How To Start A Niche Clothing Brand While Building Community

0:00Shopify Masters is on YouTube and you probably already knew that. So the real question is, have you checked out this interview on video? You can watch this full feature plus a whole catalog of others on Shopify Masters YouTube channel. The link is in the show notes. Enjoy. For customers kind of buy into one specific brand and it represents a huge facet of who they are.

0:29hey what's going on i'm benjamin gottlieb and this is shopify masters your companion for starting and building a business fitness and sports gear are big business we're going for a hike or a bike ride is a part of life our guest danny naguera fell in love with endurance sports and so he created a community ride to share his passion with others the endurance sports community historically is kind of gatekept. In a city as diverse as LA, there was kind of an immediate need for leadership in that area to help. Danny started making athletic wear and gear for that community, and that's how Grin 27 was born.

1:05The starting point for us was to have a really, really clear idea of what the Grin 27 universe would be. Danny, I'm so excited to have you here in studio with us in Los Angeles to talk about launching an athletic gear business. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. You're so welcome. I want to start from the beginning, the origins of this brand. How did you find your way to biking? It's kind of how a lot of people do as a commuter, trying to figure out ways to be a little bit more economical and ecological and make better decisions. And got my first bike at a store in Echo Park. Great guy who built really affordable and amazing bikes in the sort of like$300 to$400 range, which is hard to find.

1:47So shout out Pure Cycles if they're still out there. And post-pandemic started really exploring what LA had to offer from a more sports-guided perspective rather than... It's really interesting. This city, of course, is dominated by the car. That's not... I'm not breaking any news there. And when you ride around as a cyclist, you get a different perspective, not just of any city, but especially Los Angeles. When you started that journey, moving from, I don't know, commuting via public transit or a car to bicycle. How did it change your perspective of Los Angeles? Yeah, it made it a lot smaller.

2:21It's obviously literally an enormous city, but a lot of it is pretty accessible through biking. It really kind of condenses down your neighborhood and other people's neighborhood and your proximity to those people. And I think that's the biggest realization, that LA is really accessible. It just doesn't feel that way until you start accessing it in this way. What also has become accessible for you is starting a business, which I would imagine was not your intention when you first started riding around LA, when you first watched your first cycle. You were working in the music industry, if I'm not mistaken.

2:55Walk us through how you made that transition. When did you start thinking, hey, you know what? There is a business opportunity here for me. It started with a frustration in the music industry space as it sort of became became hyper commodified. The intention there, at least mine, when I got onto and what a lot of people go to that space for is to promote art and culture. And we kind of saw this really intense shift towards data and sales and a lot less of an investment in an emotional investment in something that you believe in. And so being a part of that shift, I was working in streaming and sales and kind of partnerships.

3:31I just became really disillusioned with where things were going. So I left. It must have been difficult to do. Well, the pandemic helped. Everything kind of came to a stop. And so there was a solid opportunity to take a break and figure out what to do. So you're working in music. And here you are, you have this budding passion for cycling. Where did the idea for actually starting your own brand come from? Yeah, it came out of like strict necessity. So one, on the kind of culture and community side, stepping into a world where everything was very foreign and inaccessible almost immediately. to, you know, on the other side, really having a wasteland of product.

4:10There's nothing at the time, especially this is now almost five years ago. There's been a lot of kind of shifting influence and new developing companies and culture. But at that time, it was really hard to find, you know, comfortable and also aesthetic clothing that was exciting, that was built by companies that you believed in. So that was kind of the just out of genuine necessity from myself and other people in my community. And again, this is something that we hear very often from entrepreneurs who sit on this program is they fall in love with a new product or activity and they notice there's a gap.

