We were lucky to catch up with Eric Orlaska recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Eric, thanks for joining us today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard.

I grew up in southern California, almost landed a job on Baywatch (albeit, behind the scenes), and have been fortunate in having the opportunities to travel. There are default ideas people have about those who live at the beach or spend whole seasons bathing in its warm sun. I think most would find though that the assumptions are different than what you’ll actually find in most coastal communities. For all ages, ethnicities, body types, and ideals, the beach truly is a melting pot of so many different types. Overall, I feel the industry aligns with that, we’re just different in the way that from our inception, we’ve strived to be inclusive in what we produce so that our products can be enjoyed by all those different types of people. We haven’t been perfect, we’ve trended towards those preconceived notions from time to time, but we’re always striving to do better and offer more for more types of people.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

The concept of Beachfront Drifter is in a constant state of change. At its core, and as we grow, the idea is to work alongside other fellow travelers and introduce people to new beaches across the globe. What we’ve started with is creating products with prints and imagery from our own travels, fine-tuning our branding, learning about how different styles work with different body types, and jumping into the evolving world of e-commerce along with print-on-demand. That last part is key too. What’s the point of creating a beach brand if we don’t have beautiful beaches to explore? Print-on-demand means we have no warehouses or excess stock and can often print closer to where our global customers are, reducing emissions through shorter shipping routes. You’ll also find a mix of sustainable clothing options with our products while we look to expand those options. At the end of the day, yes, we’re just another beach brand out there but we’re one that’s looking to make a difference.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Resiliency, to me, really depends on what you set out to do on your journey. Beachfront Drifter started off as an idea to showcase my photography and then morphed into a brand. As long as I can continue to have fun traveling, practicing my photography (I need a lot), and enjoying the creative side of building a brand, resiliency isn’t necessarily required. That said, had I started this with the sole intent of creating a sustainable revenue stream, the game changes immediately. You have to do your research, you’ll see more initial trial-and-error efforts end in failure than success. You’ll create some great partnerships and others that steer you far off course, especially financially. You need to take leaps of faith and other times, methodical baby steps. The ebb and flow of your early stages will test you and without resiliency, success will be difficult if not impossible. With it though, along with the tenacity to achieve what you want from this, you have a much greater chance to build exactly what you wanted..

Any advice for managing a team?

There are books written about this very question but I will try to summarize my own thoughts as best as possible.

When you set out to create a team, you must have a vision that you can clearly communicate so that the people you work with can believe in it too. Once that team is established, don’t think of it as managing the people as much as providing leadership. If you’ve chosen the right ones, you’re not managing at all, you’re recognizing the strengths of each and letting them work to those strengths. Give them the freedom to grow as individuals and provide guidance along the way to keep them aligned with your vision. Above all, always remember to reward them loudly, correct them privately, and that they’ll trust in you as much as they feel you trust in them.

I know, some of that sounds cliche but there are volumes of work out there that deep dive into the many layers of leadership. In the end, much like resiliency, the leadership you need to provide depends on the journey you’re on.

Contact Info:

• Website: beachfrontdrifter.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beachfrontdrifter/
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@beachfrontdrifter/

Image Credits
The cover photo is my own and I have the rights to use my product shots