From JP Morgan to DTC: How Ondo Built a Better Sock Brand

[00:00:00] Taylor Holiday: I actually think e-commerce, and I say this as a service operator, is like amongst the most complicated. Financial businesses to run because of the way the cash conversion cycle is so distinct. And sometimes really wide from the revenue realization where versus my business, those things are like really in sync.

[00:00:14] Taylor Holiday: So like cashflow management and the finances of a service business are much simpler than a business. So what is it about that background? Because some people might also say like, if you were inside of a JP Morgan looking at e-commerce businesses, maybe you should have run the other direction. Um, but what about it?

[00:00:30] Taylor Holiday: I think seeing in that world drew you to this business model. And how do you think the financial background has helped you?

[00:00:36] Taylor Holiday: All right. Welcome back everybody to another episode of the E-Commerce Playbook podcast. I'm excited today to be joined by my new friend who we've just met in person. We just came off of a chance to actually physically see some one another in the meet space in the real world. I'm joined today by Daniel Shim, the founder and CEO at Ono.

[00:00:57] Taylor Holiday: Daniel, what's up, man?

[00:00:59] Daniel: Hey [00:01:00] Taylor. Good to be here. Thanks for inviting me. This is my first podcast, which I told you earlier, so I hope you're no hard questions.

[00:01:07] Taylor Holiday: No. Yeah, I love it. The, the podcast debut. Well, it's just like a, talking into the zoom box, which we all do plenty of. So should, shouldn't be too different, man. But why don't you give everybody a little bit about who you are and then I wanna start with your unique background. 'cause you share it with some friends of mine that I think is like the a secret not normal path to D two C, but I think it's a one that I think makes us a kindred spirit.

[00:01:28] Taylor Holiday: So tell us a little bit about Ando, who you are and how you got into this business.

[00:01:33] Daniel: Yeah, absolutely. So I, I'm as you know, I'm Daniel. I'm the founder, CEO of Ono. I. I like to say that I grew up in both South Korea and in the United States. I'll get into why I mentioned Korea later, but, um, I did the traditional finance route, worked in finance for four years, but in my last two years I was covering startups at JP Morgan from a treasury sales perspective.

[00:01:55] Daniel: So, as you know, everyone has their own bank, but companies do too. So I was part of that [00:02:00] team that. Manages the relationship between a startup and a bank. And so naturally working with a lot of founders and executives, I, I was like, oh, a lot of them I see, I see some patterns here. Um, Ava. problem that you identify, you wanna solve it, and then you have a great idea on how you want to solve it, and then you go all in.

[00:02:19] Daniel: And so I was like, okay what, what ideas do I have? And if you ask any Korean friends that you might have, they all buy their socks from Korea. And so that got me thinking, okay, then where do all my non Korean friends buy their socks? And then a lot of times they didn't know it was, it was very fragmented.

[00:02:36] Daniel: Um, it was very disrupted. And so. my idea was gonna be get a, a ton of these socks from Korea and then sell in the States brand it, well, whatever that meant to. A banker at the time priced a little bit cheaper than the the bigger sock brands of the world and then sell in the us. But I quickly realized that I'm not really solving a problem.

[00:02:55] Daniel: It's not a very good idea. And so I actually pivoted to no-show socks because [00:03:00] no-show socks. They always slip off your feet when you're walking. And so I thought that if I could develop a product that doesn't, I can go all in and then. That's what I did. 2019 September, right before COVID, I, I quit my job in finance.

[00:03:12] Daniel: Started working with a lot of different factories. And then officially we launched 20, 20 October, we just hit our five-year anniversary. And we've been selling a ton of no-show socks. And so, that's what we've been doing. And that's a quick intro of my background.

[00:03:27] Taylor Holiday: So what, what's fascinating, so obviously my passion sort of sits at the overlap of marketing and finance and I don't come out of a traditional financial background, but there's a few people that like more and more I'm hearing this story. So I don't know if you know, do you know the chubby guys? Do you know, like Kyle Hensey, um,

[00:03:41] Daniel: I know

[00:03:41] Taylor Holiday: case.

