NYLP: Welcome to the New York Launch Pod, the New York Press Club award-winning podcast, highlighting new startups, businesses, and openings in the New York City area. I’m your host and New York attorney Hal Coopersmith and in this episode we talk to Carrie and Craig O’Brien, husband and wife and co-founders of Sunswell, a Hamptons-inspired clothing brand that adds style and versatility to your wardrobe. Here’s Craig:
Craig: I wanted a brand of clothing that I could wear fishing in the morning or on the boat and then go straight to dinner and not have to have to go home and change. I wanted something that I could wear anywhere I could be comfortable. In a nutshell, it’s basically it’s all performance fabrics that are all, they’re wicking, quick dry, SPF built in, but they still feel like everyday wear.
NYLP: Craig is the former VP of Men’s Design at Vineyard Vines so he knows a thing or two about the clothing industry. In this episode we discuss how the brand came to be, the spur of the moment decision to open a store called Sag Mercantile with Fair Harbor in Sag Harbor New York, starting a company with your spouse and a whole lot more. If you want to check out the designs we’re talking about you can look at them at sunswell.co and with that let’s go to the interview. We are here in Sag harbor in this very cool location called Sag Mercantile. Can you explain what Sag Mercantile is?
Carrie: Sag Mercantile is a very surprise, amazing occurrence in the lives of all of us. It’s a collective of beach minded brands that came together this summer to put together a little store. And for Craig and I having Sunswell here in our hometown in Sag harbor, we knew that somewhere in the distance of our lives there would be a shop. We certainly didn’t think it would happen in the second summer, but it was definitely something we always wanted. And an old neighbor of ours called us and said, I have this space, it’s super last minute. Do you guys want to do this? And we were like, yes, but we had to figure out how. So, we reached out to some other emerging brands that were kind of at different phases. You know, we’re very young. We reached out to Fair Harbor, who’s our partner in Sag Mercantile and phenomenal. They’re in their fifth or sixth summer this year and they’re incredible. They make swimwear out of recycled plastic bottles. So Sunswell and Fair Harbor partnered to create Sag Mercantile. And then we started bringing in more brands like HIHO from the Virgin Islands and Finley’s Fiction, which is on Shelter Island curated a bunch of beach reads for us that really Craig worked with the founder to curate.
NYLP: We’ll certainly talk about retail and beach brands and certainly being out here in Sag Harbor. But the reason why we’re here is to talk to you. Sunswell. What is Sunswell?
Carrie: Basically. I think that Sunswell was created because there was a hole in the marketplace. All of these performance fabrics had come to be and they were awesome, quick dry, ultra wicking, all of these things. But they were really slick. You know, they didn’t have at the time that Craig concepted these fabrics and started working them to make that work. They weren’t soft at that time. Right. And the garment dying…
Craig: I wanted a brand or clothing that I could wear fishing in the morning or on the boat and then go straight to dinner and not have to have to go home and change. I wanted something that I could wear anywhere I could be comfortable. In a nutshell, it’s basically it’s all performance fabrics that are all, they’re wicking, quick dry, SPF built in, but they still feel like everyday wear. So it feels like a nice soft garment, you always had, an old favorite but it performs as you need it to.
NYLP: Well, it’s interesting that you say that because I feel like there’s been a proliferation of clothing brands and just brands generally. How has that experience been? Why start another clothing brand? It seems like there’s so much out there.
Craig: The whole origin of the brand is, as it started about two years or a year before I even started the brand, I had a logo that I drew and I love this logo and it’s everything I always wanted to be in a logo with the sun and the swell. And it kind of had this nice retro seventies vibe to it. And then a year or two later I started concepting the brand and I’ve always loved performance fabrics. I think performance fabrics have come a long way. I think throughout the years I’ve seen the fabrics get better. For me personally, I’ve always been into fit and fabric and I wanted to start a brand that has great fit, good fabric, good colors, but can kind of transition through any part of your day. We have some big graphics as well.
Carrie: I think the other side of it is that we’re doing what we know. I mean, Craig’s been in clothing design for almost 20 years at this point and I’ve been in marketing for the same amount of time. So you know, we really wanted to create something together and I think we knew that we wanted to move here to Sag Harbor and that was really kind of the genesis for it. I mean there’s been so much growth out here and there’s so many things happening here, but there isn’t necessarily a huge market for a clothing designer and a marketing professional to live here and have full time jobs. Right. So a lot of it was what we know and putting that together and putting a brand out there that we love. You know? And I think Craig knows so much and he’s very modest and he’s not used to ever bragging about himself in that way. But he knows so much about what people want. He designed things that people want to wear and I think that’s really important. You know there’s always like tricks and shticks and things that people are saying about things. But at the end of the day you want to go into your closet and pull out what you want to wear and keep wearing it.
