Proven Podcast - Secrets from the Dropout Millionaire - Kola Tytler

Episode Date: June 26, 2024

In this episode, Charles delves into the world of exclusive fashion and entrepreneurship with Kola Tytler, the visionary founder of Dropout Milano. Kola shares his remarkable journey of building a thriving streetwear and sneaker store in Milan, Italy, while still pursuing his medical degree. Get ready to be inspired as Kola unveils his unique approach to creating an aspirational brand that resonates with its target audience. Uncover the power of exclusivity and experience-driven marketing as Kola reveals how he transformed Dropout Milano into a community-focused brand that goes beyond just selling products. Through engaging stories and practical insights, Kola and Charles explore the importance of understanding your market, identifying customer motivations, and leveraging data to optimize your marketing efforts. Kola's passion for continuous learning and self-improvement shines through as he discusses his pursuit of multiple degrees from prestigious UK universities, including an upcoming Masters at Cambridge. He emphasizes the significance of investing in your own education and network to build confidence and make better business decisions. Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting your journey, this episode will provide you with valuable lessons and frameworks to help you create a brand that stands out in today's competitive landscape. Get ready to be motivated and equipped with the tools necessary to build a loyal community around your brand and achieve remarkable success. Key Takeaways: Discover Kola's unique approach to building an exclusive, community-focused brand that resonates with its target audience Learn how to leverage experiential marketing and collaborations to create an aspirational brand that goes beyond just selling products Gain insights into the power of understanding your market, identifying customer motivations, and leveraging data to optimize your marketing efforts Head over to https://provenpodcast.com/ to download your exclusive companion guide, designed to guide you step-by-step in implementing the strategies revealed in this episode. Key Points: 1:00 - Kola's journey to success 5:55 - Breaking limits and pursuing passions 7:26 - Building a sneaker empire 10:27 - Creating a sustainable business 13:53 - Building exclusive communities 15:36 - Creating physical store experiences 18:09 - Balancing exclusivity in e-commerce 20:22 - Product challenges in e-commerce 22:07 - Leveraging brand partnerships 24:02 - Creating unique brand experiences 25:55 - Shifting focus to brand identity 28:00 - Creating experiential content 30:00 - Engaging with online communities 32:24 - Crafting viral content 33:55 - Brand building strategies 36:24 - Focus on conversion ads 40:14 - Thirst for knowledge 42:30 - Pursuing entrepreneurship studies 44:58 - Celebrating academic achievements 46:42 - Leveraging online learning

Welcome to the proven podcast, where it does not matter what you think, only what you can prove. Most retailers beg customers to buy from them. Today's guest, Cola Titler, does the opposite. He turns customers away, and by making his stores nearly impossible to get into, he's built a six-figure retail business that people literally wait in line for. The show starts now. Today with Cola, Tyler, and this is an individual who dropped out of school and became a multimillionaire and is going back to school. Blows my mind. Welcome to the show.

Welcome to the last. Thank you. Thank you for having me, chance. Absolutely. So walk me through this. You named your company dropout and the entire process of how you do it. We're going to get into in detail. But how did you go from dropping out to now owning multiple stores and crushing it? Walk me through the beginning. What made you want to be an entrepreneur and do this? I think, you know, just for clarity's sake, I didn't technically drop out of university in the sense that I did complete the course. I was in medical school when the company started. I certainly didn't want to fully lead the course, hence why, you know, amongst other reasons as well, my company is called dropout. Certainly, you know, I'd say at the time mentally I was in a place where, you know, I was probably thinking, what's going to give me more, you know, is it doing my own thing or is it, you know, pursing this, you know, the degree and the, you know, the career path that is probably, I'd say, structured after graduating from medical school.

Now, at least, for me personally, I'd say, you know, a lot of, a lot of what came, you know, to create my company and the business had to do with leveraging what I saw as a market opportunity in the sense that actually, you know, what we created was, you know, a business modeled on an opportunity that we saw within a market we were very familiar with. And I say that as they, you know, considering the streetwear and the sneakers industry as a niche that we, you know, me and. my business partners at the time were already consumers of, number one. We were also probably at, say, you know, collectors, fans, enthusiasts. And I think that, you know, we realized that actually, you know, in Milan in Italy, one of the major fashion capitals of the world, you know, we were lacking, you know, a physical outlet in particular and, you know, a place where, you know, street where enthusiasts could go and recognize themselves the same way that, you know, was present in New York, in London, in Paris.

So, you know, we went and did our own. I think at the time, you know, especially giving the father that was at university still, I think for me it was about, you know, realized that I could have multiple interests and I could have, you know, I could develop different aspects of my persona, so not just the, you know, the medical school aspect, but also, you know, my other interest, I think fashion and medicine, I think they're more similar than probably one may think, but actually they are certainly, you know, apart. And, you know, for me, it was also about saying, actually, you know, I'm not confined to what I'm studying.

You know, I could do more. And I can probably draw some parallels between the skills that I gather, you know, and gain from my degree and the one need for the business. I think so few people, you mentioned it where, you know, I can be more than one thing. So many of us go to university, go to college, like, hey, you know, I went to school for computers. I went to school for, you know, you even got as far as in their medical degree that we get locked into that this is who I am. This is who my parents expect me to be. This is who my family. This is who everyone in my environment.

They expect me to be A. But there's more to me than that. I'm more dynamic than that. Was that a hard process for you to pivot through to say, you know what? No, I can do this. I can't continue to do university. I can continue with my studies. But I also, I can do this.