[00:03:42] Daniel: brand

[00:03:43] Taylor Holiday: So those guys come out of banking Chad Uni from Grus comes out of banking, right? Like there's this, all of a sudden there's this cohort of sort of successful e-comm people that come with this more traditional finance background. Um, and I find it really interesting because there's such a, a [00:04:00] gap for a lot of people that just come up as product founders or marketing founders in their financial knowledge.

[00:04:05] Taylor Holiday: And it makes e-commerce hard because I actually think e-commerce, and I say this as a service operator, is like amongst the most complicated. Financial businesses to run because of the way the cash conversion cycle is so distinct. And sometimes really wide from the revenue realization where versus my business, those things are like really in sync.

[00:04:21] Taylor Holiday: So like cashflow management and the finances of a service business are much simpler than a business. So what is it about that background? Because some people might also say like, if you were inside of a JP Morgan looking at e-commerce businesses, maybe you should have run the other direction. Um, but what about it?

[00:04:37] Taylor Holiday: I think seeing in that world drew you to this business model. And how do you think the financial background has helped you?

[00:04:43] Daniel: Yeah, I, I think, um, not because of my finance background, but I think a lot of people tend to appreciate entrepreneurs because they're building something. I think that was a huge. That was, that was, that seemed very attractive to me, especially when you're working at a very large organization, as you know, you're really [00:05:00] one piece of the puzzle. And so I think that was something that I was very curious about and that attracted me to entrepreneurship. I think coming from a finance background, what's really helped me is number one, how to, how to market myself. I think, I think bankers are very good at doing that. Also we understand, I guess like very high level how a business runs because of the visibility that we had. And, um, and like looking at so many different companies, especially at JP Morgan, I, I was covering very early stage and then up to pre IPO companies and so that, that. That vast range of companies I was able to see really helped me give a perspective of, oh, hey, from a very early stage to pre IPO, this is what I can expect. but I think to your point earlier, if I knew that operations was this hard, product development is harder, and also managing supply chain is the hardest, I probably would've stayed at JP Morgan a little bit longer. I, I, I think six months after I quit COVID happened and I could've technically worked from home.

[00:05:59] Daniel: I [00:06:00] had two jobs, but, um, that's, I mean, hindsight is 2020, right? And

[00:06:03] Taylor Holiday: Yeah, exactly.

[00:06:05] Daniel: I, yeah, I

[00:06:05] Taylor Holiday: So it all means the place and

[00:06:07] Daniel: on, on your question.

[00:06:09] Taylor Holiday: yeah, I think it's funny there, there's something about the glutton for punishment that we all are in this space. 'cause it is so hard. There's so many pieces of it that are so complex. And I'd say even for you, I look and go, man, you might have chosen the hardest game of all.

[00:06:21] Taylor Holiday: 'cause I think a lot of people on the outside looking in would go socks is. As potentially commoditized and competitive, a landscape as you could possibly imagine, where it feels like it's sort of a race to zero. How do you think about winning and differentiating yourself in a space like that? Where in reality, like what is the barrier to entry to sox?

[00:06:41] Taylor Holiday: Probably not too much. There's already some well established players in the space. Why did you think, and why do you still believe that there's opportunity in categories like sox for somebody wanting to start a business?

[00:06:53] Daniel: That's a great question and, and like, that's a question that I've been getting since the i, the idea stage and that I still [00:07:00] get every day. Right. Stocks are so competitive, but I mean, because it's such an old industry and no-show socks were still slipping off your feet. Even before I started Ondo, I thought, I thought that was, I guess. I guess like I knew it was gonna be very competitive, but I thought that there was still no product that can solve this problem. And so if I have something that's very high quality, not just from a functionality perspective, but also from a fabric perspective, um, and also making sure that supply chain is best in class.

