Building in Public: How to Let Customer Feedback Guide Your Brand

0:00I just risked my own capital because one, I believed in the product and two, I wanted people to know that I had skin in the game too. I wasn't trying to use customers to fund the business without having any skin in the game.

0:17Hey, you're tuned in to Shopify On Location, a special series recorded in our space in New York City. I'm your host, Shuang Esther Shan. A lot of businesses are talking about marketing on TikTok, but can you actually build a business from TikTok? That's exactly what Marcus Milioni has done with his brand, Minton New York. Marcus makes TikTok videos on fashion and has generated roughly 12 million likes and counting. It's also the place where he's showcasing how each piece of clothing and jewelry is made for Minton New York. Marcus is here to share his process for creating great content and building a business without funding from scratch and all in public.

1:02Marcus, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah, super excited to chat with you in person, breaking this parasocial kind of dynamic. So you started making TikToks like a lot of other creators during lockdown, and some viewers loved the jewelry you had on. So you decided to start figuring out how to make these pieces yourself. Tell us about that process. I guess it kind of just happened randomly. I was making content. I was back with my parents in Virginia from what I thought was going to be two, three-day weekend at the beginning of the pandemic before we even really knew kind of what all of that was.

1:42And ended up being there for a year. Was there with my brother, my sister, like whole family under one roof for the first time in a really long time since we all left for college essentially. And I got kind of bored and wanted a creative outlet and didn't really know anything about TikTok specifically or like short form video as it's kind of called today. I thought the platform was more just dances to music. And I figured that there might be people out there that want to watch content that's a bit more informative or talking about different subjects. And so I just kind of delved into the stuff I liked, which was mainly just fashion and fitness related content.

2:22So that went on for a while, didn't really have a strategy or a plan. outside of if I thought a video idea was good enough, I was going to make it. And so started posting content. And then after a while, I had been wearing these two chains around my neck, which I had made here in the Diamond District over on 47th Street, mainly just thicker 18 inch chains and warm as as two. And so then people kept asking about them. And I figured that I could replicate it and make some packs of them, two of them, and sell them online. And so that was kind of how Minted New York was born. I made, I think it was 10 or 12 packs and had them ready at my parents' house.

3:12I remember telling my mom about it. She didn't really understand how that was even going to work or how I was going to spin up a site. But I had been familiar with Shopify and the platform and kind of how easy it makes it. It's kind of like plug and play. Spun up a website, released them, they sold well. And then it was kind of off to the races after that, figuring out, okay, well, how do we scale to the next one? Like, how big do we go? Meanwhile, the whole time I was just doing this with my own savings. So while I was working full-time, I didn't want to blow all my savings on inventory. I was like kind of playing it cautious.

3:48and yeah, just slowly like grew it a little bit bigger each time. And then over enough months, now we're here.

4:03No, I love it. And I think it's such a special story because you don't have design experience. You didn't go to school for design, but you just wanted to create something of your own. So what's your advice for people who have an idea and they might feel intimidated maybe because they don't have the background. Yeah, I think it's interesting, right? Because I really, I was at school, studied finance, was working in commercial real estate debt. So I wasn't a design background person by nature. I just knew what I liked. I was always curious about things, how things were made. And so, you know, a lot of manufacturers and stuff that you work with nowadays, you can kind of bring rough ideas to them and it will be more expensive in a longer process to get to a final product, but generally they'll help you along if they're open to it.

4:55And so that's kind of just how ideas started, just rough ideas, rough sketches for things. And I just didn't stop until I found someone who could help me make it. And it was a lot of emailing and calling manufacturers and them not being able to do it but that's just part of like any business right and so at the end of the day have an idea and then just keep pushing trying to figure out who can make it and then eventually you kind of create a rolodex of good manufacturers that you start to work with and then ones you don't want to work with again and then over time they start to understand your design language a bit and projects move faster.

5:38And like for me specifically get better at telling them exactly what I need and kind of learning as I go. You can learn a lot just by going on YouTube and searching for what you're trying to learn. And that was what I did a lot in the beginning, especially when we moved into apparel, trying to learn how to do tech packs and, you know, draw fashion flats, stuff like that. All just had to be learned through through YouTube videos and Googling and talking to people. But yeah, I mean, if you have an idea, generally with the internet, you can figure out how to get it made or bring it to life. Yeah.

6:14Okay. So you have your idea and you managed to have a meeting with the first manufacturer or production partner. What's your tips for going into those meetings and asking for what you want when you're new to the industry? I think it's hard when you're new because they probably sense a little bit of nerves. For me specifically, we kind of outgrew two smaller manufacturing partners very early on and had to, it was my first time sourcing overseas for the jewelry in Italy. And I've always gone about it just being super upfront right away. Once you start to manufacture at scale, a lot of the better factories have what are called moqs which is minimum order quantity and so sometimes you really want to work with the better factories but they have these high moqs so even if they had high moqs that i knew we couldn't hit i would still try to get a meeting and then just go in and be honest and tell them listen like today not going to be able to meet your minimums but we're growing at this rate, like, trust me.

