How to Build Community Through Events

0:00Benjamin Gottlieb here in the studio with our engineer Matt Schwartz who just reminded me we have a YouTube channel for Shopify Masters. So if you'd like to watch this episode instead of just listening to it, head over to YouTube or the YouTube app and search for Shopify Masters. And also, thank you so much for your continued support. I like bringing people together around a common interest. All of these activities to me just remind me of where I'm at and like where my feet are. Hey, I'm Shuang Esther Shan, and welcome to Shopify On Location in Los Angeles, where we are chatting with some of the biggest changemakers in the city.

0:39LA is the place where you can get from the mountains, to the beaches, to the desert, all in one day. For Michael Washington, he was missing a community where he can go on these adventures with. So he launched Usal Project to teach and host events on stargazing, fly fishing, and even making ceramics from walled clay. People are walking away and they've met someone new or they've learned something that they now are really interested in. When we have like a 40 % return customer rate with no subscription model or anything like that, that is a successful event. These events caught the attention of brands like Nike and North Face and they've collaborated together.

1:17We're just making gear accessible. We're making the prices accessible. It's leading to excitement from, you know, brands and that can be a route for financial success. Michael is my guest today. And I'm very excited to chat about how he's cultivated a loyal following and is growing the brand through partnerships. Michael, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Very excited to chat. I think the concept of Uthal is so special, but it feels like it was a tough task. You have to convince people to spend their time and their money to hang out with you. How did this all begin? Yeah, well, it's not as tough as you think.

1:57People like to get outside. They're looking for people to connect with. It's a hard place to do that in Los Angeles, given the spread outness that we live and the pods that we kind of exist in, from cars to homes to our work to getting around. It can feel kind of hard to interact. So it was a hypothesis for sure that people were interested. However, deep down, I felt like there was always people here that would want to exist in management for about 10 years, moved here from Colorado to do that in 2012. Was that the last kind of bit of my career in the music industry? And I felt like the pandemic was a violent push into what maybe was going to be next for me.

2:44Very much so on outdoor trips that I was doing during that time period, because it was kind of the only safe thing to do was to go far, very far away from a city outside alone. In those moments, very much having kind of a lot of time to think about, OK, what does the next five, 10 years feel like for me? Also a time period that I was very much moved by a lot of the social justice things that were going on in the world. Very much thinking about what fulfills me as a person. How can I help in ways that I know that I can? Anything from climate change to diversity issues to just things that, you know, just trying to figure out what could be my place and role in everything.

3:26And at that time, I kept getting reached out to by a lot of people through my personal trips. A lot more people seemed to be more interested in how to connect to the outdoors and nature and have essentially felt like they had nowhere to go. So I would do research trying to find groups similar to what Usal is now and would come up short. I couldn't find anything and felt pretty confused that this idea didn't already exist. myself being kind of an entrepreneurial spirit. I think when you have that moment where you're, wait, why doesn't this thing exist? There's a clear path in my head, how it could roll out, how it could be a thing, how it could be very successful.

4:12And there's nothing out there like it. I think certain people have that kind of, that light turns on in their head. I feel like I'm one of those people and it kind of couldn't get it out of my brain that, man, this could be a thing. So kind of put it away for that of 2020. Didn't really think too much about it. Always felt like, wow, this would be a great idea if someone did this. Didn't feel like I was the guy. I didn't grow up in Texas doing outdoorsy things. I did go to Colorado, get a nice taste of what the outdoors can do for my lifestyle. I did come to LA and start to understand how I can interact with the outdoors on my own.

4:49It took me a while to kind of forge that relationship. um yeah you know imposter syndrome was a big thing in terms of starting something for myself I always worked for other people felt very good as a teammate never wanted to be the Michael Jordan was good at being like the the second guy on the team 2021 was when I I decided that I was going to internally start this idea so started planning it and then start of 2022 really started putting the idea out there started doing these personal trips with friends to kind of see what would work what kind of trips would work, what kind of things would be interesting to people, and then had the opportunity to launch Earth Day 2022 with an event series that we did with Arc'teryx.

