Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Aparna Avasarala. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Aparna, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What was it like going from idea to execution? Can you share some of the backstory and some of the major steps or milestones?

Ours is a story of pivot till you find the right direction. In 2017, Denimrush was born as a side hustle while I pursued my interior design thesis. I sought inspiration and painted a denim jacket, transforming myself into a walking canvas. The demand for hand-painted jackets grew, leading to live painting experiences at street fairs, offering therapy and igniting imagination. Following graduation, I immersed myself in experiential retail and museum design. Throughout my career, I have focused on crafting immersive spaces that foster connections. During this time, Bloomingdale’s reached out via Instagram, inviting Denimrush to showcase live-customized denim jackets on their show floor. It was an incredible opportunity to merge retail design with art-inspired experiences. Recognizing the customer’s yearning for engaging in-person experiences, I took a leap of faith and quit my job just six months before the pandemic hit. Little did I know that COVID-19 would force us to pivot from experiential art to an online clothing brand. Nevertheless, we adapted, placing emphasis on hand-painted, made-to-order designs and building a vibrant social media community. Collaborations with renowned brands like Maybelline and Miss USA uncovered a void in the promotional product industry—a lack of authentic and relatable merchandise that is found with ease. Leveraging my expertise in e-commerce and experiential design, Denimrush transformed into what it is today. We realized that marketing managers were spending hours on google only to hit a wall. Merch became such a reactionary part of the overball brand’s marketing strategy that it became a waste of money and time. As Denimrush Experience, we support brands in designing and producing captivating promotional product experiences as well as develop retail and on site customization experiences. Our aim is to build upon this foundation, crafting engaging moments that transcend mere products, leaving lasting impressions on customers.

Aparna, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

At Denimrush Experience, we believe that the experience is just as important as the product.

We are a merch and experience agency for CPG and Lifestyle brands. Our goal is to work with your brand to create merch that doesn’t end up in the trash and experiences that people won’t forget! Our creative framework produces high-quality products that improve customer retention and acquisition.

Whether it’s domestic or international production, we have a global network of factories (including an in house print shop) that make high quality products. One vendor, unlimited products – we will handle it. From ideation to execution, we save your team about 80 HOURS PER SKU.

We also offer customers the chance to be involved in the creative process and create unique, bespoke branded products. Our team works with yours to host on-site customization stations and retail experiences, to create exclusive one-of-a-kind merch. We are all about designing that experience!

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

Our biggest focus is building the relationship and seeing how we can HELP the client vs sell to the client. People’s inboxes are already saturated with cold sales email and it leaves a negative/ annoying taste to the client. For us, it is more important to connect with the client and see how we can support rather than sell.

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

We have pivoted so many times in the lifespan of our business. We started off selling hand painted denim jackets (hence the name Denimrush). We were selling them for $300 per and expecting high volume of sales… this did not work out well for us. We had to pivot fast and figure out what is the soul of the business and why would someone even care to purchase. We moved to experiences as it felt more on brand with what we wanted to do. We did on site customization of denim jackets for retail experiences to drive traffic. Then covid hit and cancelled our entire plan and we were back to ecommerce.

It was really hard during that time to see the light at the end of the tunnel and we had to re-evaluate: what was our purpose? We realized that ecommerce was NOT for us and figured out a way to combine the value of a good experience with merch to become what we are today.

Building a business is like a science experiment. You are doing a series of tests against your hypothesis to see which one sticks. It is ever changing and being agile really helped shape us… and there is still a lot of learning left to do.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.denimrushexperience.com
• Instagram: @denimrush
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/aparna-avasarala-629a6990
• Youtube: youtube.com/denimrush
• Other: Tiktok : Denimrush