7:23And if you're open to it, let's grow into this partnership together. And, you know, sometimes they're game and sometimes they're not.

7:36But in the case of both my biggest apparel manufacturer and my jewelry manufacturer, they kind of like took a flyer on me and gave me a shot and kind of we grew into a bigger relationship. And sometimes that's just the part of business where people talk about luck, like, you know, they could have told me no. And then I would have, you know, continued my search. But I got a bit lucky with them saying yes and wanting to help me and I guess taking a chance on me as well for their business. Yeah. I mean, speaking to the finance side, I think the really unique part about your story is the fact that you don't take pre-orders, which is something a lot of new founders use so that they can actually fund the production.

8:21Yeah. Talk to us about that philosophy and why was that so important? Yeah. Pre-orders are tricky. I didn't take pre-orders in the beginning because I felt as though a founder taking pre-orders to subsidize the production of product was kind of not the right signal to send to new customers who are, you know, Taking their hard-earned money and taking a chance on a new brand that there aren't any reviews for, nobody really knows much about outside of just maybe the founder themselves talking about it. And I looked at it like if I was a customer and I saw a founder taking pre-orders in that way for a consumer product like apparel or jewelry, it wouldn't give me much faith in their product.

9:08But like the signal it would send to me is that they don't have enough faith to sell the products. So they don't want to risk their own capital going into the project. And so I just risked my own capital because one, I believed in the product. And two, I wanted people to know that I had skin in the game too. I wasn't trying to use customers to fund the business without having any skin in the game. Like I was in much further than they were in by just purchasing the product. Also, too, it's kind of like two main problems. There's that first problem. And the second problem is in this day and age, in the consumer psyche, you are battling against Amazon and how they've shifted consumers to think you should have a product at your door in two days.

9:57their multi-billion potential, they might be a trillion dollar business at this point, but I am not, right? But the consumer, when they purchase a product on my website, regardless of how small I am, they think a product should be delivered, you know, at the latest seven days, generally in two days. So when you do pre-orders and then you have to go into production and then there's all the potential issues with a production run that cause delays, customers don't have product for a couple months. It's not a good start to your relationship with your customer. So having it in hand, you take on more risk personally as a founder, but that's kind of how it should be.

10:35And then you can get stuff shipped out same day or next day, pretty much immediately. And so that was always a non-negotiable of this needs to be shipped out generally within 24 hours of a customer ordering. And for the most part in the continental US, we can get orders to their door into three days if they're the far left corner of Oregon or California, but generally two days. It's amazing because it's also something you talked a lot about on your socials for not going down the pre-order route. And then in addition to that, anytime you make anything. You're also showcasing the process, iterating.

11:15You're talking about how you're trying to perfect the tote bag right now. Yes. It should be good now. It's ending production, but it should be good. Amazing. And I think a lot of founders, they might want to do the same, but they feel intimidated. So how do you give advice for people who want to build in public, but it's a scary thing to do. I mean, it is scary, right? Because especially in a creative industry where your end product is going to consumer and it's not a business to business type business, you open yourself up to criticism from the masses or anyone who watches your content and criticize the products you're making or the process in which you're making your products.

12:00and that is scary for for any business owner or any creative and i think at the end of the day you have to kind of just let those comments roll off your back and understand that you're the one making products and trying to build a business and generally the people commenting if it's just straight up hate it's just straight up hate like there's nothing you can do about it But there are constructive comments and criticisms that come from those people that you can use to help improve your product. For the tote bag, as an example, when we originally made it and Clay had worked on the first sample, it was a rigid strap in that there was no adjustability.

12:42And so I had worn it on a video and talked about it for the first time. Tons of feedback in the comments section about wanting it to be adjustable. And it's something I didn't even think about, just kind of blinded by, did it fit me? And I just, you know, didn't really think about it. But all these people were asking for adjustable. So then we went back and retooled the design to make the strap adjustable. So now that'll fit, you know, taller people, shorter people, people my height might just want to wear it differently. And so I think that's the example of positive criticism. But I guess if you look at your project as your baby, and then you see a bunch of comments coming in and kind of attacking it, and you get defensive about it, it's a weird area where if you're blinded to that constructive criticism that can make your product better, just because you don't want to change your product and you think it's perfect as is, it's dangerous.

