Transcript Synced · select any line to jump ▾ 0:00 Nathan Yun: Why don't we just make better socks? Rax and I were like just second-guessing ourselves. Sometimes I go on Reddit and then just go like, hey, have you heard of Pair? No one ever bothered redeveloping materials in the apparel industry, and that's where we come in and do things a bit differently. If I were to go back in time, I might not want to know what are the challenges ahead. 0:17 Speaker: Imagine starting a fashion brand with the least sexy product, socks. Nathan Yoon was doing COVID walks when his ankle socks kept slipping, and he thought there must be a better way. 4 years later, Pair hits an 8-figure run rate went viral on Shark Tank and proved that boring products can build iconic brands. 0:36 Nathan Yun: Hi, I'm Nathan Yeung, the co-founder of Pear, and this is Founders in Motion. 0:40 Speaker: Quick thing before we get started. We have a huge goal this year of hitting 10,000 subscribers. Yes, it's ambitious, but it lets us help more people build really great companies. So if you enjoy the content, learn something new, the best way to support us is by subscribing. 1:02 Thea Ngo: Okay, let's get back to the video. Super quickly, what is Pair and what's your one-line mission statement? 1:08 Nathan Yun: Pair uses material science to create clothes that are comfortable, functional, and sustainable. 1:13 Thea Ngo: So starting an apparel brand is daunting, um, and it's actually super funny because I used to have a clothing brand, so it was very painful. Um, blasting all the way back to 4 years ago, you guys kicked it off with socks, literally the least interesting item in fashion. So why socks? 1:33 Nathan Yun: It was actually 5 years ago, and it was in the middle of COVID I was doing those COVID walks. I don't know if you remember, but you were allowed to do 1-hour walk a day during lockdown. And I'm not usually a walker. I don't like to walk around. But when it was COVID, I walked every day. I took every hour that I get. And at the time, I was thinking about business ideas. So I was listening to a lot of business podcasts. And while I was listening to those podcasts and doing my daily walks, my socks would keep falling off my heels because I'm a millennial, so I wear ankle socks. And they just kept falling off to a point that I was like, this is a huge problem for me. It's very annoying. I have to pull up my socks like 5 times in an hour. Why don't we just make better socks? Like, I was always passionate in sustainable fashion. My best friend Rex is in textile, so he's a specialist in materials. I had this idea of creating an apparel brand where we can fight fast fashion with better ethical and sustainable products so that if people want to buy the product, they would already be doing good for the planet. We needed to prove the model with one very simple product. And that's why sock became a natural option. As I said, you know, it was reminding me every time when it slips off that, you know, there's a huge problem here. 2, it is a good stepping stone into the whole apparel industry because it's a very low-cost item. It's a very overlooked product. 3:09 Thea Ngo: So call me a millennial, but I also wear ankle socks, so I completely relate. And even though I didn't do the COVID walks, I did the COVID runs, that also exacerbated the whole like ankle socks falling down type of dynamic. And I remember my shoes used to pinch me so much at the back. So before that first launch, was there anything you guys did to test if people wanted the apparel concept you were chefing up and the initial kind of socks proof of concept? 3:36 Nathan Yun: I would say during the process of developing our first product, we did ask around, talk to people, and we did send some prototypes to friends. And that was our first round of survey. 3:48 Thea Ngo: And was the first round good or was it negative? Like, was it mixed? 3:52 Nathan Yun: It was overwhelmingly good that we didn't really trust it because friends would always say good things and family would always say, oh, this is awesome, we love it. Yeah, the market definitely needs this. But you get that every time when someone starts a business and your friends and family are always so supportive. 4:09 Thea Ngo: I guess like unpick that. How do you figure out like real validation? 4:12 Nathan Yun: It has to come from strangers. We did run several surveys a few months after we launched. And the questions kind of range from website experience to product experience, of course, and also future products. suggestions, et cetera. And that was overall very positive as well. So that I would say probably 3 to 6 months into starting Pear, selling to strangers and doing those surveys, that's when we had the real confidence to start scaling this. People who are in business and trying to start a business, for founders, I think it's very, very important to be brutally honest. 4:46 Thea Ngo: Okay, so talk me through the playbook of getting your first 100 customers. 