What was the moment where you realized that you could do both? And you kind of gave yourself permission to do both because a lot of people are struggling with that. I think, you know, probably, I think from an individual or from a personal, perspective, I'd say I'm a rather, you know, self-driven and self-motivating individual anyway, which means that, you know, whenever I'm faced with, you can do these, you know, that's not going to work, why this, why, you know, I almost, you know, I almost blocked that out, even though that may or may not be positive, certainly there's some negatives to that. But in particular, you know, I had seen, you know, individuals out there, you know,

we're able to do different things, you know, and I remember, for example, you know, one of the, if not maybe the most influential individual within the streetwear and sneakers niche, you know, in Kanye West. And I remember, you know, watching some interviews and how he was talking about wanting to be, you know, the greatest producer alive and then wanting to be, you know, the best rapper and then wanted to be, you know, the best designer and then wanted to do, you know, his own clothing line. And then talking about how he wanted to do hotels. And I think, you know, I was also looking concurrently at how, you know, the commentary on that

often used to be, you know, this money is just out of it. And I think, you know, I'm not going to comment on that, but sadly, I did think actually, you know, why do we have such a fixation on telling people what they cannot do rather than what they actually can do? And to me, you know, I think it was about telling myself, you know, what, you know, I think the only limit to whatever you want to do is yourself, i.e. me. And, you know, I have different interests. And I think, you know, there's a market opportunity, so I'm going to go and take it. And likewise, you know, I always used to see how, you know, I used to play, pick up basketball. a lot and I used to play also

football with friends and I was I think decent at both and again I always drew the parallel with that because you know you don't have to be you know good at one thing I think you know you can be decent on multiple things and ultimately I think to me was about you know asking you know myself

what do I enjoy and you know the moment where you know the answer was I enjoy different things you know for different reasons you know I was just like okay you know time to go and and you know do whatever makes me happy I think one of the best things I ever heard about this was instruments don't just play one note. You can play multiple notes as an individual. So you're in medical school and all of a sudden you have this opportunity with sneakers.

And I didn't even know there was, there's a completely new market to me completely. I have the fashion sense of a, well, I don't have any fashion sense. It's really embarrassing. My little brother picks on me and he's like, what, what are you doing? I wear, I mean, I shop a tarsie. I don't, I am not fashionable in any way, shape, or form. it's embarrassing. My little brother picks on me.

You clearly are not. You've turned it into a massive empire for you with multiple stores. Walk me through what you do. Walk me through what is it with Snakers? Why did you? You're like, I'm in middle school school school. Here's, here's sneaker. I don't understand.

Walk me through that. Walk through that process. How did you know you could monetize it? I think, let's say, you know, we've got to take a few stepbacks in the sense that, you know, there was a, now is, is wider, but it's less, I'd say, on the, but, you know, imagine we're talking now about, you know, early 2010, and, you know, there's a lot of communities online. There's Reddit, you know, that is obviously blowing up. And Reddit in particular is the type of place where you get people who, you know, maybe they, I mean, this might sound controversial,

but maybe, you know, even the loners of the world that are finally finding a place, they can find people like them and things to talk about. And, you know, there's more and more places like, you know, there's Reddy, there's Facebook groups, there's, you know, a little bit on Twitter, and there's a forum, it's called Kanye Today, in fact, it was mentioned, it was named after Kanye West. And then there's another forum called Nike Talk. And those are places where people are congregating more and more to discuss the, you know, the latest sneaker release and the latest streetwell releases. And the reality is that, you know, there was a law, there was already like, you know,

significant but probably very sparse and, you know, varied community of individuals. What is interesting streetwear? And, you know, in order to get information about the latest releases and the latest, you know, drops and what your, you know, what the latest collaboration was going to be, you had to find those little communities, you know, mostly online, unless you live, you know, in a major city like New York or L.A. And that's where I start, you know.

I saw it from there. And then I saw, you know, as the phenomenon of, you know, limited sneakers releases, you know, took more and more, and the brands started leveraging it in order to draw attention to the actual, you know, to the wider product releases, you know, there was people that had already this interest that were already part to the communities who saw literally the phenomenon grow and grow and grow. And I think we almost foresaw how the trajectory was going and we, you know, I think there's certain people's at moments where, you know, collaboration starts

and then, you know, Supremes start collaborating with Louis Vuitton and Nike started collaborating with Off White. And you see how now the old-fashioned houses that were catering to a public of wealthy, you know, maybe unapproachable clientele and now actually deciding to target to a, you know, to a different demographic who's often younger, who's, yes, perhaps wealthy, but who, you know, may actually have their interest in more casual wear compared to formal wear. So basically, I think, you know, from this evolution online, I saw, you know, I saw this trajectory and actually my business partners at the start

are people that I met online. So we actually met on those Facebook groups. And, you know, there's when we saw, you know, we had this chat. I think, you know, it was very brief. It was almost like, look, you know, can you see what I'm seeing? As in where this is going?

I think that, you know, if we get, you know, our name out there, we create a brand within this segment and, you know, we leverage the growth of the sneaker market. We can actually create a sustainable business, which, you know, will make a mark and will, you know, will be potentially known within, at least the Italian streetwork community. So, you know, Dropow actually starts as that.

It starts as a business that aims to leverage, you know, the growth of the sneaker industry, but, you know, placing itself as a, you know, also independent brand, you know, streetwear brand that, you know, can be associated with, again, you know, this wealthy young clientele. So really for us, I think, you know, one of the first steps was about,

about understanding the market. And for us, that was somewhat easy, I'm going to say, because we were our average target consumer. So the average target consumer for us would have been me, would have been someone young, someone with a little bit of disposable income, who are the network, who knew how social media worked, and who was a little bit disillusioned with the high-end fashion houses products,

and wanted to wear something more casual. So, you know, we modeled, I think, the business based to a market that we knew rather well. And for that, really, you know, a lot of it was about asking, okay, you know, what do I want to see, you know, what is my problem or how am I going to solve the problem that I have? You know, problem being, you know, I don't find an outlet, you know, a store that actually reflects what I'm looking to buy. And I think that's, you know, basically the first questions that we started, you know, at the beginning asking ourselves. So I love the model, which is, you know, identifying your audience, understanding who they are. Luckily, in this case, it was you, you were your own test group. And then from there, being in the environment of going, okay, where are they hanging out, where is their, quote, unquote, watering hole, going where they are and then speaking to them in an organic way, saying, hey, this is what's going on, this is what's happening, leveraging a community and saying, hey, there's a pain, I found a way to fill that pain.

