Advice Line with Tim Ferriss (August 2025)

23:38Tim Ferriss:I have two brick-and-mortar stores. I also wholesale at the airport, and I rent booths inside other stores as well. And are most of your sales coming in through the store? Are you also selling online? Where are you seeing most of your revenue come in from? Well, last year was a bit of an outlier because Taylor Swift wore my ring, and we went viral. Wow. She wore one of your rings. A bit of an outlier. What was the ring she was wearing? Well, it was Travis Kelsey themed, of course, guy. Oh, wow. Yeah, it was his jersey. And we developed a relationship with Donna. And we kept gifting her things that were Travis Kelsey themed that we created.

24:18Donna's his mom, right?

24:19Tim Ferriss:Yeah, my apologies. Okay, I got you. Okay, so you made rings that had like his jersey was on the ring? Yep. Like, okay, I got you. So Taylor Swift wore one of your rings. Yeah, to the AFC Championship. chip, which qualified them to go to the Super Bowl. So if you can imagine my mind being blown, and then all of a sudden, like that Shopify ding happening, and it was just like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Okay, now I'm looking at now I see it because you have all you've got these rings with the jerseys. So you have Taylor Swift wore one of these rings. And imagine it had an impact on your sales, right?

24:58Tim Ferriss:Yeah, so my sales went up 50 % from 2023 to 2024. Wow. Wow. Amazing. So yeah, we doubled and it's been bananas. It's been a wild ride and I hope to give her the biggest bear hug someday. I bet. All right. So tell us what your question is for us today. So my question is, in 2024, my brick and mortar sales went up 37%. My wholesale orders went up over 300%. And so I'm trying to decide, even though the majority of my business, about 90 % of my revenue coming in is in that retail direct-to-consumer, my wholesale side is what has a much significant more growth. So should I follow where the money is coming from, or should I follow what area is growing the most aggressively?

25:52All right. Lots to think about. Tim Ferriss, I want to bring you in here. Questions for Emily.

25:58Tim Ferriss:Yeah, sure. Well, congrats on a lot of different aspects of the business. You've made it past a lot of places where other companies do not cross the river, so to speak. So congrats on that. Yeah, I don't even know what to say about Taylor Swift. I would say that may be a non-recurring phenomenon. So probably don't want to bank on that. But my God, congratulations. Let me ask you a couple of questions related to products. Are the earrings the best-selling category of product? Yes. Okay. By how much? I'd say about 50%. Okay. So the earrings are huge. In terms of, this is coming to your question related to wholesale and say the brick and mortar.

26:43Tim Ferriss:So you're talking about revenue. If we're talking about bottom line profit, however you want to define that, what is actually contributing the most at the moment? Is it still the brick and mortar, would you say? Yeah, it's the retail side. for sure. So D to C definitely gives us more revenue. Last year it accounted for 89 % of all the revenue. Um, and 13 % was wholesale. You know, the great thing about wholesale is that, you know, there's not as many expenses, right. But at the same time, it's just not accounting for as much revenue. So that's why I'm having a hard time deciding which area to focus.

27:20Tim Ferriss:If you were to to basically get the wholesale up to the point that it was generating the same as your current brick and mortar? How would you feel about that versus keeping the wholesale where it is and basically doing the same doubling, but with brick and mortar? I mean, wholesale is great because it essentially acts as a Shopify order. It's just bigger. And I already have all those systems in place. I have a fulfillment manager, I have an assistant manager, We ship out of our store. So it doesn't take more calories for me to execute that. But opening more stores takes a lot more energy, right?

28:01Tim Ferriss:Like I have to approve everything and, you know, go go sites and find what feels good negotiate, you know, wholesale is just another online order, which doesn't take any energy for me. So I would love that. And that's one reason why we're putting so much energy into growing that. But it's just hard to prioritize it that much when 90 % of the revenue is coming from direct to consumer. Emily, do you have a sales team or a sales person who focuses on wholesale? It's me. I'm over here. Yeah. I mean, is there a world where you can hire somebody, maybe even on a part-time basis, to only focus on building the wholesale business?