Craig: I basically wanted to make a brand that it’s less is more. You have three shorts and two shirts in your closet and those are always the ones you grab. And especially the brand originally was like the weekend out east and like what do you need? And you only need those shorts, that shirt, some graphic tees, and hats and that’ll take you throughout the whole weekend. And back to Sag Harbor when we moved out here. It was like that was the inspiration for the brand. It was like these are all the things I want to do and I love being out here. What do I want to wear while I’m out here doing the things I love?
NYLP: And people can’t see the clothing. But it’s very cool. You’re both wearing it right now.
Carrie: We are. I’m wearing a his shirt for her.
Craig: We only make men’s right now, but we’re working on the women’s as well.
NYLP: And what you’re saying in terms of transitions of the day, I can see that as you’re wearing the clothing right now. And the other thing that people can’t feel or experience the performance aspect of shorts, people don’t think about it, but I’m wearing cotton shorts and I feel like summers are just getting hotter generally. And then performance fabrics for shorts seem to make sense. I’m just, I’m just feeling for the first time in my life that my shorts are too heavy.
Craig: The thing about our shorts is they’re very lightweight. Um, we worked on this fabric for a little while. So basically it’s a cotton polyester stretch and then we garment dye it. So the cotton has the softness, the poly has the wicking, so it’s quick dry. And then the stretch is obviously great for movement. But the garment dye makes it look like this old pair of shorts you’ve always had without actually looking like you’re wearing something that you wore to the gym. And I think that’s the transition of where fabrics are going. It used to be it was slick or it was too stretchy. Um, but for me, I always just felt more comfortable in the performance fabrics and they’ve come a long way in terms of like they can feel just like cotton and you probably wouldn’t even know the difference. Um, and that’s kind of where we worked with the mills and our factories to sort of get something that sort of imitates that cotton but still performs like it should. We’ve been successful so far in the products we’ve made. People really respond. And I love telling people what it’s made of and like what we do with it. And, um, and then usually someone will buy one pair of shorts, they’ll buy one shirt and like I’ll try it out. And they usually, literally they’ll come back the next day, like, give me three more. And I, that’s what for me as a brand, I love that because I want to be the go to point in the drawer.
NYLP: And I’m curious because you also have a background from Vineyard Vines a very big clothing manufacturer. Why are there these holes in the marketplace? Why aren’t big manufacturers doing these sorts of things? Why aren’t they thinking about these things in the same way?
Craig: From a brand perspective, I think it’s hard to pivot like that. I think when you have your brand and people know you for one thing, I think as you grow throughout your lifespan of your brand, it’s you stand for this or that. And whenever I talk to other people I’m like, don’t pick too narrow a road. Try to be something as true to yourself as you want to be. And like for me, it’s just make clothing for what I want to do. I mean, that’s why we started the brand. It was like more an east end inspired brand. It was something I can wear. I always go back to it too much, it’s default. But it’s like I’ll literally wear it fishing in the morning and we’ll go get lunch or go get dinner. And I think for us it’s just trying to be all about fit in fabric. Going back to that, it’s not, I mean, yes we have, I think we have good graphics and I love our logo and I want to like, you know, want people to know Sunswell is this brand that’s very comfortable. But at the end it’s got to perform and it’s got to feel good and the only way you’re going to keep reaching for it in your drawers, is if it feels good.
NYLP: So one of the reasons why I feel like there are so many brands is because there are these holes that fill in from the big manufacturers. They aren’t thinking about things in the same way. But on the converse side, once a hole opens up, it seems like a lot of people rush to fill it. And then there are a lot of imitations that come from that. What’s been your experience in terms of, we’ve found this hole of casual performance fabrics, the technology’s there. How about other people kind of coming in to fill that void?
Carrie: I think it’s also a matter of, you know, small brands and big brands coexisting and certainly there are many brands out there that are filling a performance. I mean there’s no performance gap. Everybody has a performance short. And I think there are a lot of brands that are making a short that is supposed to take you through every part of your day. That’s not something that any consumer is a stranger to. I think specific to the product, Craig kept tweaking that percentage of the balance until it felt right. But I think specific to the marketplace, it also becomes more about where people discover you and what they want to be associated with and how they feel. And, um, with us being able to meet so many people at this stage in the company, I think it’s really driven things.
Craig: And we love it. I mean like the fact that we have the shop now, the people we meet, we know everybody’s name that comes and then we have these discussions and they tell us what they did that day and like I bought your short and I went to dinner here and then I went out and did this and I’m like that’s great. That’s what I want to hear. We always joke that like we’re sort of like a groundswell, like meet the people. That’s kind of how we want to grow this thing.