4:52 Nathan Yun: I'll say in the very early days, if we're talking about the first very 100, it is still mostly friends and family. I think no founders can kind of bypass that if you're consumer-facing. Friends and family are usually your best first customers. You know them, you have the direct line, you can just text them and say, hey, do you want to try this? I'll give you a discount. I would say out of the first 100, probably half of them were friends or friends of friends. And it's very, very common. Other than that, we did a bit of Meta ads targeting. At the very beginning, it was extremely expensive. It wasn't worth it. We lost so much money burning just to acquire a few customers. So it wasn't that great. When we first started Pear, within the first month, it was pretty quiet. You know, you only have so many friends. Meta was super expensive. We weren't getting enough sales. And Rax and I were like just second doubting ourselves. So we decided to print like thousands of postcards and we just walked down the streets of Melbourne. And we just like go one by one and put in those postcards about us. And we actually got a lot of sales from those. I'm sure some customers might still remember that. They were like, oh, I got you from the postcards. 6:03 Thea Ngo: Oh my God, early days. 6:04 Nathan Yun: Yeah. So I would say for the first 100 customers, just try everything. We definitely tried every possible channel that we can find to just sell to the first 100. And hopefully it builds momentum after that. 6:19 Thea Ngo: I study a lot of kind of consumer products for work, but also because I'm just a nerd. And no one's playbook looks the same. And what works for someone really doesn't work for others. Like, I think there's like a brand marketing strategy fit, and also a founder marketing strategy fit. But yeah, I feel like the early days is about like those fun little, do things that don't scale, small things to make people remember you. And if I did receive a postcard like that, I'd be so happy. I'll keep it. I'll be like, oh my God, like, look at these guys. 6:50 Nathan Yun: And I think we were being very genuine with the postcard. We were like, hey, we are your neighbours. 'Cause we lived in Brighton at the time and we were just doing the streets of Brighton. And then we were like, hey, we're just down the block, we're your neighbours. We just started this little thing. Would you like to try? Here's a discount code. And yeah, it did pretty good. And I remember seeing reviews like 2 years later saying that, oh, I actually got the founder's postcard in the beginning. That's when I found out about the brand. And they would order through the postcard and we would deliver within 10 minutes. Because we are literally down the street. And then they were like, whoa, we've never seen delivery this fast in Australia. In Australia as well. So yeah, we see the order pop up and that will probably be the only order for the whole day. And we're like, oh, we'll just pack it and bring it down. We save on shipping as well. 7:40 Thea Ngo: Wait, I love that. If you were to start a brand today, what would you do to unlock those first 100 sales? Or maybe like the 50 after the friends and family? 7:50 Nathan Yun: Trying, I would still try every possible thing I can. Yeah, everything like flyers, postcards. I still like to try some of those traditional scrappy, non-scalable ways. First 100 is so important 'cause that's your first initial feedback on your product. Yeah, it's not about scalability at this stage. It's about getting meaningful feedback from strangers. So I would do anything to sell to 100 people. And, you know, I'll walk down the streets, talk to people, I'll go in, I'll knock on doors, try to make a wholesale deal. I'll go online, I'll post on forums. I will like, I think I remember actually, I shouldn't expose this, but sometimes I go on Reddit and then just go like, hey, have you heard of Pear? 8:28 Thea Ngo: Oh, 100%, people do that, yeah. 8:31 Nathan Yun: And I think that just means, you know, I would try every possible thing to get the name out and to get the product out and just to sell. So I don't think I would try one or two things. I would try everything that I can think of. 8:42 Thea Ngo: Power of Facebook groups and Reddit posts. People are sleeping on it. 8:46 Nathan Yun: And now the internet is just so much more than 5 years ago. Like, you could create TikTok and Instagram Reels, you could post on X or Threads. There's just so many, so many more ways to try even. 8:59 Thea Ngo: Yeah, 100%. Okay, so your socks became famous for all the nerdy little details. So no toe seams, 90-degree heel arch support. In a crowded space like apparel, how do you know what's worth over-engineering versus just shipping something and seeing if it sticks? 