[00:07:29] Daniel: I knew that I, I can, with my background, scale a brand faster or in a more, a structured way than other brand founders is how I viewed the SOC industry. Um, there's not that many, I mean, I'm sure there's a, there's sellers on Amazon or other brands that can try to replicate our product, but I've, we haven't seen a brand or seller that does everything well like we do.

[00:07:53] Daniel: And so from a product standpoint, and so that's where, um, I knew that, hey, if I'm all in on this, if I, if we [00:08:00] have a genuine story and we're very passionate about our product. our next product categories. I, I thought that we'd be able to compete in this very competitive market.

[00:08:08] Taylor Holiday: Yeah, and I, so one of the things that I appreciate is that even when people think about markets, right, there's socks are purchased in so many different form factors and size and purpose, that to build a business, to start, what you really need is a niche. Category where you are better than other people, such that you solve a real problem for people such that they will even pay a premium because it's so much better than the competition.

[00:08:32] Taylor Holiday: And so it's easy to look at a category like socks and go like, oh, socks, commodity. But when you break it down and you go, no, no, no, no one had really solved this problem well. Like, and so we were able to do it, command a premium and drive demand such that people were satisfied with a better experience in this category.

[00:08:48] Taylor Holiday: And what that builds for you now is a platform to explore all sorts of additional ideas from there. Because I think the business doesn't have to be one thing forever, but there does need to be something meaningful in the beginning. And I think the [00:09:00] thing that you've done really well too, and I'd be curious about.

[00:09:02] Taylor Holiday: Where this came from, it's clear to me like you have a, a taste, a sense of aesthetic, a sense of brand visual that is also very important to Ono. Like if you go look at it, it could, it could very easily be construed initially as like high fashion, like the quality of the photography. Like in a category where it's problem solution, it feels like it would've been easy to sort of end up looking like a.

[00:09:21] Taylor Holiday: Dr. Lander with all the like sort of features and benefits, like your sort of traditional view, but for you, aesthetic still matters too. Talk a little bit about like your sense of taste and brand and how that plays into the long term platform for Onda.

[00:09:35] Daniel: Yeah. I, I think it's very similar to my answer would be very similar to your previous question because I knew socks would be so competitive. I didn't wanna. Sacrifice anything, um, um, even when it comes to branding and visuals. And so yeah, from day one I've been very specific about our photography and, and taking a step back.

[00:09:54] Daniel: Um, like even today, we still make enhancements to the same process that we've been selling from day one. [00:10:00] And so I still think, I mean, we will continue to innovate within the product space, but even with our existing products, we know that. Other sellers or other brands might try to replicate what we do.

[00:10:10] Daniel: So to to, to fight that. We're continuously making upgrades to it. And so, um, yeah, like our branding and visuals, I like to say that we wanted to go with that European look and feel, but our product is very Korean or very Asian. Even the name on means temperature in Korean and Japanese. And so, I think we're trying to hit all continents, but at the same time do a very good job of it when it, and, and. A very sharp story is I think what we're trying to do.

[00:10:38] Taylor Holiday: So I wanna talk a little bit about the journey. 'cause launching in the middle of COVID is obviously a wild journey because it was a very different environment than the one we're in today, right? And I think it was. For many brands, the risk would've been to build up an inflated, underlying O operating system that expected the demand to look the same like it [00:11:00] was in COVID and going forward.

[00:11:02] Taylor Holiday: So can you talk a little bit about how the demand journey has been starting in COVID, what you guys have gone through and how you think about. How the business operates today versus in that environment. How different is it for you guys? I know this is something a lot of businesses have gone through. Is that journey up and then sort of a reset to a re-imagining a new growth engine.

[00:11:18] Taylor Holiday: What does it mean to pursue sort of different levels of profitability? What that, what has that journey been like for you guys?

[00:11:24] Daniel: Absolutely. And, and so I think, um, thankfully we were able to find product market fit pretty quickly. I think in month two we were already doing a hundred K in, in revenue. And I think that speaks for itself. Um, but and in the beginning we saw hyper growth. I think what really threw us off is iOS 14.

