch with his fast casual soup restaurants. And Adreana in Sacramento, who’s wondering if outside investment is the best way to scale her inclusive activewear business.  Thank you to the founders of Cambridge Spectacle Company, Sunny Bowls and the Love Her Shop for being part of the show.If you’d like to be featured on a future Advice Line episode, leave us a one minute message that tells us about your business and a specific question you’d like answered. Send a voice memo to [e-mail] or call 1-800-433-1298.And be sure to listen to Norma Kamali’s founding story as told by Norma on the show in 2021. This episode was produced by Kerry Thompson. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Neal Rauch. You can follow HIBT on X & Instagram and sign up for Guy’s free newsletter at guyraz.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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data and marketing platform featuring email, SMS, reviews, and more. Make every moment count with Clavio. Learn more at K-L-A-V-I-O.com. Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show who will help me try to help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show.

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Joining me this week is fashion designer, legendary fashion designer, Norma Kamali. Norma, welcome back to the show. I'm happy to be back. It's so great to have you back on the show. You were first on how I built this in 2021. And of course, you told the story of how you built your hugely influential fashion business. And of course, if those of you listening have not yet heard that story, please check out our feed. We've just posted the original episode, and we'll also put a link in the description.

It is such an amazing story. But basically in the 60s, Norma was working as an airline clerk and then using her employee discount to fly to London and then buy up clothes, sort of secondhand clothes there, and then open to store in New York to sell them, eventually start designing your own clothing. And you created all these iconic pieces, Farah Fossett's red swimsuit, the sleeping bag, Jack. it and really built one of the first great American brands. And I, let me just say it again, Norma. You are a legend. Eight decades of life and you are still actively running your brand out of New York City today. Yep. Yes. Very actively. And enjoying every minute of it. I feel privileged to have a creative life. I'm very lucky. And total inspiration, Norma, you really are. We have a bunch of early stage founders here ready to jump on.

But before they do, if you'll end up, indulge me, I've got a couple of questions for you before we bring them on. So, you know, you really built your brand on designs that stood out in part because they were so different. They were kind of weird at the time. But just because customers love a product, right? And they love and loved yours. it doesn't always mean that the business is profitable. There was a point in your journey where you were really hot in the New York fashion world, but you guys were having trouble paying the rent.

I remember you telling us a story. Yeah. How do you turn customer love and satisfaction and buzz around your brand into growth, into profitability? Well, I think a lot of creative people believe they're not good at business. and I believe that that's not true. I think it's something we've been fed to believe. And I think the more you can learn about business, and maybe it's by having really good mentors,

I was very fortunate to have incredible advice throughout my career and learning as much as I could about how to look at, where I needed help in the business, how I needed to evaluate sales versus productivity, and also how to maximize the opportunity of the attention you're getting from the press. And that's as important as the creative concept storytelling. Norma, your brand was and is your vision, right? And I think a lot of entrepreneurs can identify with that, right, that feeling. But at a certain point, certainly in your industry, to become a global brand, you often have to partner with bigger companies, right?

You worked with Walmart. You worked with – you did a lot of interesting things. So how do you protect your vision when you start to do things like, you know, work with partners, with bigger partners? That's the big challenge. And I still am the sole owner of my company, which tells you I really like to control the fit and the polity of the product. But I was copied a lot, and I wasn't making money because other people were making money from my designs. And when I knew I did a collection that I felt was strong, I partnered with Jones Apparel. and it was a huge success because I had the ability to use their manufacturing and distribution and sales with my designs and sort of storytelling. And the combination was incredibly profitable for everyone. By doing that, it gave me exposure and the ability to do many other things.

things and also go to sleep at night knowing I could pay the rent finally. Yeah, I love it. All right, Norma, why don't we bring in our first caller? Great. And let's bring collar number one on to the show. Welcome to the advice line. You are on with me and Norma Kamali. Please introduce yourself.

Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business. And we'll take it from there. Well, hello, lovely to meet you both. My name is Ahmed Ijjazz. I am calling from England in the United Kingdom and I am the founder of Cambridge Spectacle Company. We make beautiful glasses and we've started to do eye examinations as well now. Amazing. Okay. Welcome to the show, Ahmed, and thank you for calling in. So you have a, is it like a, are you an optometrist? Do you do like eye exams and sell glasses?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I am actually an optometrist by training. But when I started this brand, And I actually quit my job as an optometrist and started focusing on designing glasses, designing prescription eyewear. Yeah, so we initially started with a sort of a distribution deal with a big company in the UK, who were part of Walmart at the time, Astor Opticians. And, you know, that was great. But we've moved into opening our own optometry practices now. so, you know, sort of similar to Warby Parker in the United States, that kind of brand. I see. Okay, now I'm starting to make sense. You're basically trying to model your business off of Warby Parker in the U.S., like basically high designs, high-end quality designs, but at a lower price point. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, you know, for me, Warby, when those guys, you know, did what they did, I was just sort of qualifying from university and I thought it was game-changing. And I did it.

quite understand why we didn't have something similar in the UK. And, you know, we weren't celebrating British highway. We know we've got Oakley and Rayban as American companies and there's a lot of Scandinavian companies out there. But I felt that they really needed to be a, you know, hopefully one day a global British eyewear brand that dominates. Yeah. And presumably Warby Parker doesn't operate. I think they only operate in the US, right? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So I did send them an email in 2015 and I said to them to the customer service, I'd love to start this in the UK, but I didn't hear back. So I thought, well, I better start this myself. Nice. Well, I'm sure you heard our episode with Warby Parker, with Neil Blumenthal.

Yes, both of them. Yeah. And amazing story. Okay, so what's the vision here? The vision, presumably, is to try and scale this thing. Yeah. So, look, we're opening a second store in London in the next week or so. so we've just acquired a store there and we've acquired that customer database and all the frames are going to be changed to Cambridge Spectacle co-frames and then we're in we're in negotiations right now to to open a third store in Birmingham so the goal is three sites by the end of this year how are you how are you financing all this well well it's part of my question but we're we're sort of angel investor backed so a friend of mine he sort of said how much do you need need to get going and I had no money, but I had a deal on the table with Asder opticians. I didn't

tell them I had no money. And my friend, you know, I told him I needed 150,000 pounds to get going. And he fortunately said, I'll do you the full amount, Ahmed, because I know you and I trust you. So he kicked us off. And then we did a little bit of crowdfunding as well via a European crowd equity platform. I got a bunch of questions for you. But before I do that, I want to hear what your question is for us today. Yeah. So look, I think, you know, that customer proposition is strong and, you know, customers seem to love our brand. But the question really is, how do we get that same kind of excitement around the brand across to investors? Because it's very difficult when you're in a pitch and you've got, you know, five, ten minutes and they're seeing pitch after pitch as angels or VC

for them to fall in love with your brand. So, you know, how are we really going to be able to translate that love and show them not just the financials but hey this is this is going to be big you know customers love this and how do you get how do you generate the buzz to to attract investors just to get a curiosity what what's your revenue right now and so we're doing about in the store about 20,000 pounds to 25 thousand pounds about 30 to 35 thousand dollars a month that that's in the first year that's great okay so you're looking at three to 350,000 maybe 400,000 revenue this year yeah let me bring in norma kamali norma a lot I have a lot of questions. You may have questions for Ahmed. Go. Let's hear your thoughts.

Well, I think the first question I have is what makes you different other than your ambition to use your reputation and your history and value. But it really takes a lot more to sell someone and it it has to be done maybe in a sentence or two and and no more so what what is different about your product or your approach to marketing your product that would make me want to invest in in your potential success yeah so i mean i think from a from a customer point view. We always tell them how our designs are inspired by Cambridge and made by us rather than any design label. Like the town of Cambridge, the city, the university, the sort of aura of that town? Yeah, exactly. So I live there for a while. And my brother who helped out is an MBA from the university.