We talk about this all the time. Don't be vitamins, be Advil, get rid of the pain first and then scale from there. So in this place, you've identified the audience, which is you, so you already have your own test group. You went to the community where everyone's hanging out for, so you went to the watering hole. From there, you're like, okay, I've got this. We have the idea. We know what their pain is. What are the steps you start doing?

Do you start posting? Do you start interacting? How do you, what are those first initial? All right, I get it. I know the audience. Where do I go from here? I think for us, you know, we had actually created, especially having, you know, a keyword is community in the sense that I think, you know, again, you get a,

You got to remember where you're playing, you know, what you're playing field is and maybe, you know, the sport that you're playing in the sense that the reality is that, you know, we dissect what actually fashion is, especially, or not just fashion, but any, you know, discretionary porches, really. We buy generally for, you know, only few reasons, which will be for sustainment, you know, such as food or such as, you know, shelter. or you know, we buy for, you know, for convenience, for example, you know, something to do, you know, something that I would need to do, but whatever I'm purchasing is going to make that thing easier. Or we buy for, you know, to cater to social need. And obviously fashion, you know, is the social need. Now, there's an element of, yes, you know, you buy clothes to cover yourself. Fair enough. But you also buy clothes to either identify within a certain group or you buy clothes to, you know, be not identified within a certain group, but to show to a certain group.

what type of person you are. Or again, you know, you buy to show, you know, particular traits of your persona. Now, in our case, you know, when we're talking about small communities, you know that you actually speaking to an audience that probably won't identify as part of that. One of those, like, you know, you wear something and, you know, you know that next person is not going to know what that is, but the one that no will know is sort of a, you know, if you know, type of thing. And then there's another element which was growing within the street trade market, which was,

because it was a limited, you know, a lot of this was limited edition product. It was about, you know, demonstrated that you had access and you demonstrate that exclusivity because also, you know, now you can differentiate your audience in multiple ways, your audience in multiple ways. Sometimes, you know, you do that by price, by say, you know, okay, you know, Porsche's. Portis create a lot of Porsches, but, you know, as in the car brand.

But, you know, if you have a lot of money, chances are that you can probably buy one. However, you know, Richard Mill on the other hand, certain watches, you know, there's only 20 of them. So you may have the money, but you may not have any access to them. So brands are leveraging above those, you know, by doing certain very limited edition releases. And the person that, you know, the people that were actually the audience of these were also individuals who, you know, may be able to get hold of, you know, a particular product. So for us, he was about really digging into why are people buying, what do they want to show and what would they like to know. So, you know, the reality was that rather than sort of starting posting online and going the whole, okay, you know, we're going to skyrocket our e-commerce. We actually went the other way because we said, okay, you know, how can we actually show that this is something rather limited and actually rather niche and only not just about how much you can spend, but it's about being part of something that only some people can be part of.

So we open physical stores, physical store first, which we actually opened initially in 2018 without posting any pictures of the store online. So we only posted like one picture of Instagram and you know of our social media which said we're opening a store you know we're going to treat limited you know curate limited edition releases

we're not even going to show you what it looks like it will open on this day at this time we post something like three days in advance and basically we say like you know you want to be there and I remember you know that actually Starbucks the first Starbucks had opened in Milan the week before us and you know

there was a lot of press in the in the media in Italy about how many people people at Starbucks at, but because of the way we were able to leverage our message, especially in the Facebook groups, without even showing a picture of our store. We actually, you know, I have a picture and a video taken from a drone. The whole road was blocked. You know, we had more people at Starbucks that came to look at our store without having even ever seen a picture of it. And that was because, again, the message with this community really is about exclusivity, is about, you know, being the coolest and being able to do things that other people will not do.

And, you know, the very first day, we actually only sold our own branded products. So the very first day, you couldn't even buy sneakers. So everyone that rocked up in our store, you know, could only see the store and buy our own branded products. You know, they couldn't even buy sneakers. Then obviously, you know, for commercially, the reasons, you know, a couple months after we, obviously, you know, we opened the e-commerce because obviously, we said initially, you know, it's an experiential shopping, which means that, you know, it's not just about buying a product, because ultimately, especially in 2024, but also in 2018, you know, almost any product that you buy, you know, you can find a line somewhere for cheaper. That almost goes for any physical enterprise.

So it's about, you know, what are you going to, you know, how are you going to leverage if you have a physical store? How are you going to leverage if you're creating a brand? And so it was about, you know, for me, it was about doing something that, you know, if you want to be associated with that, you got to come to a store. You got to see what it looks like. And, you know, you will see that there's also some pieces that are, you know, Essentially, just to digress slightly, but we had one piece, which was very highly, you know, was very highly covered. Also, Vise did the whole documentary on it. We had a sneaker, which was, you know, basically a factory-out sneaker, which had been valued at about $150,000.

And, you know, only one pair. And we had it. And basically, we just put it for display, say, no, no, ultimately, you know, if you want to come and see this sneaker, you know, you got to come to a store, almost like if it was a museum piece. and that worked really well. So I think again, for us, he was really about leveraging, how are we going to gather to the needs of the people? And for us, the needs of the people were about,

being part of something exclusive and being part of something that only few selected people essentially would be almost invited to. And I think what I love about this is you knew your audience, you made it exclusive and you sold the experience as well. Because remember, people don't buy products or services, they buy stories identity. and weighs out of pain.

And you were selling an identity, which was, hey, the only place in the world is you can see this store. It's $150,000 for the shoe, which you're going to have to send me a picture of what a $150,000 shoe looks like because I've never seen a $150,000 show in my life. I mean, unless it came with a house or a car.