13:34and then sometimes people just hate to hate, but that is what it is. I think overall it's a good thing and bringing your customer along on the journey helps them kind of buy into the product at the end of the day even more because they are part of that entire process. So everybody that commented for an adjustable strap helped influence making an adjustable strap on this bag. So I think it's just a cool way to include a wider community outside of me, Sean and Clay on final products. I wanted to take a moment to thank our listeners for tuning in to Shopify on location. If you're not already, please hit that subscribe or follow button wherever you're tuning in now and let us know what you think about the show by leaving a review.

14:20Thank you so much. And then another aspect we touched on a little bit is the fact that you were working in finance banking. What advice do you have there when you've got a full-time job, you're trying to mitigate your risk of starting a business and you have to balance the corporate job and starting a side business? Oh man, that was hard mainly because I never wanted my performance at my real job to slack in any way because I was focused on growing the other. But it hit a point where it was just all too much. And the stress just became all encompassing. And I would be meeting with manufacturers on my lunch break, and they would run over and then I would be trying to get back to meetings for my real job.

15:07And at the end of the day, hold on to your job as long as physically possible, because it gives you some of that feeling of safety. There's that safety net there if the business does blow up. And I was in the fortunate position to not have any dependence, you know, so when it came time to decide, do I make the leap and quit my job and then do this full time? When I talked it over with my parents, they're like, you know what, if it blows up in your face, you'll just have to go and find a job again. You don't have anybody that depends on you and you just have to, you know, find a way to pay your rent and bills and stuff.

15:49And that's just all part of it, right? It's never going to feel perfect. And you can do as much as you can to ease that transition. But regardless, leaving a steady paycheck every two weeks that pays for all of your bills, potentially leaving that to go do something where the only money that comes in is the money that your business generates is extremely nerve wracking.

16:19A lot of people are starting these businesses while working full time. So when is actually a good time to leave your nine to five? I guess it's a case by case, right? Like I said, no dependence. But if you are somebody like with a family or something that depends on you, everybody's equation is a little bit different. But for me, I remember sitting down with my mom and my dad and trying to figure out a number that would make sense. and so we ended up coming to a number like a revenue number and we agreed that if we did that revenue number for three months in a row then it would be time to quit and I remember we had a pretty big our site was down we were gearing up for a release and a couple weeks later we released and we did that revenue number in like an hour and I like picked up the phone and I I FaceTimed my dad and I was like, he was in the office and I was like, I'm done.

17:19I'm leaving and sent the email to my boss. I was like putting in my two weeks. And, you know, I was extremely lucky to be working in a place where my boss and even his boss were looking out for me a lot and giving me a lot of opportunity. And they both were like, listen, go for it. Like, we're happy for you. If it doesn't work out, we'll take you back. So it was like this weird safety net that I got in quitting too, that everything kind of just lined up and I was so thrilled. And then the real stress starts after the two weeks ends and you're on your own and it's like, you're trying to figure out everything on your own now.

18:00But yeah, it was a bit of a, it was like a revenue goal type deal. Yeah. You've definitely built a strong connection with your followers and it's truly a community. How do you manage to balance being the face of the brand in addition to actually running the operations and doing the day-to-day tasks? I think it was easier to do when we were smaller. Now, with the size that we're at, there's just always this constant pressure to have interesting updates about the business. And in the beginning, there always were. You're running around meeting with manufacturers and showing process of products. But now it's like a lot of the work that I do is behind my computer, emailing people, like making sure chess pieces are in place so that we can continue to move forward.

18:55And it's not so much running around doing like small things that may be interesting on video. And so I actually thought about this earlier this week and where if I actually filmed some of these days that I just have behind the computer and uploaded it and did it like in a time-lapse voiceover, maybe it would be good for people to see because you can sit there for eight to 10 hours and that's all you did today. And you woke up and worked out. And then after that, didn't change or move or do anything else. And it's something that I do want to show because I think on entrepreneurship on social media is like overly glorified, overly simplified.

19:39People, try to say it's so easy to make all of this money. And at the end of the day, it's really not all that easy. It requires an extreme amount of time. And you're always trying to put out fires or stop fires from starting each and every day. And so my role has kind of changed, brought on Sean around the 10th or 11th mark in the first year. And so he's been a huge help to me, kind of like alleviating some of the smaller stuff off my plate so that I can do more of the bigger work. But still, even him and I now just being us two at this size is probably too small of a team to try to handle. So some days I just don't really get out of the apartment and away from the computer to do any of the interesting short form content, small, like short video stuff.

20:34Yeah. I mean, I know that people who are watching your TikToks probably love watching the pack and ship videos. Every time I see them, I'm like, Marcus, you have more important things to do. But I know that TikTok is one of the major sources of traffic for your business. Was it ever intimidating being the face of the business and being the driver for traffic for Mint in New York? It was a little bit more worrisome back when they were talking about banning the app, just because once it reaches that level of discussion and it's over in DC and they're making decisions out there, once those conversations start, you have to start at least game planning in your head.

