She Started an 8-Figure Fashion Biz, Halfdays, at 23

0:00Hey, business besties. Welcome back to the female founder world podcast. I'm Jasmine Gansworthy. I'm the host of this show and the person behind all things female founder world. Today I'm speaking with Ariana. She's the founder of a brand called Half Days and they are doing very interesting things in the like ski outdoor wear space. I'm going to be really candid. I hadn't heard of them until some of the girls on my team were like, I'm obsessed with this brand. I follow the founder. All of my friends want to shop them. They're on our like holiday gifting wish list. And I was like, okay, they've clearly created something really, really special here.

0:45And I looked into what Arianda and her co-founders have built. And honestly, it was just so impressed. They've hit eight figures in revenue. She is, I think she's 26 years old. She started this company when she was super young. And I just think that the product that they create is amazing. their approach to brand and positioning is super, super interesting. And I also have her speaking at our Female Founder World Summit. She's doing this presentation, which is going to be like a zero to now, this kind of quick run through of everything they've done to get traction in the business so far. If you don't know what summit is, Female Founder World Summit is happening on the 9th of December in New York.

1:27It is a big end of year party for the entrepreneurial girls in New York city. And honestly, folks are flying in from all over. We have someone coming from Australia. We've got people coming from Europe, from Mexico, from all over the country. This is going to be an incredible day. We've split it into part like conference and programming speakers, like the founders of Poppy, which is the fastest growing beverage business or one of the fastest growing beverage companies in the U S the founder of little words project of Avrani of global of the newsette, this incredible media business. So many great speakers.

2:05Then we have the party portion of the day where we are doing drinks, brand activations, just good vibes, a great room of people. We found the most amazing venue. We do events all the time, but this is honestly, I am taking things to a new level. We have been planning this for months. It's going to be an absolutely amazing day. I'm going to put a link in the show notes for you to grab your ticket and I hope to see you there. Okay, let's get into the show. You are now entering Female Founder World with your host Jasmine Grinsworthy. Ariana, welcome to Female Founder World. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

2:41For people who don't know what you're doing at Half Days, tell us about what you're building. Yeah, absolutely. So Half Days is a women's ski and outdoor apparel brand. We launched in November of 2020. So we've been around, actually this month is our third birthday, which we're so excited about. Happy birthday. they? Thank you. But yeah, we effectively like had a frustration with the outdoor industry specifically for women's apparel. My co-founder and I both came from kind of different backgrounds from that regard. My co-founder is a professional skier. She competed at the 2018 Winter Olympics and I'm a very recreational skier.

3:11And the two of us had a common frustration that there just wasn't anything that was fashion forward, but also technical and approachably priced in the outdoor industry specifically for women. And yeah, this is something that I've actually thought about like quite a lot I'm not even a massive skier but anytime that I've been on like a snow holiday over the last kind of like five years I've been like oh what do I wear and I've been on like net a pot and I'm like I can't afford any of this and all the stuff I can't afford is so ugly yeah and I didn't even know that you guys existed and here we are totally that was that was the exact frustration we were having like I I moved to Colorado when I was 23 years old shortly out of college and I got there and I was like okay I want some of these higher end brands but I'm not really trying to spend four thousand dollars on a ski set and then on the other end of the spectrum you have these brands that have been around for decades like you know really started in the 1960s by predominantly men and the pieces are just really like unflattering and boxy and ill-fitting for women so I felt like I was in the middle and just didn't really find a brand that resonated with me at that time.

4:15Were you friends with your co-founder before you started the business? No. So we met in Denver through, I became friends with her brother and he introduced the two of us. She was still living in Park City, Utah at the time. And she visited Denver. She actually moved to Denver a few months later. We became fast friends and started half days like three months later. Oh, wow. Okay. I love this story. And some milestones for people to understand like where you're at, because I feel like unless you like really dig in, you kind of like, oh, okay, this is like a fashion brand. She started a few years ago.