NYLP: Well it’s interesting that you say that because it brings up echoes of something I talked about with Dana Glazer who’s the founder of Slightly Alabama on another podcast that we did and he said particularly if you have a store, you really have to build a community and you’re out here in the summer and you’re based out here. Is your brand designed to be for people out here or is it designed to be something bigger than that and you want it to be national, international?
Craig: We want it to spread beyond, you know, the east end of Long Island and we want people, we have a lot of customers who come in for the summer and they go back home and we’re starting to hear, you know, we’ll get notes here and there. If someone like down in South Carolina or somewhere in the Midwest or Chicago and wearing our stuff and like, oh I wore this short the other day and someone’s like where’d you get that shirt from? Like how do I get one? And then we get an order the next day and for us, we love that. That part of, of marketing I guess is just meeting the people and then it spreads from there. I mean we were talking about this earlier, obviously you have to have a good social media presence and you have to have the social marketing and we will do that as well. But for us it’s most natural being in front of the person and just talking and like touch the fabric and talk about it and then just talk about their day and you know, what are your plans? What are you guys doing tonight? And yeah, kind of being like a cultural center. And that’s where the shock comes from. And the cool thing about our shop is that we obviously have our clothing here and we do that, but we have local art. We show surf movies all day. We have events we did a beach clean up a couple of weeks ago and we would just want this place to sort of be like a living room retail space. I mean honestly we have friends who come by and like they’ll sit there for like two or three hours and just won’t get up. They don’t leave. And it’s great and I love it, you know? And it’s like that’s what we wanted. But we always thought if we ever have a shop it needs to have that surf shop, skate shop vibe where people just come and hang out and just sort of talk about things. And I think we’ve been somewhat successful in that.
Carrie: Yeah, I mean, listen, it’s been six weeks and I think we’ve talked about this, but it was the right time while it was totally seemingly too early for us as a business. Like we were like, there’s a spot available, it’s only our second summer? Can we really do this? Then we were like, we have to do this, you know? But um, as just kind of Sag Harbor residents, I think it was the right time because we are a part of this community. You know, we sit on the Chamber Board and we know everybody in town and we’ve lived here for almost four years, full time and probably ten or more being here and having our home here. And I think it’s just, everything’s kind of come together at the right time. You know, people talk about timing and especially in entrepreneurship, you need things to hit somewhat at the right time. And for the shop, I think it’s happening at the right time.
NYLP: Well, I certainly want to talk about the shop. It’s very cool. It’s very white, very beachy. It certainly works. But what’s interesting, which is something that you alluded to is that it’s a crossover of a lot of brands. And just from an outsider’s perspective or I imagine some people are thinking there’s Fair Harbor, which you mentioned there’s you guys, a lot of other summer brands, it seems like there’s some crossover and maybe some competition. How does that atmosphere work? Because somehow it seems to work together and brings people into the same spot?
Craig: It’s actually been very complimentary and I think, um, as mostly Fair Harbor and Sunswell being the main, um, partner anchor brands here, we’re very complimentary, you know, we’re in the shop most days and sort of like telling people about each brand. And I’m just as passionate about telling someone about Fair Harbor as I am about Sunswell because they’re both great brands. They’re not competing. Um, we compliment each other very well. They’ve got a great story. We’ve got a great story.
Carrie: In the water, out of the water.
NYLP: Why aren’t they competing?
Carrie: Well, maybe the two of us aren’t competing yet, you know, but I think for the point we both are in the genesis of our brands. It was a really fortunate partnership and we’ve come to know each other well and helped each other with things and it’s actually really organic and wonderful. I hope we can continue in that way.
Craig: I don’t know if I alluded to this earlier, but the way we kind of came in to contact with each other is we found out about the space and I’ve seen Fair Harbor a little bit on social media and I’ve heard about them and their growing brand and I just basically just DM’d them. I’m like, listen, we’re going to open a shop and I think, you know, I think you guys are could be complimentary and we could work together and support each other in this stuff and we know the area pretty well and you guys are, you know, like a Fire Island inspired brand. So and I love your whole message. So we basically just blossomed out and were able to, we built this place out in, was it two days?
Carrie: Well four days of actually like pounding on the walls.
Craig: It was actually very helpful from start to finish.
Carrie: May 5th we found out about the space. May 25th we opened. So the lease took a while to negotiate as you would know.
NYLP: I would know as a real estate lawyer.
Carrie: But then you and Jake and Chris who works with Jake at Fair Harbor started building the space out on Monday night. I think Jake came in to look at it on Monday, came back on Tuesday. They built it out Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And I think we opened on a Friday morning or no, we decided there was no way we could open the Friday of Memorial Day. We opened the Saturday morning.