And so we will always, you know, discuss with the patients the fact that we, all the glasses are inspired by that city named after roads, places in that city. and that's what customers seem to be responding well to. And then also we give a portion of our profits to eye research as well. But I think, Norma, this is where I struggle that if I gave that across to an investor, it's probably not the thing that excites them. Or maybe it is. You know, maybe I'm just not explaining it and they would be excited by that. Well, I must say, I now think, oh, this is interesting.

it's a very authentic British brand that has the character of history and quality just by that reference. And the idea of you are contributing to the health and well-being of eye care. It was very nice and a sign of goodwill on top of this classic British history that you're basing the brand on. So those two points definitely have more of my interest than the idea of the name and you're opening different, you know, brick and mortar locations. First, knowing that history and the reference definitely raises interest. You know, it's interesting because I'm looking at your website here. And your question is, how do we generate more buzz around the story? And the story is, if the story is Cambridge, like the university, the aura of that place, I'm not seeing enough of that.

What Warby Parker did really well was, first of all, it was an invented name, right? And they took two names from Jack Kerouac books and put them together. But then they named their glasses. They gave each pair of glasses, he used to design like an interesting name. Like, is there a world where could you, just looking at like the list of graduates of the University of Cambridge? I mean, could you call one like George the Fifth? a pair of glasses called the Cornwall. Yeah.

Here you go. I love it. I love it. There's all these people who are like, Nehru, Nehru went to Cambridge. Could you call a pair of the Nehru's? I mean, it just seems like there's a way to connect it more closely. Because for most people, Cambridge is the university, right? Maybe even make like a pair called like the Philbies, right?

Because those spies went there. To me, if the story is about Britain, Cambridge, you've got to lean into that more before you're going to really be able to get people excited about it. Yeah, no, I think, I think, that's an incredible approach and idea. You know, Prince, I think, was named

when we designed that after Prince Charles at the time, who's now King Charles, because he went to the University of Cambridge. But you wouldn't really know that looking at it, right? So I think, yeah, we must do better at that. And if that's what generates the buzz. And as Norma says, if, you know, you are excited by the fact that it,

it's linked so heavily to Cambridge, then that's a great idea. Yeah. Norma, the other thing I'm wondering about is, like, in fashion, right? The trick is to get the cool kids to wear your stuff. Like the other thing Warby Parker did is they found the cool kids who are frugal, who didn't have money but could wear their glasses. That's the people they got those glasses on, right? Norma, I mean, it's the same in fashion, right?

Yeah, I've been thinking. from the beginning of the conversation, well, what's the demographic? We know if you have a great price, you can have a younger demographic. And I think having some sort of an interaction with the clients to take pictures of themselves, put it on social media, wearing your glasses, and also how many things can you do with those glasses? They can. They can obviously be prescription. They can, I use mine for my computer where I have a soft tent, but I also have sunglass versions of my prescription. So I think having, you know, really rolling out all the possibilities and looking at marketing it through actual evolution

of your client base. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think that's a good idea. I mean, when we, when we started the brand, we had to think about the audience and, you know, older young. And whilst we knew older people would buy varifocals and buy focals and they would be ultimately more expensive and more profitable, we decided that, well, if you build a brand for younger people, the older people, the older people will come. But if you build a brand for older people, the younger people won't back to it. Right. So, so, yeah, I think we do need to go back to making sure that we get the younger people into it to promote the brand, as, as you say, Warby did. Yeah, which would, which would be a great idea. You know, there's an episode of the show we did, maybe a year or two ago, on Mod Pizza. And actually, the founders were on the advice line a couple months ago. And what's cool, you should listen to that episode because their first business that they started was called Seattle Coffee Company. And they started it in a kiosk at Coven Garden. And they saw what was happening with Starbucks in the U.S. at the time.

And this was in the 90s. They saw Starbucks was growing so fast. They decided to replicate that model in the UK. they were two Americans, Allie and Scott Svensson, and they very quickly found investors to scale Seattle Coffee Company and just build, I think they built like 50 locations across the UK in just a matter of a few years. And then, of course, Starbucks came in and bought it and converted them all to Starbucks, which was a great outcome for everybody. to me, there's a world where something like that could happen, you know, where a world where Warby Parker decides to go to the UK, you know, but to get that kind of money and to build that scale quickly, back to your question, you've got to just get your story down. Because you have all the fundamentals, the foundation there. It's just now really chisling away and getting it right. Yeah, I mean, look, going to 50 stores is, you know, my ambition is to get to 100 stores.