9:18 Nathan Yun: We realised that most brands at the time were doing fancy prints, very colourful, very cute. And they were selling at $20 with very cheap materials. But the prints sell and it's fine. It's a fashion statement, right? And we knew that if we were to stand out, we can't do the same because You know, there's, you can only have so many prints in the world. So we made a conscious decision that we want to go down this very craftsmanship, technical, nerdy path to make the best socks in the world. But the design is so basic. It's just extremely comfortable. And that's all we care about is comfort. So it was a conscious decision to sit in that place within that market. And it was going to be our point of difference, really. All the nerdy details, all the over-engineering, that was going to be our selling point. That was going to be our point of difference within the whole apparel industry. 10:15 Thea Ngo: In the younger generations, we don't appreciate prints as much as you would think. 10:19 Nathan Yun: Good to know. 10:20 Thea Ngo: Good to know. So on the manufacturing side, it is always difficult. But on top of that, you engineered your own fabric. So walk us through what the manufacturing journey actually looked like. And what tips do you have for founders trying to find the right partners. 10:36 Nathan Yun: Pair takes product development very seriously. Unlike most other D2C or, I guess, consumer brands, we don't just work with a manufacturing factory to create the products. We actually start from the very materials itself. Like, we start from the yarn of this t-shirt, and then we weave those yarns into a piece of fabric. And then we send that fabric to a clothing factory to make the final garment. That means the process is a lot longer than a traditional product development process. And the reason why we insist on doing this even after 5 years is the whole idea of Pair is to create meaningful and purposeful materials for the right product, for the right category. For example, like, let's take socks as an example. What is the best material for socks? I don't think many people have ever asked that question before Pair came along. It's always been, oh, cotton, we've used cotton forever, let's just use cotton for socks. Oh, we use polyester, let's use polyester or wool. You know, it's just all the standard materials that you will hear. But at Pair, we were like, are those actually the best materials for socks? Because Your feet sweats the most. Most people have smelly feet after 2 or 3 days if they wear the same pair, and it's completely normal. But can we stop that? And how do we do that? So, we start from a problem of what that category needs. Our socks are next to skin, and the reason why we use wool and cotton is because wool is antibacterial, it's insulating, while cotton is moisture absorbent. That means when you wear a Pair sock, your feet stays dry the whole day, and they don't smell for days. And that became a selling point because, you know, no one ever bothered redeveloping materials in the apparel industry. And that's where we come in and do things a bit differently. Product development is the most important thing that Pair does. 12:43 Thea Ngo: It's really interesting to go above and beyond for a category that is overlooked. And then on that side too, like, what tips do you have for founders that are navigating the manufacturing process, maybe even for the first time? 12:58 Nathan Yun: I would say try to work with the makers directly if it is a consumer product. I feel like middleman agencies are definitely, you know, history. It doesn't make sense anymore. It'll bring up your costs way too much. Try to go to a different country where they might manufacture your product, whether it's China, Vietnam, India, Bangladesh, like whatever product you're making, try to find the right place and actually visit that place, actually talk to those makers and visit their factories. Know the people, know the workers behind your products. It actually helps. It puts you in a good place for negotiation as well. For example, the more you learn about them, the more leverage you have in your negotiation process. It's also very important to know your products in and out from the materials, right? So I'll say do the hard work when it comes to sourcing. There's no shortcut with sourcing. Take it very, very seriously. It is the most important thing when you start a business. 14:02 Thea Ngo: On that, so say if like someone's starting out blank, like no industry experience, no understanding of who's even the makers across the entire world, like how do you get started, get those Rolodex going? 14:14 Nathan Yun: You can talk to factories through some of these platforms like Alibaba. But you can actually kind of steer the conversation in a way that, hey, I want to come and visit you guys, what's your address? I'll see you next month. You can go to trade shows, for example. There are trade shows all around the world, not just in Shanghai, Guangzhou, but also in Paris, in Tokyo. When you go to trade shows, you will visit their booths of these factories and you get to know them. You see them in person, you go visit their factories later on as well. I would say definitely make the trip. You need to do 99% of that work. instead of just hoping that you can do all the work from home. Like, that's not possible. 