Craig: But the great thing was, I mean I think if we had more time to think about it. We would’ve over-thought it and I think we all had our inspirations and our instincts and I always knew if I ever wanted a shop, I would have surf movies always playing. I would have couches in the shop, I would have art, I would have books. I would all this stuff that I like, I just think it’s cool. I’m like, I want to have in my shop. We were able to fill it quickly in terms of the cultural aspects of like what we’re trying to be and what we enjoy. And I think it sort of came together well and Jake, they built out a couple spaces so they have a little bit of the like technical know how of like how they wanted it to look like. Like you alluded to earlier, I’ve worked in retail for a little while, so I kind of had some ideas of, you know, what I’ve seen before, what I would do for myself and what’s worked for other people. And it came together pretty quickly.
Carrie: It did. And we had a lot of help, talking about a community. I mean, our friend Susan, who’s an interior designer, rigged out this little chill zone where we can show the surf movies. She was just like, this is what it needs to be. And you know, she just went and did everything for us. And our friend Julian, who’s a landscaper out here did all the landscaping in the pots out front. And just people just, I mean people were literally here helping us hang things like all of our friends.
Craig: It literally takes a village to open Sag Mercantile.
NYLP: Designed for the village, but what’s also interesting is that people talk about the death of retail and there’s certainly a lot of retail vacancy and retail struggling, but both you and Fair Harbor and I think some of the other brands that you stock are direct to consumer. You have a store presence here or you talk about the village, the community. What is your experience having a store, what works and why do you think some stores are not working?
Craig: I mean the buzz words that go around the industry, obviously experiential is the number one word. And, and a lot of people I think are a little more formulaic about it where we just kind of, we wanted to create a space where literally you would come in and hang out with a couple hours of your day, bring your coffee and sit down. We have dogs in here and we have dog treats right there. And experiential for me was just like the living room style, surf shop vibe. Just come in, hang out and talk about what you like, what you’re doing, what your, you know, what your plans are. And so that for us, experiential is that, and it doesn’t matter who you are or what you’re doing that day. Like anybody can come in and say, oh this shop’s great, it’s new, it’s different. We like really liked the concept.
Carrie: We’ve done a few events here and I think it’s something that we want to do a lot more of. You know, we’ve had local oyster shuckers in here and we are trying to do a surf swap that we’re pulling together. And you know a friend of ours came in on a Saturday night event that we had and said, can you do this every Saturday night? I promise to bring people that will buy a shirt every Saturday night. Like you don’t have to promise to buy a shirt!
Craig: We do a Grateful Dead night on Thursday nights. Where I’ll show a different show or play a different show. It’s slowly gaining traction. Not as many Deadheads but they’re coming out of the woodwork.
Carrie: But one of our favorite things always since we’ve lived out here and you know, full time and part time was that we used to sit on main street on a bench with a coffee and just like sit there and we would talk to people that’s how we got to know people in this town. And that’s just a vibe that we like, you know? So I think, listen, we’re still very new and we’re not at the point that we need to be making sure we hit certain things. You know, at some point in the genesis of this brand, there’s going to be like, we’re not going to be able to make decisions like we’re making them today. We’re not going to be able to feel it out and you know, really just kind of do everything we want because right now we’re still in a trial. You know, we know the product’s working, but the rest of it is kind of like, what are we going to do next? Let’s have some fun with it. And we have to convince ourselves to do that a little bit because we’re in our forties we’ve had careers, we sometimes have gotten in our way because of fear. Like we’ve been like, that’s not gonna work.
Craig: We always joke that we know way too much and it the causes us to hesitate.
Carrie: It does. We have to convince ourselves back out of it and be like, what if we knew nothing? Like, what would we want to do?
Craig: Follow our heart and follow our passion.
Carrie: Yeah. Which sounds a little bit cheesy.
Craig: And to tack onto that, I mean this is the best time of, you know I’ve had a past life where I worked for a brand that was small and got big and I’ve seen that kind of growth trajectory and these are the good times. Like I always tell younger brands that I talked to, I’m like, these are the best times. Like you’re going to remember this time, like this is awesome. Like you’re just, you know, you’re packing boxes in your basement and you know, you’re meeting every customer and you know, and you see something on the street, you see one of your shorts or one of your bathing suits or hats or something like that on a street and you like, you get like a little like, you know, you gotta get it, you get excited. Like you see it out in the wild. And that’s like, that’s a fun part. We were out to dinner last night, a friend of mine or a guy we met, was at a Phish show in a, where was he? Hartford. And he was like, I was behind a guy online and he was wearing a Sunswell hat and I talked to them. And it turns out you know him. And like that’s the awesome stuff about being small. It’s like we’re slowly like reaching out to people and, and if you know the brand, you either know us or you know Sag Harbor and you feel a connection. And that’s the cool part.