And if Warby Parker, if someone comes along, we'd be happy to talk at that point. We have actually spoken to a big British VC here in the UK, and they have said that get to five stores, and we will look at backing you to get to 20 with, you know, a few million pounds. So, but we had a connection to that investor at that VC firm. So he's been great and he's been monitoring our progress. but it's just making sure that the other BCs do follow on in that round as well and having that kind of growth story that war we had in America. Yeah.

It's awesome, awesome idea. I'm Betty Jazz. Thanks so much to the brand is called Cambridge Spectacle. Good luck. Good luck. Good luck. Good luck. Good luck.

Nice to meet you both. Thank you. Thanks so much for the advice. That's great. I mean, he's got a little, the Cromwells. I'm looking at this list. He's good, the Nauru's. So much fun.

Wall poles. Yeah. He just has to name after people have been long dead. I think he has to focus on the story and creating a buzz before he opens more stores. I think getting really grounding that message, true British character and fun. Yeah, and I mean, the thing about the UK is that it's a total addressable market there is still significant, right? Population of 65 million. Yeah.

It's a big, I mean, it's a, you can build a huge brand just in the UK. Yeah. Not, you can't do that in every European country. It's not easy to do that in like, you know, Lichtenstein. But you can do that in the UK. Yeah. Stay with us because after the break, we'll talk to another founder working to take their business to the next level. That's after the break.

I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. Guy Raz, and my guest today is fashion designer Norma Kamali. Norma, what do you say? Should we take another call? I think so. Lots of fun. Hello, caller.

Please join us. Welcome to the device line. You are on with me. Norma Kamali, tell us your name where you're calling from and just very briefly about your business. I'm Bob Wolkhoff from Chicago, big fan of the show. Sunny Bowles, I'm the founder of, is a new category in the fast, casual restaurant industry. where soup is the star of the menu.

Our goal is to become the sweet green of soup. I love it. Bob, welcome to the show. Thank you for calling in the sweet green of soup. That's very clear. I know exactly, I can already imagine exactly what you're trying to do. So you've got one shop in Chicago right now? We have two.

One at the merchandise mart and one at Northwestern Hospital. And when did you start this? When did you launch this brand? Well, I started it when COVID was still a thing, toward the end of it, and I'm a contrarian, and just believe that if I started when all the restaurants were closing and I could build brand and start to learn a business that I didn't know, that's what I did. I love it.

Were you in food at the time? I mean, was that your background? My whole career was in real estate, and I had this idea when I was in my 20s, and I finally decided to open it when I was 58. I love it. So really, starting from scratch at 50A, we just did a great episode about Lily's chocolates and Cynthia Tice was 57 when she started that brand. So you open the first location. You've got two now.

And it's soup, basically. That's what you sell. So soup is the star. So if you picture an ice cream store, but instead of ice cream, we have 10 soups that were actually designed by a James Beard Award winning chef. Nice. And you pair it or you can pair it with a sandwich or one of our salads. And in lieu of cold soup, we've designed a unique line of smoothie bowls, which actually have an ice cream-like texture but are healthy.

It's like eating a healthy ice cream, and that's designed for the summer months. Got it. Okay. And what's your question for us? So my question is that, so people love, they crave our soup. after they try us. And we have a 4.9 star rating on Google. But there is a resistance to getting not the first adopters,

but people that when they think of going to lunch, they think of Mexican, they think of hamburgers, they think of a salad. They don't think of soup. And the other thing is when you're competing against brands that are already well known, that we are not top of mind. And so my question is, how do we continue

to acquire new customers. How do you break through, right? Oh, yeah. All right. Norma. Thoughts for Bob? Questions for Bob? The first thing I'm thinking is what is the value added? Is there nutritional value?

Do you have information about the ingredients? Is it something that's efficient for, especially for women or men who are, working out and they want to keep their... Protein. Yeah, high protein and really low carbs. I love soup, but I always, I want to know the value of the calories I'm eating. What will the takeaway be? So, just to give you an idea, we had one customer who went to their dietitian and said,

you can eat everything in the store. We actually have one soup that's a wellness soup. But all of our soups are gluten-free, dairy-free, with a lot of vegan options. We have 10 soups, five of them are meat, four chicken and one delicious chili, and then five that are vegetarian. So the reason I said sweet green is because I do look at us as in the healthy fast casual sector. The nutrition, I think, is everything, and I think really promoting So many people take supplements for good health.