4:46No, you guys have really got some serious traction. Yeah, definitely. So like I said, we launched in November of 2020. And it was a really interesting time, because it was like the peak of COVID. And I think when we were launching, we're like, are those ski resorts going to be open this winter? Like we had no idea what was going to happen. And luckily, skiing was one of the only kind of activities you could still do that year. And the ski resorts were busy, like people were getting out and skiing. And actually, the following winter, the second year that we were in the market was the busiest ski season on record in the US ever.

5:20There were like 61 million skier visits or something of the sort. So yeah, we launched in that first season and we just had insane growth those first two years. From the first season to the second season, we 10x to the business. And now three years in, we've reached an eight figure annual revenue. And you've got some amazing stockists as well. Where are you sold? Yeah, so predominantly direct-to-consumer today, but we have been pushing into wholesale in a bigger way. We are carried at Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, Backcountry, and a ton of kind of independent retailers as well. And it's been a really successful channel for us.

5:56Very cool. I'm going to talk about retail and wholesale versus DTC in a bit. But I want to kind of like stay in the early days of the business because it's always really interesting, I think, Like hearing from someone who started something super recently and was able to like explode it in a massive way. What, first of all, how are you kind of like funding the business in the early days? I imagine that the space that you're in is super expensive. Yeah, it's definitely very expensive to produce this type of product. If you think about skiwear, it's like very technical. You have the zippers and the insulation and the fabric is waterproof and there's just like a lot of components to it.

6:30So it's a very like capital intensive product to produce as well as buying the inventory. The MOQs are quite high. So yeah, we definitely couldn't just pull, you know,$5 ,000 each into the business and say like, let's launch a ski wear line and just, it just wouldn't work that way. So we had to get external funding like pretty early on. So we took on a loan from family and friends in the first like couple of months of deciding we wanted to do this business. And then about eight or nine months into that, we started, we found a manufacturer, found it like found a couple designers built the initial brand and things like that and then we raised a pre-seed round so we went out to to vcs and actually took on venture funding in the pre-seed round which was pre-launched pre-revenue which I think a lot of founders have this kind of like preconceived notion that they just want to steer clear of venture and I'm just I'm not in that camp I I think it's I think that if you're wanting to build something big I I wouldn't be I wouldn't shy away from that path.

7:33I think that there's the wrong partners to work with. And I think there's the right partners to work with. And it's really about selecting the right partners. Where did you learn how to navigate this like fundraising landscape? Like this isn't something that is taught in school. Like you have to go and acquire this knowledge somewhere. Yeah, absolutely. It was a huge learning curve to say the least. So I have two co-founders, Kylie, who I started the business with at the end of 2019, we started working on it together. And within six months, we were in conversation with this angel investor. And she introduced us to our now third co-founder who had a bit more experience on that side of things.

8:13Her husband and a few of her family members were kind of in that world of venture and investment. So we did have a bit of access to kind of introductions and things like that on that side of the world. And And I think coming out of that, like if I if I didn't have that information of someone saying like, this is how you put a deck together. And these are the types of funds you should be thinking about. It would have been really difficult. So I think my advice on that side of things is find that person who can be that for you. And they're out there like there are so many people that understand the VC landscape, whether it's another founder or an advisor.

8:46But definitely find that person if you're trying to explore going in to venture. What's it like having two other co-founders? Like I'm doing this business by myself and I constantly just am thinking, oh, it'd be really nice having somebody else or like somebody else's expertise that is just like invested in this. And then also I like the fact that I'm the boss and the only decision maker. What's the dynamic? How do you guys like split your roles? What's it like? Totally. It's a good question. And I would say that it works really well for the three of us based on like the way that we split things out.

9:21I'm our CEO so I like am kind of the final decision maker on everything and that's just how it's been from the beginning and I think if you can have the division of like your co-founders having trust in and you know it being any of any of the kind of one co-founder or the other I think like having the trust in the other making a decision is so critical and we all have such different personalities and expertise and I think that's why it works really well too so I'm more like finance operations business growth wholesale and then my co-founder Kylie is a former Olympics skier so she works really closely on the product team and gear testing and product research and and then Corelle is really like an expert in marketing and partnerships and direct-to-consumer and things like that so it really like kind of happened in a seamless way for the three of us to work well together.