Carrie: That’s the thing you want to hold on to as you grow. And I think it’s so hard and we all, everyone listening has seen brands that do it well and brands that lose it, you know? And I think it’s, I dunno, Craig grew up in a brand that became huge and I think that we maybe don’t want to become huge. We want to become something, you’ve always said this since you started it and before I was involved in it, like it’s about us being able to live our lives and do what we’re good at, but like have our life here, which is really like we’re obsessed with Sag Harbor. We literally totally programmed our life around it.
Craig: And it translates to the clothing too. Cause like we just want clothing that you don’t have to think about that you just love and you wear and that’s how it translates down the line.
NYLP: So what do larger brands do that lose their character? Because you saw that trajectory.
Craig: I don’t think they necessarily do something, obviously they don’t purposely it, but I think what happens is the bigger you get the more infrastructure happens and I think that it’s easy to sort of, you can’t be on the ground anymore. That’s just, that’s just not possible. But that’s where you start to expand out beyond your comfort zones or your basis. Yeah. It’s inevitable for successful brands. It has to happen.
Carrie: It would just be nice to be like middle sized.
Craig: Yeah. Middle sized is nice.
Carrie: I don’t know. It would just be nice to stay in touch with it. And it’s really been about like making sure that we’re doing things that we want. Seeing what catches on, doing more of that. I mean we know it’s going to take us quite a few years to understand exactly where our place is in the marketplace.
Craig: The line as a product is very edited to be, you know, old favorites and I think as we grow the product line and the products I’m working on for the future, it’s really just things that I want to wear. Things you want to wear, things that are very simple and safe and just feel comfortable. And I think as a designer at a larger brand, I always felt like I had to fill so many holes and because the growth is there and you had to, you had different layers of the organization saying you need to do this to make this much revenue and I just want to design this cool stuff and not have to worry about all like the mathematical equations of it. The thing about being self funded as we are is that basically like I have to pick those specific styles that I want to work on and they have to be great. I’m not gonna make 10 to 15 things and hope to get down to five. Like I’m going to work on one thing and it’s gotta be perfect and then I’ll release it.
Carrie: Which is a lot about what big brands face, right? They are either beholden to their wholesale partners or their own retail outlets where it’s like we have to put out this much product and we have to do it this many times a year and we have to do all these things. But right now where we are with spending our own money to invest in this, it’s, I mean Craig’s right. Like he tweaks things to the point where he was like, okay, if this is the only little edited line we can put out, it’s got to be killer.
Craig: Almost seasonless at this point just because the fact of like where we are in terms of the brand, it’s, you know, we’re a warm weather brand right now and we make stuff that makes you feel more comfortable in warmer weather. Eventually we’ll go to some heavier weight stuff. But right now we’re doing what we want to live in.
Carrie: And we move with the sunshine a little bit. We did our first winter last year in Florida where we have family. I mean we really kind of do follow that. The sun and the..
Craig: The sun and the swell. That’s where the brand came about. You know, like that was it. It was like, like a sun and like were kind of like what are the happy things? And it was just sun and swell and it was, that’s where the kind of name and logo came from.
NYLP: Well, I was going to ask what the experience of being a summer brand is. How seasonal it is, how you’re able to work through the seasons.
Craig: Yeah. It’s, I mean, we’re not going to sell shorts in Sag Harbor in January, that’s for sure. So it, it kind of imitates how we really want to live our life it’s just following it around, you know, and just sort of follow that warm weather and that kind of vacation lifestyle around. A lot of the people and our customers in the Hamptons right now are down there in the fall which has been helpful. Some good recognition going on right now. And, I mean, who doesn’t want to follow the sun?
NYLP: Carrie also talked about how you’re so focused on making something that’s great. What makes a piece of clothing great?
Craig: I mean, there’s obviously a thousand different things. I’ve always loved working when I had access to mills and I go into a mill or a factory and like, it has to be the right thing and you just know when you touch it, like that’s the right fabric. Um, and then what you do is you’ll tweak it and try to get it right and like, we’re working on some fabric for next year right now. And it’s, it’s not there yet. We’re still working and working and working and it’s just tweaking small things. Is it fiber content? Is it weight? Is it finish? It’s just got to feel soft and feel right. And I think we hit that with our short and our shirt. We’re working on some of the product, but yeah, for me, I know if it’s right or I know if it’s wrong.