[00:11:43] Daniel: I think that iOS. Upgrade firmware update will stay with me till I die. That, that update really hurt us from a attribution and tracking perspective. And that's when we weren't sure if we were truly growing or not. And so, um, that was, I, I think our first challenge to overcome [00:12:00] from a digital marketing standpoint. Um, but I think working with the right people, having a great team, we were able to overcome that through different, um, middleware and, and, and. Tracking software. And then I think compared to the, the, the COVID era to now, like we're still selling 99.99% on our website. We recently just launched on Amazon with just certain SKUs. Um, everyone tells me, Hey Daniel, when are you gonna have your next. Whenever you're gonna have your first retail store, are you gonna do any B2B, do any wholesale? I think in this climate, yeah, we'll definitely consider that, but I still see us as a very early stage brand, and my end goal is not to do just no-show socks.

[00:12:41] Daniel: We, we've been launching head products like headbands and, and baseball caps, and as. E expand our product categories. Eventually I think I want to have those B2B relationships even have our physical store. But I, I, I still think there's a lot of opportunities in the digital, digital space for us, especially only selling in the us but also [00:13:00] with everyone talking about AI and, and, and AI search.

[00:13:04] Daniel: I think that's also a very untapped market to, to also experiment and scale on.

[00:13:09] Taylor Holiday: Awesome. So talk a little bit about, um, sort of how you think about capitalization for growth. So obviously a part of our work together is about building, we work within our profit system to sort of really identify and get clear about growth expectations, ensuring discipline on the acquisition side. How are you guys currently capitalized?

[00:13:27] Taylor Holiday: How do you think about how that has to change in this environment versus others? What is your sort of plan for how you think about the next stage of growth? How you guys think about how your current capitalization forms growth and how you think about your growth rate relative to how efficient you need to be versus how much top line volume you should pursue.

[00:13:44] Taylor Holiday: What's the current growth plan for Ono?

[00:13:48] Daniel: Yeah, in, in the early days, I was always, um, telling my team we need hyper growth. Like we need to become number one very, very fast within our category. But I've come to learn that. There's just so many [00:14:00] different parts of the business that need to grow together, and that's always the hardest part, I think. Yeah, spending a ton on marketing is very easy. You'll see top line growth, but are you doing that in a profitable way? That's, that's a different story. Right. And so, um, I think, um, for every brand, every like three to five years, you need to have that plateau year and, and that, that's the year when you need to reinvest, make upgrades to, to operations, um, your supply chain partners and also your internal team.

[00:14:27] Daniel: And so. When it comes to, um, a growth standpoint, I think I, I haven't been telling my team, um, that we wanna do double digit percentage growths in this environment, especially when interest rates are very high. Capital is very expensive. However, um. With the, the additional profit that we make, we do wanna reinvest it hopefully within the next year or two.

[00:14:49] Daniel: Um, so that we see that, um, big jump in growth again. Um, I think what what we're proud of is we're doing the bare minimum. And what I mean by that is only selling on our website just recently [00:15:00] launching on Amazon with. Only one or two products, um, only marketing the product in the US There's so many opportunities that we could do geographically or through a, through a channel standpoint.

[00:15:09] Daniel: And so if we need to have those growth, we can. But right now, I think we just wanna make sure that we're ready to have that next

[00:15:16] Taylor Holiday: It doesn't

[00:15:17] Daniel: in this

[00:15:17] Taylor Holiday: what I'll still include. Yeah, I think that's so smart. A lot of times I see people trying to use Channel X, but channel expansion as a way to solve the underlying growth of the core channel. And it's always like, whoa, whoa, hold on. If this isn't healthy, stacking more on top of it generally isn't a solution.

[00:15:33] Taylor Holiday: Um, so as you think about the next area of growth, Rhonda, do you think it comes from channel expansion as you described, like wholesale, retail, Amazon? Do you think it's product expansion? Do you think it's core growth on the on.com for socks? Like where, where do you see it as you look forward on the brand in terms of how much growth is coming out of each of those areas?