4:44There's a hole in that space and they fill it with what they need. so walk me through specifically what was lacking in the biking community when you started to get really into this you mentioned you left your job and it's the pandemic you're re-evaluating what did you notice was missing from the biking community and also from uh what you would wear when you would ride your bike an easier kind of answer the on the product side there's kind of a a really strict individualism that in these sports where brands are really competitive against each other. And so there's an adherence that comes to that for customers kind of buy into one specific brand and it represents a huge facet of who they are because they wear that brand, right?

5:32Even if it's not true, but this sort of individualism like creates these pockets of segregation within the community. And so that was one thing that I thought was really obvious right right away is that there weren't any brands who were promoting sort of like intersectionality, right? It's like you might express your individualism in fashion by wearing 10 or 15 different brands at once. And that's a good way to promote your style and how you dress, right? So you're not just like a Nike person or a Reebok person or a Puma person. You're talking about a more custom style, basically. Yeah. And coming from, you know, the fashion and music space and whatever, it's very common to do that, right?

6:11Today, I'm sure that you and I are both wearing maybe literally 10 different brands all at once. Where in cycling and in running, there is this kind of like strict individualism, which bleeds out into culture as well, right? These companies don't collaborate. They don't support each other. They don't really care about the community at large. They're more focused on themselves and what they're doing to like keep everything really tight and niche. And the second part was strictly cultural. The endurance sports community historically is kind of gatekept by obvious measures of wealth and race and social economics in terms of where you live in the city either has money for bike infrastructure or doesn't, right?

6:50You either have bike lanes or you don't. And there's people in your community who are maybe advocating for better bike lanes and better infrastructure for commuters where other communities are focused on just getting regular access to things. And so in a city as diverse as LA, there also was kind of an immediate need for some sort of leadership in that area to help people congregate, to learn about how to access LA, where it's safe to ride, where it's not safe to ride, these kinds of things. You're getting to the community aspects of your brand, which is essential to, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, to what you're trying to accomplish here.

7:26You started organizing these community rides and that was a big part of kind of, it's still, as I would imagine, a big part of what you're doing today. Where did you get the idea to start those and how did you first start formulating, again, who you would invite, who would come to these rides and who would be included? There was no invitation. We just started and the first two rides, no one came, which is, I think, important for people to recognize externally that like, it's okay for that stuff to start that way. No, no, because you're, you're just offering something. If anyone wants to come ride, we'll do this.

7:59And no one comes for the first one. And then my friend Dermy came to the second one. He was our first real supporter. So a big shout out to Jeremy. Yeah. And from there, it kind of exponentially grows because he has a good time and he makes sure that two or three more people come and then a weekend lines up where your friends are available and all of a sudden you have 15 people and they all have a great time and they bring two or three and the growth is really, really sort of exponential. It seems like some of the same qualms you had with the music industry are analogous to your problems you had with the biking, fitness, and athletic wear industry as well.

8:36Is that right? Yeah, yeah, to a large extent. And I think this space that's so community-oriented, you can't be so focused on consumption and the sort of like raw nature of the capitalist endeavor. You know, it's a lot of those same problems exist here. So a lot of the same problems exist, and you see an opportunity to do something a little bit different, maybe to be a little more authentic, so to speak, about what you're trying to accomplish with your brand. When did you start actually taking this idea and creating products? It was a pretty quick idea turnaround from should we do this to let's do this.

9:17It was maybe in a matter of like a week. It was like, let's try to do this. But then the process to actually starting took almost two years to find the right manufacturing partners, to start prototyping. All of this manufacturing happens almost exclusively outside of the U.S. The U.S. has very little capabilities for high-end performance wear design, especially in the cycling space. We're currently in Portugal and Italy and a couple other areas, but it was hard to kind of knock on doors, cold email. It took a long time to get things started. Yeah, and you didn't have any experience doing any of this.