Carrie: From a market perspective. I mean, Craig is a designer, so he only thinks of this as a designer. He’s like, I design things and many people have realized that you’re an awesome designer, you know? But what I see when I see him designing things is the tweak is like minuscule. The things that you do that are just a little bit different and it’s 1% this way or 1% that way. Or I’m sitting at my desk and he’s like measuring my back. Like, what are you doing? Right? And he’s like measuring my back to make sure that something will work or the graphic will work and he goes back and forth with his partners so many times to tweak it, you know, to tweak a garment. And I think you really do live a little bit in that in-between like you aren’t making and it’s because you have to make these choices about making an edited line. Like is the short gonna be nine inches or seven inches? Nope, it’s going to be eight inches because then we can appeal to all of these sides when we really have like this little slice of the pie that we can make right now. You know, those are the realities of what we do. We can only make so much with our investment ourselves. So you have to make those choices and you make them based on, I don’t even know if you realize you do this, but you really make them based on what you know people respond to while staying true to what you really love.
NYLP: Well, what’s that process like when you’re playing around with those one, one to two percents where you’re just tweaking so fine on the margin?
Craig: I think especially with performance fabrics, which we use a lot of synthetics here and there, they’re not always going to come off the mill the way you want them to come. So you have to sort of work with them and sort of get the right balance. For me, it’s got to have a soft hand, it’s gotta be the right weight. So I think just finding that right balance between how it feels and then how it performs. And I was fortunate enough to work with a fit model who kind of helped me learn more about what’s right, what’s wrong, how to tweak it. From there, I’m just, I just know when I put a garment on, so I usually like, I’ll fit it on myself first and just be like, this rises off and I have to tweak that or the fabric feels too slick and I don’t want it too slick. It has to feel softer. It has to feel like an old friend, you know? And it has to, has to basically just be your go to item. It’s like we all have that one pair of shorts, that one shirt that we go to in our, and you’re like, I wish I had five days so I don’t have to like, you know, I could wear it in a row.
NYLP: What’s the process of making something fit well? How do you know that it’s a good fit for a lot of people?
Craig: Again, it’s just probably experience for so many years. I was fortunate enough again to work for a brand that, you know, we had a very wide reach and I think we got a lot of feedback and especially now too. I mean fortunately for us a lot of the feedback’s positive for our brand and people are like it fits great and I like this length, you know? But I also get some people are like, make it longer, make this shorter, make this, you know, this is too loose or, and that’s all great feedback. I mean, and I think it’s, that’s where it comes back to engaging the people in the shop or at a show or even just like emails we get from people are like, I love the short, don’t change it, you know?
Carrie: But like some of the process, just to paint a picture is like, remember that night we sat at the kitchen table and we had this grid in front of us that was about shirt measurements. So what was the neck? What was the, what’s it called from your neck to your shoulder? There’s some term for that or across..
Craig: The high point shoulder.
Carrie: The high point shoulder. But there were all of these terms running down an excel sheet and all of these measurements and they were within an 8th of an inch, within a whatever, a 16th of an inch. And we literally would, it looked like for a small business was he called it out. I checked it off. He called it out, I checked it off, you know, and he knows what it’s supposed to look and feel like. But you, I think you underestimate the amount of times you pull in and go back and forth with your partners to make it exactly the way you want. Because before we sit at that excel sheet, you’ve done at least like three to five back and forth.
Craig: And it goes back to resources too. I mean you know, being a small company, it’s just the two of us. I don’t have a fit model anymore. I don’t have a production team doing all the SPEC sheets and I don’t have, you know, we’ve had to learn how to sort of adapt. And I kind of joke that I’ve learned, I learned a lot in my previous life, but I’ve learned kind of more in the last, you know, two years, three years about developing product than I ever learned before because I had to do everything, you know, if I’m not on the phone with a freight forwarder or trying to get the goods into the country or worrying about tariff rates or, you know, the fabric minimums or the yardage and I mean, or emailing someone at three in the morning cause they’re in China and they’re awake. You know, and it’s, it’s made me a much better designer having, doing this now. And I joked before like I had to design all these styles and all these skews and, um, we had to fill all these buckets in order for the revenue to grow. Now it’s without that kind of, I don’t have that much bulk on one area. I have to do so much more on the other area. And it’s really made me more cognizant of the whole big picture. And that’s, that’s something I didn’t have before. I didn’t have that like full view of the field. Whereas now I think I have a better understanding of like the whole game.
NYLP: What’s the, what’s the key to the big picture of the whole game?
Craig: I don’t know. But you know, it’s, I’ll tell you, you know what the field looks like, it’s like not having a second to think about anything because you have so many balls in the air and I think maybe the best thing is getting out of your own way. And sometimes, and I think for me that’s just like, just trying to keep my head above water and just keep going and use instinct. And it’s, I think that’s really been the most, you know, changing thing about the way I design. Before I would overthink things. Now I’m like, if it’s right, it’s right. If it’s not right, don’t waste time.