5:30But that was the loose trajectory, a lot of getting through my own personal doubt. And then always knowing it was a good idea, but very happy that I took that time to think more about it because I feel like that's led to its success. Yeah, amazing journey. I think in business textbooks, they'll talk about a gap in the market. And that for you was actually very personal, right? You were looking for something that you couldn't find and you wanted a community, but it didn't exist. And also the part where you're having to work through yourself, amp yourself up to actually launch it. I think that's the part where a lot of entrepreneurs actually never start their journey.

6:13What do you think ultimately was the push point where you were saying, I'm actually going to execute and this is something that I'm going to build? Truthfully, it was the continued distaste in what I was currently doing. It was hard for me to let go of that feeling even when the world came back to normal after COVID and shows, music shows started up again and the music industry kind of started to just kind of get back into motion. It just kind of, there was a distaste in my mouth in terms of why was I doing this and really losing sight in that. And the real reasons I got into the music industry was community building.

6:59I felt like there was a lot more room for it pre-streaming platforms, pre-Spotify, pre-iTunes, Apple Music, given the necessity for more regional communities to support regional artists in ways like merch and shows that felt more community-driven and felt like you can exist within a bubble, and that is okay. You don't need to compete with Taylor Swift for streams to feel successful. And that was the time when I got in the music industry, and that was a very fun time because it was really geared around strictly community building around artists. And I started to lose sight of that towards the end of my career.

7:42But then it was nice to really understand, wow, that that is what I really like to do. You could sub in anything, food, music, outdoors, clothing. I think for me, the piece that always was going to remain the same was that I liked being the producer of bringing people together around a common interest. So for me in music, that was artists and that was shows and putting the microphone literally up to people that I felt were interesting in the music world and sharing their story and helping them share their story and creating opportunities for them to reach people. What I do now is it's funny. It's exactly the same.

8:25It's just with instead of a rock and roll star, it's a forager. Yeah. And I love that. it's only when you're reflecting, you can see the dots connecting together and that past experience really translates to showcase all these experts and artists in a new way. Of course, at the foundation, it's the events. And I think there's a lot of complexities, right? There's nuance, and there's a lot of interaction, a lot of uncontrollables to actually make a quote-unquote successful event. So I guess for you, how do you ensure an event is successful, is good for each individual participant? Yeah. I mean, I think the understanding for whether it's your company or yourself, what determines a successful event is very much steeped in knowing before that event even starts well before what deems something successful to you, which there's so many metrics.

9:32For some people, that's amount of people. If I can get 2 ,000 people to this event, then it's a successful event. But I think what people lose sight of when they're thinking about scale as a metric of success is what people actually took away from that event individually. what what was the experience that that person had do you care that they left that event without really thinking at all about your brand or connecting to anyone else in a deep way they came with their friends they stuck around their friends they maybe took one picture that they posted on their instagram story but after that event are they going to carry that flag with them or was there something there that they learned has their life altered in any way do you care about that metric, which can be a no.

10:24And in that sense, it's just about reach and that maybe one Instagram story is part of that KPI that lends itself to deciding what feels successful. For us, what a successful event is very different. It's very much quality over quantity. It's been a lot of testing to understand what is the size of an event where people stop being able to speak to others in a way that feels natural. When you're in a room full of 10 people versus a room full of 50 people, you'll notice the way that people talk is different. You'll notice that they're not as open. You'll notice that they'll maybe stick to the people they know.

11:03You'll notice that a lot of, it's a little more awkward. So for us, well, then that means maybe 50 person events, as much as we could probably sell 50 tickets, doesn't deem a successful event. So finding with that number of people, because for us, a successful event means that people are walking away and they've met someone new, or they've learned something that they now are really interested in, or, you know, there's something that happened at this event that has, you know, clicked something in their brains that has opened up maybe a new gate, a new way of thinking, or just allowed them to feel like they're accepted now into a world that maybe they felt was really hard to get into, which for us can be the outdoors or outdoor experiences.