9:47No. So you take the idea of, okay, I'm going to create some new athletic wear for bikers. Walk us through those initial steps. You have this idea, but you said it takes two years to really start making something. What was the first thing that you did to kind of start going here? The brand was conceptualized kind of top down. So a really big starting point for us was to have a really, really clear idea of what the Grand 27 universe would be. And I think that's been very clear from the beginning of not only kind of the mood boarding on what this will look like, but also anti-mood boarding on what this won't be and having really firm ideas of what we're not going to be and what we're going to not adhere to.

10:26the things that we want to focus on avoiding and all this kind of stuff starts there. And from there, I mean, getting into cycling in particular was also a decision we made in contrast to other sports because as a non-garment designer, the application of the clothing is a lot more strict. There's not a lot of innovation that can really happen in the design of the garment. Like there's kind of already a garment that exists that fits great and feels good and does everything it needs to, as opposed to something like jeans, where if you're going to come in and try to differentiate in the denim space, you have to develop a unique pattern and find really unique materials and kind of really innovate on the garment side.

11:07So this kind of eased a little bit of the unknown unknowns of what I had no idea over. I could just, you know, take a well-known silhouette for bib shorts and for jerseys and just find a great manufacturing partner, find great materials. And it was a lot easier to get started. Yeah. And by the way, if you're listening or watching right now and you want to check out Grin27, the gear there, the clothing looks like nothing else you've ever seen, at least for me, when it comes to clothing for riding a bike. You've been talking a lot about these manufacturers and also being really honest with me, the fact that you had no experience, you were cold emailing people.

11:42This can often be a blocker for many entrepreneurs. They don't know how to find the right partner to help execute their idea. I would imagine it wasn't as easy as you just said yes to the first person who's responded to you. Walk me through how you found the right manufacturer for this. I recommend finding a good development partner rather than a manufacturer. What I did was it took several months of kind of cold calling, getting on the phone with a bunch of different teams of people who helped develop brands from the ground up. And kind of the range of services that are available are everything from...

12:16Like an agency, you mean? They're just companies that exist as... They're kind of small and they're just like, we help brands sort these logistical problems out. I see. And so that can be everything from like, we'll help you develop your entire brand language to manufacturing, to pattern design, to everything, or individual aspects of that that you need. So in this case, we already had our brand identity, already had all of our garments designed. Really, all we needed was to get plugged with the right manufacturers. Someone to make it. Yeah. And to help with learning and understanding the process of making things.

12:48Like how do you review garments when they come back? What are you looking for? What kinds of qualities, checks are you trying to go through or not go through, right? So I would recommend trying to find a great partner. And we worked with a group called Blue Associates Sportswear that are based out of the UK. I found them and reached out and they had an interesting roster of having done a lot of work for really small brands. And then also their portfolio included a handful of larger brands. Like they'd done some development for Rafa and for Vans and a handful of other sort of like very reputable companies.

13:21And so that gave me a bit more confidence to think, okay, these guys know what they're doing, but they do focus specifically on startup brands. Once we brought the concept to them, they were able to sort of understand it and go, okay, we believe in this and this is really interesting. This is where we would take this. They recommended our factories. They recommended a lot of the first fabrics that we used and kind of helped us align division. Yeah. Yeah. And speaking of the fabrics, that was my next question. How did you start to source the fabric that you would use? You mentioned that, especially for something like cycling or really any athletic brand.

13:53For the most part, we already kind of know what the best material is to use for these products. And I think you followed that as well, right? For me, I was going to a lot of fabric trade shows and just trying to like touch and feel everything is the best way. And really with this, yeah, there's a handful of manufacturers that have the best stuff. And then there's a handful that have the medium and then the handful that have the worst. And they're just kind of, you know, different grades of the same type of materials, but then just different qualities. And I think that early on, we were really willing to take a hit on margins to have a higher end product because with stuff like this, and I would imagine this would be true for most companies.

14:32I would recommend doing that because your first experience as a consumer, when you buy something, and especially when you take a big risk on a small brand and it comes to you and it feels how you want it to feel, that emotional connection is really important for them to either come back to your brand or to support it or to believe in it. And I think that would be something that I would recommend a lot is don't cut corners on the manufacturing, don't cut corners on the stuff upfront, even if it's harder to scale early on. So focusing on quality, especially with your initial launch is super important.