14:51 Thea Ngo: If we take a step back a little bit from manufacturing. So for consumer brands, pricing is psychology. It sets the tone of your image. When everything was still super unclear during the early days, like, how did you know what to charge? 15:05 Nathan Yun: Did a lot of thinking about our early pricing. So Pair uses Australian merino wool and organic cotton. with our socks in the very early days. And those are both very expensive materials. So if we were comparing to other basic essentials brands in fast fashion, who are selling $5 socks or even $2 socks, we're definitely not gonna be able to compete with them. So obviously finding a position in the market is very important. But because we use merino wool, it kind of gives us an edge to compete with a lot of hiking brands out there because merino wool is usually more commonly used in hiking socks or high-end dress socks. So, when you look at a hiking brand, they might sell a merino wool blend socks at $50, or even $70 sometimes. And some dress socks that are made from cashmere or even just wool can sell up from $70 as well. And that means we have a range between $2 to $70. And then we are a blend of merino wool and organic cotton. So, we just have to find a sweet spot. And we like to look at ourselves, you know, we want to compare apples to apples, but we can't really sell at $50. We know that. So, we kind of just try to find a little space between, which was $20 to $24 at the very beginning. So, for people who know hiking socks and wool socks, they will be like, this is so cheap. And of course, for people who are used to fast fashion brands, they will definitely feel that pair is very expensive. But that's when education comes in. We do have to spend a lot of effort educating them that, hey, wool socks is very different to polyester socks. And organic cotton is also very different to conventional cotton. So there is that process, there is that education. But that's how we think about pricing. 16:58 Thea Ngo: I love that. Okay, so now you're at an 8-figure run rate. First off, major congrats. 17:05 Nathan Yun: Thank you. 17:06 Thea Ngo: Looking back, what were the key unlocks for your growth journeys? 17:11 Nathan Yun: The most common theme is always a big PR exposure, really. We had a Broadsheet article in our first year, and that one did really well. That was a huge growth month for us. We were on The Current Affair. I think it was the second or third year. And later on last year, we were on Shark Tank. And all these exposures have boosted our growth significantly. But when it comes to PR, there's a lot of luck involved, obviously. So we don't really rely on it. Another opportunity that we can plan and we did is new products. Obviously, when we first launched with socks, it's a very niche market. So there wasn't much growth opportunities within the sock category. That's why 2 years later, we launched underwear and t-shirts. And underwear in particular has done super well for us. And Pair is actually now more of an underwear company because we sell 60% underwear. 18:09 Thea Ngo: Amazing. 18:10 Nathan Yun: 60% revenue of that 8-figure are men and women's underwear, and mostly women's underwear. So I would say new products are definitely one of the biggest opportunities that we have found and continuously to unlock. 18:28 Thea Ngo: Beautiful. So okay, you mentioned Shark Tank, so I must ask, right? How did that come about? And how do you think about like using those kinds of moments for growth momentum? 18:40 Nathan Yun: Well, Shark Tank was a very interesting journey. I actually applied for Shark Tank the year before. My friends told me that, oh, there's an opening, they're open for applicants, you do want to try? But the time I heard that news was already like, 2 days before the deadline. So I remember I submitted my application on the very last day of that application deadline. And obviously I didn't hear back from them because later I know that they would have already decided and locked in all the candidates for that year. Yeah, I think the whole screening interview process starts very early on. And I know that thousands of people apply every year, so they wouldn't have time to go through every applicant till the actual deadline day. So if you apply on the last day, there's like 100% no chance of getting in. Yeah, you, you would want to be in the first day or within the first week, the moment they open the applications. But, um, the next year I actually got a call from Shark Tank and saying that, hey, I saw your application from last year, are you still interested in coming on Shark Tank? And I said, why not? There was so many rounds of interviews, vibe checks, pitch checks, I guess, to see that if we are presentable, you know, do we speak well on camera, etc. I was super nervous going in there. I was, I'm an introvert and Rex is an extrovert. So I was super, super nervous. So I think we practiced the hell out of it. Like, I was repeating the script 3 days straight before we recorded. 