And if they know that in the soup, they're going to get that nutrition and have a tasty kind of lunch at the same time, that's just a bonus. Bob, I'm curious. Your question is, how do I get people to think of soup as a meal? And I imagine that really it's a lunch, the lunchtime crowd that you want to focus on. And I'm looking at your website. Very nice. I love the graphics and the drawings and designs. But there's two things I don't see here. I don't see ingredients, which I think would be really great to put on there. Just, you know, because I'm assuming that it's clean, simple ingredients. You're using vegetables and broths. The second thing is, is there a world? And these are these, and you know this as a guy's been around in business for a long time. Sometimes a slogan or a mantra or a mission statement can be transformational when everyone, get can gather around a shared common definition of what you're doing. And I I wonder if there's a world where you put something under sunny bowls instead of superfood that says, you know, a new way to lunch or a new way to think about, yeah, your, your meal.

One of the things we're trying to do also like on our Instagram is have three kind of pillars. One, healthy, two, delicious, and three, we're trying to create kind of a humorous brand to get people to connect. So, you know, I think of GEICO and doing things that get people to want to view us and so forth. To me, it seems like the opportunity is in a breakthrough product, like, or a breakthrough delivery mechanism, where people start to talk about. one thing that you're doing that then brings other people in. So here's my idea. Norma, I want to get your sentence. Give me real feedback. Don't just say I love the idea because if it's a stupid idea, tell me it's a stupid idea. But you know how people consume coffee today, right? They get a cup of coffee at Starbucks and they walk down the street with it. They're drinking the Starbucks coffee. What if there was like a puread soup, like a sipping soup that you serve in like a to-go coffee cup with your logo on it and you kind of market it as a, grab and go.

Well, it's funny because one of the ideas I've had for the store is, you know, when Panera, you have the push for the coffee, but instead of coffee, we have different bone broth. Oh, yes. So you drink that as your... Are you doing that? Yeah. My operations person is fighting me on it. But you haven't started doing that yet?

No, we have not started doing that. Bone broth. Norma, bone broth. That's great. Bone broth is no collagen. It's a hot thing. People love bone broth. Yeah. Yeah. There was a, there's a brand in the U.S. in New York that did a very successful bone broths presentation. However, in the summer months, they fell apart. And they couldn't carry it as busy as they were in the winter. But I think the idea of having a cup that really says, I am drinking.

soup and it's from this place and that it's bold and beautiful. I love that idea. Yeah. I mean, you know, I think about the thing that Norma talked about with protein, to me, we hear it time and again, protein is where this is going. Everybody is building protein, not everybody, but lots of people are building protein brands. And I, and Norma, you've written about this. You are at, by the way, Bob, Norma is one of the foremost experts, really, truly experts on aging nutrition America. And Norma, you're on this protein thing, right? This is a big part of how you, and it's not like you're eating steaks and chops every night, but it's a quality protein. Right.

Protein, I think, is really looked at now very carefully in building strength, muscle, mass, and For me, it's very hard to get that protein in because I don't eat meat. But if I can get protein in any way, I'll have soup and vegetables and anything else, protein powders that can even be added to the soups. I think there's so much opportunity there. I think that there's one other idea I have for you, one other slogan. Your grandmother was right. Something like that.

I love it. I love it. We have a Bubby's chicken soup. Perfect. Maybe under there you say your grandmother was right. I love it. Yes. Because soup nourishing, nutritious, filled with vitamins.

You know, it's some way to get across the idea that you're in one quick, efficient delivery mechanism, you're getting pretty much everything you need for that meal. Yeah. Bob, I'm going to come to Chicago once you're. your new slogan is out. This is a new way to eat the lunch. I'm going to say, it's me, Bob, and I want my bowl of chili. You're more than welcome. Love to have you.

All right. Bob will cop, sunny bowls. Good luck. Congrats. Thanks for calling in. Lots of luck, Bob. Good luck. Yeah.