But I love the example that you gave with Porsche as well. Anybody can own a Porsche. But there's only a certain number of watches that exist. There's only a certain number of shoes. So you knew that your branding was like, listen, we're not going to compete with everybody else because anyone in the world can copy our products. we're going to go exclusive and we're going to do the experience.

So when you have this and you have your physical stories, you mentioned you did a bit of an e-commerce with your own products. How do you find the balance between, all right, we have this exclusivity, we have this experience, but now we're online. How do you continue to bring that into a digital world? Because in a physical world, super easy, right? Not anybody can do it, but it's easier to do. But if anybody in their underwear can jump on their phone and go and visit your e-commerce,

how do you keep that exclusivity and that experience? I think really, you know, the reality is that for us is being pretty, you know, because of the way that we were born and the community aspect of it, you know, Jopal started to become known in Milan as a place where, okay, you know, this is where the celebrity shop. This is where, you know, the wealthy people shop. So, you know, there's an element of that where, you know, people want to be associated where, you know, they are, you know, favorite football players who shop, for example. Or almost knowing that like, okay, you know, I'm going to walk into a store where, you know, the football player from, you know, I just played the championship league final was, or where, you know, someone who's popular in a holiday in Milan, you know, they'll pass by.

So, you know, I want to be associated with that. And in terms of leveraging the online, you know, again, it was sort of similar where, you know, the reality is that I think, you know, focusing specifically on the product alone, I think is quite difficult nowadays, especially with, you know, the advent of, you know, digital marketing and ultimately, you know, we're all beating against each other for the, you know, meta ads and the, you know, TikTok ads and whatnot. Or, you know, we are at the, you know, we are at the, we're essentially subject to whatever policy or, you know, strategy, those social media, you know, employ in order to actually, you know, determine the virality of content, really. So, you know, for us, it was about establishing really the brand, which means that, you know, we want people to know that, okay, you know, you're looking for limited initiatives niggas, you're looking for cool streetwear.

I'm not even going to research on Google. I'm going to go straight on dropout because I know that whatever I'm going to buy there is cool. Whatever I'm going to buy there is something that has been curated for me and it's been, and it's in demand in fact. So that really was what it was about for us. And in order to do that, I think, you know, we really went to look, okay, you know,

how much does our average spend their spend and where would they be likely to shop and what would their usual, you know, shopping habits, you know, be like? So, for example, you know, I won't obviously, you know, may make sort of specific names, but, you know, we said, okay, you know, if our average product is 300, you know, euros for a pair of sneakers, then, like, you know, what type of person is buying a 300 per hundred euros per of sneakers and which other shops, you know, would they likely shop at and, you know, which shops would they probably not shop at. So, you know, started looking at those type of things, start, you know, what the commonalities were, what the themes were, you know, what type of messaging, you know, would be employed. And, you know, I think we start, not necessarily mimicking those, but we started trying to align our messages with those in order to, you know, as I say, leverage the fact that ultimately, you know, we want, you know, we wanted our consumers to really strongly associate Jop out with a cool place where, you know, it would be just almost normal for them to show. Have you ever done cross partnerships? Like, hey, you know, brand A really is close with us.

We want to kind of have that inherited trust from brand A. Have you ever done partnerships or involvement with them. So we've done, because we have physical spaces, we've done collaborations, which also include pop-ups from other brands. And often the message and the idea is basically the same. You know, say we have, you know, there's been a, for example, a very strong brand in the UK at the moment, which is called Trappstar, which I believe is also, you know, there's some involvement with Rock Nation and JC and the US as well. And, you know, they basically saw, they looked at the Italian public and they said, okay, you know, we're now targeting to young, you know, cool demographic in the UK, you know, in France, in the US, we'd like to do this

in Italy. And, you know, Milan and dropout is an outlet where, you know, this will be reasonable and, you know, logical to do. So, you know, we hosted pop-ups, you know, with brands such as that. And we found that they work really well because people are like, okay, you know, they say, and again, it's one of those where certain brands, like, you know, maybe they're popular but in Italy, they're still like the small niche, you know, of people that are a little bit ahead of the curve and they already know the brand. But maybe, you know, they're a little bit sparse. Maybe there's a few people in Milan, a few people in Turin, a few people from somewhere else.

But when they know, okay, you know, a physical experience that pop up is coming in Milan, they're like, okay, you know, jump at the opportunity, come to Milan and, you know, dropout serves as the almost, you know, aggregator for all of those people to come together. And again, so you leverage the community aspect, you leverage the fact that, you know, you have a brand, you know, yourself and you have another brand coming from abroad. And all those people are, you know, you reinforce how, okay, you know, dropout is the place where cool stuff happens. So we've done several of those.

We've done at least, like, you know, six or seven. You know, we've done every now and then, you know, activity sort of, you know, once we took people to watch a serious game, so a football game, or rather soccer game, you know, as you say in the US. And we paid for actually people to come in hospitality. And the reason why we did that wasn't, there was no financial advantage for us, direct anyway, but there was the element of being able to say, look, you know, your average, you know, just born online. only brand, it's unlikely to be able to bring people to watch soccer game at the stadium in hospitality. So there was the element of brand signaling that we do every now and then.

We've taken people on a yacht in Portofino. We paid for people to go in a private, you know, minibus from Milan to this place, you know, these locks a redistination. And again, you know, it's just about being able to say, look, you know, this is not just about the product that we sell, is about what we stand for, is about the type of brand that we are, and it's about being associated with us. You know, and I think that that is something that, you know,

ultimately is where the difference happens between, you know, brands, and it's about, you know, what about messages do you give and, you know, how will you get people to, you know, want to associate with your brand? Because I think, again, you know, we look at the great brands of today,

you know, you have, you know, you almost develop those persona, like you have, you have a Nike persona, you have an Apple persona versus a Samsung persona. The idea, obviously, know, in a much, much, much, much, you know, millions times smaller scale for dropout is, you know, create something that, okay, you know, I want to be associated with a brand like that because they're able to do cool stuff and I want to be someone, you know, who does cool

stuff. So, you know, I will shop where they, you know, where they are and I will buy, you know, the products that they offer. So I love that it's more about the experience and the identity. The physical product is almost an after effect or an afterthought because it's really about the experience and the identity. So if, you can you know, Because most people aren't doing this. Most people are trying to do, as you said, lots of sales, they're trying to do Facebook ads. They're trying to just be everywhere all at once.