15:06I think so. Yeah. I think a lot of companies underestimate what that means to people. And so for us, starting our first line in Portugal meant that our products was going to be way more expensive, like four or five times as expensive as it would be to do it maybe in China or even in certain factories in like Poland. Using higher end fabrics meant that Again, it would be three to five times, depending on the product, more expensive. But it made a huge difference for us to be able to show up at a conference or at a pop-up where other brands are available. And for that stuff to really next to it, like one versus the other, face-to-face, you can investigate both products and go, these are the same or at least on the same quality level.

15:49So not to be afraid to physically go and touch the product and say like, hey, this is what I want. This is what I don't want. Yeah, yeah. Being firm with your partners and with people, I think everyone's going to try to get you to cut as many corners and really trim as much of the fat and keep things as lean. But I don't think you should. I think that with any of these endeavors, you should lean into quality and build something that you really, really believe in. And again, this is not to hammer on this too hard, but this is akin to what you've been talking about throughout this interview, your emphasis on authenticity and not necessarily on, ooh, can I squeeze an extra five or 10 cents out of each individual asset?

16:31Because again, you're trying to build something that it seems like really means something to you versus just trying to make a quick buck. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. A question we often get is like, okay, so I have this idea. I've got my manufacturer. How much inventory should I buy? How much money should I put into this before I start going? What sort of advice do you have for that? Yeah, that's a constant learning curve. I mean, it's been honestly very reassuring to speak to brands that are massive, like owners of brands that are massive. And they're like, I have no idea how to answer that question.

17:03I'm sure in other industries, it might be a little bit more understandable, but I don't think there's a company in the world that is currently dealing with having ordered too much of something they thought would do really well or not enough of something else. I would say as you start, you know, get as little as you can. One of the biggest things that contribute to sustainability for companies like ours is not overproduction. Outside of just sort of like thinking about what you can sell or what you can't sell, I think that companies need to be more responsible about how much they make. For the most part, people are making more than they should because of what that means for their margins.

17:38But you know, there's some crazy statistic that if we stopped making clothes today, we could close everybody on earth for like 10 years or something like that. And I don't quote me on the specifics, but it's something outrageous, like a truly outrageous amount of clothing already exists. There's a lot of, there's a lot of excess. There's a lot of waste. Yeah. A ton of excess. And so for us, it's been less about dialing in that margin perfection and more just at the quality that we want. What's the lowest that we can do? And can we move through all of that product and make sure that it's something that people buy and keep and use for a long time?

18:10Is it a product that someone can put 10 ,000 miles on a bike into and it holds up and it feels really good still 10 ,000 miles later? So I'm thinking of it more from that lens and from a strategic sort of like inventory lens. Yeah. Yeah. We're getting at some really good learnings here. Let me ask you this. If I was starting a fitness brand today, what advice would you have for me? Like maybe your top couple things for me to get started. What should you do? The first one would be a very clear why. I think that there's a lot of people who want to capitalize on the space. And I think that that's going to fail.

18:43Like if you don't have a really clear reason for why you're getting into the sportswear space, you're going to deal with the sort of lukewarm feeling that comes from that. It's a really tough space to get into and there's a lot of competition. And you're either competing with brands who have a ridiculous amount of money. And if you're coming from that angle, then it's pretty easy. You have a lot of money. It's hard to mess that up. But if you're trying to start something yourself, then have a really clear mission as to what you believe in and why you're doing this. As kind of the general industries change with giant, you know, entities like Amazon and all these kind of like giant consumers and platforms, your identity matters a lot.