[00:15:52] Daniel: Absolutely. I, I think, um, I mean our, our number speaks for itself. We have a very good, um, sock product suite, [00:16:00] and so we're very confident that as we launch more different, um, sock products, like we have a really exciting product coming out early next year within the yoga Pilates space. I think naturally we will be able to, um, um, see top line growth from just existing products and also new products that are coming out. Um, I think we're also looking into new geographic. Regions. I, I think the UK and the Japanese market, I think makes the most sense for us. So we're reviewing internally when it comes to Amazon. Like we know that not many people buy their socks from a brand website. They, they're more comfortable going to Amazon, and so we need to figure out a very. Good strategy to make sure that we're not taking too many customers away from our D two C site, but also, um, there's definitely, um, benefits and perks to purchasing something on Amazon and so we'll, we'll need to have a very sharp strategy from that standpoint. Being very honest with you, we've only been selling for 10 to 14 days, and so as we see more data, we'll definitely work with you, your team, and [00:17:00] also internally to make sure that we grow on both sides.

[00:17:03] Taylor Holiday: Yeah. One of the things that I see brands doing in this moment is a lot, there's a lot of conversation about like. Tam, like total addressable market. I, I like to think of it more of like the profitably addressable market, which is to say that for every product category, how much volume can you produce while holding the constraint on profitable acquisition that defines some growth expectation for a category.

[00:17:25] Taylor Holiday: And then you go, okay, with that. Foundation in place, this healthy, profitable thing. Now where do I expand beyond to increase the overall business growth? And that's what helps you lead to, okay, now I need to product expand. It sounds like that's both on the variant level, so maybe new colors, slightly different styles of socks.

[00:17:43] Taylor Holiday: Let's call that the core category. Then there's categorical expansion of products. So you mentioned headwear maybe even like different material socks. You guys launch Marino wool versus organic cotton, like you go sort of slightly adjacent. Then there's, you also brought up geographic expansion. This is another thing I think is really important, is like, okay, what [00:18:00] geographies can we look at as.

[00:18:01] Taylor Holiday: Opening up new markets for the core base of SKUs. Then there's distribution, expansion, and all of these represent mechanisms of additional potential value, both on the core business as well as then thinking about how the business expands. And I love that like sort of set of trellis of growth, different opportunities versus everyone just going next year, I have to spend more on meta at a better ROAS against the same product set.

[00:18:23] Taylor Holiday: Like that. Just like for many brands, it just isn't real, like very clearly. There's some ceiling to that as a growth mechanism. But I'd be curious, what geographies do you guys think are interesting right now? Where are you currently growing and which ones do you think represent the most opportunity?

[00:18:36] Daniel: I think thankfully, because everyone wears socks our the distribution by state, um, is very even it is very normal, normally distributed. So like, if you think of all the bigger states that has the biggest population, it's, it's, it's in that ranking order. Um, unfortunately, when it comes to no shows.

[00:18:56] Daniel: Socks. People don't wear it in the winter. And so like [00:19:00] we, we have not tried to market the product in Canada yet. We, we will ship it to Canada. But I think when we, um, scale our cruise stock, which we just launched, like the longer socks, I think Canada is a region that we do want to start marketing more into. And then, yeah, like, when it comes to like our other products. That are not no-show SOCs, I think all 50 states plus Canada is an immediate, um, market to test and then see how we can scale. We're very interested in seeing

[00:19:27] Taylor Holiday: I mean, I guess

[00:19:28] Daniel: show

[00:19:28] Taylor Holiday: you're saying in terms of terms.

[00:19:30] Daniel: Um, but yeah, I, I would say North America's still ton of potential, a lot of opportunities.

[00:19:36] Daniel: And then as we naturally expand it to new countries or new continents, I think it'll be from day one again, and we'll, we'll see what data we collect.

[00:19:45] Taylor Holiday: Have you, have you considered Australia at all? Like, because the, what you just described, sort of the inverse seasonality, um, feels like it could be a way to help smooth out some of that hyper seasonal distinction. Have you guys played around with that at all? Also.