NYLP: Well you certainly have the flexibility now being a small business and going with your instinct and going for things that you wouldn’t otherwise do. But I feel like as part of that opportunity, you also have challenges, which is what you mentioned being a smaller business, self funded. The two of you together. How, and particularly I have to imagine that that’s tough as a clothing brand where you need inventory, you need to manufacture items and you need to make sure that it sells. What’s been that challenge as an emergent clothing brand being self funded?
Craig: Well, you know, one thing I’ve learned more about the finance side of the business because I didn’t have to deal with this before. I really had an unlimited budget to do sampling and production and I would overdevelop by 30%. You know, cash flow is something I’ve learned a lot more about and like really making your dollar go more. I mean I didn’t have to deal with this before. You know, I got to like, I was spoiled in a way. Like I didn’t have to think about the whole business. And now I see, I’ve always been a very price conscious designer. Um, because I didn’t have a formal fashion background. I kind of learned by going to factories, learning about costing and learning about, you know, we have x amount of dollars to make this and that’s how we were in the beginning. I also asked a lot of questions. For me, it’s like, you know, with our partners and our factory partners, I asked so many questions and it’s almost like they’re not used to it. They’re like, they expect me to tell them what I want and I’m like, no, can I do this? Like how can I get it to be this? And I think for a lot of our partners it’s enabled us being small that they appreciate that, they appreciate us kind of coming to them and asking questions and asking for their involvement, asking for their opinions.
Carrie: I mean, listen, we’re running, this is our second summer. We’re production run to production run. Like we did our first, this is actually technically our third summer. Our first summer was two shorts and one shirt and a t-shirt. So then last summer was the launch and we were able to put more shorts into the market and everything. And Craig has told you everything that happened. I mean, people really do love the product, but there’s only a few products right now, you know, and what we hear from people that I think makes us a little bit like, ah, what are we going to do? Is when are you going to make more product? When you’re gonna make more product, when you’re gonna make more product?
Craig: Definitely a saturation in the market here for sure.
Carrie: Yeah. And I think, you know, part of it is we have to grow into new markets obviously, and we’re very focused on that. Right now with the product that we do have and part of it is it goes straight back to choosing what can we invest in next? You know? And I think that that’s, Craig also has amazing relationships and people have been wonderful. The partners that we have are amazing to us. We’re able to also, for the things that we make in the United States, we’re able to operate on lower minimums so that you have a really limited piece. You know what I mean? Like we did limited runs of our shirts this summer. The gingham will probably never go away because people are so obsessed with it.
Craig: We have to learn how to be crafty with a lot of our things. Like you know, we’ll order so much fabric and make a smaller run of the actual style and then sit on the fabric. And we’re learning how to be more resourceful with what we have. It’s either techniques or fabric or partnering with certain factories.
Carrie: Because everything’s minimums. I mean in the clothing business, every single thing is based on minimums.
Craig: Yeah. And we looked, I mean right now we make our shirts in the Carolinas and that’s been awesome for us. I love that. It’s, you know, and we try to do that when we can, but it’s not like it’s not a cure all it’s not always going to be there. So we still make stuff all over the world. But, um, I definitely have more interaction with my partners now, you know, cause again, I don’t have a production team running all those emails every day. And I love it. Like you know they’ve kind of become like family members in a way. It’s like, you know I’m always going to be like, how’s your day? How’s it going?
Carrie: Greg emailed one of our partners when a natural disaster had happened to make sure that they were okay and they wrote back and said, Craig, you’re so wonderful when you get big, please stay nice.
Craig: I was just like word, I hope you guys are alright.
NYLP: So someone wants to start a clothing brand. You mentioned that you’ve been more resourceful and stretched your dollars more. What’s something that you’ve learned that makes you more resourceful, that makes you more financially conscious that you didn’t know before?
Carrie: It’s funny. I think we’re playing it so safe at this point that maybe we haven’t. Maybe we don’t have the answer to that question because we’re programmed down to like the inch of fabric and how many buttons and how many things we’ve ordered and I don’t know. I might also be a little bit of a like, I’m like, you don’t need to order that.
Craig: My sample budget’s definitely gone down.
Carrie: But I come from a different universe, you know, like I’m a little bit like, do you really need that? Do we really need that? Do we really need that right now?
NYLP: Well it’s interesting you talk about that because your husband and wife, so how’s that dynamic been in terms of having this company?
Craig: I mean, on paper we’re perfect. On paper it’s like, you know, it’s like design and marketing and PR and all creative and all that stuff. We’ve definitely gone through a learning curve of learning how to work with each other in the way of that, we’re both very, I think, I think we’re both talented in our fields and I think we kind of bring a lot to the table and we have a lot of opinions and I think we’ve learned how to sort of work with each other in a way that both opinions matter.