28:44Tim Ferriss:Yeah, totally. I mean, I think that has some legs to it for sure. I'm really trying to focus also on like customized pieces too. And that was a new area that we're developing. So I've been really focusing a lot on building those direct to other business like relationships. But that's definitely something that I want to work on. And have you done trade shows? Any trade shows? I haven't. I haven't. No. Because that would really be the fastest way for you to get some wholesale deals done. I mean, it sounds like you really want to build the wholesale part of your business out. That what you're saying is the potential is greater there, which I agree with.

29:24And in some ways, it's easier. There are obviously downsides too, but it's easier with what you are doing rather than trying to open up other brick and mortars. Because brick and mortar is expensive. It's challenging. There's a lot of moving parts there. and it depends and relies on foot traffic.

29:42Tim Ferriss:Yeah, for sure. And it's done really well for me. And so I think that's another thing that's like, man, it's a lot of fun to have a space where people enjoy talking about your digital detoxing, like getting out of your house, getting off of your computer, walking around a store, trying things on. So I enjoy creating those spaces. Well, let me hop in here for a second, just to say, I don't want to discount that. So if the only thing that mattered for your quality of life were growing the business, then there would be one line of thought and a certain set of advice that we could give. But people start businesses and run businesses for a million different reasons, and not everyone's trying to build the next startup that they sell to Meta or Google or whoever, right?

30:31Tim Ferriss:So if you really enjoy the time in those spaces, I think that number one, they're not mutually exclusive, but you could take the attention on growing brick and mortar and apply it to wholesale for a period of time. You decide for six to 12 months, I'm really going to focus on wholesale. I can still keep the brick and mortar running, but maybe there are places where we can streamline. Maybe there's extra help I can bring in. And I agree with Guy that trade shows could be interesting. Also, you don't necessarily need a booth. If you just have samples of your products, you can meet not only direct wholesale customers, but also potential distributors.

31:09Tim Ferriss:That's going to affect your profit margins. So I think it's a relatively speaking very low cost way of doing a lot of really valuable in-person research. Yeah, totally. And you know, when people get their hands on it, they are like, I'm in. And so, yeah, I think I can definitely see your point in that. When people try it on, it's easy. Guy? I think Tim's idea is great. You know, make a decision that you're going to spend six to 12 months on this thing, on this wholesale side, and test it out. And you're trying to position yourself for the day after the Taylor Swift bump ends, but then you won't need it anymore because you've built out the wholesale business.

31:51Tim Ferriss:Yeah, I think that sounds great. You know, I tried to get some brain quick in today, and I couldn't get my hands on it. I was like, what's going to make me a sharper shooter? I couldn't find it. Yeah, it's been a few decades. I sold it. So I'm not sure what they did with it. Maybe it got set out to pasture for all I know. Emily Bordner, the brand is called EB & Co. Congrats. Good luck. Keep us posted. Thank you. And I just want to say you both have been so instrumental in inspiring me to make my business. So thank you. Thank you. Thanks for saying that. Yeah, that's awesome. Okay, next up after the break, another caller with another business challenge.

32:31I'm Guy Raz, and we're answering your business questions right here on The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.

32:49Welcome back to The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz, and today I'm taking your calls with entrepreneur, investor, author, and podcaster Tim Ferriss. Tim, you ready to get our next caller on?

32:59Tim Ferriss:I am ready. Let's do it. All right, let's bring our final caller. Welcome to the advice line. You are on with Tim Ferriss. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business. Hey, Tim and Guy. Thank you so much for having me. I'm Kimberly Becker, and I'm a clothing designer calling in from Woolwich, Maine. My brand is K. Becker. It's a collection that I've designed with a focus on women over 40 years old, which is me. And this is a group of women who have been looking for high quality clothes for quite a long time. It's an underserved population in the fashion industry.