20:13 Thea Ngo: Yeah. 20:14 Nathan Yun: Like, we recorded it in Sydney and Throughout the whole plane, I was just like mumbling the whole script. Even that morning going to the studio, I was still mumbling the whole script. Like, hi, I'm Nathan. I'm the co-founder of Pair. I was like just. 20:28 Thea Ngo: You can't fumble on TV, you know? 20:29 Nathan Yun: Yeah, and we practice every single number we know about the business. Maybe it's an Asian thing, but we don't want to fail on our exam days. So we overprepare. We like we overprepare so much that like we we kind of just. I don't think I ever studied that hard in my life. It's like, it's like I studied harder than VC, I prepped harder than my school time. But I think it was, it was worth it. Like, you need to be that prepared, to be honest. It's national television. We watched Showtime growing up, and you know, they would want to make a fool of you. 21:04 Thea Ngo: 100%. 21:05 Nathan Yun: It's entertainment. And you don't want to look like a fool on national television, right? So overpreparing really helped. Because after the show screened, we got so much feedback telling us that, oh, you guys did really well, you guys presented well, you guys look like, you know, you're on top of everything. Well, you have no idea how much we prepped for it. But it was worth it. In terms of exposure, we did really well that week when it screened. I think we did an extra $50K within that week just from Shark Tank. And we unlocked a lot of new customers, which is very important nowadays with Meta being so expensive. Before Shark Tank, Before we got on Shark Tank, before the recording session, a friend of mine actually went in for the recording as well during the same season. And he came back and told me that it's very much a show. There was a lot of investment chats, but it was more like, is it TV worthy at the same time? So he gave me the idea that at the end of the day, this is TV. You might not get an investment, but you should get the most out of it. So this was one week before our recording session, and we changed our entire pitch. One huge pivot is instead of talking about so many numbers, which was in our original script, we decided to just go from product to product and introduce every product category we have on TV. So we pretty much turned the Shark Tank stage into a sales channel and just go like, hey, here's our sock, here's our t-shirt. This is an underwear, you should buy them. And, you know, obviously they did undercut us on the offer and we didn't want to take it. But at least we feel like we got the most out of it. 22:48 Thea Ngo: I always think when you come in to pitch anyone, you should always lead with the story, lead with why it's different, and then you can go into the numbers. 22:58 Nathan Yun: This is a very good point because The reason why we planned it like that is we knew they will ask about the numbers anyway. If you put it in your pitch, it's a waste of time because you only get 3 minutes pitch. And if you talk about all the numbers that they would have asked anyway, it's just such a waste of time. You'd rather spend all that time talking about your story, your materials, your development, like all the interesting part of it, your business. And then let them ask the boring parts later on in the Q&A session. So that was a very strategic decision to go like what is in the pitch and what we know will be in the Q&A, and we prep for that as well. 23:34 Thea Ngo: At the early days, like all your numbers feel very important. But like in the grand scheme of things, they're very small. 23:41 Nathan Yun: Exactly. 23:42 Thea Ngo: And it's about betting on the problem and the person. Okay, so you also mentioned that Meta ads are very expensive now. So what's actually working for online and social growth? 23:52 Nathan Yun: The gold rush times of Meta ads is definitely gone by now. 23:57 Thea Ngo: Tragic. 23:58 Nathan Yun: Yeah, tragic. Good times. But Meta ads still work. It's just about how do you approach it, I would say. It is a lot more expensive. It is still worth it. But if you do it the wrong way, you could be burning heaps of money. We do a mix of Meta and Google still. It's still mostly Meta because Parrot needs that storytelling capability with that platform. But we're trying a lot of other things, organic content that we are testing. We are still looking for PR opportunities. We are looking into collaborations, influencers. 24:30 Thea Ngo: Try everything. 24:31 Nathan Yun: Business as usual. 