We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Abby Decker a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Abby, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
Agui Swim started with a passion for both beach fashion and the environment. I am from the Jersey Shore so I always felt so comfortable and at home at the beach and wanted others to feel the same. However, I also want to be giving back to the beach that has given so much to me. That’s why Agui bikinis and bucket hats are made of a recycled material that is made of fabric scraps, fishing nets, etc. from the ocean that have been decomposed and regenerated into one of the softest, sturdiest fabrics I’ve ever seen. Our mission is also to donate 3% of profits to The Ocean Cleanup organization which is the largest ocean cleanup mission in the world. Business is so much more fun and worthwhile when you are working with something you love and it comes with a bigger purpose for the community. Overall, Agui’s goal is to cultivate a community of beach lovers who care as much as we do about the environment.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Agui was born while I was attending Loyola University Maryland and playing Division 1 tennis. In March 2020, we were sent home from school because of the pandemic and my best friend/teammate and I wanted something to make our time at home worthwhile. That’s when we came up with the idea to start Agui and we utilized the rest of our time off the tennis court to planning the launch of our first bikini. Since the launch we have launched 2 other models in multiple colors and 2 bucket hats, held photoshoots, appeared in two fashion shows, and held multiple pop-up shops. What I am most proud of is our ability to build something from scratch with very little knowledge about starting a business, and also the community we have put together. We have had so much support from Day 1, among our friends and family and within the entire Loyola community. Everyone who appears on our Instagram or in our ads are people that we love and care about and who genuinely support us and our cause, and I want every customer to feel as though they are part of that community. We strive on authenticity and I think it important for our customers to know the amazing people who came together to make Agui possible and the purpose that Agui represents.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
As I mentioned before, I have always been an athlete and athletics has always come fairly easily to me. Obviously there is a ton of hard work that goes into getting to the higher level, but movement on the court and connecting the ball to the racquet has always come naturally to me. I had to unlearn this because nothing ever comes easy when you are starting a business. Every step was difficult and continues to be difficult. Google was my best friend in the early stages when it came to finding a manufacturer, developing a website, and overall creating and managing a business. There is no guidebook that tells you how to build your specific business and therefore you have to persist and trust your gut that you are making the right decisions and continuing to move forward.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Especially for a business like Agui that deals with fashion, social media has been one of the more fun and exciting aspects to running the business. It is such a great tool for connecting with customers and communicating our message to a broader audience. Some of my best experiences with the business have been getting together with friends for sunrise photoshoots, and we constantly have people sending us pictures they took in Agui. These are so much fun to receive and will always end up on our Instagram. My advice for building a social media presence is to stay authentic to the brand. Agui has always been about fun colors, smiles, a community of friends, and giving back to the environment and that is something you will know in seconds by looking at our social media.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.aguiswim.com
- Instagram: aguiswim
- Tiktok: aguiswim
Image Credits
Kevin Farley, Cameron Simmerman, Alexandria Vigliotti