I mean, so you don't do bone broth, right, because you're a vegetarian. I have started bone broth, but there are other broths that are vegetable broths. And some, I just started eating chicken. I have to say it's been a struggle. It's just because it's gross to you. Yeah. As long as it's not recognizable, there's sort of kebabs and things like that that I can deal with. But I mean, as you know, I eat meat, but I love tofu.

I think tofu is a great protein source. It's a great protein source. Yeah, absolutely. That's for me. It's probably where I get most of my protein. Norma, I wish people listening could say. see you right now because I'm, as you know, I'm 50. You're my model. I want to be you. That's what I want to be. I mean, you're physically fit. You're energetic. You're beautiful. You're just,

you've got all these incredible energy ideas. I mean, how do how do we get there? What's the fountain of youth? What's a secret? I think, you know, in the world we live in now, there's so much really good information on healthy lifestyle. And the ability to change habits to more positive, proactive, aging with power, attitudes, and learning something new every day and really keep moving, all of that is where everybody is going. And you're an example of what that lets you are.

You are. But how do you stay? I mean, I think a big part of it, Norma, isn't just what you eat and your exercise, but your outlook. How do you – I mean, I think part of it's just, you're just wired that way. You're just positive. You're wired that way. But it's a practice, too, right? Yeah.

I think so. And one of the things that I realize is – and that was pointed out to me by Marty is that he's your partner. Yes. And so he says, you know, I'm just. you wake up every morning, no matter how bad the day before was, as if everything is okay. And I look at it as, well, I have a new start. I have a new chance to try it again and not sort of hang in the dreary feeling of the day before. And I think that that's important to really clean the slate, take another look at it,

and give it another shop. Okay, next up, after the break, another caller with another business challenge. I'm Guy Raz, and we're answering your questions right here on the advice line on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and today I'm taking your calls with Norma Kamali. So Norma, let's get right back into it and take another call. I'm looking forward to, yes.

Welcome to the advice line you are on with Norma Kamala. Molly, please introduce yourself. Tell us where you're calling from and a little bit about your business. Hi there, Norma. Hi there, Guy. My name is Adriana Alvarez. I'm calling from Sacramento, California. I am the owner and the founder of Lovehurstshop.com. We are an athleisure brand, and we are best known for our leggings. We do bring affordable products to the market, high quality products that women would typically want to see at a better price. Awesome. Well, thanks for calling in. So, Joanna, tell us a little bit more about it's active wear apparel, like stuff you'd wear to work out, basically. Yeah, definitely.

It's all workout apparel and all of our products are designed and engineered in-house by our all-women team. And these leggings, they came about to the market after I had an experience with a pair of leggings that were gifted to me that were from a very well-known brand. They were very expensive. They were over $100 a pair. And after I used them, I realized that they actually didn't work for me. And I didn't know if they didn't work for me because, I mean, so many women use this particular brand. But then I started realizing when I went back to the group of women and moms that I was working out with, a lot of them said the same thing.

So it turns out that, you know, moms or women that have curves, women that have different body types, we do need something that holds us in a little bit better that kind of accentuates our curves. And also, a lot of the moms that I was working out with were not willing to pay $100 for a pair of leggings. Yeah. Wow. It's so cool. And so it's not like, quote unquote, sort of plus size is designed for all body types, essentially. Yeah, definitely all body types, but these definitely are leggings that you would work out in. For example, we get a lot of the feedback from our customers stating that they love that our leggings stay in place during workouts that require a lot of jumping, jump squats. Also, women have ran marathons in our leggings. And one of the biggest things I think we get is the way that they feel on their body is more of a shapewear effect. But they do look amazing.

And they kind of lift in tone and they kind of suck. you in. Wow. And I'm looking at your website now, and it's like 35 bucks for a pair of leggings. I think, you know, just to name a brand, we've had the founder of Lulu Lemon on the show in a few years ago, Chip Wilson. He's not involved anymore, but they're like 100 bucks for a pair of Lulu Lemons. And this is a very competitive space that you've gotten into, atleisure wear, really hard for one person to start it on their own. Are you bootstrapping this thing? Yeah. I started this business. after it actually started as a side hustle. But during COVID, I worked for the Coca-Cola company.