10:15Amazing. I have a very quick message from our sponsor. And honestly, we never do ad breaks on the show because I am just really picky about the sponsors that we've worked with and who we want to promote. We've partnered with folks like Shopify, TikTok for business, just guys that we know are really going to help grow your business. And honestly, we've turned down a lot of the rest because we want to make sure that the people that we are recommending to you, our business bestie community, are going to help you grow your business and that they're the best in the category. So all that to say, I'm about to tell you all about AMP, the folks behind a few of our favorite Shopify apps for e-commerce, because honestly, they're brilliant and their apps connect to each other within Shopify, which just makes your life so much easier.

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12:18And you can also add your shipping cost, cost of goods, and any other recurring or custom costs to the app. Lifetime Lead by AMP gives e-commerce brands enterprise level reporting. You can install Lifetime Lead by AMP now on the Shopify app store. Okay, let's get back into the show. What were you doing before you started this business? Yeah, so I was I was young when I started this business. How old were you when you started? We officially started when I was 23. And we launched when I was 24. So yeah, it was it was like, really early in my career. I had a couple years of work experience prior to starting half days.

12:57I was working for a company called the NPD group. And they are a retail consulting and data analytics firm. So think like if you're working at a brand and you have access to like all of this data about sales and channels and kind of like where products are being distributed and things like that and basically helping these brands take that information and leverage it to make strategic decisions. Okay, super interesting. Okay, I want to talk about like marketing, how you guys are getting traction because that 10x growth from year one to year two is wild. how did you do that yeah so a few things I think just before I get into like the tactical side of it I think that during that season that we had the 10x growth it was also the busiest ski season on record in the U.S.

13:42ever so I want to like say that first because I do think there was like heavy demand in front of us and we just hit it at the right time I think the other elements were PR that was a really really successful component for us especially in the first season and then influencer gifting and I would say that and then of course organic social that was like a huge component of it as well and I would I would say that the thing we were trying to create in the first two seasons was feeling like you were seeing half days everywhere and that was intentional like we were trying to get it on a lot of influencers we were trying to get it in articles and kind of like paid ads.

14:28And we were also doing a lot of like IRL community events and doing a lot on Instagram. So it was kind of just like you'd see it on an influencer, you'd see it in an article, you'd see it on the mountain, someone wearing it. And you're like, wow, hafties is everywhere. And I think that's kind of what we leaned into the first couple of years that worked really well for us. When you talk about PR, did you work with a publicist like as soon as you launched? When did you bring that in? Did you guys manage it in house? I think a of people are unsure because it's such a big like it's such a big expense when you're starting it really is it was a big decision for us because I think there are so many opinions like one way or the other to go about for PR and we had a great experience with it we brought on a publicist who had like a small agency before we launched so we raised a precede we were able to use those resources to bring on yeah a publicist for the first season and she helped us secure a Vogue feature on our launch day, which was really instrumental.

15:25And it was a full brand feature, which was crazy. And I think that really like put us on the map a little bit more and like really legitimized the brand as well as secured a lot of great like influencer seating partnerships that first season. We didn't pay for any of those partnerships, but we were just sending it out to the right people and they were posting it and it was new and exciting. And so, yeah, I would, I recommend PR. I know that it can be scary. And there are, there also are like the wrong partners to work with. And I think it's really about finding someone that recommends that publicist or agency.

16:00Totally. If you can get like a former client or a current client who recommends that person, like work with them. Otherwise, yeah, yeah. There's too many, too many, like not amazing publicists out there, I think as well. Okay, cool. I want to talk about the influencer thing for a while. Cause you said you weren't paying, but your product is pretty expensive. So that's still like a pretty big expense to be able to do any kind of like scaled influencer campaign. Yeah. How many people were you gifting in the beginning? Like what does that program look like now? Yeah, it's, it's a really good point.