11:48So that is a successful event. If there's enough, if people are able to get to those kind of different things, um, and measuring that becomes pretty hard, you know, but I will say when we have like a 40 % return customer rate with no subscription model or anything like that, that to me is kind of, that plays exactly into the success. So it's a long-term kind of play. It's, yeah, maybe not a quick kind of flashy, you know, scenario. But to me, you know, I've been to so many events, played shows at Coachella with bands that I've worked with. And so I've seen it all. But I think that starting low and slow, starting, you know, smaller events, getting people really integrated with each other, that's exciting to me.

12:40It's just a different model. It's different than what I see out there. And I think for me that feels unique and exciting. Yeah, it is special because you care about the impact it has on the participants. I think it also kind of ties back to the ability that you and your team are able to spot these interests and create events around them because they're so unique from making ceramics from forged clay to making sourdough, diving in the ocean, stargazing, fly fishing. How do you know like which kind of events to create? How do you spot trends and like make events around them? We're very lucky because me personally, I'm very ADHD with my interests.

13:28So curiosity plays a huge role in what we do. And like I said, thankfully, I'm a very curious person and I find so many different things interesting. And I think like a lot of communities maybe center around certain levels of outdoor activity that are maybe more wellness. And so then you get the tea ceremony, breathwork, yoga side, and some communities center around outdoor activities and maybe more physical. So you get the more running super fast, climbing big mountains. For me, it's everything, you know. Or even from a food perspective, I find that that's super interesting in learning about where our food comes from.

14:13And innately, that becomes a nature experience, learning about how your food is grown and where it comes from locally. And that's something I'm also interested in. So everything we do lends itself to myself and my other three partners, our interests. You know, so everything you see is kind of a weird, weirdly like aligned thing of what's going on in our heads at all times. You know, so I love to me personally. I love to surf. I love to climb. I love to run. I love to camp. I love foraging. I love learning about like invasive plants versus non-invasive plants. Stargazing, it just opens up the idea of like what is around us and how small we are.

15:01And, you know, all of these activities to me just remind me of where I'm at and like where my feet are and lets go of kind of the superficial, I think, reasons why people don't live in L .A. And reminds me of why I actually love living here. As far as seeing trends spike, and I feel like we don't really have any metric or algorithm that tells us, oh, we should be doing this or that, other than how our community responds to things we put out there. So a lot of it is trial and error, you know, and not being afraid to do an event that maybe, okay, that one didn't connect. You know, I wanted to do, for the longest time, I wanted to do bushcraft skills.

15:42Do you know what bushcraft skills are? No, what are? So that's like learning how to essentially say if you were to drop in the middle of the woods and you needed to find food, make a fire with nothing but your hands, that's essentially what, you know, learning bushcraft skills are. And I was like, I've always been super. Yes, exactly. On a next level. So I've always been super interested in that. And I was like, great. I finally found the guy. Put the event up. I'm like, this is going to go crazy. No one bought a ticket. No one wanted to go. And that's okay. And I think, like I said, I think failure is also a great metric for knowing where you are just as much as successes.

16:18And it's all good. These are all things that build back into who we are and how we want to showcase what we do. So even if things are failures, there's still successes to be had in them. Yeah, you're learning a lot from them. And I feel like you're being also modest. You do have a lot of sold out events. And I think what's cool is you've maintained a very low cost that is accessible for whoever wants to be a part of an event. And I think the question here is how do founders create something that is still accessible and impactful in whichever way they're doing and still be profitable? Because I think there's a lot of elements at play here.

17:03Yeah, I think that is the number one question that if you can figure out, you're going to have a good successful business. If you're a business that is at the ethos, which for us is accessibility, is very much steeped in who we are and how we represent ourselves. So what goes into accessibility? Obviously, the idea that anyone can come to our events. You know, there's no Soho House metric of like needing to be accepted or club, you know, like collective vibe. It's anyone at any time can sign up to any event. So that goes into the accessibility factor of it. Obviously, what other things go into it, access to gear.