21:18like, okay, if it does go away, what, what do we do next? Now we're at this weird point where Google search traffic actually overtook TikTok, which was really cool to see. Cause that tells me one word of mouth is extremely strong and that people are hearing about it in one way or another. And two people are coming back and just Googling minted New York and not really going through my TikTok or Instagram, which I think is ultimately a good thing long term. I think I can be the face of the business long term as like the founder, but I don't think as growth continues that I can be the sole driver of all traffic, right?

22:03I think organic is strong and I'm glad we built this way, strictly organic until this point. But there's a reason that advertising works and there's a reason it's a multi-billion dollar industry. And I think it's something we should experiment with on a go-forward basis. When you're thinking about experimenting with paid ads and that side of marketing, what do you think you'll first experiment with? This has been the million-dollar question that Sean and I have been talking about for the last two or three months because there's the Facebook ad engine, like Facebook, Instagram. I think that's probably going to be the most efficient one starting off.

22:54But then again, Sean, I don't know anything about how to run Facebook, Instagram ads. So then it asks the question of how can we find an agency that understands our brand and tells the story the right way through advertising And so we've met with some people trying to figure out, do we go with like the agency model or, you know, really good freelancer media buyer? I don't have it solved. And I do know that, you know, meta ads and Instagram ads specifically perform quite well for both the industries that we play in, the jewelry and the apparel. But I personally just don't know anything about them.

23:33So I'm not really the best like barometer for how do you make these work, you know, which is frustrating as someone who I feel like I should have all the answers, especially if Sean comes asking. But I don't. No, it's good. It's good to be honest. And I think for myself, when I'm browsing Instagram, the detail of a piece of clothing is so important. So even with your pants, if you had like a close up of that button, I think that would work. So. Yeah, we'll try. Yeah, for sure. So, of course, New York is in your brand name. Talk to us about how this city influences the brand. I always felt a weird pull to the city when I was younger.

24:15I never spent time here. Grew up majority of like my formative years in Virginia. But my dad started his career in New York. My sister started her career in New York. And so as I was growing up, it always had this allure to me that I just was going to start here or find my way here in some capacity. And for a lot of the brand, I just wanted to capture that feeling, specifically like the bright eyed, like wide eyed dreamer coming to the city and is like, OK, well, now I'm here. If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere type feeling. And just like trying to capture that plus the grittiness of the city and the energy here and how fast paced it is.

25:11and yeah there's all those different uh feelings that are hard to kind of design for specifically but trying to capture them in their own unique way in different pieces is kind of a goal of ours I think for a lot of stuff we make especially the stuff we make here

25:37you've kept business so lean in a city that is really costly and competitive so yeah talk to us about that aspect of starting a business in new york i mean because of that we've it's just Sean and I as the two full-time, I guess, employees of the business. But yeah, the city is definitely expensive. And I think right now in year three, we're just now starting to look at actual office spaces. And we've been running this entire business out of our apartment. So think like classic New York City, two bedroom apartment, but you're both living and working in it all hours of all days. And so that it's, we've been good for three years, but now it's starting to be like, we need a separate space where all of the energy is going into growing the brand and mixing home and office.

26:39I don't think it's feasible anymore, but there's a huge cost that comes with it. Getting an office space isn't cheap, Finding the right size office space that you can grow into also isn't cheap. And then we had the whole other situation of transferring to a warehouse and warehousing in Manhattan or even Brooklyn doesn't really make that much sense for a smaller brand just because of how expensive it is per square foot. So we went to Jersey, which is just right across the river, made a bit more sense because it was cheaper, but still extremely costly because of its proximity to the city. So while it's not in New York City, there's residual cost and effect of it being so close and businesses, distributors wanting to be right there next to the city.

27:29So it just puts an added pressure of making sure the business is growing and margins are healthy to sustain those things and then sustain growth going forward. But the city feels like it wants to take$40 out of your pocket every time you leave the apartment. Yeah, I mean, I get that sense, definitely. Everything is so enticing. To close off the show, I know that you always keep your followers updated on socials, on your projects. But yeah, if there's anything exciting, new that you want to share with us. We're holding a pop-up October 21 and 22 here at 138 Worcester Street. So that'll be our first in-person pop-up.

28:09That's super stressful. Sean and I are trying to like plan out everything that could go wrong, but it's going to be a learning process for us there. We'll have a lot of new products. Those bags will be there. So, yeah, whole fall collection will be in that store and hopefully see people there. Awesome. Hopefully you're also using Shopify POS. Yes, we are. Amazing. So exciting. Looking forward to all of the new projects and all of your new creative pieces. Thank you so much for being here, Marcus. Of course. Thank you. Thank you all. This was great. That's Marcus Milioni, the founder of Minton, New York.