If someone finally realizes, oh, wow, I should do this differently. And what Cole is talking about makes light years of sense, creating this exclusivity, what are the steps or the tools that you've used to say, listen, I'm going to sell XYZ product. How does someone begin in that? If they're like, okay, I get it. My product offering is just inefficient. I want to focus more on experience and exclusivity.

What are the tools that you would start using? what are the first steps? I think the very first thing always is about, you know, I guess in the industry, it's probably called an audit, but the reality I think you need to know where you stand, you need to know the resources that you have. I think you need to know, as I said earlier, the public is very important and the type of message.

You know, putting aside the finances, you know, obviously, even though those are clearly key, but I'd say, you know, you want to know how much awareness that your brand have and, you know, where are you, you, you know, where are you in the potential customer's mind at the moment? Are you a brand that they'll just buy because you are the cheapest product? Or are they something that they will buy because it's the most quality product?

Or is it something that is because they want to be associated with your name? And if you really want to create the name, which I think is basically what we're talking about here, I think it's about trying to understand what the message will resonate with your consumer. And to us, as I said, you know, we were looking, for example, at, you know, what do young wealthy people look like? And I remember looking at, you know, thinking, okay, people want to know, want to go where, you know, where often they cannot be or where their favorite people are. And we looked at these Luxury Destination Italy, which was Portofino. And, you know, we said, okay, you know, what is the most efficient way that we can actually take people, you know, on a trip there and do something otherwise they wouldn't be able to do?

and then obviously capture content that we'd then be able to repost online. So for us really it was about trying to create an experience and then get content from that experience that would not necessarily resonate but would at least maybe spark something in someone, you know, in the people that want to be, you know, like our target consumer if they're not. Because, you know, there was two elements of that. One element was, okay, how are we going to let our target consumer know that we are the double brand that we are?

And secondly, how are we going to let the people that are not there yet? Because maybe they can't afford it yet. Know that with this type of brand so that we become an aspirational brand for them. So that maybe in the future when they can't afford to shop from us, they will come. Because maybe some people will grow up thinking, okay, we'll love to shop a drop up to their account. And so it's about targeting both who can be your customer now and also who you think can be, you know, may be able to be your customer, you know, tomorrow. For us, really, I think, you know, some of these again was about knowing, you know, the market almost inside out because we are, you know, consumers of it and because we are a strong part of communities from it.

Otherwise, I would say probably, you know, trying to do, you know, market research, which may go via, you know, higher interred parties or trying to speak, you know, with influence, with a strong following, you know, within the niche, or trying to understand or even create, you know, small service, actually, you know, at the end of, you know, you know, at the end of the purchase, phone on the linear website, I think would be quite useful. And there are certain tools, you know, I would say even nowadays, you know, even Google and even meta ads actually give you enough data for you to be able

to study and understand, you know, where and Google Analytics as well, you know, try to understand where your public is coming from and, you know, their shopping habits and that, you know, can give you a start. I think, you know, personally, the probably the best organic way, in my opinion,

is to, if whatever product you're selling can be related to a community, is try and really, really understand where those communities develop and try really, really, really as much as possible, you know, to learn right inside those communities. So as I said, you know, nowadays, there's a lot of communities on Reddit,

Facebook, Twitter, and, you know, try and understand those. I think really, really is the key. Certainly, you know, has been for us. And, you know, that really is where I think, you know, it is at really in terms of probably immediate practical steps. It's really, as I said, trying to understand what the community is and, you know, how you can get involved and, you know, understanding from the inside.

So if you find your community, let's say on Reddit, because I agree, Reddit is huge. It's an untapped resource. If you find your community, how do you engage with that community? How would have you found that the most successful? Do you post daily? Do you try and answer questions? What are you trying to do in that community so that they start looking at you as this elite offer. I think an element of that would be, you know, understanding it, first of all, being

useful, you know, answering questions, you know, likewise on Quora, I think, you know, is a strong part of it. Now, if there is a specific pain point, you know, that can be addressed and, you know, you're about addressing that and you can create answers for that, you know, great, even better, you probably might be able to go on with, you know, almost direct marketing and, you know, even Reddit ads, for example. However, I'd say, is more of a, you know, it's almost market-refering, research and, you know, try and understand, you know, what are the commonalities, you know, that people are, you know, displaying, you know, in, in there. And I think, you know, try and asking for, you know, opinions, for example, and then trying to leverage those on a natural

social media platform, which may be, you know, TikTok, maybe Instagram, for example, you know, because of very visual platforms, I think, you know, is where I will go next. So I would say, you know, you know, sort of Reddit or market research to understand where you're at, you know, TikTok and Instagram for the visuals, you know, to provide the visuals once you've figured out, having, you know, the pain points. You can't go back to Reddit, you know, asking for direct

feedback. I mean, you know, that sounds reasonable to me. You know, I think you probably do want to do as much organic as possible. Nowadays, probably compared to six years ago, it may be a little bit easier to, you know, go viral in the sense that almost everyone has the same chance in the sense that, you know, you don't need to have, you know,

100,000 followers, but, you know, you need the best content and I think the best content really because the platforms ultimately they want you to be able to hook you know the consumers as much as possible you know to stay on there on their platform so if you can figure out you know what type of content actually is going to cook your target you know user on the platform you know to watch it then really that's what you want to do and I think again you know understanding your your public is the best thing that you can do for that so you know I would do that now the reality is that unless you're doing something that is so innovative that like Like, you know, there is the community, but no one else has done whatever you want to do.