Carrie: I think we want to get closer to that. I think like we both, what I’ve learned is we’re also both crossover artists. Like we’re both entrepreneurs, like I’ve had my own business for the last 15 years. Craig’s grown up in entrepreneurial businesses. We both grew up in entrepreneurial families as it happens. Like I think that because we, we know how to do a lot of things, that’s the one thing that probably gets in our way. Like we hope as we get bigger that we can draw a line and say like, this is my side and this is your side. Like, and also I think like you’re allowed to design, I’ll take over the rest of the business, you know what I mean? And really actually speak to our greatest strengths. But like Craig is an awesome marketer. Like he has actually way better marketing ideas than I do. I think I’m just a tactician.
Craig: Great tactician and execution. Like you execute way more than I could. I’m just like the idea guy.
Carrie: I’m also a feasibility person. Like I’m like, that’s not worth our time, you know, because I just think I do that all day every day for clients of mine in my marketing business, you know?
NYLP: And you cut down on the budget.
Carrie: And I guess I do. I really do.
Craig: You do. You crack the budget whip.
Carrie: I just think we know what’s working and we have to focus on that right now. And we definitely, you know, right now we’re really putting together a solid plan for the next few years and looking at when exactly we’re going to need external financing.
Craig: Ah, the budget. You know that we have this ongoing joke whenever there’s like a plan of something Carrie’s like, well we need to sit down tonight and do a budget. Carrie loves the word budget.
NYLP: So how are you gonna gain distribution? How are you going to get Sunswell out to other people?
Craig: So we’re starting to do more of a wholesale push where we’ll start to sell in more shops probably in the east coast right now. And then obviously the shops helped us a lot I mean I think we’re having a lot of reach in the direct business with the shops which is great. We have to obviously look at more digital marketing.
Carrie: We had set a budget for that for the summer. We had set a budget for digital marketing and really investing in that so that every time you go on Instagram you’re going to see Sunswell. And then we got the May 5th call about the space and we took all of that budget and we put it into rent. So we haven’t been able to invest in that. I mean we invest in it in a very small way given what direct to consumer businesses and the way that people market on social, like we are doing very little, you know, and that’s something that we’re looking at to carve out right now for the off season here and the on season in other markets to really do a heavier investment there. And I think once we really understand that balance and our company we’ll understand exactly how we’re going to scale.
Craig: I’m so old school in the way of like, oh, people just love it. And they’ll tell their friends and it’ll be great and like Carrie, thank God like knows her digital and her marketing side, she’s like, that’s not how it works. And it, you know, but I just, that’s how I came up in the business. It was like, you know, we used to hand out catalogs with the newspaper on the train station, you know, and like people told their friends and then we got more orders and we’re seeing that on a small scale. But in order to really grow, we have to take the next steps and invest the money in the marketing.
Carrie: Yeah. And that’s what we’re focused on now is really the scalability factor. Like we are so lucky to know the people really, you know, a subset of people in the New York Metro area and with our wholesale partners that are in New England, up in Boston and down in Florida, like we’ve had immediate reorders. Like people love the product. So the core product works. We have to keep making that work. But the scalability is the next frontier for sure.
Craig: And on the flip side, like I’m still handwriting notes on every package that goes out. I love that. Like that’s, you know, I want to keep that as long as I can. I want to be able to like write that person’s name, enjoy the product they bought and like have a great summer. Like I want to be able to do that. That’s the romantic side of me is like when I’m in the basement and it’s like, you know, middle of the night and packing an order. Those are the fun times and I think, cause I’ve done it before, I can appreciate it this time around and eventually it’s going to come time where everything’s going to be in a warehouse somewhere in shipping. And so for the time being that’s like that’s the excitement.
NYLP: Well that is a wonderful note to end things on. I love that I’ve caught you two early. You guys are going to be huge. Carrie O’Brien Craig O’Brien, thank you for stepping onto the New York Launch Pod and sharing your time with us. How do people find out more about you? Sunswell, Sag Mercantile, what do you want to pitch?
Carrie: So I mean certainly you can just go on Instagram where you probably are right now Sunswell Clothing is our Instagram and Sag Mercantile. And of course if you are on the LIE on your way out east, just come to us at 17 Washington Street.
NYLP: And if you want to learn more about the New York Launch Pod, you can visit us online at nylaunchpod.com for transcripts of every episode, including this one. And follow us on social media @nylaunchpod. And if you are a super fan, Karen and Craig, are you super fans of the New York Launch Pod?
Both: We’re super fans.
NYLP: If your super fans like Carrie and Craig, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It is greatly appreciated and does help people discover the show. That wraps up this episode and I would love to hear your thoughts you can email me at pod@nylaunchpod.com and if you want to check out the designs at Sunswell you can visit them at sunswell.co
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