16:29And I think for us, like our AOV is high. So we're average order value if people. Yeah, exactly. So our average order value is, is quite high. And because of that, it almost feels a little bit better to, to gift someone. And then they're feeling inclined to post because it's like oh I have this full new ski set for the winter or winter parka or something that's you know you're you're not just sending them like something small that's worth ten dollars it's worth five hundred dollars or six hundred dollars so I think that's one advantage of it the program in the first season was like I think the strategy was like get it on anyone with followers that can post this and we definitely planned for it like on the side of having the additional inventory.

17:12I want to say we probably sent out like 100 influencer gifts that season. And, you know, that's not a small investment, but at the same time, it was something it really worked and it got the brand in front of a lot of people. So, yeah, that's kind of what it looks like or what it looks like back then. And like today, it's definitely a bit more structured and who we're working with. And now we have some paid creator partnerships and things like that. I would say we're a little bit less focused on like sending out 100 free packages and a little bit more like working with intentional people. Very cool.

17:45And do you do you have like any kind of programs or tools that you're using to manage that in-house or you know is it just like using the DM feature in a Google spreadsheet? Yeah we're doing it pretty manually today honestly. Most people do. There are so many tools out there but I don't think I'm like who's using them? I know. I think those are for companies that are like at scale truly and trying to get their product on like thousands and thousands of creators and influencers. And today I think, you know, at least at our stage, it just it makes sense to like own those relationships and really try to like to build those connections with with women that we're working with.

18:21And and yeah, just managing it internally for now. Cool. Something else that I wanted to talk about is wholesaling, because you've mentioned that you're kind of like doing, before we started recording, you said like you launched with the e-commerce, D2C business, but now you guys are kind of focusing more on the wholesale piece. What kind of caused that switch and like why now? Yeah, it's a great question. We in 2020 launched 100 % direct to consumer. We were like, we want to be owning our customer relationships. It was also kind of like around the time that DTC was still the move. And I think the past couple of years have shifted that in a variety of ways.

19:02I think COVID made people more comfortable to purchase exclusively online, which is great. But I think it also like post COVID, people are excited to get back in store and try things on and have like this in person experience with the friends that they're purchasing. Like, I think that that's shifted a little bit. And not to say that e-commerce isn't the move like I'm just lazy I think yeah I'm going nowhere bring me the you're like no everything to me yeah I mean it's it's definitely and it was it was an interesting time I think like a lot of people are more comfortable with purchasing online and making returns like through online platforms I think that's all very true and but I also do think that there is this kind of shift back to omni-channel right now and we've we've had a lot of success with it.

19:49So we launched into Bloomingdale's and Nordstrom and backcountry. And those were all like a bit of a test for the first season. We did a few doors with each of them and online and they all were really successful. And now we're expanding into more doors, bringing on more partners over the next, like this year we onboarded quite a few additional partners and we're in conversation for stuff for more next year. And it's our goal to actually push more of the business into the wholesale channel in terms of like our revenue split. I think when we first started to go into it, we're like, we'll do, you know, 90 % of the business D to C 10 % wholesale.

20:26And now we're thinking of getting closer to like the 30 % revenue mark on wholesale. And I think that's predominantly because these wholesale accounts, these retailers have doors across the country in the hometowns of millions of people. And it's just more, it's difficult to get our product in front of all of those people in a digital capacity and a physical capacity. So it's really just a way for us to get it in front of more people faster and have them be able to experience our brand in a physical way that we wouldn't be able to do on our own with like pop-ups in dozens of cities quite yet. Something that I think people don't talk about enough is like once you land a bigger retail account you then have it has to be successful like they have to sell through so how do you support when you're bringing on board like Nordstrom or you know some of these partners that you're thinking about for next year that are kind of bigger how do you support a launch there and just like make sure that the product is selling and people are going in and buying it and they're going to reorder it's not going to get discounted all that kind of stuff totally it's it's definitely a lot of work I would say like first and foremost when we launched with some of these partners, it was really just about communicating that to our customers.

21:42Like having a stockist page on our site, like really promoting via email and social, these are the places that you can go and shop half days in person this season. Another thing that we did, which I think the retailers really loved and it ended up benefiting our success in the stores as well, was when we would sell out of a colorway or a style on our website, we would actually direct our customers to their websites or to their stores. And that was really successful. So we would sell out of like, you know, let's say our Aston jacket in black or something like that, which is one of our top sellers.