17:44A lot of our events, especially the camping trips, we have gear that has been donated from people like the North Face. amazing like brand new gear from REI and things like that that people get to use for free on our events because a big thing for me is like why should you pay two thousand dollars for a fly fishing setup if you're going for your first time you have no idea if you actually want to keep doing this it doesn't make sense um we figured out ways to do that for like snowboarding and skiing you go to a mountain you can rent gear and then you like it cool then you go buy it there's not that kind of way of doing things for things like fly fishing things like climbing, surfing, all these other, you know, awesome activities, they make you kind of go all in, right?

18:26So accessibility also lends itself to gear and we try to work around that with having a gear library. And then, like you said, yeah, the price point. For me, you know, it was kind of a deep dive into, okay, what is out there? You know, maybe there's no Usol version community in LA, but what's in the world? and seeing how people essentially price these types of things kind of blew my mind. How expensive experiential travel, outdoorsy, essentially, companies are. It's stuff that I wouldn't even be able to afford where I'm at in my life in my mid-30s, let alone when I was maybe coming out of college, which I'm like, not to say that our demographic is trying to be for that generation, but more so what's interesting to me is speaking or having a place for people that never have been able to do these types of activities.

19:28And a lot of times those are the people that don't own a home yet. You know what I mean? They aren't the kind of 1%. They don't drive a fancy car. They aren't able to kind of like spend that amount of money for fun, essentially, for leisure. The communities were either, you know, pricing people out or a lot of these communities were going the nonprofit route, which is great. But I felt a little bit intrigued with the idea that like, you know, people doing these types of experiences, the teachers, for instance, like they should get paid. I think like if people are spending$20 on a coffee every single morning, what's it to them to pay$30 for a foraging hike.

20:08I feel like the scale was just not, it was so either one way or the other way. I felt like there's a lot of middle ground for finding a price point that made sense to our community, to LA, but wasn't asking too much, you know, for no reason really. After doing all the research and what it takes to do all these events, it's really, it's not that expensive to run, you know, on the way that we do it. So we try to make the prices as cheap as possible, right? That said, then the question is, well, how do you make money long term? Well, for us and what we're trying to figure out right now is basically making money elsewhere.

20:52I think for a long time, the thought was, well, these community events, maybe that's the only thing that we'll do. But, you know, in the work that we've done this year with the brands and the consulting work that we get to do with brands, be it kind of helping them understand what, you know, these types of people are interested in from a product perspective and doing kind of research and development work or doing full on kind of content shoots or doing full on kind of private events for brands or for companies and things like that. So basically finding other ways to find financial success that doesn't muddle up what our ethos is around these community events.

21:37Because if I could keep the community events free or as successful as possible, that leads to all the amazing other things that we get to do. because everyone's interested in Usal because our consumer is younger, more hip, more with the times, more culturally kind of relevant than the customers that they're seeing come into their stores. And they're asking, well, how are you unearthing these people and where is it coming from? And I think really it's coming from what we just said. We're just making gear accessible. We're making the prices accessible. and we're speaking to an audience that maybe like from a creative point of view is different than the way that these brands can and so it's bringing in a new style of customer and it's leading to excitement from you know brands and other partners and that can be a route for financial success so hopefully it's finding other pools that can essentially show show themselves once you've done a really good job making what your ethos is successful.

22:40Yeah, I think we touched on partnerships a lot with REI, Nike, North Face, and I think it gives a really cool foundation because like you mentioned, there could be collaboration through consulting work or collections that you've designed through Merge. And this is a really cool way where you're reaching profitability that other people might not think about, where you're still able to keep the core essence of Youth All, the thing that started all the events exactly as they are, while you're still able to explore profitability. How did you eventually find those partners, build those relationships, and have them grow?

23:22Because those relationships are kind of essential for any business owner, and they would love to understand how they can do it for their own companies as well. Outside of our first event, which was a fun, interesting story that I can talk about, but which was with Arcterics, the LA Arcterics team. If you're doing something right, they come to you, which is kind of sometimes hard to hear. There's not really a magic trick about getting in touch with brands. If you have to reach them, they're not going to be as interested. If you're doing something right, they're going to find a way to reach you, which is thankfully how it's been for us the way that we've gotten the initial contact with brands is they've seen what we're doing and it's spiked in their internal meetings through their you know algorithm mechanisms through people that work at the company and then they get in touch and these brands are big bigger than people think it's really the best relationships come when And we're getting hit up by multiple different, essentially, sectors of the brand.