[00:19:57] Daniel: You know, I, I, I love [00:20:00] Australia from a brand standpoint because a, a lot of the, like the biggest brands, the coolest brands come from Australia and, and our constraint has always been human capital constraints. And so. If I can find the right person, the right dis like, partner to work with. Absolutely. I think Australia would be perfect for no-show socks. And yeah, I, I've been, we have a, we have some investors that are based in Australia and they've been also like sharing our products to their friends and family and, and they love it. And so Australia definitely is an is a country that we, we do

[00:20:31] Taylor Holiday: Okay.

[00:20:31] Daniel: to,

[00:20:31] Taylor Holiday: And,

[00:20:32] Daniel: expand

[00:20:33] Taylor Holiday: All right, so if you're out there and you heard that if you're a distributor or you, you helped launch brands into local geographies in Australia, chat with Daniel. 'cause I think they've got a great product that we'd love some summer, we'd love some winter, summer out here. Into the into the old p and l would be nice.

[00:20:47] Taylor Holiday: So, um. I've got another question approaching Q4 as a product that's not like a super obvious gifting product. Like where it's like, I know there's sort of the, the old joke that like everybody gets socks in their stocking or [00:21:00] whatever it might be, but like what's your place in a Black Friday, cyber Monday gifting environment?

[00:21:05] Taylor Holiday: And maybe think about this for brands who like are in a similar space where it's like, man, we're not the obvious cool gift of the year. Like how do we take advantage of this moment? And how important is that period for you?

[00:21:15] Daniel: Yeah, like that's what we were worried about too. Like when, I remember our first Black Friday, cyber Monday season that we went through with Ando. Like when, while we were planning, we were like, Hey, we're not selling crew socks. We're not selling selling long like Santa Socks, but like. I think 35 to 40% of our revenue comes from Q4 alone.

[00:21:36] Daniel: And so, and, and until recently we were primarily only selling no-show socks. And so, um, I, I, I still, and I guess for us to, to do well in this season is because we also have holiday offerings. And so one thing that we do every year is we have a laundry bag product that's shaped like our socks. Um, that if you buy a 12 pack bundle, um, it, you'll get a free laundry bag and it, [00:22:00] and we make it festive by choosing the colors differently every year.

[00:22:03] Daniel: And so that's been a huge, um, a OV higher a OV driver for us. Um, it's, it's a lot of pro. Customers that love our products really want the laundry bag and 'cause then they also know that you can only get it this year and it'll be a different color next year. And so I think that's really helped us too. And so, yeah, originally I was worried that people wouldn't buy no-show socks during, in, during the Q4 season.

[00:22:25] Daniel: But I think because people like to give socks in general during Q4, no-show sauce, also sell as well.

[00:22:32] Taylor Holiday: Yeah, you've gotta, you can find your place in the story. There's almost anything that can find its place into a gifting story. So many people are looking for cool little ways to offer anything into the space. So like you said, little colors in the laundry basket, little imagery of stocks sticking outta stockings.

[00:22:47] Taylor Holiday: Like there's lots of ways to find. Your place in the story. Um, so I'd be curious, so as a, as a former banker, Daniel, tell me about how you look at and manage your business on a day-to-day basis. Like what, where do you look at that [00:23:00] determines whether you are feeling good or bad about how things are going?

[00:23:03] Taylor Holiday: Like gimme the set of metrics and things that you care about that drive your emotional wellbeing as a former banker, CEO.

[00:23:10] Daniel: Yeah, no, I, I like to approach, um, operating a brand, like a game, um, like playing a game. Um, I think it's because Shopify's UX makes it very founder friendly. Like that dashboard, whenever you get a order, you get, you get like that. That jump like that jumping dot, like I used to look at that like religiously.

[00:23:29] Daniel: I still do it during like, um, like peak holiday seasons. And so I think, um, um, and, and as you know, like when you play a game, like it's, it's never easy, right? And so like when hardships comes, how do you fix that fire quickly? How do you fight that back? That's constantly what I do and that keeps me going.