Probably, you know, I will attach to this something like, you know, try to understand who's your closest, not necessarily competitor, but, you know, similar business and try and see what they are doing. And not necessarily copy, but, you know, try and see if there's any specific elements that are recovering in their most successful contents. And, you know, again, repropose those. Because ultimately, you know, the reality is that almost whatever you're doing, someone else is probably thinking at the same time. and maybe one proposing. So, you know, I think, you know, it's not unreasonable to try and figure out also how other people are approaching their marketing and see if there's anything that you can, you know, you can learn from there. So when you're doing this and you're doing how many different market strategies you're doing because you're trying to go viral, right? And it's significantly easier now than it used to.

And you can always, you know, don't reinvent the wheel, take it from else. That all makes sense. When you're doing your own marketing and you're trying to go viral, how many things are you testing at the same time? what are your metrics that you're like, hey, this one worked? Is it just followers? Is it just views? What are you trying to do in that environment? For us at the same time, we are running, now,

depending on, you know, quarterman numbers and depending on the revenue and also, I would say specifically, you know, for our case, because it's a lot about brand building rather than just product focused. I think, you know, if you're focused on products specifically, probably your best bet is actually, you know, almost straight on, you know, try and go for that virality, try and do, you know, those social media ads working out, you know, what your raws should be and, you know, target that and probably, you know, and scale it up till, you know, you have the optimal rows and, you know, and that's that. But if you're trying to build brand, you know,

and continue to build brand and community like we are, we almost, we almost often have something going on for awareness, which may be, you know, a digital campaign, like, you know, it can be meta, Google ads, I know people say, and, you know, there's a lot of controversy, you know, the best awareness is the one that's given by sales. Yes, it is. However, equally, if you're really in there for the long term, in my opinion, you do want to try and get your brand as much as possible in front of people's eyes so that maybe in six months' time, when maybe the person wasn't ready to make the purchase will be, they actually think, oh, you know, I've heard of this brand before and they will

be already, you know, one or two steps closer to converting. So, you know, if you're really breathing brand and community, I think, you know, focusing on awareness, which may be the digital ads, personally, you know, we have run a digital out of home. So we've actually done billboards. We've done digital billboards. We've wrapped a tromb in Milan once, a huge tramm, you know, that was going around for a month. We sponsored, you know, advertising at football games, you know, and a lot of the times, you know, obviously those are things that you are doing for a limited amount of people that physically, you know, will see those piece of advertising, amongst other hundreds of things of advertising that is every day. But it will

also allow you to create content for those, which you can then use, you know, in your news, you know, newsletter, you can use, you know, in your website, you can use in your social media. And just to show again that, you know, your brand is tangible, you know, you're not just online. And even if you're just aligned, but you can do practical things and that, you know, you are something that exists out there. And that also, you know, increases the trust that the average individual has in yourself. Concurrently with this, you know, we usually have something that is a drive-to-store. And again, you know, that is something where, you know, we do digital advertising, which actually has practical and physical, you know, sort of other

pictures and footage of our physical store. We show, okay, look, you know, yes, you can buy online, but actually, you know, we have physical outlets where you can come and shop. And that, again, you know, increases the trust. Definitely if you have a, you know, physical store, I would say 100% leverage the fact that you have that because no everyone has that. And then, you know, we run also concurrently, you know, the usual element of conversion ads.

In there, I think, you know, you need to work on the creatives and try and find, you know, whatever's best. And there, you know, you just need to go with the AB testing. You know, you need to go. as many creative as possible, again, trying to find out, you know, similar businesses, what are they doing, what works, propose something similar, iterate, reiterate, re-itrate, and change, you know, and see what works best, and double down on that. You know, now when you spend, you know, with certain amounts,

Met, I think is quite helpful in giving you, you know, support and teams and whatnot, actually can help you optimize further. And the reality, I think, in there is just one thing that is key. meta like TikTok, like Google, you know, ultimately nowadays, you want to let them do the heavy work, you want to let them do the heavy lifting because they have more data than probably

anyone ever had in human history and they know, you know, they have all the touch points, you know, to figure out what's what. So really, I think, you know, try and just focus on the creative, see what feedback you get and try to understand, you know,

from the feedback to see if there's anything that you can create and push back in your other marketing. For example, you know, if we see online that all our blue products are doing better, then we know that, okay, you know, blues, what we might want to push in our physical store

because, you know, that's what the data is safe. You know, so I think this really is where, you know, I would say conceptually one need to stand. Now, probably I think, you know, the biggest challenge really is the creation of the content that ultimately, you know, I think is the difference nowadays. You can probably do yourself, you know, you can get other people within the team to do it

or you can do, you can hire agencies. We serve, you know, we make use of agencies that, you know, with which essentially we give mood board and and you know sort of a storyline and and our whole like you know aesthetic and then they go and create and then you know we decide how best we use the digital assets but I think really you know trying to create the best possible creative is where really it is at and if I only had you know sort of you know my life if I was on my last pennies you know I didn't know where to spend them you know that's what I would go you know creative to sort of try and create the best possible creative to leverage, you know, our, you know, the assets that we have, which for us,

as I said, predominantly is the presence of physical and tangible assets. I love that your focus is not on the product, but the experience and the community first. And you've got to feed towards that. And you adapt to that based on data-driven things. It's extremely polar opposite to what most people are doing. Most people are going after price. Okay, I'm going to compete with on price. I have the cheapest thing in the world. Let's try and do that. or I'm going to try and, you know, do their product focus, your community focused and experience focus. And that's a rare thing.

The other thing that's about you that's rare is in your age group, most people are anti-school. They're anti-university. They're like, this doesn't work for me. You're an individual who's already created this very successful business, but you're doing something that I don't know anyone else in your age group that's doing, that actually for the first time actually agrees with me on this. you're going back to university.

You're currently involved in that process, and it's not a little university. Tell me more about where you're going, what you're doing, and why you decided, even though you've had this level of success, you're going again, against the grain, and going, I'm going to go over here and then do this.