24:33So the social team might hit us first and be like, wow, we want to do a content thing. And then the product team sees some stuff we're doing, and then they're hitting us up. And then they don't realize that they've all hit us up separately until someone figures it out. And they're like, wait, we're all talking to Usul right now? And that's the best kind of problem to have because then they're like, wow, this is great. This means that like there's a lot of synergy because obviously these companies, it's hard for sometimes their internal teams to connect and have synergy across what they're all thinking is cool.

25:07So when our name is being brought into up in various different teams within one brand, I think that is a really good sign. And those are the types of brands that, you know, I would look to build around. not to say that other brands are bad or like it's bad if only one part of the team of a brand is reaching out it's just usually it doesn't really lend itself to being a deeper connection off the bat you know what I mean which is totally fine because sometimes things come back around later but deeper connection is definitely the goal is to not you know work with 20 brands but maybe like there's five that like we constantly like reach out to for certain things I also think it's also a testament to all the touch points that Usal has.

25:54Because I think maybe someone noticed it from a friend who went to an event and they have a positive word of mouth kind of anecdote about how great the brand is. But then, you know, the team at Nike or North Face, they'll research you and go on your site and it's truly uniquely built. It is like entering another dimension. So So yeah, like talk to us about having the same experience, showcasing that Usal kind of essence in person, online, and also now the retail store. The online is so important. That's everyone's first touch understanding of what are you about? And say you're rolling out an album.

26:36Okay, so what does this album look like? You know, obviously we know what it sounds like, but how do we manifest what it looks like so that it translates? um through online that gets people interested in what's the rollout going to look like what's the music video going to look like what is you know what are the what are the press pictures going to be um obviously those are all conversations that you know we would be having um internally before we roll something out and um when it came to the idea of usal i really um put a lot of effort in creating something that had to create like had a vision from a more graphic design and creative level.

27:12That was something that I just hadn't seen in many outdoor communities that, you know, not necessarily their fault, but didn't really put much emphasis on graphic design. It was just about the events. It was just about getting outside, art direction, photo direction, coming at it from more of a brand perspective wasn't really the idea. It was, it's a community. It's not a brand. We're a community, but like to me, you have to brand a community to get people to understand what it is you're about and what do you prioritize as interesting and important. So things like photo direction on your Instagram or even how you word your captions.

27:49These are all little things that people might not even realize that they are taking into account, but everyone's reading things, they're looking at things, they're looking at their graphic design. Yeah, it's editorial decisions you've made that actually build an identity for you. And that makes people be like, okay, this feels different than Airbnb experiences. Sure, there's surf lessons on both websites, but I'm booking mine through Usol because in my head, it's gone through all the hoops that I wanted to go through. You wouldn't believe how many people tell me I loved Usol because of the design.

28:26And I find that so funny. It's interesting. That's kind of all it took. It was good design to get people interested in the outdoors. And then, you know, hopefully that's really what keeps them around. And then they come to the store and then they see that's a whole nother like, you know, thing that feels a little bit more new and more something we're still building out, I would say. But like, but yeah, it's definitely online feels like the most important piece of it in terms of getting people to your product. Of course, the online experience is beautifully designed. That's what attracts so many people to events.

29:0580 % is the ticket sales, 20 % is roughly the merch. What are some of like the data points or the tools that have really helped you to understand customers, build a profile and kind of understand their relationship from tickets to merch and yeah, connect with them through the data as well? Really, like I've always been more of a creative person than analytic, but I will say, and And this is like not really, I didn't get forced to plug Shopify here, but I will say that the Shopify backend is pretty easy to understand when it comes to the analytics. And I'm definitely kind of a hawk looking at kind of the month to month and comparing kind of previous trends to new trends and understanding, you know, where our customers are coming from.