And during COVID, Coca-Cola decided to kill off a brand that I was helping manage. And at that point, I decided to take my severance package and injected 100% in my own business. And first year of sales, this is when I was still running it out of my house. I did over a million dollars in sales. Wow. And that was purely by doing like social media ads and stuff like that? Yeah, ads, I've never paid for an influencer to speak about our brand. Our customers are our influencers.

I've kind of always been an authentic person where I don't want somebody to sell me something because they're being paid to being out there selling it. So I think what has made is very successful is a lot of, like, moms have power, man. Moms will share with their social media groups, and that's kind of how we took off. That's awesome. And what's your question for us today? So my question is we're currently at an expansion stage. We've been growing and we've been so blessed with the growth.

However, we are looking, I don't know if right now is a good time for us to look for outside investors to bring into their business so that we can say yes to a lot of the things that we have currently been saying no to just because we don't have the staff or we don't have the expertise in those areas. Got it. Okay. Norma, wow, right up your alley. We're talking about an apparel brand. here and Adriana is doing something different. It's lower price point. It's, you know, really designed to accentuate curves. She's bootstrapped this thing. You have bootstrapped your business and now you're 100% owner of it. First of all, questions for Adriana. Well, first of all, your website looks fantastic. Thank you. The mom's focus, very specialized. Everything looks great. I love that you have a huge marketplace to reach out to.

Nothing better than moms who have had babies. They want to feel good. They always want to work out. They want to feel held in. I commend you for really being very smart about what you decided to put your severance money in. And that was a good idea. I think the next step is usually the tough one, because you have to make big decisions, where are you going to get additional funding?

I think there are choices you have, and I think friends and family are always a good step. People that are your customers could also be good investors. I think before you jump into a relationship where they take a part of your business or a percentage of what you're doing, I think you're still identifying who you are and building that. And I think you have a little ways to go as far as investment in fabric and cost of goods.

Where do you make them? We do make it all overseas. We have five different manufacturer, five different cut and soes, but we do actually have our own. We source our material, and then we have our material sent to our cut and soes. just so that, because we're very specific on the material we're using.

And is the distribution other than your website? No, not at all. We started as really just doing pop-up shops, and when we pivoted over to online sales, that's when the business and the focus really took us there so we couldn't pivot back, just because we're doing so much online sales. Yeah, and what about sales on TikTok or Instagram or any...

We do not sell on TikTok. We have an Instagram. Instagram page, but we do not sell directly on Instagram either. I would try it. I would try it. We do very well. I think it's a very big opportunity. Learn a little bit more about it because it opens up another. It's like having another store. I see. Mm. Adriana, are you specifically targeting moms or women who are mom ages? It is women that are mom ages because we do have a lot of customers that are not moms, but are like, we get a lot of college customers. Between like 20 and 40. Yes, definitely.

I would say it's between 25 and 45 is our demographic or sweet spot. You know, we did an episode on 21 seeds tequila recently. And what differentiated that brand was basically it was tequila for moms, you know, or book club. It was, and people were making tequila for frat boys and, you know, men sipping tequila. Nobody was making, I mean, very few people were focusing on moms. And I love this idea because if you look, and I just looked at this, if you look at the spending power of women in the United States between 25 and 45, it's like, five to $15 trillion a year. It's a massive amount of money, you know, in terms of what they spend, not obviously on athleisure wear, and just everything, you know, overall. But it's a huge opportunity.

And there's a clear thesis here, which I really love. Yeah. It's, it's very impressive. And I think there are a lot of mom bloggers, too, that are so good. And they really have a great audience And you might want to invite some of them to be a part of your world. I think doing collaborations now would be a good idea for you. And I think the bloggers are all so good. They tell their stories about being mothers and how they feel about their bodies and what's going on in their lives. And I think bringing in that conversation and making your website also a place

where people go for information, just to populate it more would be, I think, a lot of fun. I love that idea. Adriana, what do you, I mean, in terms of raising money, what, obviously, it would enable you to scale, but just roughly, what are you estimating your revenue to be this year? Our revenue right now, we're targeted at being, we're ending the year at $2 million in sales. Awesome. Amazing. Yeah, and the key points that we would need the capital for,

that we haven't done, but we want to go into, is wholesale distribution, expanding and creating a petite line and more sizes, like plus sizes. So there's an argument to be made, right, that having outside capital will help you get there. People are going to give you different advice, right? Some people are going to say, hang on as long as possible, because the longer you can hold on and scale it on your own, the greater the value and the more you can retain. That being said, you know, if you can find... the right partner who has wholesale apparel experience, you know, maybe it's a factory. Maybe they become a co-investor.