24:32 Thea Ngo: D2C is— used to be all the hype, especially with kind of like the prime days of like Glossier. But now we're seeing brands big and small opening stores, investing in physical retail experience again. So you've kind of gone down this path starting online and then obviously opening up this beautiful store. So why and what shifts in the industry or consumer behavior that you think made this move? 24:59 Nathan Yun: There is a huge misunderstanding conceptually about D2C, and it's very, very common. There was a period of D2C gold rush, 2015 to 2020, and every new D2C brand had the mindset of online is so scalable, it is a gold mine. We should just stick to online meta ads, just do this playbook, it's going to work. And obviously didn't work as well since Meta ads has gone pretty expensive over the last few years. And that's mainly just because of competition. It's not nothing against Meta, it's just the competition. And there was a moment that Pear, you know, internally in our strategy meetings, we discussed this. And one of my huge reflection is like, hey, D2C doesn't really make sense. It just means direct to consumer. It doesn't mean online. It just means you're cutting through all the middlemen and getting the best price for your customers. You know what? That's what Uniqlo does. That's what Lululemon does. Are they D2C? They kind of are, actually. And they have thousands of stores across the world. Why are we stuck on online and e-commerce? So I think it's such— it's a topic that people can't really get their minds around in a way that at the end of the day, you're just a business. You're just a retail consumer brand business. You know, but people try to put a lot of buzzwords, fancy words around it to sound, I guess, VC worthy. You know what I mean? And at the end of the day, you're just a business. And If most traditional businesses in the world have a store, there must be a reason for it. And it just comes down to human behavior. People just love visiting a store, shopping in the store. They love the service, they love touching the products, they love seeing it real in front of them. And you know, that's why there's such a huge pushback with AI. There's a huge pushback with all these online trends because people like real things. It's just that simple. So I don't think we are like changing a trend or whatever. It's just looking at something at its core concept and just go like, hey, this is what it really is. And let's just do a store. There's nothing wrong with it. 27:22 Thea Ngo: The store investment, you mentioned that it recoups really quickly. 27:28 Nathan Yun: So for this store, we can make the investment back in 1 year. Yeah, 10 months to be precise. And we're very lucky, obviously. I think in retail, some stores we're looking at 2 to 3 years. But this is our first store. So probably that's why, like, you know, all the customers will come here. 27:46 Thea Ngo: So you've had quite the journey. 5 years, a lot of physical pain as well. What's one brutal startup lesson that you wish someone had told you before you started? 27:57 Nathan Yun: I try my best to be well equipped to run a startup. Like I listen to a lot of podcasts like yours, yourself, you know, like many similar ones out there, How I Built This, Add to Cart, a lot of different things to get ideas, to try to avoid, you know, other people's mistakes. So I feel like I'm already mentally prepared and equipped for what might come. But yeah, there's always gonna be challenges out of expectation. But I feel like that's what I like about startup as well. If I were to go back in time, I might not want to know what are the challenges ahead. 28:34 Thea Ngo: Ignorance is bliss sometimes. 28:36 Nathan Yun: Yeah. 28:36 Thea Ngo: That's a lesson in itself, in the sense that like you should really enjoy the journey. I've met a lot of people who want to get to the outcome as quickly as possible, but the people that last actually just enjoy the journey, all the hassles, all the issues that you go along with it, but you learn so much in the progress. 28:52 Nathan Yun: Totally. I think that's very, that's very accurate. Both of us are Just very excited every day going to work, solving problems, you know, hustling and just getting into the nitty-gritty details about business. You know, feeling defeated is part of the journey and overcoming that gives you the most accomplishment you can ever get in life. 29:15 Thea Ngo: Okay, so the way that we like to end this is I like to play a game called Would You Rather. I'll give you some scenarios, you can choose, you can explain it or not explain it. Okay, so would you rather triple your sales overnight, but margins crash, or slow, steady, profitable growth? 29:32 Nathan Yun: Triple. 29:35 Thea Ngo: Compete head-to-head with Lululemon or get copied by Shein? 29:41 Nathan Yun: Definitely compete with Lululemon. 29:43 Thea Ngo: Spend 12 hours packing boxes yourself or 12 hours arguing with investors? 29:51 Nathan Yun: Definitely arguing. 29:52 Thea Ngo: Arguing? 29:53 Nathan Yun: Yeah, I love arguing. 29:54 Thea Ngo: I would pack boxes. 29:56 Nathan Yun: Yeah, I wouldn't say I love arguing. I like a debate. Yeah, Rex usually tends to soften things for me, but because I'm very opinionated usually. 30:06 Thea Ngo: Thank you so much for coming on the show. 30:08 Nathan Yun: Thanks for having me. Yeah, it's been really fun. 30:10 Speaker: That's a wrap. 30:11 Thea Ngo: If you like this episode, please hit the like and subscribe button. 30:14 Speaker: It helps us bring on more awesome guests. level our production, and bring on new series you'll want to watch. And if you want to hear more early-stage builder stories, check out our other episodes. 30:23 Thea Ngo: Okay, see you next time.
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