I think, you know, certainly also growing up, for me, a lot of this has been about, you know, what do I know, and also, there's always about the unknown, unknown, And the more you learn, I think, and the more you try and keep your eyes open, the more you realize that, okay, you know, I could know more. Or like, you know, there's something else that I could do better. And really, ultimately, it's always about, you know, are you going to go and get someone who can do whatever you can't do? Which, you know, very often is the answer.

Most of the time it's exactly the answer. Or, you know, are you going to get that knowledge yourself? Now, again, sometimes, obviously, you know, you can do both. But equally, to me, you know, I'm a very, I'm a person that I think it's thirsty, you know, for knowledge. and I really like studying as well. So, you know, aside medical school, actually, which I studied at King's College London, in the UK, you know, medicine is not necessarily a postgraduate degree,

so you don't need to do a pre-med course. You just do a longer, you know, undergrad course. That's what I did. I also studied some low courses at the London School of Economics. I studied some business courses at Imperial College London. After starting a business, after graduating from medical school as a medical doctor, I complete an MBA as well. So part remote learning, part executive,

but it's a full MBA, a master business administration, which I did at University of Birmingham, which I think, again, really helped me, you know, understanding, especially the financial aspects, things that, you know, sometimes I think it's not just about, you know, it's not because you want to be Superman and know everything, but sometimes it's about, you know that for a business, you know, you are going to need to, maybe you're not going to need to know any finance,

but you definitely are going to need to speak with people that, you know, will be talking about numbers and accounting and whatnot. So really, you know, ideally you want to know what they're talking about. And there I think that, you know, increasing your knowledge in those things is very important. So for me doing MBA was about not because I'm going to necessarily going to run 100% of my accounting, but knowing, you know, what I'm being talked about, you know, what people are talking with me. And, you know, also being able to be more confident, you know, because I think ultimately, you know, if you are more stressed, more worried, you know, your decision,

making process will suffer, but you know, if you can't increase, you know, your knowledge and, and what you, you know, what you're comfortable with then, I think that really helps. Again, you know, I decided, you know, some past year to undertake, you know, further studies, especially, you know, specifically for entrepreneurship and the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom of a full master in entrepreneurship. So, you know, I've been, you know, practice that I've been accepted into that. So I'll be starting that from August this year. So I'll be going to King's College, Cambridge.

And there, you know, again, you know, from me, man. I know you're just, you're passing over it. Like, oh, I've got this degree. I got this degree. I got this degree. You're the only person I've ever because, you know, I've lectured it. Yeah. I'm certified by Harvard. I have these things. And we just pass over it. Seeing someone else do the same way I do it, take a second and celebrate, man. That's huge.

Cambridge is huge. And the fact that you're doing it after you've been so radical. successful. People would dream just to get to the base of where you are. And you're like, no, there's so much more. This is just the beginning. And to be able to stand in front of people and say, listen, I don't know what I don't know. And I want to be able to stand in front of you confidently and understand what you're articulating to me. Because when I sit down and I'm doing real estate deals or I'm sitting down and doing a business deal and I'm analyzing a business that we're going to scale, that knowledge is mission critical. And being able to have that background, that have it in your

back pocket is massive. And having the ability to also have some of these higher name drops, Because when people ask me if they should go to university or they should go to college, I'm like, the name matters. I mean, if you go to university of, you know, fuck, no idea where it is, that doesn't matter. You pull Cambridge out of your pocket. You pull Harvard. You pull Yale. You pull those things out of your pocket.

It matters. So as much as you're building an identity around an exclusivity around your brand, being able to do that to yourself as well, change the ballgame. The doors that it will open and the reaction that the audience and the people across the table from you will have with you changes the ballgame. And it also, as you said, for your confidence, changes how you interact with the people across the table. You'll find a community because one of the great things about being at these higher-end universities, and you'll be able to experience this intensely is you're going to be dealing with people who are light, you're smarter than you.

And just like you built your business with all these guys that you kind of met in this group and you built this little community, my hallucination is that you're going to connect with people in Cambridge. All of a sudden is like, hey, I know you've done this, and I've done this magic thing and you've done this. Okay, cool. We've both done things that no one else has done. Now what's the next step? Because you're building your network and your network is your net worth. So I've always told people this.

You're not going to school just for what you learned. It's nice. It's wonderful. It's helpful. But what it does for you as a human being and the people you connect with and the network you build will make you more money than you possibly understand. So I love that you're going back to school and getting your master's at Cambridge. And just do we ever and celebrate the fact that you're going back Cambridge, man?

That's amazing. Dude, seriously. you just kind of brush it over. Like, I did this, I did that. I'm like, no, celebrate that. That's, it's amazing. It's huge. Because, I mean, how old are you again?

I'm 30 as of last week. Yeah, I'm not talking to you anymore. We're done. Goodbye. I've got 17, 16 years on you. Go away. I'm not talking. At 30, I wasn't even thinking about doing half of the things.

So you're crushing it and you're absolutely in the right direction. If someone's listening right now and they're like, I've never even thought about business this way. I've never interacted with business this way. I didn't even understand the experience. exclusivity of inherited trust, of having the experience about, wow, maybe I should look at school and do all that. If someone has never done this, what are the things that you would tell them, say, okay, these are the two things you need to read. These are the three things you need to do. Or if you're stuck in your business, here are those things. What are the things that you're like,

oh my God, I've got access to Cola. What would I actually tell you? I think, you know, in my almost sounds very cliche, but to me, I think, you know, really the fundamentals and the basics are quite important. And actually, I think, you know, if there's only one thing, you know, that I would, you know, I think someone could practically do. To me, it's about, you know, again, trying and, you know, increase your knowledge base, you know, if you have access to the internet, like, you know, most and the majority of people do, even more so, you know, within the business setting and the business world is, you know, try and find out, I'd say, you know, what, sort of, you know, I would say, you know, what is,

you know, where you are lacking in confidence and, you know, what, you know, what. what actually is stopping you from doing that next step. And just research that, you know, as a starting point. I would say, you know, really is about, you know, anything that you can do that will increase your confidence is a start, you know, in my opinion. Now, you know, moving on, I think there's certainly an element of, you know, how do you usually learn. And, you know, for me, a lot of learning is about, you know, having a structured approach,

which, you know, clearly comes from, you know, having studied a lot of university, you know, having studied a lot in general. And I think there, for me, you know, doing the structured courses really helped. But again, I'm very aware that, you know, a lot of the things that I learned in the MBA, you can pick up online, like on a free YouTube video. Like you don't on podcasts, you know, you don't need a whole degree. But, you know, are you going to leverage your network? You may or may not, you know, if you do those things online.