That's where I think it starts to make sense to really explore it. If it's just a money play, if it's just about finding somebody with, you know, extra cash, but without the expertise, I would say no way, you know, focus on building the business on your own. But if you can find a really experienced strategic investor who knows how to get in to wholesale, who's done it, then it makes sense to me. And I mean, to me, it seems like that's really what you want to look for. And that's not easy. It's going to take some time. Yeah, I want to add, be very careful about entering the wholesale distrable. distribution network.

First of all, one of my questions is costing and making sure that you're meeting your margins because you are selling through your own website, I'm sure you have a cushion there. But once you get into wholesale, there are going to be all kinds of questions, wanting discounts, wanting all kinds of promotional money. you're in their hands. They are also buying other brands who compete with you, and you lose the control you have right now. So I would look at more and more opportunities

where you have the control, you have the profit margin, especially if you make a mistake, especially if something happens with a fabric you bought or something goes wrong. You have a cushion because of the margin. But before you go into wholesale, take a serious, I would be happy to, if you wanted to reach out to me, I'd be happy to walk you through that because it's very different. And it doesn't mean you can't do it. It's just being very sure about expanding out in your world first to take every opportunity.

But I love it. I'm really impressed. I really am. I know you're going to be successful. I'm positive. Thank you. Adriana, congrats. Adriana Alvarez. Love her shop. Good luck. Thank you so much. Yes. Congratulations. Norma, before I let you go, one last question which I ask everybody who's been, who's come back on as a mentor, which is if you were to like travel back in time to

the Norma in the 1960s, Norma Kamala in 1960s, and you could say, Norma, I'm coming from 2024 with a piece of advice, something I want you to know. What's something that you would want her to know about business? Well, you know, I have to say I really benefited from my mistakes and learning and getting advice from people who really helped me along the way. And we demonstrated that you demonstrate it. I am so impressed with your advice and you, of course, are an expert on entrepreneurs and every bit of advice you gave today was stunning. It was amazing. Oh, thank you. So you deserve the reputation you have. You earned it. This is such a generous venture for you to take and I just love you and I'm so proud to know you. You're really an extraordinary man. Both blush and cry, Norma. At the same time, well, you're the best. You know, you're the best and I hope to come see you New York soon. We'll see you soon. I hope so. That is the iconic fashion designer Norma Kamali. And by the way, if you haven't heard Norma's original how I built this, you've got to go back and check it out. You can find a link to it in the podcast description. And here is one of my

favorite moments from that interview? Well, I started to make some things, and I would put them in the store to see how they would do, and they would do really well. And so the majority of the stock slowly became my designs, and I had a full page in Vogue, and I had a good-sized page in Bazaar. That was beyond belief because I thought somebody is going to find me out. I don't know what I'm doing. And I have a full page in vogue and bizarre.

This is nuts. Like, I don't have a clue. Thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at gairoze.com. Each week, it's packed with tons of insights from entrepreneurs and my own observations and experiences interviewing. some of the greatest entrepreneurs ever. And if you're working on a business

and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one-minute message that tells us about your business, the issues or questions you'd like help with, and hopefully we can help you with them. And make sure to tell us how to reach you. You can send us a voice memo at hibt at ID.wondry.com or call us at 1-800-433-1298

and leave a message there, and we'll put all this in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Carrie Thompson with music composed by Ramtina Rablui. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Robert Rodriguez. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Chris Messini, Carla Estevez, Elaine Coates, J.C. Howard, Catherine Seifer, Devin Schwartz, Neva Grant, and Sam Paulson. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to the advice line on how I built this lab.