Every day Angora Group consults new brands on how to operate: here’s what to watch out for, from launch to scale.
One of the things we love at Angora Group is to watch a brand launch successfully and immediately see them build a key customer base as they begin to grow their audience. While not easy to do, if a brand is true to its product and design vision, then it’s already on the right track. At Angora, we believe the product should be the center of attention; it has to be eye-catching–this hooks the customer right away…but to keep them coming back, over and over again, it needs to be the best-quality product it can be.
Sometimes, just the endeavor of running a business is the hardest part for a founder who is also intimately involved in the creative decision-making process. We have seen some amazing designers and product-focused founders get tripped up by the weight of running day-to-day operations. Surrounding yourself with experts is the only way to avoid making common mistakes in the beginning.
So, with that in mind, here are some questions to think about before you launch.
What is your marketing strategy for launch?
We can make a stunning problem-solving product, but it is crucial to figure out how you as a brand plan to reach your customer. I firmly believe that every product or brand has a customer out there, but it’s increasingly hard for new brands to reach their audience of future key consumers.
A prime example: in November 2013, Instagram launched advertised posts, which immediately became a game-changer for brands to connect directly with their customers–directly, with no middlemen.
At the start of this era, it was simply enough to make a compelling visual impact in order to grow an audience. “Instagram introduced sponsored-post advertising;...Michael Kors [became] the first official user, [and gained] 34,000 new followers in 18 hours.” Nowadays, it is very expensive to grow your audience exclusively through paid socials, and it’s even harder to find an audience who will stick around long enough to click through & buy.
In the U.S. Tiktok is starting to mimic what is happening on its sister platform in China; on Douyin, shopping is a fast-growing revenue driver. In general, shopping on mobile is the main way young people buy fashion in China, as well as in other major cities in East Asia. Everyday, there are more and more options for in-app mobile shopping. WeChat QQ are strong front-runners, proving mobile-first online shopping is as popular as ever.
Stateside, we are still trying to catch up to our Eastern counterparts.
Creating an innovative and interesting marketing plan for the launch phase of a brand is critical:
• Will you open a hit retail location in your local city? (This was Draper James’ approach in Nashville.)
• Will you start with a large & established retail partner, giving a company like Saks Fifth Avenue an exclusive, so you can build your initial audience there and then expand on into your own? (i.e.: Timo & Violet at Saks.)
• Will you do a collaboration with an existing brand so you have immediate name recognition? (i.e.Outdoor Voices with J.Crew.)
• Will you build a community first, in tandem with launching DTC, and plan interesting pop-ups, and use a guerilla or influencer-first strategic social campaign that surprises the market and takes the internet by storm.
• Or, will you build methodically and slowly, partnering with the right collaborators to build a niche dedicated following that becomes the dedicated driver in your brand’s success.
You will need a detailed plan from the beginning; it can shift, but you will need a north star to look towards as you build, so you have something to keep you on the right track.
What is your plan to run the day-to-day business?
A single founder can’t possibly set up a business singlehandedly in one year; it involves building a business plan, identifying collaborators, designing the product, creating the aesthetic & brand direction, generating the product development, creating all the visuals, paying invoices, managing cash flow…the list goes on!
There are simply not enough hours in a day for one person to handle all this alone. The most successful launches we have seen occur when the founder hires a strategic & core group of experts to help them through the first 1 to 3 years. For instance, the most successful businesses we’ve seen have initially hired 1 to 2 fractional C-suite executives. This fractional set-up is the phase before a full-time in-house team is hired—usually after year 2 or 3. Having a good accountant and bookkeeper who can manage the financials and cash-flow is essential. An operations manager overseeing the warehouse, shipping, logistics, any retail outlets, and customer experience would be a critical fractional hire at launch. Further, hiring a great creative agency who can also develop & manage the digital asset creation is also hugely important. Of course, when brands have co-founders, these skill-sets can be shared between them. However, we’ve seen a trend where businesses are being launched by single founders—an increase over the past 5 to 10 years.
Focus, focus, focus on the line assortment—but less can sometimes be more!
The larger the product assortment, the harder it is to produce, check quality control, ship in time, and sell-through all inventory. It is extremely important and wise to launch with a focused, brand-building capsule that is different from what is already out there in the marketplace. It is just as important to not launch too many styles—you don’t want people to get confused with too much product. Additionally, it’s crucial to avoid ordering too much inventory at the outset, so you don’t drain startup capital. Finally: if you’re more focused in terms of your launch offering, then you will be able to source responsibly.
-––> The most critical thing is to gather enough data and feedback to make your second drop better. It’s difficult to edit once you’ve launched; I know from experience, as I too had my own apparel line. I wanted to create a full collection with multiple outfits and I wanted to make a big impact at launch. But, founders forget that gathering data on customers and product viability is the most important thing you need in order to stay in business the second year.
One must be super strategic in order to create product efficiently the second time around. By the second year, you will have determined what your best-sellers are; then you can then maximize the margins on those products so you get closer to breaking even. I’m also of the opinion that doing a collaboration at the beginning—maybe alongside your own product—is a great move, because it gives you more product to sell, without being burdened by increased logistics and high order quantities.
Before you launch, truly think about what it is you are trying to do with your company, why the world needs a new brand, how you are making product with less negative impact on the world, and how your vision will resonate through the product in the beginning. This is what will send a clear message to the consumer that you are conscientious. And the consumer cares about this; they need to learn from you and you need to serve as their aspiration.