22:16And that customer would be like trying to add themselves to the waitlist on the PDP. And when that would happen, we would have a link there that said like sold out in your size or color that you're wanting. You click on that button and it brings up the retailers near them and the online retailers that we currently have that piece sold at and that was really successful just in continuing to like push people there. Do you use like a Shopify app or something to do that? Do you know? I think we have a Shopify app for it. You also can just literally link it to your stockist page like it might not be on the SKU level necessarily.

22:51Yeah. But it's yeah we I think the first season that we did it at least it was just like linking to our stockist page. Okay very interesting. uh you recently moved to new york why yeah so we opened an office here we moved into our soho space last year and it was i i moved like earlier this summer but we launched the company thank you we launched the company in denver that's where our headquarters are still and we have half of our team there half of our team in new york we hired our vp of product here in new york and she started to build the product and design team here in the city. And I think it's really just where a lot of the fashion talent is.

23:32And a lot of our wholesale accounts are here and our PR team is here. So it just made sense to have an office here. And yeah, my co-founder and I were both in Denver working out of that office. And I was like, I feel like I need to get out there and spend some time with this team. So it's been super fun so far. So what is the team structure now? You mentioned that some folks are in Denver, some are in New York. Like how many people do you have? Yeah. So we have about 15 full time and then a handful of freelancers. Amazing. I feel like businesses are built on the back of like the freelance economy.

24:02How many companies are just like run by contractors and freelancers? Totally. Hey, Natalie. Okay. So, and I, you've mentioned before, before the show that you do a lot of the hiring, I would love to know, you know, like you are a young CEO, you're probably hiring people maybe who are older than you, who are more experienced than you. What is that like being in the room with someone and also being like, hey, like I'm, I'm the boss, I'm the decision maker here. And I guess having like the confidence in yourself to know like who's the right person and who's not and being able to assert yourself in that way.

24:33Yeah, it's, it's definitely an interesting dynamic, like first and foremost, the thing that I have pushed myself to get better at from like, first starting this business is knowing that I want people on my team and in the room that are smarter than me in the respective thing that they're doing. Like I am not a product expert. I am not the marketing expert. I'm not the finance expert. And I think that my skill within my business is being able to like bring all of the parts together to build something great and having a vision for where I want this business to be. But am I the one that is the expert in supply chain in logistics?

25:14No. So I think like that is the first thing to just address with yourself and get comfortable with that. And then it makes everything a lot easier just to say like, okay, I'm looking for the best person to bring in for that thing that's going to take my vision and get it to the next level. So I would say like that was really, really helpful to kind of just get to that point. And then it made it a lot easier to say, okay, you know, you tell me why you're the best person for this and you tell me where we need to be going as a business. And I think like having, yeah, that mentality just makes it a little bit easier.

25:46And also, it also like puts it back onto them a little bit. But to your question on how you can navigate, like knowing who the right people are, I think that you have to trust your gut. Oftentimes, I think if someone's telling you something that you don't feel is right for your business, like something is going to go off in your head that, you know, you have to trust that. But yeah, pretty much all of my at least like kind of core direct reports for like the VPs of our department like everybody is I don't know a decade older than me and yeah so it's it's been interesting on that front just to like get comfortable with it but I think if you just go into it thinking you know we're all people and we're working together and we're going to collaborate and build something amazing like I think you can get over that pretty quickly.

26:34Yeah you're a few years in now have you had to fire anyone yet yeah how did that go it's hard honestly when we've had to do it it's it's been well there's been some performance but a couple that were more of like a layoff actually and we we hired too quickly for a few things and it's always hard because it's not the person's fault and it it's yeah you you kind of have to apologize and just say like sorry we we made a bet on this and it's it is not the area that we need to be allocating our resources right now and I think that's really hard it's really hard to do and I think it's a really hard thing to to like sit back and say do we have everybody on the team right now that we need are there like areas that we have too many people on a department and it's hard because you have personal relationships with everyone and you know it becomes like a bit more of like an emotional thing too.