33:37And you design all the clothing? I do. Wow, amazing. And they're manufactured overseas in Asia?

33:43Tim Ferriss:No, I have a team in New York City and the fabrics are sourced from Japan and Italy, mostly a lot of dead stock fabric. So most of the fabric is quite sustainably sourced and really high quality. And dead stock means fabric that one manufactured too much of and so was available. Yeah. That's awesome. I love that. And I'm looking at your website now and it'd be beautiful. I mean, amazing. So did you, you studied as a fashion designer, is that your background? I'm actually a textile designer by training, which I bring a unique angle to the apparel industry. I worked in almost every cotton mill in America before they all clothes.

34:25Wow. And it's got a little bit of an Eileen Fisher kind of vibe to go in for a little bit.

34:30Tim Ferriss:Yeah. So I listened to your interview with her. Years ago, yes. Yeah. She really, I mean, changed the fashion industry for women, gave women a way to dress in that sort of Japanese aesthetic is so timeless and so beautiful. But I almost think of myself as her alter ego. We're not trying to make sort of a simple boxy silhouette. We're trying to bring style, fashion forward, sort of whatever was on the Paris runways so that it's not dumbed down. It's not timeless. It's not shapeless. How many years have you been doing this? So I launched in October, 2023. So I'm quite new. And from year one to year two, we've doubled our sales.

35:16Tim Ferriss:I sell direct to consumer on my website, but really primarily I'm doing this all in person. So you are the designer and the CEO and the sales rep. It's all you basically. Basically. Yeah. And, and, and have you broken past a hundred thousand in sales, 200 ,000 sales? At the end of this year, I believe we'll be at 75 ,000 in sales. So we're slow and steady here. Awesome. All right. Let's hear your questions and then we'll dive in a bit deeper. Okay. So I want to shift away from an inventory model to a pre-order model. In other words, you're carrying inventory and you want to shift away from that model.

35:54Tim Ferriss:Yeah. So being a small, sustainable indie brand, we can't compete with the huge corporations that massively overproduce and then deeply discount and unload at the end of the season. It doesn't work for us financially, and it's also just not sustainable. It's not good for the earth to be doing it that way. However, the U.S. population isn't so game to wait five, six, seven weeks for a garment. So the idea of pre-order is that we actually take the orders and then manufacture what's ordered. So my question is sort of twofold. When do I make that move from an inventory model and how do I shift the mindset from instant gratification to patience, knowing you're going to get something great at the end of the day.

36:40Yeah, a lot to think about here. And as you know, we've done a lot of apparel on the show. And for people who are unfamiliar with the industry, you've got to anticipate what somebody is going to order. And the more you make, the higher the chance you're going to lose money because you're making these all these high quality material making in New York. So I understand the challenge. And you're looking at a way to basically show off a design, but get taken pre-orders. So then you've got the money in hand and then you only order what you need instead of instead of having all this excess inventory right exactly okay tim ferris i want to bring you in here um a lot let's think about uh kimberly's idea i mean what she's doing is awesome and but you know consumer behavior is consumer behavior

37:24Tim Ferriss:all right so i'm looking at the website i like the website by the way thank you very elegantly done i had a definition question for me because i have i've sadly no fashion sense but the What does choose the first piece of your capsule closet today mean? What does capsule closet? So in the sustainability world, the idea of a capsule closet is that you can have 10, 15, 18 pieces that you can mix and match. You can wear again and again. That's the idea. I actually have clients that are basically every time I release a new piece, which I think of as the next piece in the capsule closet, they are buying it.