[00:23:47] Daniel: Um, as a founder that's been doing this for over six years now, and so. I would say that finance mentality of like getting things done, um, and then making sure that you execute and, and it's [00:24:00] polished. That mentality is very different from what you hear from, hey, when you're a startup. When you're a startup, when you're in the startup space, nothing, nothing's a hundred.

[00:24:08] Daniel: You, you just give, give 80% and then, and, and then you'll just continue to make upgrades as as you go. I think that mentality is, is not what I. to lean, lean towards too. But, um, I think there's a balance, right? I think I have great teammates that, um. Make sure that I don't only think about perfection all the time.

[00:24:29] Daniel: Um, and, so yeah, like, I think that balance really helps me, but having a good team, making sure that I'm, I'm monitoring the right metrics. Um, making sure that if, if any numbers off, is it a, is it a technical issue or is it something that we're doing wrong? Figuring that out and fixing it is, is what I tend to monitor on a day, day-to-day basis.

[00:24:51] Taylor Holiday: If so, imagine I'm a aspiring D two C founder. Maybe I'm thinking of quitting my banking job next week. What is [00:25:00] the key to success today? Like how do I win? What do you think it requires of a brand that's considering opening up and launching? Into our world today. Um, what Gimme, gimme the key to success.

[00:25:12] Daniel: A key to success. I, I, I mean, I think is very subjective. And so number one, defining what. Success means to at least in the first one or two years. I think that's most important. And then number two, um, I think you brought this up earlier in the podcast, but making sure you're doing something very, very niche is very important.

[00:25:33] Daniel: I think if I started with a ton of different soft products in the beginning I would not be here today. Like I would probably be back

[00:25:39] Taylor Holiday: Well, they also don't have, I didn't even know why.

[00:25:42] Daniel: but I think.

[00:25:43] Taylor Holiday: I just said, Hey, like it more for.

[00:25:45] Daniel: is very important because if you're doing something very broad, people won't even, there's so many new brands, there's so many different D two C companies, like they won't even remember you or they won't even know who you are.

[00:25:55] Daniel: Or even if they been, they've heard your story multiple times. And so, [00:26:00] um, I think a lot of, ex finance people or, or ex like corporate people, they want to do flashy things. Um, the, the startup space is not flashy. What's more important is being very niche and then religiously looking at your numbers and your data and making sure you have, quick enhancements to

[00:26:18] Taylor Holiday: Of here, we'll circle back on the other things like

[00:26:21] Daniel: I get the

[00:26:22] Taylor Holiday: where are sitting,

[00:26:22] Daniel: Like,

[00:26:23] Taylor Holiday: um, in relation to elevating.

[00:26:25] Daniel: you, you needed to quit? Like, as a, as someone that has gone through this, you'll know, like, you'll know that one more day. Like if I, if I sit in this cubicle that I, I'm gonna like. You'll know. And then, and then when your butt tells you to stand up, then you stand up and you leave. I think that's what I personally experienced and that's what I would tell a, a finance person right now considering quitting their job.

[00:26:48] Taylor Holiday: Well finance people, we need you here. But I, I think if there's anything you take away, and I think this is so right, is that so often I see brands who are trying to be everything to everybody right away. And the idea [00:27:00] that you need to be very specifically. Solving some problem for your initial foray into customers.

[00:27:06] Taylor Holiday: This, Daniel and I, we, we were just in yours together, and I even think they have further to go in niching down even further, like we're discussing what's the distinction between men and women using no-show socks? What's the distinction for a golfer versus somebody who's, you know, a runner versus a hiker?

[00:27:18] Taylor Holiday: Like there's all these ways in which the story gets unlocked. The more personal it becomes to me, and the more your product can speak to really specific problems, it cuts through the noise and feels for. Me. Um, and so I think that's great advice that so many founders should be more specific and they're afraid that it somehow takes them out of a big market opportunity.