If you have other ways of, you know, expanding your networks and, you know, you can learn everything online and, you want to save on the fees money, by all means, absolutely. But, you know, do something. And, you know, again, those are the things that I think you know, need. You know, so, you know, try and increase your knowledge initially, you know, try and increase your network 100%. You know, I think is one of the most important things.

You know, and again, you know, try and connect with people that, you know, you think may help you. I think ultimately, you know, for me, you know, the businesses I did with, well, the business I did with, you know, people that I met online, literally like, you know, met online. Like, you know, you might meet people, you know, from all works of life, you know, you never know. But, you know, I think just being open, open-minded, I think really, really, really, really important and really helps. And that, you know, I would say, you know, the concepts at least that I would say, you know, you might want to reflect on if you are, you know, thinking about certain business, but no, don't know where to go.

Are there certain books that you're like, these are my Bibles? These are, these are, I love these more than anything else. Are there certain ones that resonate with you more than anything? I think conceptually, you know, again, I would say shoe dog by Phil Knight. So they created a on Nike. It's very, very, very good book. I think he expresses a, uh, actually, I think I can't remember it is a biography or an autobiography. Nevertheless, probably a biography in fact. Nevertheless, I think, you know, it explodes well, I mean, the thought process. You know, again, Steve Jobs, you know, biography, I think, again, you experience well the tough process. Rich that, poor, that, I think is an interesting way into, you know, understanding, you know,

the pitfalls perhaps of how accounting and finance is usually viewed, you know, from from people that don't really necessarily have backgrounds within those disciplines. And those I would say probably, you know, are some. You know, I've read 48 laws of power, which also, you know, I probably would recommend. But equally, I think the reality is that there's no, to me, one size of it all.

I think it really depends as, you know, what really resonates with you, you know, what type of individuals are you, you know, what type of, you know, to me, you know, like shoe dog and those books, they're very, you know, the very almost, you know, immediate answers because, you know,

you're working in, you know, in the streetwear and fashion. I mean, Nike is like the, you know, the staple of like, you know, of, you know, business, really. You know, you're talking a lot about, you know, I'm talking a lot about branding and experience. I mean, you know, Apple is the ones that did it, you know, better than anyone else in history. So, you know, those really are the people. And the reality, I think, you know, probably, you know, these are the ones for me. But I would say, you know, conceptually, you know, you might want to find whoever's done

the very best of, you know, what you want to do and go and, you know, see what you can learn, you know, from not necessarily the specific steps, because they may not apply to your circumstances, but at least conceptually, I think that would be always a start. So you're going to university, you're doing your next round, what's next for you? What is the next go? What are your plans that, you know,

I've got all this knowledge, I've got other experiences. What is the next journey for you? I think, you know, to me, the next journey, there's no specific, like, oh, you know, my five-year plan is, you know, opening whatever AI company, no, none of that. I think, you know, I certainly am someone who I like to improve myself and, you know, better myself as a person and certainly studying, you know, goes towards that. You know, business opportunities, you know, will come around.

You know, I have obviously experienced within different fields, retail, you know, healthcare, you know, all sort of artificial intelligence and data analysis. You know, I will certainly take a look. But, you know, there's nothing specific as such. To me, really, it's about, you know, improving myself and, you know, expanding my knowledge, expanding my network. Because those are the things that make me happy. And ultimately, I live life to be happy. You know, I don't really have the blueprint for happiness. But I think I have the, you know, I know what happiness looks like for me.

And, you know, that's what really I work towards continuously. So if the audience wants to get a hold of you and they want to reach you or they want to find out more about your brand and how you did it, where can they find you online? What's the best way to get in touch to see what you've done? I think for me, you know, the best ways would be probably LinkedIn. So, you know, call a title on LinkedIn. So name, so name. You know, also really, you know, my Instagram profile, I look pretty much every day, you know, which is again, at color title, so names or name, you know, with no spaces.

And, you know, here also you find, you know, my email contacts, which would be caller at dropperumil.com. And, you know, I'm always open to, you know, a chat or, you know, discussing potential opportunities. As well as, you know, I mean, by no mean, I'm a, I'm a, you know, a wildly successful person. But I think I'm always open to sharing, you know, what I did and, you know, my thought process and exploring other people's thought processes, you know, and see if there's any synergies or if there's anything that, you know, could be done together or explore together. And I think really, you know, ultimately that's what I'm here for. I think, you know, we can all help each other. I think, you know, we can all learn from each other. So, you know, I'm definitely, you know, someone who's out there and who's hoping to, you know, to conversation for sure. I really appreciate it. You've scaled in a way that most people have never even thought of. And the fact that you're continuing to, invest in your education, and invest in you, I wish more people would do it. Honestly, if I could go back 20 years, I'd be doing the exact same thing you're doing. I'd continue to expand my network.

I'd continue to expand my knowledge. I'd be honest about where my weaknesses are, and I would just go into it without any sort of ego. Like, okay, let's scale this and go from there. I really appreciate it, man. Thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you for having me. Exclusivity isn't about being expensive. It's about being intentional.

Cola just proved that when you build community first and products second, you create something money can't buy, belonging. Stop competing on price and start competing on experience. Your customers don't want another product. They want to be part of something bigger than themselves.