19:22I would recommend that if you're starting something to spend the most amount of time on your identity, really build out the character of the brand, what it is, who it is, what it stands for, what it's going to feel like from the pictures on Instagram to the packaging. What does the packaging feel like in your hands? What do the buttons feel like? How does it click? How does it sound? All of those things being really, really clear, I think are really important up front as opposed to an afterthought. And then from there, you know, go knock on doors, kick doors down and speak to people and figure out if you can find a team like we did to help you with the specific areas that you don't know about.

20:02And that's pretty much it. It's good advice. And you have a proclivity, an interest in helping beginners, right? You really do. Where does that come from? And why is that important to you? I don't know necessarily where it comes from. I think that everyone wants to learn and teaching is really exciting. Becoming a part of something is really exciting. And so I think for me, specifically in this space, it was really difficult to do that. And I had a lot of friends who weren't able to cross that barrier themselves. And so the barrier being, you know, I come from competitive sports. And so the first group ride that I go to, I get dropped and no one's looking back to make sure that I'm on.

20:44Right. And getting dropped means... Dropped and knocked off your bike. No, no, no. It just means that they leave you behind. Yeah. So it's a term in the space, just getting dropped. So you show up to an event and everyone's like, okay, we're all riding. And you know, these are people who are experienced, who have very great gear. You're on your commuter bike, they're doing 25 miles per hour, they're gone. And you're just like, I don't, now I'm alone. And this is the worst feeling. And certain people I think have the sort of, whether it's confidence or even interest to be like, no, I'm going to go back and I'm going to figure this out.

21:10But a lot of people don't have that or don't want to develop that. that first experience is really shocking and awful to be like that sucked no one cared about if i enjoyed this or if i was still on with the group and so we wanted to address that there's again just out of raw necessity like there wasn't anyone there i guess there's a handful of people doing that groups like la la or total trash or night pandas there's a lot of really great groups but there's always room for more inclusive spaces. Yeah, that aren't so focused on how fast you can go, but more focused on building a community, which is what you've done really well, I think.

21:47Thank you. So talk to me about the community a little bit more. We haven't gotten into it that much. What is it exactly? Who does it represent? And how does it fit into with what you're doing with the clothing here? I see them pretty strictly independent of each other. And I think that's a recommendation I have for brand owners that, you know, I think brands need to give consumers a lot more credit and their audience a lot more credit for what they're able to discern as genuine or not genuine. For me, it's really important that the community building that we do is like strictly separate from our brand.

22:25As soon as, you know, a consumer feels like or your friends or anyone who's coming to your events feels like there's some sort of pressure to buy or that this is correlating to your interest in sales or in marketing or whatever. It's very palpable and they can feel that for some reason. And so I think for us, it's just independent. It's like this is a thing that we do because we love it. I love to help people. I love to teach people. It's the most rewarding part of Grin for me when we do all of our intro rides or beginner rides and you help someone who's kind of crossing that first hurdle of I've never ran more than three miles in my life.

23:02And then you finish an eight mile run and they're like, that's the craziest thing I've ever done. It's a super rewarding thing, but it's like strictly independent. And then the brand exists sort of peripheral to that. That's an interesting suggestion. We don't get that often. I'll be honest with you on this program. And I think, again, it speaks to your pursuit of authenticity, which is rather refreshing. And it's been successful for you. Yeah, I think so. I hope so. And I guess it's cool to see that they can be successful independently. You know what I mean? Like they can kind of grow together without being so forcefully intertwined.

23:38Some of the other natural progressions or outgrowths of this has been some of the partnerships you've had with other brands here in Los Angeles. One of them, PF Candle, who we're going to have on this podcast series as well. Go ahead and check that out when it comes out if you're watching or listening. How did that come about? And how do you select the right kind of partners for your brand? Because it does sound like, again, you have a very clear idea of what that criteria might be. Yeah, we haven't done too many yet. We've done a little bit of work with a group called Usal Project, which again, we kind of align just on a very high level with regards to community and what that means and how you access it and how you help people.