38:01Tim Ferriss:They're like, I'm building my capsule through you. Tim, you do have a capsule closet. It's T-shirts and jeans, and you mix and match. So a couple of thoughts. I would say one company you might want to check out, run by a friend of mine, but it just so happens there might be some parallels. It could be pretty interesting. His name is Sepp, but it's spelled S-E-P-H, Skerritt. Propercloth.com is his company. and he makes people wait. And the company has been going for, I want to say, 10 years now, but started off with something like 10 different fabrics and one type of shirt in his apartment. And now it's this very successful company.

38:51Tim Ferriss:So I would say that there are exceptions to the US customers not being ready to wait. So I would go out of your way to try to find some of those outliers. The second thing is that in terms of when to make the switch, I would reframe that question. How do I experiment? Because that's a risky switch. And so what I thought of were, say, limited drops, where you don't make a full switch, but you test the waters to say, hey, guys, we're running a really limited edition as an experiment. here's why it's exciting the race goes to the swift we're only accepting this many orders and then you're gonna have to wait four to six weeks right but but you make it a feature instead of a bug that's a great idea and it would go right it would dovetail beautifully with the short amount small amounts of fabric i'm sourcing in those dead stock like italian beautiful italian fabrics i can only get 87 yards of or something so yeah yeah like that's part of the story i wonder if the term pre-order could be like, could you, could you say made to order?

40:03I don't know if that's going to make a difference or move the needle that much, but maybe pre-order scares people because they think, oh, it's, it's like a Kickstarter you get, you know, how many times have you given money to a Kickstarter that never, ever arrives, but maybe made to order like, Hey, you know, we're going to, you, you put the, you make this order and we're going to start, we're going to right away. It's worth trying it again. It may not move the needle, but it's worth trying playing around with the language.

40:27Tim Ferriss:That's a great idea. Yeah. Kimberly, I'm wondering, I mean, are you hoping to move exclusively to this model? So in the long run, yes, it's it in a way that goes to the whole idea of that, Tim, you talk about the smarter, not harder concept. So you design some by design, 12 pieces a year and once a month, a new piece drops. those orders come in, the manufacturing happens, they all get shipped together, like consolidating the effort. But also then clients know when the next piece is coming. So they're watching for it. They're waiting for it, that Friday night drop. That would be the smartest way for me to reduce the amount of effort it takes to sell the products as well.

41:15Tim Ferriss:Yeah. While you're working on the transition, is there a way to keep best sellers in stock? Or maybe you design sweaters or things that have a sort of a longer, more sort of timeless lifespan that are always in stock as you transition more and more to the made to order. Because there are things you can do to incentivize people, free shipping. Maybe they get inducted into a club. Maybe people get a first look at what you're working on. Maybe they get an insight into the sketches you're working on or photographs of you, you know, kind of cutting material or drafting designs. I mean, that could be something that you may want to experiment with, too.

41:53Tim Ferriss:You know, it's funny you say that because earlier when Tim was talking about his friend's brand and the benefits that come from that sort of exclusivity, I was thinking it's the menswear angle on things is so different than the way we sell women's wear. But one of the aspects that I'm trying to embrace is to think more about menswear and how it's pitched, because you guys are a much harder sell. You don't buy as much. And so you actually require a little bit more carrying through. And so in the idea of the club idea, which I love calling it that, it never occurred to me to do that, but to send swatches of fabric for a new piece, because the fabric is such a big part, the quality is such a big part of my brand, to send a swatch of fabric and say that you're getting exclusive, like, first touch, like, first opportunity to see this beautiful gabardine that we're going to be making the next blazer in.

42:46Tim Ferriss:it's coming out in a few weeks. Keep your eye open when it drops. You would be one of the first people to get your hands on it. Yeah, sure. And also coming back to what you said about consolidating effort, I love the idea of shipping swatches, but that seems like it could turn into a hell of a lot of work. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing to do, but you might be able to scratch some of the desire for community where you give them a peek behind the curtain using something that's off the shelf like patreon or private youtube something like that like hey guys this is what i'm looking this is what i'm working on right now and uh i'm always looking for low-cost fast experiments that are easy to do and if it doesn't work it doesn't work but if it does work then all of a sudden you've created a new type of loyalty program which has a community where they get to be part of it.