[00:27:38] Taylor Holiday: But the reality is it's the way you start narrow and widen. Like you don't go wide first. And so I think that's great advice is to, even in a category that feels lost, like socks, there's a story for somebody where your thing can be a better solution, a better mousetrap to a specific problem they're dealing with.

[00:27:54] Taylor Holiday: So I love that. Um,

[00:27:56] Daniel: Yeah.

[00:27:57] Taylor Holiday: go ahead. You wanna draw that in? Yeah. But

[00:27:59] Daniel: [00:28:00] started

[00:28:00] Taylor Holiday: might be

[00:28:00] Daniel: Everyone, like Nike started with just shoes. Like you don't have to do athleisure and do everything from day one. It's gonna be so much harder to manage all those relationships and also market all

[00:28:11] Taylor Holiday: there's a risk

[00:28:12] Taylor Holiday: And

[00:28:13] Daniel: you

[00:28:13] Taylor Holiday: because that point. Yeah.

[00:28:15] Daniel: or you have those,

[00:28:16] Taylor Holiday: Entire.

[00:28:17] Daniel: I would say.

[00:28:18] Daniel: And so,

[00:28:18] Taylor Holiday: Yeah.

[00:28:19] Daniel: starting niche is, is definitely the way to go.

[00:28:22] Taylor Holiday: We like when we started Kalo, it was married and engaged firefighters. That was like our first community, right? Like, and you wanna talk about, there was a blog called Firefighter Wives that was like, we're talking about a blog that was read by 2000 people a month.

[00:28:34] Taylor Holiday: Right? That was, a small community, but it was the exact right customer to start, right, and that opened up married and engaged police officers, married, engaged people, EMTs, right? Like there's a very natural progression that you can follow from a niche understanding where people are just adjacent to the problem and you can grow out from there.

[00:28:51] Taylor Holiday: And so I think so often those earth, the, the solution to any stalled problem is usually that you've become a little too generic, that nobody's really identifying [00:29:00] with it. And the, the path back forward is to get more narrow, get more specific, and with the way ad creative works right now, and you can divide this up so easily, you can create these really unique experiences.

[00:29:10] Taylor Holiday: Through it. And so that's a lot of what Daniel and I are talking about from the creative front as their brand expands into men and women at different points in time and how we can do it. So here's what I would say to y'all. Go check out Ondo one beautiful photography, fricking awesome, beautiful brand, amazing product.

[00:29:25] Taylor Holiday: And try it out. Daniel, any last words that you'd leave everybody with before we head out today?

[00:29:30] Daniel: Um, we have the best no-show

[00:29:31] Taylor Holiday: Yeah.

[00:29:32] Daniel: in the market, hands down and, and, and work with CTC. Like, um, like we wouldn't be here. We wouldn't be where we are this year without CTC, and I always go to your team,

[00:29:42] Taylor Holiday: Yeah.

[00:29:42] Daniel: like

[00:29:43] Taylor Holiday: So if that's, if that's the thing, I think just like,

[00:29:45] Daniel: culture.

[00:29:45] Taylor Holiday: think, yeah.

[00:29:46] Daniel: think that's something that I really appreciate

[00:29:48] Taylor Holiday: So, but it does, like,

[00:29:49] Daniel: to

[00:29:50] Taylor Holiday: it does. We should just be aware. Thanks, man. Yeah, you have an appreciation. You clearly, like you're one of the people that I, I, I like to, you're. Notice that you have a, you have a desire to learn, and so you wanna put yourself [00:30:00] around people where you can learn anything from them.

[00:30:02] Taylor Holiday: And that's really cool. I love that trait about you. It's something I, I wanna continue to embody myself, is that like, it's not just about the, the vendor relationship that we have. It's like, what do we have to offer each other beyond that? And so I appreciate that, man. Um, proud to get the chance to work with you guys and can't wait to see what you keep doing.

[00:30:17] Daniel: Likewise. Thanks Taylor. Appreciate what you just said too.

[00:30:20] Taylor Holiday: All right. Take care y'all.

[00:30:22] Daniel: Thank you.