43:43Tim Ferriss:It would also give people something to talk about about the brand that's unique, which right now is everything. It's word of mouth is everything in this brand. Like we have to get people to the website or it's never going to happen. Well, it's just, you got to get that club going. The exclusive club. I love it. Yeah. Kimberly, thanks so much for calling in. Kay Becker Designs. Thank you. Good luck. Thank you so much. It was really lovely talking to both of you. Thanks for having us. Nice to meet you, Kimberly. Tim, I'm not surprised. I mean, we've done, you know, over 100 of these episodes now.

44:13And I'm not surprised that you really are like one of the best. You have great advice.

44:19Tim Ferriss:Thanks, man. It's part of the fun of business for me. Yeah, yeah. Right? It's a puzzle. And you can get handed a different Rubik's Cube every day, every week. Yep, yep. Tim, before I let you go, I want to ask you a question that I've asked every returning founder on this show, which is if you go back to when you were kind of building your business, what advice could you have given yourself that would have been helpful? I would say first, there's no one right way to do it. And there's no one better finish line than another. In the sense that you don't have to build the next venture-backed startup.

44:58Tim Ferriss:You don't have to have your company bought by XRZ. You don't have to grow at 200 % per year. You might have a business that doesn't grow at all. but it is deeply meaningful to you and you impact people or you love the craft you're involved with. So I would probably say that. And then the second thing I would say is mind your mental health along the way. Get outside, get some sunlight, spend time with your friends. As much as you pay attention to the business health, also pay attention to the mental health and the social health side of things, I would say. I love it. That's great advice. That's Tim Ferriss, entrepreneur, investor, author, and podcast host, and now the inventor of a new card game, Coyote.

45:43Go check it out. It's available pretty much everywhere you can think of. Tim, thanks so much for coming back on the show.

45:50Tim Ferriss:What a pleasure. Always nice to spend time with you, Guy. Thanks for having me. Thank you. And by the way, if you haven't heard Tim's original How I Built This Episode, please go and check it out. We will put a link to it in the podcast description. And here is one of my favorite moments from that interview. you. There's a difference between persuading someone to purchase a product and debating with someone who has no intention of ever changing their mind. I wasn't making that my job, which I think a lot of people do. They make it their job to convince the world and you shouldn't convince the world.

46:21Tim Ferriss:You should convince the people who match most closely to what you're providing. So I came to believe really early on that it's not about the number of people who don't get it. It's about the number of people who do get it. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. And by the way, we checked in with our callers, and we are happy to say that their businesses are doing pretty well, and they're following some of our advice. Gob Earplugs were featured as one of Time Magazine's Best Inventions of 2025. And in March, Lauren appeared on Shark Tank. She's now taken Gob back into stealth mode, and she'll be launching a new product very soon.

46:57Emily has now expanded to four brick-and-mortar locations, and her new customized jewelry line is already accounting for 15 % of her overall revenue. As for Kimberly, she continued expanding her clothing line, and she's seeing a lot more repeat customers, which is always a great sign. She'll also be exhibiting at the Curate Fashion Trade Show in New York this September. So congrats again to Lauren, Emily, and Kimberly. And of course, if you are working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one-minute message that tells us a little bit about your business and the questions or issues that you're currently facing, because we would love to try and help you solve them.

47:35You can send us a voice memo at hibt at id.wondery.com or call us at 1-800-433-1298. Leave a message there and make sure to tell us how to reach you and we'll put all of this information in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Noor Gill with music composed by Ramtina Rablui. It was edited by Andrea Bruce. Our audio engineer was Sina Lafredo. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Carla Estevez, Casey Herman, Carrie Thompson, Catherine Seifer, Ramel Wood, Sam Paulson, Neva Grant, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.